More Penny Arcade D&D. Now with Wil Wheaton!

Penny Arcade did a D&D podcast a while back and they're back at it again. Gabe, Tycho, and Scott Kurtz (of PvP) are joined this time by Wil Wheaton. Y'know, Stand By Me and stuff.

Anyways, Part 1 is up.


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Twitter awards? For what? The best shitter?

So, Twitter apparently has an award now. For what? For the best Tweets, yo! Good fucking god this is stupid.

I'm reminded of the Penny Arcade strip:
































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Gamer Grub = Game Fuel = patronizing BS.

Seriously? A product marketed as, "designed for hungry gamers who want to continue playing games while consuming snacks." Well, thank the gods, because I was having a hard time with beer and pretzels. This is going to be about as effective as Mountain Dew's "Game Fuel" shtick was. As in, it's going to backfire immensely.

The thing is, the vast majority of people who are passionate about video games don't identify with the title of "gamer" that was foisted upon them as some kind of mindless mass-marketing demographic. Originally, the term was applied to those that played and enjoyed video games. Now it's twisted into meaning hardcore ravenous 12 year-olds that play Halo all day/every day, screaming bigoted bile into their headsets and generally souring the way many of us other video game players are perceived. To treat all "gamers" as the same is idiotic. The hardcore crowd of FPS players are immensely different from the hardcore puzzle crowd who are different from the hardcore RPG crowd. Even then, many who are fans of those games vary vastly in lifestyles and other hobbies. Being a "gamer" is not a solid demographic. It's like trying to market to "readers."

Jerry Holkin writes over at Penny Arcade,

In the Tom's Hardware interview, we learn that the snack's creator is a "sometime gamer," which is a bizarre turn of phrase. One either plays games or they do not. If they do not play games, but have instead discerned that "gamers" are a discrete "target demo," there's a word for them: carpetbaggers.

A comparison to Mana Potion is instructive: mana potions are magical energy drinks, so an energy drink called a "mana potion" is internally consistent. In the case of Gamer Grub, its twisted progenitor has named each regrettable salvo after both a flavor and a genre, in a suite of tin-eared constructions that I couldn't even parse at first. "Action Pizza" is incoherent. "Sports PB&J" is nonsensical. The words "Strategy Chocolate" go together like caramel and genocide. I'm literally buffeted by these names, psychically assaulted. They are like the ceaseless, apocalyptic horrors of a prophetic dream.
- Source

The Tom's Hardware piece gives us a bit more insight.

but two features will set this snack apart from the chips, pizza, popcorn, and similar snack foods on which gamers are known to subsist: a proprietary mix of vitamins and other supplements, and a unique “delivery system” that will enable one to consume the product in the midst of gaming without leaving one’s fingers, keyboard, and mouse slick with grease.
- Source

So, what does that mean? It's basically snack mix with a vitamin water sprayed on top of it. The "unique delivery system"? It's in a fucking tube so you can grab it and pour snack mix into your mouth. Wow, that sure as fuck is unique. This is like calling a bottle a "unique delivery system." No longer do you have to dip your face into a bucket to enjoy your beer, getting your hair and shirt wet. Enjoy our unique delivery system that pours beer clearly and cleanly into your mouth. (BTW, beer actually was sold in buckets (pails) before the advent of mass bottling and canning)

If you're ever thinking, "wow, sitting on the couch and playing all this GTA IV is really burning up some essential vitamins and nutrients that my body needs to be able to press these buttons as best as I damn well can. I better get some vitamin-enriched snack mix!" then you really need to rethink your idea of essential nutrient intake. Don't patronize shit like this. Go to Whole Foods or wherever, get some of the various snack mix blends they have, dump it into a cup, and throw in some daily vitamins. There you go, you just made Gamer Grub.

The site for Gamer Grub supposedly has a blog with the intent of "don't bend our servers, just tell us how you really feel." I certainly would, but I keep getting an "Error establishing a database connection" message. My guess is that they have heard how many of us feel, and it didn't go over very well.

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Ever wanted to see a Starcraft professional tourney?

They're usually in Korea. South Korea, of course. A North Korea tournament would suck. The championship would just boil down to some poor kid trying his damndest to make sure loses against Kim Jong Ill. Anyways, I browsed on over to Penny Arcade and read the mysterious first guest post, since PA boys are off on adventures for a while. Today's entry was by blogger Chris Remo, of Remowned. It was a good piece, about DRM, heard it before, but I think he represented the argument well.

Browsing over at Chris' blog I saw a post regarding something that I don't think I've ever seen. A Starcraft tournament. It's not because I hate Starcraft, I just never really got into it. It was good, fun, well made. I played it and then moved on. Now, I have seen other tournaments, such as the various Quake championships, and that shit bores me to death. I don't know if I could stand to watch a Starcraft championship in Korean, as that would probably just confuse the hell out of me. I haven't played the game in years and years, plus I don't think I ever played the expansion. Shame on me, I know.

What makes these competitive Starcraft videos nice is that they're in English. As Remo puts it:

I’ve watched replays of pro StarCraft matches before, and though I can appreciate the high level of play, simply by being aware of the ludicrous number of actions being performed per second, the appreciation was more borne out of novelty than of a genuine comprehension of what I was seeing. Hearing narration by somebody who is himself accomplished enough of a player that he can fill in those gaps for me actually makes it genuinely enjoyable. And when he gets excited, I know I’m supposed to be excited too. Somehow, this actually works.
- Source

Anyways, here's the one that I've watched so far, and he's right. There's some big moves in there, and when you hear the announcer genuinely surprised and hear the chatter and roar of the Koreans in the background, it delivers what competitive gaming is about so much better than even the best Championship Gaming Series
matches or any of the other Western league
championships.

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Gates and Seinfeld commercials are no more.

Not that it's a bad thing. The commercials made no damn sense, weren't funny, and just made me kind of uncomfortable. Fortunately, I won't have to sit through them anymore. They're being taken off the air.

TV viewers can return to their favorite programs without fear of seeing Bill Gates shaking his tushie now that Microsoft Corp. has retired a bizarre two-week-old ad campaign featuring the software giant's chairman with comedian Jerry Seinfeld.
- Source

Personally, I think Penny Arcade summed up the ads the best:

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Slow news days...

I've been delving into Neverwinter Nights 2's toolset recently and I'm very happy with the updates they've done to it. It's tremendously much more useful now, especially with the undo function. One-shot conversations don't need you to set condition and action scripts, but the lack of a script wizard means you have to write out simple scripts. Or you can use Lilac Soul's script generator. Area design takes a bit longer than with NWN1, but the trade off of having to bake the walkmesh and texture the levels for the amount of creative freedom is totally worth it.

The past few days seem to have been pretty slow for news. You can tell when...

"Overweight nude to set art world record" is a big news item. I have been hearing a lot of positive things about Boom Blox. The Penny Arcade boys seemed to be all about it. Clinton is reported to have won West Virginia, which shows that West Virginia is a bunch of idiots if they think Hillary will actually be able to do anything at all about oil prices. (Hint: it's the weak dollar, surging demand, weak supply, and our unwillingness to use our own oil) Al Sharpton's being investigated for tax fraud in the tune of millions. Oh, and Man U won the Barclay Premiership. Fuck you, Man U.

Other than that, it seems like the same old, same old.

The Army's living conditions are deplorable shitholes (that's why you don't private contract that shit, those troops deserve better), Palestine and Israel are still fighting, the Pope is still railing against sex and contraceptives, DMX is an asshole, O.J did it (he wrote a fucking book about it. we already know he did it), people can't stop talking about their fucking Blackberrys[1][2], and a mother in Kansas City was arrested for having her 12 year old daughter trained to be a dominatrix.

Yep. Just the same old, same old.

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Penny Arcade discusess Army of Two, bro.

Man, I love Penny Arcade. They're geeky, awkward, but genuinely wonderful people. Child's Play is a wonderful idea, and has routinely raked in big bucks for the cause. PAX usually draws good crowds and typically has a rather diverse panel of speakers. It was at PAX that Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame issued his credo for online gaming: "don't be a dick."

So, when I found out that Penny Arcade has a podcast, I was ecstatic. Thirty minutes to an hour of Jerry and Mike cracking jokes, brainstorming, yakking about shit, all while trying to come up with the right idea for their comic? Oh yes, I was there. Totally there.

In this particular podcast, the discussion centered mainly around Army of Two. How pointless and weird that the characters' fascination around buying gold-plated guns and new mask designs were. About how it would have made more sense if they were gay. How incredibly dumb and unlikable the characters are. There was also lengthy discussion of and excessive the use of the word "bro", as well as random shouts by Mike of "laddies, lift your shirts!"

This might very well be beyond the scope of weird or geeky for those that may not know the Penny Arcade boys. Irregardless, it is rather interesting to listen to them brainstorming to come up with an idea for the comic and provides quite a few incredibly hilarious moments. (Jerry going to check Google to find out the proper name of the "fist pound" for one)

03/07/2008 Our Crucial Pamphlet

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Penny Arcade, waffles, and Hitler.

The Penny Arcade boys are heading off to Sakura-Con soon. Jerry Holkins was thinking that serving hot waffles smothered in chocolate ice cream would be a grand idea for the Penny Arcade booth. As usual, there was a disagreement. Mike Krahulik thought it to be a bad idea. Why, I'm not quite sure and the Penny Arcade boys didn't elaborate. Perhaps for fear of a massive mess? Which I can understand. I could only imagine that their booth would be even more swamped once word got out that hot waffles smothered in chocolate ice cream were being handed out en mass for free. Jerry went on to declare that taking a stand against waffles amounts to cowardice. Normally, I side with Tycho... er, Jerry, but not this time. I simply cannot.

Sitting at The Breakfast Club, gesturing to Gabriel over the summit of my "Hobo Scramble," I presented a powerful pro-waffle position. Its core assertion was that we should have hot waffles, smothered in chocolate ice cream, available for free at our Sakuracon booth. He's been trying to talk me out of it for a week now, because he has no vision, and I do: I see waffles leaping out of toasters and into smiling mouths. I don't see what the fucking problem is.

I tried to break down the essential position for him. "You're arguing for a universe with fewer waffles in it," I said. "I'm prepared to call that cowardice."
- Source*

A good point. A good argument made. Waffles leaping into happy mouths, what could be wrong with that? Well, I'll tell you just what the fuck is wrong with that. You know who else likes waffles? Hitler likes waffles. He also likes pancakes and French toast, but everyone knows he was partial to waffles. And the Penny Arcade boys should realize that setting up a booth at Sakura-Con, of all places, and serving waffles, ice cream or no, is strongly akin to reviving the Axis of Evil. What the hell, Tycho! Don't believe me that Hitler was gonzo for waffles? I cite historical evidence...



*Penny Arcade is experiencing a lot of traffic right now and is giving lots of Error 500's. This is most likely due to PAX '08 traffic. I'll fix the link later.

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