Brandon found this gem. And now I will have nightmares. Go check it out if you want nightmares too.

Except, it was real, and it was caused by power fluctuations in San Francisco. The power in my office went out six or seven times. Fun! Gaming sites and high tech sites went down, too.

I should have worked from home today....

This is just priceless.

Go Brandon! In a really solid interview with Peter Moore, late of Microsoft, our intrepid reporter asks him the critical question we've all been dying to know:

[A]re you in fact the Prince of Darkness?

PM: Damn, my cover's blown! Let me just tuck the tail in back there!

I knew it!

The rest of the interview is JUST as thought-provoking. :)

Plus, it's kind of nice to hear Peter say that he never gave up on the Dreamcast. The love was real, people!

Friend Richard's game released some screenshots, and he notes that the gamers are all over them.

I can't tell if this is a joke. I think not. It's quite glorious, really.

I <3 nerds!

(Full thread here.)

That's weird. When I go to the Xbox home page, it automatically directs me to the Japanese home page. If only I could remember my Japanese gamertag!

(Yes, my gamerscore is 0 and I have no friends.)

So maybe your NES doesn't work anymore. Recycle those controllers, don't throw them away! An enterprising hacker has turned the controller into a stylish remote for your television!

TechEblog, via OMG Blog. Check the links for video.

While all people have particular buttons to be pushed and peeves to jeer at, the wide range of gaming indignities I suffer and overcome become insufferable and unconquerable when such issues relate to the user interface. Yes, I am indeed martyring myself over menus. I realize there are far greater issues in the world to get worked up about, but since I'm a white male living fat and free off the backs of third-world economies--my every creature-comfort satisfied several times over--it's these little things that become big things and get my knickers in a twist.

This comes through my obsession with being Le Helicopteur Pilot Par Excellence in Battlefield 2. I generally avoid maps which have only transport choppers, favor ones with multiple helipad spawn points and stay away from those which have greater than 40 players--this last factor having nothing to do with my preferred vehicle and more to do with my machine dropping packets like its marking a trail through the Amazon and then crashing rather spectacularly. Thus, like many online gaming aficionados, I'm picky about my choice of server; a task which is exceedingly difficult in Battlefield 2's face-punchingly awful in-game server browser.

For the little girl who idolizes the murderous, deadly assassin! Get your very own.

Catwoman and Wonder Woman also available...

I'm not sure if I believe this eBay listing for a "haunted" NES system, but I really do like the idea. Then again, this guy has a 100% score of nearly 200 eBay members, so I doubt he's some fly-by-night joker.

According to the story of the auction, the system belonged to a kid who passed away. His father eventually donated the NES to thrift store, which sold it to this guy. When the owner plays the games, he hears voices speaking through the television, voices which suddenly stop whenever he tries to get too close to the screen to hear better. Spooky indeed.

There's only one day left to bid, and at the time of this posting, the auction is at nearly $200. But if you need a little extra supernatural with your gaming, go for it.

... there's a petition out and about to put videogame characters on it. I guess Walk of Game wasn't enough for Mario.

Thanks to InsertCredit for the link.

"Right now there's no unification in the gaming industry, but our plan is to put the headquarters of a $24 billion industry in Boise and unite the industry."
-Bill Cserjes, COO Twin Galaxies

I'm all in favor of the spread of gaming culture. It's an exciting pleasure when I find someone out in the world that shares my frame of reference for digital play.

Today, though, I had an unsettling experience in this vein -

My credit card company had called asking for verification of a series of unusual transactions (large GGA web hosting bills, 2 plane tickets from United, and a cash withdrawl from a convenience store in NYC). I was on the phone with three different operators explaining that the cash advance had been accidental - I meant to draw out my ATM card, but I must have selected the wrong plastic. I would never use my credit card for cash, so could you please let me pay down that cash withdrawl amount before usurious interest kicks in?

Christopher, a customer service supervisor, couldn't help me with that. But he did tell me how I could change my PIN so I wouldn't use my credit card as an ATM card by accident.

As we were wrapping up our call, he said, "Just one more thing: I'm looking through your transaction history here, and I see you've been playing Star Wars Galaxies. How is that game?"

I was a bit stunned. I gave him a capsule review (appealing game, but though I pay for it I don't have a lifestyle that suits long-term MMOG play - too much travel and other play). He explained that he'd wanted to try SWG, but hadn't yet found the time. There was a lot more I could have said, but somehow I didn't feel much like sharing.

His computer access was broader than mine; he could study my recent financial past. Part of his job is peeking into people's lives all day long; reviewing and discussing transactions with troubled customers. It must be lonely to anonymously study people's potent personal data. I can muster compassion for him now; at the time I felt intruded upon. Even if he did know my spending and gaming habits, I didn't want him to tell me that he knew. His position is inevitable in a society where massive databases track our movements. Perhaps I should have shared in his power with him? I could have asked, "Do you see a lot of online gaming subscriptions?" - mining him for data as he was mining me for opinion and friendship.

A few nights back, I had a dream: I saw Warren Spector, affable head of Ion Storm Austin, presenting a new series of video games based on the lives of famous oddball monks from East Asia: Han Shan, Ikkyu. It felt very compelling to me at the time; I had to follow up with an email query to Mr. Spector:

"Get out of my head! How did you know I was thinking about a famous monks game series?"

(He was kidding). I wonder what such a game would look like? For audiences less versed in these lean, gutsy classics, imagine a game based on Kerouac's Dharma Bums. If I remember correctly, most of that book is spent drinking wine and looking out over the forest and stating or debating what quality of life means.

The game Wild Divine takes a somewhat clinical approach to calm - bio-feedback measuring mastery of the mind. Sword of the Samurai borrowed some of the aesthetics and quaint Zen-ism associated with some of these blokes, but concerned itself with political power.

If you had to describe a victory condition for playing an Ikkyu game, I don't know if there could be one other than "entertain oneself" within a constrained environment, a rich symbol set and unlimited imagination. On the subject of "A Man's Root," Ikkyu once wrote, "Within my [underwear] there is an entire universe" - I could say the same thing about my computer!

After fondling our collection of d20 for a few minutes, I was inspired to search the web for strange dice. I've had a pair of dice with symbols for planets and astrological signs on them. I was wondering what else there might be out there.

eM-4-Miniatures has precious dice - obsidian, gold, silver, jade. GreatHall Games has some fairly bizarre dice - dead dragons, compressed naked people. Most of the weird themed dice simply map to a regular six sided die though. I'm still looking for other non-numerical symbol-sets mapped onto dice. I found the directions of the compass. Anyone seen anything else? A bit of odd probability in your pocket!

The geniuses at MIT Media Labs (and I'm not being sarcastic) have come up with an expensive but sanitary way to play at the urinal. The stream is read by sensors and used as the interface for an onscreen game mounted above the urinal. "You're in Control encourages cleanliness while reintroducing play to the act of micturition," says the paper (available in PDF).

For the future? "We envision a variety of additional software applications. For example, users could play a game in which they uncovered a hidden image with their urine." Oh, fun! Pee off the sand and find the treasure! "Another possibility is a co-operative networked game -" Never mind, I think I'll stop reading that now. My favorite: "Users could even browse through news stories, advertisements, and stock quotes as they voided their bladders, in a new form of bathroom multitasking." Sounds great. When's the female version available?

Randy Holloway sends this amazing link which made us both exclaim, "Holy Fucking Shit":

The Transformers Costume. Look and be awed.

I'm still getting emails from EBay with new listings for "gamecube broadband." I've been hunting for a Game Cube broadband adapter for two months now; they're not widely available in stores. Even the Nintendo website has been backordered.

Since the Dreamcast in 1999, every new console has boasted some means of connectivity. PlayStation 2, Xbox, and then Game Cube - each offered at least a way for broadband users to connect.

But after a hesitant, experimental release, Nintendo has been backpedaling from the Game Cube broadband adapter (if you believe 17 April Magic Box). They've even go so far as to emphasize that the new Mario Kart game will support LAN play but not Internet play. Why even bother having a broadband adapter?

For Phantasy Star Online. One game. A Sega game on a Nintendo platform, requiring an under-supported net connection peripheral. It seems silly to buy, especially since the mark up in most auctions ends up being about 15$, bringing the total to $50 for an orphan device. It's a gesture of desire from hardcore RPG/Nintendo fans.

I finally found my Game Cube Broadband Adapter, I paid $32 with "buy it now." I think I was engaged in the hunt for the device. Maybe the short supply is a sign of Nintendo's commitment to online gaming, for the time being. Maybe the only way to win playing with the Game Cube Broadband Adapter is to turn around and sell it for more than I bought it on EBay.

Today, Jane was playing on a console. In the game, evening was falling, I saw a spotlight sweep the ground near her feet. "Look out!" I thought, "You'd better dodge that beam!" But then I blinked - the light came from a lighthouse; Jane was playing Animal Crossing and I was thinking of Splinter Cell.

Seen on GameStop today - Grand Theft Auto 3 for the Game Boy Advance. How would that work?

(I guess maybe it's been cancelled - maybe - I still want to know how someone planned to translate the expansive world of GTA3 to a pinched, dark GBA screen. I guess there would probably be less risk of confusing GBA GTA3 with reality!

What could turn a non-gamer into a gaming addict? This is the question Jewels set out to explore. Surrounded by a number of gamers, but not such a gamer herself, she opted to give games a try. After meeting the MMORPG Anarchy Online, she found something in a game world online worth living for. And she found real life didn't provide quite the same sorts of respect: "But in the end, they're still nothing more than video games" - includes some good interviews with fellow players, and good links to other pieces about gaming and gaming addiction. (From Slashdot)

The "Top 10 FAQ Pages" on GameFAQs.com are a great way to see what people are actually playing (for example, years after its release, people were still trying to figure out how exactly to optimally cross-dress in Final Fantasy VII).

Today, looking for help on the "Temple of Tyr" quest in Neverwinter Nights, I saw that the number 2 game FAQ listed was "Animal Crossing" for Nintendo's Game Cube.

Animal Crossing?

Acclaim is getting desperate or else they decided that "adult" gaming, a la Grand Theft Auto, translates into "nudity" and Lara Croft was too clothed. As reported by Steve Rhodes on Bud.com, the Wall Street Journal has a short article on BMX XXX, "the first major title to include live-action footage of nudity." Acclaim is spending as much as $4 million on an ad campaign with the slogan "Keep it dirty."

On the trains you see ads for these everywhere: the Gundam Credit Card.

If I had a hope of decent credit I'd totally apply for one.

IOL : Game over - 86 nonstop hours later

Seoul, South Korea - A 24-year-old South Korean man died after playing computer games nonstop for 86 hours, said police on Wednesday. The jobless man, identified by police only by his last name Kim, was found dead on Tuesday at an Internet cafe in Kwangju, 260km south-west of Seoul, they said.

What game was he playing?!?

The game industry drives development of PC computer hardware, especially graphics cards and graphics hardware. In turn, graphics hardware manufacturers drive development of taste in advertising: Golden Sample Ad.

From Wired: When Text Messaging Turns Ugly. British kids are using their mobile phones to SMS threats in a new twist on the old schoolyard bullying game.

This happens to a lot of female gamers online too... other players gang up on them or verbally harrass them. Are there any technological solutions to this?