There was this bowling alley on my way home from Salk middle school called Diamond Bowl, and they always had pretty good taste in games. over the years I played a lot of Xenophobe and Xybots there, as you can well imagine - the second Spy Hunter wasn't a bad way to spend an afternoon, either. But I always came back to their battered Black Tiger and Rygar machines, two action platformers with an insatiable thirst for my money.

Over the next couple of months a lot of you will probably be heading home to spend some time with your family. A lot of you will probably also be dragging a video game system along with you in order to dull the pain. I know I will be making the trip back to Spokane come December and my Xbox and my Cube will be making the trip with me. I wanted to point you towards LASR Accessories. They make these new backpacks for hauling your system around. I have a carrying case right now for my Cube but it only holds the Cube and one controller. These backpacks actually have space for all your games and cables and whatnot. The other really cool thing is that you don't have to take the system out of the backpack. The wires and everything just pop out the sides letting you play right out of the bag. Anyway I got one and it's pretty fucking cool. If you need to take a system someplace you should check them out.

I love to play video games and so I have invested a lot of time and money in making sure that I have a kick ass place to play these videogames. While working at Circuit City I had the ability to purchase all kinds of great stuff at an amazing discount. As I started to collect more and more components I realized that I enjoyed hooking up these devices nearly as much as I enjoyed actually using them. I can spend hours behind my television re-wiring speakers and untangling cables. When something stops working I get absolutely giddy because I know that it will require I get back there and start checking those connections. If it's a really bad problem I may even have to make a run to the store to purchase a new cable!

As media enthusiasts on the fringe of the sensible, we're all no doubt familiar with Monster Cable. They have crafted a niche for themselves as a producer of luxury wire, spooking consumers with grave proclamations regarding "attenuation" and "dirty power." The copy on the back always tends to lay it on a bit thick, conferring an almost totemic quality to these strands which are, it would appear, humanity's last bulwark versus nebulous evil. He was just starting to get into home theater when we lived together, and he'd assure me that he was sensitive to the minute fibrillations of audio purity provided by substandard cabling. When he picked up the Monster Cable surge protector yesterday, I had to act.

Reading Evil Avatar this morning I noticed that Gamespot tossed up a review of Steel Battalion. Obviously, we did not agree on many points. It seemed worthwhile to give you another perspective on the game, however.

I was going to respond to Tycho’s comment but I think this e-mail from Ken says it much better than I ever could:

And he always puts me in these situations where I have to apologize to the neighbors.

Q: "Wouldn't you be bummed if you now discovered that modification now prevented you from accessing some new special feature of that console?"

Seriously, wouldn't you guys get bored if I wasn't here to piss you off every now and then;)

If you read News.com you may have seen the article they did on Tuesday entitled "Xbox Live not for everyone." Apparently a bunch of hacker types took a break from giggling with each other about the irony of installing Linux on their M$ Xbox and noticed they can't connect to Live. David Beck actually wrote an article sympathizing with these poor souls who took it upon themselves to totally fuck over the insides of their Xboxes. David reports that "Numerous owners of modified Xbox units reported in forums at the Xbox Hacker site that they were locked out of Xbox Live." I'm sorry, tell me again why I am supposed to care that a bunch of thieves and jackholes can't use their modified systems to fuck up my online games with cheats and hacks? The article goes on to quote one of these winners as saying "All I know is I have two machines--one modded, and the other not. The one that's modded can't connect at all, and the unmodded one works perfectly." DUN DUN DUN! Holy shit this is like an episode of fucking Murder She Wrote. Someone call Matlock so he can solve this mind bending puzzle! News flash Hacker Bob, Microsoft announced months ago that modded systems would not work with Live. Here's an idea for all you poor saps with $200.00 coffee tables now. How about in the future you don't crack open every piece of electronics you get and fill it with illegal hardware. At the very least how about you don't bitch to me when your soldering iron escapades leave you high and dry.

As is our solemn vow, we have produced another strip.

John Tokash wrote in with two comments about Mechassault, both of which warrant broadcasting.

There has been a lot of great stuff to read the last few days, I'm sure you can find it. Much like Stryper, I believe in you.

Playing Metroid Fusion last week, I realized that though I undoubtedly had a very powerful, portable system in the GBA, the only place I ever play it is in my house on the couch. I used to play it primarily in the bathroom, owing to the fact that bathroom lights are somehow the perfect illumination for the machine, but with the advent of the Afterburner I can play it even in a dark cave. Which I sometimes do.

It takes every ounce of restraint I have not to just play MechAssault all day today. The thing is, I actually have quite a bit of work to do on Over Easy and I can't be distracted by the lure of the Madcat. I thought I would give you all a little preview of this month's Over Easy page. Here is a panel from November's page 3 which will be available to club PA members at the end of the month.

I've discussed our friendly rivalry with Scott Kurtz before. We have genuine enough affection, but one of us still has to be the best - and if that means poking a ball-point pen through one side of his face and out the other, so be it. I do think, however, that he might have struck the final blow.