Gabe was out of town this weekend visiting family, and since his parents have that digital shit he was able to check out the G4, Gamer TV thing. He apparently quite enjoyed the show that had no people on it. Once he saw the actual people, he became feisty - hence the strip.

I told him, much as I told him in the strip, that no-one would sit on the couch for a half an hour to watch us sit on the couch for a half an hour. We are not, as it is said, TV Material. Forced to describe myself physically, I'd say I resembled a pumpkin wearing a bib, and the bib itself is smeared with gravy. I stutter a lot. I'm terrified of mirrors, let alone video cameras, which are like super devil mirrors with black brains that remember. Needless to say, nobody is axing down my door to stick me on the small screen.

Even if it's Gamer TV, it's still television, and it's easy to see from watching any kind of TV that there's some rules in there everyone obeys. Please try to be hot, although if you are a dowdy lesbian hippo we'll give you a go. "Hip" is a visual lexicon of nebulous origin with assumed power. Oranges are delicious. Real people are okay, but please draw your "real people" from the same narrow band the rest of the television pocket universe is drawn from. Thanks!

If we don't like it, so what. They're trying to do something, I guess. I don't know that anybody ever got rich catering to the Hardcore anyhow. If G4, TV For Gamers is a success, it isn't going to be because you or I think it's the best thing since sliced eyeballs. It's because they were able to swing the mass appeal.

After playing a bunch of Tony 4 this weekend, I can say with absolute confidence that it is definitely a game about skateboarding.

I mentioned buying Wild Arms 3, but then I didn't say whether or not I liked it. I don't. Gabe thought it was great, which confused me until I actually thought about it. It snared him visually, and he was starting to appreciate the merits of turn-based combat(!!!) - but he doesn't exactly have a refined palette where this genre is concerned. He'd never even played a Final Fantasy for fuck's sake, and watching me play one doesn't count. In the throes of this Wild Arms 3 thing, he bought a used copy of FFX thinking he might be ready for it now. Now that he's tried it, if Wild Arms ever gets back into the tray of his PS2 I'll be shocked.

(CW)TB out.

clocking and staring