Late fees are not the part of the ritual I honor; if I recall correctly, there is still a fee on my credit score from Hastings - "my entertainment superstore" - as the result of a misplaced Monster Rancher. I had placed it under the seat of my car so it would always be in there, maximizing the return opportunities while minimizing its attack surface. I forgot about it completely. This is the kind of fruitless, clever-in-quotes ritual I have come to call "outsmarting yourself."

As a young person, I went to friend-of-a-friend Davy's apartment once, and in addition to the traditional panoply of wastrel paraphernalia, there was also a five foot tall bong. Don't ask why I was there. But there's a similar dynamic, with different material components, when I go over to the home of Mr. Gribbs. His drug of choice is ancient silicon, and so far it seems like his kids are still eating food and stuff so I haven't called the police.

When I was checking out watchmeforever, a procedurally generated sitcom on Twitch that would have gone on in perpetuity if it hadn't been banned, it routinely had more than ten thousand viewers. Most human beings don't do these kinds of numbers! I certainly don't. To see it engage in precisely the sort of behavior that gets streamers yanked in real life is weird but also just… correct. It's Turing stuff. No reason at this point not to just complete the prescribed arc.

I have a couple friends for whom the crucible is apparently not good enough for their dice, when it's possible that the opposite is true: they are insufficient for the crucible. Craps is essentially a big dice tray inlaid with a mystic topography. Try to imagine the dice rolling off of the table, and onto the floor - like so many meatballs - and the Dice Priest being like "hey, nbd - you do you."

Don't be coming around here with this boomer shit. Also, don't be knocking on Mike's door unless you have a pizza, because we've got you motherfuckers clocked in 4k HDR. I have the angles to get some serious photogrammetry going, and I can ensconce an immortal version of you in a robust, materially simulated hell forever.

Man, this Dead Space shit. It has to feel incredibly bad to make a spiritual sequel/remake of your old game, a la Callisto Protocol, and people aren't super hot on it - then have an official remake come out very soon after and basically everybody likes it. That would fuck my head up something fierce. It's fucking me up and it didn't even happen to me! If I weren't already sitting down, I would have to sit down. Sit down and just rest. Rest these weary bones.

Okay! These are the last mice for now. I put the word "fin" in the script, and Gabriel replaced it with The End of The Beginning, which is good news for me because that means it won't take much coaxing to make him return to The Mouse Well. This is the sweet spot: an amount of coaxing situated somewhere between zero and one.

For the mouse enthusiast, a new entry - and the promise of more. For the hater, those unmoved by the travails of these gentle creatures, Monday is the last day. There. I've navigated these waters expertly.

Okay. I think - think - there's two more. Then we'll be all done! Gorkamorka is having a lot of fun and making cool shit but he also gets very nervous when we exceed our remit, which is to do what we ordinarily do. I think he's nervous that we will overstay our welcome with these rodentine antics, and I understand the inclination, but I think we might have done that around, oh, 1999. He did put up a more tender, more juicy panel on the Tweeter if you were looking to increase the size of your .jpeg:

Thank you for all the kind words about the art recently I really appreciate it! I’ve been having a lot of fun and really trying to push myself with this series. For those asking for a large version of panel 3, here you go: pic.twitter.com/uWeCMtRaET

— Gabe (@cwgabriel) January 25, 2023

I think it’s probably pretty obvious that Jerry and I are having a lot of fun with this mouse storyline. 2023 marks 25 years of making Penny Arcade and I love that it really is just whatever we want it to be. I could not ask for a better job so thank you for supporting us through our various flights of fancy. 

I don't know. Maybe we'll do a couple more of these. If it's gonna be this much fun I can't see any reason why not.

I don't know. He likes drawing the mice so much and I like writing the mice so much that there's a comic today and maybe one or two more. Just had a cool line I wanted to get in there.

I love having the story in my back pocket where, because I had an opportunity to experience the Satanic Panic first hand, D&D wasn't something I could play because of the red-hot, hoppin' Devil. Ironically, the time that I did spend in church taught me to try to find the lesson in such things, and as a grizzled ancient it's clear what that is: I think a lot of people start with D&D and stay there. I would have too, if I'd been allowed to. So the endpoint of that story is that I consider it a good thing, even if the reasons for it - that I was gonna learn real magic and deny my maker - were kinda weird. Although, I did sorta deny my maker so maybe she was half right.

If you don't live around here, you might not have heard that Seattle Public Schools is suing most of social media - here's the Reuters story on it. My experience interfacing with this behemoth has largely been somewhere in a linear path from "unpleasant" to "useless." It forced me to become a much better parent, so to that extent their Darwinian process has offered some fruit.

Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Coast. Or… Can I call you Wizards? My associate is bound in silver chains; it should provide us a moment to speak. Let me congratulate you first on the new movie and television show and everything else that comes with the level of currency you've attained. Indeed; I was happy to help.  I remember when you came to us and wondered how you could get people to try D&D, and we suggested a podcast.  Different time, huh?

At an ancient PAX Aus, nearly a decade ago, I met the only other guy who likes Splinter Cell as much as me. We had a chance to play some together at a demo station, and hoped we could get something going when it came out; I never played any of Blacklist's substantial co-op content with the fantasy that we'd one day be able to do it. I mentioned that errantly the other day, and the motherfucker got hold of me on Steam! So I'm progressing far enough in the single player to unlock the missions we didn't play back then so we can get that going. I really, really don't replay games. But if I left a bunch uneaten the first time around. And it's still really, really fucking good.