Gears multi had just become a nightly fixture, and then - wholly without warning - it was over. A pack of downloadable maps (already in progress?) might give us another night or two on Sera, but the reality is that the rest of Team Inferno has moved on to Rainbow Six.

Penny Arcade turned eight years old today. Happy birthday to us!

The Child’s Play website has been updated with more events taking place all over the country. If you would like to set something up in your neck of the woods please send a mail over to Kristen. I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it here already but Kristen is actually in charge of Child’s Play this year. IF you’ve attended PAX you know her better as Princess Red Dot. She’s the voice on the loud speaker and the official “Mom” of the show. She actually did an interview with Fleen a couple weeks ago. If you missed it you can see it here.

It was good news there for a little while, when PS1 games were five bucks a pop and you were changin' out that hard drive and still retaining your warranty - big, generous moves that asked hard questions of their primary competitor. Just days later, it's weird rumor after dark rumbling after grim report. 

We are mentioned briefly in the most recent Major Nelson Radio podcast, where we learn that the man apparently can't remember which one of us is which, even though he stood before us in our marble reception hall only days earlier. The end of the same podcast features an interview with one Chip Lang, Vice President of Online Commerce for Electronic Arts. The good Major keeps it social, and does not savage his guest, presumably because he likes his job and would like to keep it  Never fear!  We can do what he can't.

I wanted to mention all our Child’s Play auctions again just to make sure everyone is aware of them.

I took the Wii home over the weekend and was able to put quite a bit of time into Zelda. There was what I would describe as a “bru ha ha” over at Joystiq when one of their bloggers claimed the game was a flop. He cited its terrible graphics as reason enough to dismiss it entirely. The response in the thread afterwards was heated with lots of people claiming that the graphics weren’t as bad as he claimed and that the game actually looked really good. Having played it all weekend I’m here to tell you that’s not the correct response.

I'm super depressed. I thought I had invented a new word - mirthquake - and then I was going to say that you should prepare yourselves for the aforementioned, as today's comic strip was rated this or that number on the rictus scale. I mean seriously, I've been excited all weekend. A simple Google search put me in my place - the word is practically ubiquitous. Expect it soon on Urban Dictionary, that mausoleum of once vibrant language.

Lots of people asked for a wallpaper sized version of the “birds are Weird” book cover. I get so many requests for different crazy resolutions that it’s not really worth it. So here’s a big high res image for you guys. You might have to do some tweaking but you should be able to make something passable out of it no matter your resolution. Click on the thumbnail for the big one.

Do not forget! All the information can be found at yonder page. As requested, the date has been bumped up to the December 15th to give people more time for their projects.

I’ve got some Child’s Play auctions to tell you guys about. Keep in mind that 100% of the proceeds from all these auctions will go directly to the kids.

Gabriel had to take me aside yesterday, on account of my generally unkind behavior toward our opponents. I'm not even aware I'm doing it. His position appears to be that, and certainly I don't want to put words in his mouth, but the implication is that I am allowed to chainsaw a person in half, but the ostentatious post-match sort of "end-zone boogie" phase is not entirely necessary.

If you’re going out to pick up Gears today (who isn’t?) and you pick up the collectors edition you’ll get a fancy art book. I’ve been told that the Gears fan artwork I did was so well received by the developers that they actually included it at the last minute in the book. I haven’t seen it for myself yet but I’m really excited to go pick it up today. If you missed it, this was the piece I did.

I've been wondering what would happen to Gears of War once people could actually play it. Would it survive the transition from the realm of eternal potential into our genuine world, where things are saddled with, well, reality? What if it's only a great game, well executed, but does not usher in an age of prosperity and consequence-free sexual abandon?

The mood in the office this morning is somewhat tense. We all spent the weekend playing FFXII and we came back today completely divided regarding its quality. I have to admit that after putting in nearly fifteen hours over the past two days I’m prepared to call it the best FF game I’ve ever played. I know that’s at odds with what I said on Friday but it’s the truth. Tycho and Robert are actually playing together and they’re at about the five hour mark. They came in this morning saying the game was trash and I can’t blame them. They’re knee deep in what I’d describe as the tutorial phase of the game. If you played Kingdom Hearts II you’ll remember that’s a game that doesn’t actually “start” until nearly eight hours in. I don’t mean like you don’t start having fun until then, I mean you literally don’t even see the title screen until you’ve dicked around with Roxas for eight fucking hours. FFXII felt the same way to me. It’s extremely slow to start but now I’m having a hard time putting the controller down.

In the three years Child's Play has been in operation, it - by which we mean you - has raised nearly one point two million dollars and delivered more than fifty-three thousand toys and games to children's hospitals.