There can be no doubt that I "protest too much" on matters of geekery outside the boundaries of good discretion. It is only raw will that keeps me from spilling over into the dark appetites of the full-on dork - the wearing of capes, the leading of other lives, and so forth. That I perceive a distinction between my own level of nerdity relative to others is probably itself illusory, but the notion must be maintained if I am to continue behaving with a smug superiority.

The oddest thing happens, though, the moment I express revulsion with something: I immediately begin to deify it. I don't know what this process is, exactly. Let me suggest that my resolve is so weak as to be virtually insubstantial. To give an example from recent history, let us suppose that I decried (at some point) a generation of wildly experimental cartoonists. That I have gone on to really "get it, man" and maintain a portfolio of these daring sites, expressing gratitude and encouragement via anonymous means is just weird and I recognize it.

A similar thing happened once we wrote today's strip. The wizard thing, I mean, give me another ten years or so and I'll be stocking a glass display case with "ancient" artifacts. I will have a painstaking reproduction of Glamdring that I will try to wear on the bus. I just accept this. In the meantime, my resistance and perhaps even disgust is (somewhat) genuine.

As I said, the moment the .jpeg was complete, I began to seek out fantasy figurines with an animal hunger. I found a site (which I hope you won't destroy before my order goes through) where the operator felt compelled to create a kind of fiction to accompany his baubles, powerful tales that cement our miniscule sorcerer in a truly original universe. Observe:

Wizard Dies For Pretty Crystal Bauble

Poor Mr. Wizard. He saw the grand beauty of this faceted crystal ball but failed to wonder why it had not been found before. In truth, it had been found thousands of times. Each time the traveler had touched it and been absorbed by this Pancireen Crystalline Terror from the Island of Arcopecus. As you can see, the wizard joins their fate. No amount of magic is going to free the wizard today. Quickly losing mass, this hapless wizard will add his name to a growing list of missing persons, lost forever in this enchanted place. Measuring three inches high, and in perfect condition, this fine treasure will be carefully wrapped before being shipped. Unconditional thirty day money back guarantee. Enjoy.

Oh, I will.

George R. R. Martin can go fuck himself - that paragraph sundered my mind. Most of the wizard figures include fiction of this quality. Glitterings.com also includes a selection of fine wands, and a wand stand, which I was very excited about until I saw that some were only three or four inches in length. One does wonder what kind of magick you could yoke with such a diminutive instrument, though it seems more than sufficient to conduct a tiny eldritch symphony.

A sidenote: something that has helped me survive the pronounced drought of new electronic experiences are those PomPom shooters I mentioned a while back. They refer to arcade classics but it would be unfair to call them clones. As Nix once said, "They reconfigure the elementary particles of beingness."

(CW)TB out.

aging black leather and hospital bills

Reading The Independent Games Source earlier this week brought Kenta Cho to mind, and if you've never lost hours to his sometimes gripping shooters please do yourself a favor - unless you have a project or something coming up, in which case you should avoid the link at all costs.

Come to think of it, The Independent Games Source is itself an absolute minefield for those trying to manage their time effectively.

(CW)TB

At San Diego Comic-Con, a reader told me about a game called "Cave Story" that I simply couldn't live without - a completely independent platformer whose quality and craft had really surprised him. I'd forgotten about it until I read TIGS' interview with the creator.

(CW)TB

Bioware has a poll on their front page asking what your favorite web comic is. I think you should vote for PA but that's just me.

Right now CAD is in the lead. Private message to Tim – We get it, the robot went crazy ;)

-Gabe out

So the two guilds we started over on the new Dark Iron server are packed out. We are not currently accepting members into either the Knights of Arcadia or the Fancy Lads. I imagine that very soon we will start to see that a lot of the people who joined up just did it on a lark and really have no intention of staying and fighting the Horde with us. So My guess is we will be looking for new blood at some point in the future. However there is always the possibility that all 854 members of these two guilds came to play and we won’t be losing members anytime soon.

But fear not loyal readers you have plenty of other options if you seek to help us rid Dark Iron of the vile “Panda Attack”. Quite a few Penny Arcade guilds have sprung up to absorb the influx of readers. In my travels I have come across players from the Cardboard Samurai, Keepers of the Wang, Annarchy, and CTS Dojo. I’ve spoken with players from each of the guilds and even grouped with a few of them. These are great guilds and I’m positive anyone of them would serve you well. You’ll find that on Dark Iron all the guilds are really working together and helping each other out.

I posted a set of rules and asked that all the knights and Lads do their best to follow them. We aren’t the only people on that server and it is important to me that the Penny Arcade guilds don’t get a bad reputation. Obviously if you started your own PA guild on Dark Iron it’s yours to run and I’m not the boss of you. You are sort of representing PA though so I’d ask that you look over these rules at least.

1.Don't be a dick. This is the most important rule as far as I am concerned. This applies not only within the guild but also on the server in general. PA readers represent a large chunk of the population on this server and I want people to think of the knights and the lads as people they can count on rather than those dicks from PA.

2. I don’t mind everyone knowing my handle in game is Dudefella. However I really like to play World of Warcraft and beyond that I want to be useful to the guild. That means I need to level and that means I may not hit back every PM I receive. Please don't think I'm being rude. I'm here to play just like you guys.

3. Please help out other Guild Members (I consider the knights and the lads to be one guild) Use the tag UFG (up for grabs) to give away items in the guild chat. When grouping please use the need before greed rule and help other players get the gear they are after.

4. Both guilds are so big that you guys really need to manage yourselves. We have a good group of officers but we're all adults for the most part and we should be able to solve our own problems. If you see someone being a real jerk please report them to an officer. We have people begging to join these guilds we don't need to waste time with jerks.

5. Please help me and the other officers answer questions in the guild chat. If I am leveling I might have guild chat turned off or it might be going so fast that I miss something. We need everyone to help with guilds of this size.

6. Please be cool to other PA related guilds you come across. If you see someone from Cardboard Samurai, CTS Dojo or some other PA guild, please treat them as if they were a knight or a lad. These are all fans of Penny Arcade and it is important to me that they be treated well.

7. I mean it, please don't be a dick.

So come out and join us on Dark Iron and help us slaughter those sons of bitches over at PvP.

-Gabe out