I picked up the new Wolverine game on Friday and put maybe five hours into it over the weekend. I've heard it's about ten hours total so I'm only about half way through, but damn this game is a blast. I'm not done with the game yet obviously but here's some stuff I really love about it:

-The lunge move! Locking onto an enemy and then leaping at him like a wild fucking animal is awesome.
-All the combos and finishing moves. Even at the five hour mark I am still killing guys in new and gruesome ways.
-Classic Wolverine costume. The only thing better than dismembering people is doing it while wearing bright yellow tights!
-The skill/mutagen system. You can upgrade wolverine's abilities and slot new mutagens to customize his powers.
-The graphics. They are sweet!


Things I don't like:

-The "Boss fights". Sometimes a giant monster will come after you and the fight quickly devolves into you dodging and then leaping onto his head and pressing x over and over. Not much fun.

This is one case where a demo sold me on the game. Wolverine really wasn't something I had planned on picking up, but I grabbed the demo and had a blast. So far I have not been disappointed with the purchase. If you like a good brawler I say go grab this one.

The other thing I did this weekend is finish my latest painting.

I've been colonized by some invasive organism, origin unknown, and I can feel it breeding and pooling in my substructure. I've realized that I always preface posts written under these conditions with the assertion of my illness, and the reason I do it is to warn you. My grip on English is tenuous, even in the full flower of health. This preface is a ragged man waving a makeshift flag, shouting, "Turn back, friends! A poet haunts these woods!"

Cable problems are a fundamental part of the human condition, but even in a chorus of the damned Gabriel's cries pierce the din. His relationship with technology has always been a briar maze, one I have done my best to hack down, though this was a much simpler task when our computers occupied the same room. These days he must contend with Tech Support, which I understand has been outsourced to Gehenna.

Between the time this comic was written and now, the natural motion of the Internet has shifted the story somewhat - let me catch you up to speed. Everything more or less started with a discussion on the Star Wars: The Old Republic boards about their profanity filter, which included words like "gay" and "lesbian" along with garden variety naughties like "fjorded" or "hamhocking." No doubt the spirit of this act was was to keep such language from being used as a cudgel.

In the hooting menagerie of your typical thread, wisdom is in short supply. Even by these debased standards, the discourse is a shit spigot with the valve snapped off. Post after wriggling post, the mendacity is unrelenting. We're not representing ourselves very well to the universe. In a fantasy I return to often, I'm called before the Zikzak World Eater to make a case for the planet Earth, which they call Kak'rak. After a few moments of consideration, I shrug. A hundred gallons of foul saliva rolls over the slavering jaw, or mandible complex, or whatever passes for a mouth among the Zikzak warrior caste.

This is just a quick heads up that out Juice bringer Knight poster is now available online. Originally the plan was to make this for Sakuracon but the demand for it was pretty crazy so we put some extras in the store.

Downloading weird crap and then devoting an evening or an afternoon to it is something I relish. I have a well-publicized hunger for kimchi games, most of which can entertain for hours (if not days or weeks) before the reality of their business model asserts itself. it was in that vein that we began downloading The Chronicles of Spellborn, and were surprised to learn that - encrusted with a carapace of massmog detritus - a very interesting idea twinkled at its core.

Warren Ellis cooked up a really slick reboot of the G. I. Joe cartoon, which you can watch online.  New episodes tomorrow, I believe.  Episode 8 is really something else.

Lego Rock Band isn't something I understood initially; I needed help to do so.  I like Legos, and I like Rock, and certainly I have no quarrel with bands - even so, I could not perceive their nexus.

It's an undisputed fact that PAX is the greatest video game convention in the entire universe. 

Vin Diesel is a huge nerd apparently, and evidence abounds for this assertion, if the fact that he and his friends remade Conan in outer space was somehow insufficient. Our recent conventions were dense with mortals suggesting Triple X for our D&D party roster, preferably in a striker role, the prospect of which we were delighted by. The reality, perhaps less so.

I did just get back from a little vacation down to Disneyland with my family. I am a huge fan of the place and now that lil' Gabe is almost five, I figured it was time to take him. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and decided to eat at a place nearby called Goofy's Kitchen. This is a really cool buffet style restaurant where the Disney characters walk around and interact with the gusts during dinner. When Chip came over to the table Kara wanted to get a picture and I expected the chipmunk to maybe throw an arm around her shoulder. I did not expect him to put both arms around her and pull her into what I thought was a romantic embrace. I said "Hey chip that's my wife man!" He responded by making a loud "Thrbbbbt" sound and hugged her even tighter. It was at this point that I noticed the other diners watching me. I guess someone raising their voice at a beloved character like Chip came as a surprise to them. I backed down and took the picture but kept my eye on him the rest of the night. In the end I'd say the food was awesome, being emasculated by a six foot tall chipmunk was not as awesome.

I have since been told that Chip and Dale are almost always played by women. This has added a new layer to the experience.

People keep sending me links to interviews with Vin Diesel where he talks about his love of D&D. I've watched a few of them and he really does seem to have a passion for the game, or at least he did as a young man. I get the impression that he has not tried 4th edition but I could be wrong. I'm not sure how one goes about getting a hold of Vin Diesel but if you see him could you let him know that Acquisitions Incorporated could really use a rogue.


-Gabe out

When Gabriel related to me the bones of this story, a tale fraught with libertine squirrels, I felt certain there was a comic in there somewhere. We have embellished it somewhat, though not as much as I originally suggested. I won't go into the particulars, except to say that I am perhaps more willing to "interpret" events where my own wife is not physically present.

Ever since we saw the first trailers for Free Realms, we've been simultaneously repulsed and fascinated - our rapid travel between these poles has generated tremendous energy. I received a beta slot in an email yesterday while checking my phone, and cried out in triumph - holding the device aloft like some ancestral blade.