Something that annoys my friends is when I try to figure out something that everyone already knows and takes for granted. It's rude, in a way. "Settled fact," that is to say, "received wisdom," is a method for reducing cognitive load - thus minimizing the energy demands of consciousness. And, look: I'm not trying to say that absolutely everything you've heard from the gleeful commissars on your favorite podcast is a lie. But I do, on occasion, like to try and build the case for something from the ground up. Just to see.

Page 4 of Wheel Saint has arrived and I’m back with another peak behind the scenes. 

In an effort to show our appreciation to Club PA we’re spending the day on Twitch playing games with special participation from the Club!

Wheel Saint rolls on and I thought I’d share some more “behind the scenes” goodies.

I can't figure out this washlet thing. 

There might be such a thing as a "bidet person." It's like poly, frankly, and I don't want to hear about that either. Don't talk to me about it. I have a lot of friends who really want to talk about them and they do. If I ever encounter a polycule with a washlet, I'll have to fake my own death.

Wheel Saint starts today with a comic that picks up right where our one page pitch left off. Obviously I love making Penny Arcade but doing these side projects is always especially fun.

Hey!  It's me.  Here is a link to the strip, which is about the ways in which devices designed to help us can also not, or even un-help us.  It just occurred to me that I've been linking the strip as I've always done, for the last twenty-five years or so, but my friends who made this website have made it so I never actually have to do that.  I mean, after this section, clearly delineated in the backend you cannot see, it will create a very large, unmistakable path to the strip.  Like so:

I feel like it would not be a lot of fun to take over a role from someone who is generally considered to the be best part of a show. We have made strips that might indicate that we have a particular opinion on Liams in general, but I'm sure he's… fine.

The dynamics of talking with an insurance adjuster are quite complex. This is a person you are paying to protect the profits of the company that you pay to give you money. You can read that sentence as many times as you need to. In Mike's case, he has been paying Allstate his entire life - and the one time he's needed help they're out here trying to pig-wrestle him like he's trying to get one over on them, when what he's actually trying to do is keep water from getting inside his house. Sometimes if you are receiving a lot of contradictory data you have to look directly at the thing in question, without engaging your cognition or attempting to slot it into a narrative framework. Just observe it mechanically. Once you do, in this case and in others, you will ascertain the truth of it: the purpose of the company is to retain money not give you money. It's not complicated! I'm always looking at things like this and saying to myself, "This can't possibly be how it works!" but it works in exactly that way.

I am going to go to Japan! Indeed, I am going to go to a couple different places in Japan. I am going to ride the Shinkansen and I'm also going to eat something that has been grilled on a stick. I'll get back to you re: what animal it ends up being, I'm told there are a couple options. There are also various hot balls which may be eaten. I'm mostly interested in the food but I am told there is also a country there as well. I'll try to give you as much information about it when I can. Gabe said I shouldn't tell people I was leaving but I think I just fucked that up.

Mister Gribbz has been shlorped fully into the digestive tract of Final Fantasy XVI. There, he is being groomed by strange cilia and he is subject to phantasmagorical sights and sounds. He is also having a really good time, and if this is even conceivable to you, he isn't skipping dense cutscenes full of names and countries. It probably helps that the game has something like "pop up video" that can catch you up on stuff or remind you who the eff the guy with the hat is.

I thought Rainbow Six: Siege was underrated from the jump, and watching it grow and thrive - watching Ubisoft allow it to grow and thrive - has been so heartening. It's absolutely a shooter but it also has a really whacked out "puzzle-like" arc per round that makes it one of the most incredible viewing experiences also. It has completely unique dynamics that have only grown more… unique over time.

Need for Speed Unbound just got a big update that among other things added a new cooperative multiplayer event called “Linkups”. Turns out working with other drivers is just as much fun as racing against them!

When we were talking about all these Kick.com defections, the conversation became so stupid that only a political cartoon could capture it. I'd love to crank the word count here, really pump the SEO. Unfortunately, at least in the case of xQc, I've already summed it up fractally:

Coke addict gets a job at https://t.co/9s5PZxElQW https://t.co/qsYgoPqmSa

— Tycho Brahe (@TychoBrahe) June 17, 2023

Oh shit! Ham Radio people do not like it when you suggest that they are perverts. What I was made to understand very quickly is that the use of Ham Radio is core to their identity and that casting aspersions on a group unified by instantaneous connection is not strategic. But I only meant to suggest that one of them was a pervert! You're telling me none of you require novel stimuli? Seems unlikely. Anyway, you guys can all figure out which one of you it is.

Two things: one, CB stands for Citizen's Band. That's really beautiful in a way. And second, if a bunch of your favorite subreddits go down, Ham Radio is not an effective substitute.