I wouldn't go as far as this guy, withdrawing my support entirely from the Hiptop as a device, but T-Mobile remotely removing the suite of games from Color Hiptops is sort of shitty. I'm not even saying they were great games, they weren't. I've only been bored enough to access them three times since I got it. But God dammit, at least they were there, like the last Mento, in case I needed it for some reason.

The original Game Boy was the first dedicated gaming appliance I ever purchased, and I have kept up that tradition dutifully. It's a pretty slick package, and though the software that comes with it has some features for sharpening or smoothing the graphics, etcetera, the bottom line is that is lets you play Game Boy games on your television, a la the Super Game Boy. Any individual features are corollaries to that. A reader asked me if the device colorized older Game Boy games like the Game Boy Color did, and I assume so, but I don't know - I must have lost my older games in the move, which makes my heart ache. Another reader wanted to know if it can play imports, and I can't imagine why not, but I couldn't tell you one way or the other. I'll ask Travis, I bet he'll know. The only questions I can actually answer are about Advance Wars 2, I'm afraid. For example: Is it awesome? Yes.

Don’t fuck with Penny Arcade.

I read the new Harry Potter book, all nine hundred or so pages of it, before I went to bed that day. I got it early, passing the mailman wearing the wizards hat, pushing down a little girl. I drove home with the book in my lap, singing a song which could not be transcribed, because it was the audible form of joy.

It's a white GameCube. Oh boy!

As you might remember I came away from E3 thinking that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles was easily the best game of the show. Well now the Magic Box is reporting that Nintendo is planning on releasing a special FF:CC Gamecube bundle:

You can be knocked down in Star Wars Galaxies without necessarily being out, as shown in today's strip. Gabe was often waylaid halfway to some Godforsaken Tatooine shithole he had a mission at, waylaid by some kind of massive troll that would hit him until he fell down, and then once he groggily regained consciousness they would bop him like a field mouse in what I'm sure is a highly enjoyable game for Trolls.

When you sent me that Friendster request yesterday, I assumed it was one of those mails produced by a virus.

Just when you though I hadn't been an asshole for a while.

Last week I ran a poll in the forum to see what videogame character I would draw for this month’s club PA gift. Wolverine ended up winning and I just finished my drawing of him yesterday. Here is a little peek at it.

Now that the NDA is no longer hanging over my head I thought I would elaborate a bit on why I won’t be purchasing SWG right away.

That is a reasonable assumption.

As you all hopefully know the Penny Arcade gaming day is this Monday at Lanwerx. We spent a couple hours last night working out the ladder for the big SC2 tournament that is scheduled to take place Monday evening at 6:00. This is a huge 64 player tourney and the logistics of it were pretty tough to manage. Earlier I had said it would be a double elimination tournament but as we began calculating the time required for that sort of event it became clear that we would be at Lanwerx until 3:00 in the damn morning. Seeing as they close at midnight this was not going to work. What we decided to do is make the tournament a single elimination tourney instead. I apologize if this ruins anyone’s birthday party. So here is how it’s gonna be set up:

Obviously, I have nothing to say regarding Gabriel's recent struggle at EB other than to offer some helpful advice. Lord knows I'm not the man to come to when your retail resolve falters, I just buy things - I can't help it. Even those ten dollar bins they have represent a danger to my finances that I can't even begin to describe to you.

I have gotten a few mails from people asking how they will be able to meet up with me in Star Wars Galaxies when it ships next week. The quick answer is you won’t. See, I’m not actually gonna get it. Not right away at any rate. I can’t really talk about why right now, I may make another post once the game ships. There is a good chance I’ll pick it up when player owned vehicles come around or I might just wait and take another look at it when the space expansion launches. Either way you won’t be seeing me in the game anytime soon. I apologize if this puts a damper on your galaxies fun. Don’t worry though, you’ll be having so much fun running for hours between towns that you won’t even notice I’m missing.