Penny Arcade

Hounding us to drop everything so that your sorority rituals retain their sanctity might be a toughie.  It also implies a level of active forum control that I’d be hesitant to exert in cases where nothing gross was happening.  Also, I don’t care.  Plus, it’s some combination of counterproductive and impossible.  Gabriel suggests above the “old” adage about the Internet, Pee, and Pools, which mostly holds, except you’re literally peeing into the pool while you do it.  At some point, it ceases being a pool altogether and becomes a toilet full-time.

My relationship with the forum is that I do not have a relationship with the forum.  That’s been true virtually since the Phorum, which is a reference designed to create a calculated nostalgia in the old school.  I have a fairly profound sense of place, and where it is appropriate for me to be, and to be frank I have no business inserting myself into the readership in that way.  They don’t need my help.  In fact, I don’t see the use in talking to anyone, at any time.  It seems like that’s where most of the problems come from.

Robert asked me once how I’d feel about comments after my newspost; I laughed at him for ten minutes, without breathing.

I saw pictures of Gabriel’s cold face in a twitpic, the flesh plump with emergency blood, his face transformed into a horrific Tiki apparition.  It was his intention to secure a “Wii U,” with or without a space, he would accept any device with those letters somewhere in the name.  He was able to secure the Ultra Masonic Plinth edition, or whatever the good one was, and not the shitty one which sucks.  I don’t actually know anything about either; I did not experience anything akin to his Damascus Conversion at PAX.  Hopefully he’ll come tell us about it this week, sometime.

(CW)TB out.

twenty years and twenty more

Today’s comic is “ripped from my inbox”. I received a note last week from the Phi Sigma Sigma sorority informing me that this thread on the PA forums contained some of their secret shit. Here is a snippet:

I am legal counsel to the board of directors of Phi Sigma Sigma, Inc.  Phi Sigma Sigma was
founded on November 26, 1913, and today maintains over 100 active collegiate chapters
throughout the United States and Canada.  This letter constitutes notification of claims of
intellectual property infringement and violation of Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C.
Section 512 (the “DMCA”).
Phi Sigma Sigma is the owner of certain trade secrets including, but not limited to, certain rituals
conducted by members of Phi Sigma Sigma (collectively, the “Trade Secrets”).  These Trade
Secrets constitute confidential and proprietary information of Phi Sigma Sigma.

So yeah somebody posted their secret handshake, their fancy knock and the color of robes they wear when they smack each other on the ass and drink Jagermeister.

My guess is since they told me it had to be removed:

We ask that you expeditiously respond to this notice by immediately removing or disabling
access to this infringing material including, but not limited to, removing the entire posting and all
replies. Please promptly confirm any action that you take within ten (10) business days of receipt
of this letter.

It’s probably all true. Someone on Twitter commented that getting secrets off the internet is like getting piss out of a pool. It seems to me like they could have just changed their handshake and gotten a new knock.

Tycho asked me why I didn’t just remove it for them. I said I didn’t like being told to do something by a lawyer. He asked if I’d have done it had they simply asked nicely.

no probably not.

-Gabe out

I was able to get a Wii U this weekend after spending five hours in line at a local Fred Meyer. I had not camped out for a console since the PS2 and I have to admit even though it was cold and rainy, I had a great time. I spent most of the day yesterday playing the shit out of it with my family and we had a blast. Ben has posted a lot of great Wii U coverage over on the PAR but I wanted to give you a quick rundown of my impressions after the first day.

It was easy to set up but the day one patches are a pain in the ass. There is a big one for the console that took over an hour and every game I put in has a patch process that takes anywhere between 10 and 30 minutes. Overall it feels sluggish and It’s slow to load games and apps. The menus don’t always make a lot of sense and even after a full day I don’t understand their online offerings like Miiverse or how exactly “friends” work.

The most important thing to me though are the games, and the games are awesome.

Nintendo Land
This was a massive hit at my house. My wife Kara and our son Gabe (who is 8) played this all afternoon. Luigi’s Mansion is the stand out hit but all the games are fun. Towards dinner time Kara actually said we needed to figure out a way to get food that didn’t involve us stopping Nintendo Land.

In terms of a pack in, I actually like this much better than Wii sports. I have to admit that Wii Sports did an amazing job of bringing in people who had never played a game. I think that was its job and it did it well. Nintendo Land is for people who already like to play games and just want to see what this goofy new controller can do. And what it can do is a ton of fun. We were laughing all afternoon with Nintendo Land. I’m telling you if you have a family or a group of friends this is a must own party game.

Later that night when I flipped on the Xbox to do my Nike+ Kinect training, my son was able to keep playing Nintendo Land on the Wii U gamepad. That’s pretty damn slick.

New Super Mario Bros.
This was another great family game. We played in boost mode where one player gets the Wii U gamepad. They can tap the screen to drop in platforms, knock enemies around and help the players reach hidden spots. I’ve never been a huge fan of any of the multiplayer Mario games. Some of the precise jumps and tricks end up getting screwed by bouncing off the other players. That still holds true for the latest version but after my son went to bed Kara and I gave it another go.

This time it was just her on the Wii U gamepad and me playing as Mario. Now this was cool. Sometimes on her screen she will see secret boxes that she can tap to make them materialize on the TV. Getting to these prized “tripple ups” is never easy and it requires some really fun coordination between the person with the gamepad positioning platforms and the player navigating them quickly. This was actually awesome and something I’m excited to do a lot more of.

Zombie U
This game is hard as fuck and I’m not sure if I like it yet. The idea is to push through this survival horror game as far as you can. When you die (and you will die) the game doesn’t end. You just wake up in the “safe” house as a different survivor. If you want all your gear back you need to go out and find the zombie version of the character you were just playing, kill them and loot their corpse. My first survivor died almost immediately. My second one lived for about thirty minutes. Long enough to make a run to a nearby grocery store, pick up some food, ammo and hammer. Then she bit it (or got bitten I guess) and I started a new guy. Now I needed all that shit I had scavenged so I had to hunt down my previous self. When I found her she had a red number above her head that showed her score and how long she had survived. I put two bullets in her head and got my candy bars back.

In the space of a couple hours last night I burned through five survivors. I will not lie to you, I was cursing at the TV by the end of the night. Like I said, this game is hard as fuck.

That’s really all I had time to do yesterday. The system certainly has some rough edges but overall I was really impressed. I think the best thing I can say about it is that I don’t regret the freezing cold five hour wait in line to buy it.

-Gabe out

It’s open and going well bonkers.  People have found it, and are putting Erika’s exquisite Hospital Map to work.  Jamie’s maintaining the Official Events Calendar as well, if you’re looking for other ways to get involved.  Desert Bus For Hope, now a storied tradition, is currently underway.  In fourteen hours they (and you, because that’s how it works) raised thirty-two thousand dollars, which is also known as 128 consoles or 533 games.  Since then, that number has biggened considerably.

(CW)TB