What's up with finding a Pokemon Center that you can't Fly to?

I'm speaking, of course, about the Center that you find north of Route 223, the waterway that connects Sunyshore with Victory Road. Surfing is always a drag, since you're prone to getting jumped by Tentacools and such, so after finishing the route and healing up, I flew back to Sunyshore to buy some Repels and Potions... and then realized that I could not Fly back. Nonsense.

So I used one of those Repels on my surf back.

I also was pretty liberal with the Repels inside Victory Road, which, again, ought to be called Victory Big-Ass Cave. This edition seemed less obnoxously twisty than in previous games, but I'm sure the Repels made it more bearable. And once you clear it, THEN you find a spot you can Fly to, so you'll never have to do the Route 223/Victory Road trek ever again.

Tony already has the usual pic-post over on his weblog, chock-a-block of folks playing Wii and Guitar Hero... THIS IS THE FUTURE OF FUN, PEOPLE. However, my M.O. is to retreat to the dining room with my back to the wall so I can hold court on tabletop games. And I was super-excited to run a four-player, two-hour game of Pirates.

I found this cool mega-chart of Apple products via Fake Steve, so I did what any self-respecting Apple fan would do: I downsized the image and turned it into a personal checklist.

Red Dwarf 104 - Waiting for God (part 1 of 3) (YouTube)
Most of Red Dwarf can be found on YouTube in its entirety. The line about roast beef about 2:30 in is one of my favorites.

Sony's Lost Exclusives: A Timeline (Game|Life)
A quick rundown of some of the marquee titles that were originally announced as PS3 exclusives and now... not so much.

iPhone-Free Cellphone News (NY Times)
Yeah, I want an iPhone... but T-Mobile (my Sidekick provider) is on the verge of their own WiFi-based calling system. For another $10/month (plus a new phone for Rhonda), we could stick with T-Mo, keep the Sidekick, and have a cell phone that works at home. Downside: Not an iPhone.

As promised, here's a few more epic tales of Wizard World Philadelphia. Josh is in the middle of a four part saga on the event, and Molyneaux has posted some of his pics, both including riffs on the now-famous "Welcome to Philadelphia, Fuck You" picture. So this is the bit where I gank their photos for my use.

Did a two hour Pirates battle last Friday, making full use of my expensive sculpted islands and pretty-pretty ocean playmat. Tony had a Cursed fleet, two ships and one squid. Josh comboed two Jade Rebellion ships (a big, slow junk and a small Korean turtle ship) with the Cursed submarine I picked up at Wizard World. My fleet was one ship, the Baochuan, pride of the Jade Rebellion, that gigantic 10-master that I was all hot over a year ago.

HILARIOUS VIDEO: The Halo 3 Special Edition 360! *Crickets*
What if Microsoft announced a repainted 360 and nobody cared?

COMPLETELY STUPI... HEY WAIT, LET ME SEE THAT: Wii Party Station
Holds your Remotes, your drinks, your chips & dip, has LCD scoreboards for tracking wins, and a built-in fan for airing your sweaty palms. For serious.

SAVE THE DAY: Smash Bros. Brawl December 3.
Should I put in for the day off work, or the week off work?

JESUS, THEM TOO?: Nintendo calls Mario Galaxy the true successor to Mario 64
This is an all-time low for poor misbegotten Mario Sunshine. Now even Nintendo itself hates on Sunshine.

NO GOOFY MOTIONS ON THESE GAMES: The Wii Zapper (Final Name Pending)
The least violent system gets the most violent-looking accessory.

DON'T EVEN ARGUE WITH ME ON THIS ONE: Mario Party DS revealed
Is it online? Is it online? IS IT ONLINE?!

WHO MIXED UP THE SLIDE ORDER?: Nintendo's final E3 presentation is a goddamn exercise game
They tease Miyamoto's appearance as the big finale to the speech, and all he has is this lame-ass-whatever Wii Fit thing? So I can do fucking push-ups? That's fine and all, but not as a speech-ender. How about Starfox? Pikmin 3? Animal Crossing? No no. Push-ups.

Today's Smash Bros Dojo update is the best one yet: Smashville, the Animal Crossing battle stage! (It's listed as Stage 06.) Note that "Smashville" couldn't even be a legal AC town name, under the 8-character limit of the GameCube and DS versions.

You can read the official notes from Smash Brawl designer Masahiro Sakurai, but here's a quick rundown.

Morning Musume - "Koi no Dance Site" (YouTube)
This j-pop song from 2000 is in Ouendan, and I am absolutely in love with it.

Pokemon TCG National Championships at Origins (Pokemon Elite 2000)
You have to see these pictures. They had GIANT GODDAMN POKEMON BALLOONS at Origins this year, and I wasn't freakin' there. I never want to miss another Origins again.

Pope: Other Christians not true churches (Yahoo News)
Now this is what I like in my organized religions: petty, combative statements of assumed world compliance. Your move, Mohammed!

So you know that we moved, and that our new home has the worst cell phone coverage in the continental United States, right? I mean, nobody has any reception worth a damn out here. It might as well be the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. You'd think I would have glanced at my precious Sidekick once during the initial tours and walk-arounds of the property.

So, T-Mobile has nothing, maybe one bar. Same with Verizon and Nextel... maybe one and a half outside. AT&T fared the best, peaking at two bars depending on which way the wind blows.

And if I drive half a mile up the road, bang, T-Mobile breathes again.

There is a local land line service available, but it's some mom-and-pop racket that expects $25/month, and that's not even including long distance. It's a gouging of Caponesque levels. So we were trying really hard to avoid having old-fashioned bullshit handset phones installed.

The other night I got to the bit in Okami where you have to draw your own imp mask. Does my creation look familiar?

I'm visiting Post Modern Barney as he covers the DC solicits for October, and I scroll down and see this:

Flintstones sell cigarettes (YouTube)
"Let's go around back where we can't see 'em." (Thanks to John K.)

The Urinator: Theory and Practice (Dubious Quality)
Great read about a man and his 5-year-old son discussing which urinals they would use in a row of five.

Takahashi's New Game Stretches Into View (GameSetWatch)
So Mr. Katamari's playground career was a bust then?

And now, the bare facts about my GameCube collection. First, THE GRAPH.

This charts the number of games I bought each month, from November 2001 to March 2007. There are 52 games total, with '03 and '04 tied for most number of purchases. For the first three full years, my GameCube buys were pretty much steady, with the only obvious "drought" in summer of '03... which was then evened out by the '03 holiday release blitz. (Of course, by mid-2005, things were unapologetically grim.) On average, that's about one new game every five weeks!

The countdown to a PS3 is coming, but I don't know how soon to start counting.

I've been saying since launch that I wanted to get onboard in time for GTA IV, which is October something-or-other. The $500 price on the 60gig model is about as good as it looks to get, and once the 60gig is gone, all that's left will be the new $600 80gig.

Which no longer has hardware-based backwards compatibility... it will play PS2 games only through software emulation, which could stand to be just as annoying as the 360's abortive and ridiculous backwards compatibility that kept early Xbox owners guessing as to which games would work on their new system.

Not that I plan on continuing to play a ton of old PS2 games, I just like the idea of it being manufactured-in-hardware instead of written-in-software. But it's not like Sony is going to break into my home and steal my PS2 as soon as I buy my PS3, so this isn't really a point for buying now.

Although if I'm buying before October, I might as well buy at $500 and enjoy my tangible Emotion Engine.

Mr. Rogers plays video games (YouTube)
Clark is huge into Mr. Rogers at the moment, or as we familiarly call him, simply "Rogers." This clip is from 1983, which means Donkey Kong was cutting edge at the time.

Animated Characters in Prescription Drug Advertising (Cockeyed)
"In real life, a nail infection probably doesn't hurt, but in the commercials, this guy bends a toenail back like he is opening the hood of a Chevy and jumps right in."

Epic Comic Book Miniseries Is Animated for DVD (NY Times)
Kind of a lame, can-ya-believe-somebody-does-super-hero-cartoons/comics-for-adults article, but it's the first time anybody has seen any art from the upcoming DC: New Frontier animated movie, which I will buy as soon as I see it.

Mike was visiting for a few days and showed me how to own Wii Sports Bowling.

I don't know if this is a known exploit, but Mike found a near-foolproof technique for nailing a strike. He developed it on another Wii a month ago. I started doing it in my third frame and hit strikes every time.

Two days with a PS3 and this is what I'm thinking.

Price: OK, I jumped at the $500 sale price because I didn't want to get stuck at $600 this October once the cheaper editions are sold out. And I don't care too much about an extra 20gig and the inclusion of MotorStorm; and I guess I want the Emotion Engine. I also had a minorly beefy Circuit City gift card, so there you go.

I cannot recall fretting so much about an expense. I must have changed my mind back and forth a dozen times while walking to the checkout. It's a shitty price, and Sony has been complete wads about it since day one. So I kinda hate giving them my money... but the PS2 was home to so much of my favorite stuff that I do feel that pesky customer loyalty. And after this past E3, I felt like they finally had some games coming that I needed to get.

Console: Holy hell, is this thing every negative descriptor you ever heard back at launch. Gigantic, too-glossy, shaped like something wildly stupid. It's aggressive and alien. It's not going to fit nicely anywhere inside your entertainment center and Sony knows it. I swear I saw it inch its USB charging cable closer to the Wii like a dark tentacle bent on strangling smaller prey.