Advent Children did arrive, just as he suggested, and clad only in a masterfully constructed fansub we dove headfirst into a liquid pool of concentrated fanservice.

You might remember that a couple weeks ago I auctioned off some original artwork on eBay with the intention of giving all the money to the Red Cross. eBay had a system in place to make it easy for sellers like myself to do exactly that and so I took advantage of it. This required me to create and account using their missionfish program. According to what I read this was a system that guaranteed the money went to the charity listed. I assumed that meant that when the winner paid for the auction he paid through missionfish and I never even saw the money.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in to wish Gabe a happy Birthday. As you can see he hit the cake pretty hard. I’d imagine that from now on, any day that he doesn’t open a million presents and then dive face first into a chocolate cake before taking a nap will seem boring.

Jane and Ryan over at 1up put together a kind of PAX shrine, and I hardly know what to say. It's practically an act of worship, I hope the show was as entertaining as they made it look.

You can talk to me about naming my character when you don’t have a vagina.

To me, Dudefella is not a name that says "epic adventure."

Things on Dark Iron continue to be awesome. Our epic battle against the PvP guilds is a real blast. The question of “ganking” has come up quite often in the forums and I just wanted to share my two cents on the topic.

It was only a matter of time before I contracted some kind of illness, I suppose. Doing battle with The Horde until three already depletes a man, but when you meet thousands of people over the course of a weekend somebody there is a carrier. I'm currently flanking the condition with barely substantiated science and folk remedies of questionable efficacy.

Today is little Gabe’s Birthday as well as the anniversary of the launch of the Dreamcast. Coincidence? I think not. He’s one year old today and that completely blows me away. It seems like it was just a couple days ago that I was writing this post about his birth.

We’ve got a new comic project starting today over on the Far Cry Instincts page. Once again we’ve decided to deal with the shocking events of Jack’s life in a slightly more humorous way than the actual game. Our Jack is a regular guy whose eternal optimism is put to the test when what started as a perfectly good day goes to shit. I hope you guys like it.

So I survived my dentist encounter and I’m feeling much better now. I’ve mentioned it before here on the site but it was a long time ago so you might not have seen it. I have some issues with anxiety especially when it comes to anything that deviates from more normal daily routine. My dentist is aware of this and she prescribed me Ativan to relax me before my appointment. The last time I had Ativan was a couple years ago and it was prescribed by her for a similar situation. I had a few left over and ended up using them on my trip to New York. History seems to be repeating itself since once again I find myself with some extra tablets and a trip to the east coast. I’m just warning you all that if you come see us in Baltimore, there’s a good chance I’ll be in an uncharacteristically good mood

I told him that AOE3's Home Cities are a kind of deck you construct, or that it adds an element of persistence to the RTS. These aren't complete lies, they're even sort of true - but he wasn't swayed by my buzzword salvos. He was punished for it. Don't share his fate! Let me offer you the information to graze at your leisure: the most interesting piece I've read on Home Cities is here, at Gamespy.

I wasn't aware of it at the time, but PAX tensions caused Gabe to chew right through the cap of his root canal in the night. He didn't know that's what it was, I think he just knew that there was torture in ample supply. That's being resolved this week, but I thought you might enjoy the conversation we had about it.

A couple months ago, when it was our presumption that we would be overwhelmed by public events, we asked what kinds of stories you would like to see. As I mentioned at the time, relying on base causation is a terrific benefit for a person trying to cartoon in bulk. Since we were able to do a comic during PAX, a procedure I am told was well received, we did not have need of the second storyline - but Twisp and Catsby were promised to you, and Twisp and Catsby you shall have.

Unbelievable. Have any of you seen what Gabe's PAX art is going for on eBay now? I'd urge you to take a look.

I figured I'd just wait until the entire week's worth of content was there, but I've really enjoyed 1up's "Cover Story" on Valve, their online platform, and their future plans. Pretty inspiring stuff. And it took a bit, but we're starting to see other companies who want to deliver content through it - Pirates of the Burning Sea and Sin Episodes leap immediately to mind, but I do wonder what's en route.