While I certainly appreciate the passage of the CAN-SPAM Act, and think the people behind it must have been very clever indeed to produce such a name, it is a shame this cleverness was not invested in perhaps a superior bill that would accomplish something akin to its stated aim. There are certainly tools (or combinations thereof) which the desperate user may stack atop one another to form a bulwark - but I had that stuff before legislators pretended to care about unsolicited e-mail. Legally, what we need is something mad stringent - something to make those motherfuckers hoof it door to door if they want to talk to me about my dick so bad. Of course, any discussion of Spam must necessarily include Brad's Outside The Inbox compilation. Also, Monty Python. I'm just covering all the bases, I don't want that Monty Python fan writing me that letter in all caps.

If you are wondering why I have not posted much as of late I can finally show you why.

Remember that scene in the Bourne Identity where Matt Damon is running up the stairs in the US embassy and there is that dude at the top and Matt sucker punches him square in the stones? That’s what Sonic Heroes is like. It’s a hard jab right to your Chao farm.

It's available now, if you're into that.

It became clear as we were writing the strip that it could not really capture what we were trying to say regarding Sonic Heroes, and that another method might need to be employed toward that end. Eventually, we settled on "language" as a means of communicating ideas.

Top Spin is pretty great, I don't know if you've played it. Gabriel tells me that - outside the inevitable domestic arguments - it's also highly amusing online. Two things about it you need to know, really.

It was a montage of scenes just like the end of the new Return of the Jedi. All the races of the galaxy celebrated in culturally appropriate ways when they heard that Garfield had been pulled from the LA Times. It's hard not to get caught up in the energy of the moment, but it's more than likely just comics page deck-shuffling, so "the revolution" is probably not coming anytime soon. This leaves me with bushels of unfulfilled fantasies. Huge orange cat statues hauled off their pedestals by tanks. Every Jim Davis in every wrinkle of every dimension dragged gasping to the bottom of the ocean.

Gabe's computer was powerful fucked up, and with the freak snowfall we had I couldn't get over there - so if you see only pencils and not newfangled hues, that's the reason. Point is, we play Mario Kart as much as possible. You might actually know the guy who bailed on me - Zach Stroum, a.k.a. Durandal, who does Shaw Island and American Animetion. I was, however, able to pull in an alternate - and the ensuing ruckus cemented my belief that we had chosen our number six game in wisdom.

The final pictures from the Child's Play thing are now available, in case your cockles need warming.

It just seemed like it was about time to bring him back - we've been working on a lot of longer form projects lately, and I guess it sort of bled over. We still have that Penny Arcade animated series pilot laying around, if Gabe is open to working with this kind of screen real estate maybe I can get him into it. I also have a script for a story that takes place in a wild west version of the Jewish holy book, the Torah.

If that article really pissed you off try mailing these guys about it:

If that article really pissed you off try mailing these guys about it:

There are some items for which there are no analogues. Case in point.

Is Anjin-San a Shogun reference?

God has struck another crushing blow against our online store. This entire process of trying to sell things online has been a huge learning experience for all of us here at the Arcade. I’d like to apologize to everyone out there who has been on the receiving (or should I say not receiving) end of the problems we’ve had with the store. Orders that arrive late or in some cases not at all are certainly not how we intended this to work. I do however hope that you will give us one more chance to make things right. Were as before we thought we could get away with building the store ourselves with the help of some well meaning friends we now see that isn’t possible. Our new store is currently being constructed and hosted by a company whose job it is to build and host online stores. Totally rebuilt from the ground up and using and entirely different scripting language, this new mega-store will shine like a beacon, guiding lost and wearing shoppers through the tumultuous sea of online shopping and into the safe harbor and sandy beaches of Penny Arcade merchandise.

Strange post ahead. Maybe you should just go.