The hamper managed to tip over on all three cats, throwing them all into some kind of Parker Brother Presents Mouse Trap II: Kitty Jail, so I’m taking the ten minutes I have before the whining becomes unbearable at an evolutionary level to write up what I would have said on Twitter if I had more goddamn space.

But first a word – I like the 140 character limit. On Caltrops, we give people 80 characters in the message title of posts, and we frequently type our whole post in there. So Twitter gives me more space than what I am used to. Additionally, there is an appeal in brevity. If you’re at all like me and ruined your life at age 35, well, welcome to a world where texting a revolving stream of women is a valid method of communication you’d better be good at. I’m all for making a 700KB text game, but Sally ain’t reading that crap before deciding to call the third date off anyway.

Here’s a Twitter comment that could use some expanding in this, the Expanded Twitter Universe:

“So me, Galatea and Lex were the only people who didn’t go to #pax, and Lex already ‘did’ swine flu.(I’d risk it for early Scribblenauts,btw)”

Let’s break it down.

First thing you need to know is that PAX stands for the Penny Arcade … Expo, I think. Exhibit? I don’t really know, but it’s a convention and like the Montreal Expos, ultimately fated for disaster and ruin, as swine flu has been confirmed to be making the ways around.

I’m not going to go for the easy targets here – there’s a lot of ripe gamers. Senor Barborito called this unclean-ly valley shit years ago here, when it was called Lanwerx. Easy jokes that people are making, easily. Let’s go beyond that. My heart goes out to anyone who contracted hip SARS at PAX.

Emily Short wrote a tweet when PAX was actually going on that she felt like the only person who wasn’t attending. She also wrote a game with a richly-detailed non-player character named Galatea. (In retrospect, it seems like I am calling her Galatea. Not the case! I just thought it would be funnier to reference her creation instead. I can also see Galatea the statue being able to attend PAX before I get a chance to, actually/sadly.)

Lex is on Twitter as “Lettuphant.” He thought he was coming down with Swine Flu over Twitter a few weeks ago. Unfortunatley, I was really pressed for space, so I had to call him by his name, instead of his Twitter handle. (In fact, I had to go with his BBS name “Lex” instead of “Alex” because I was pressed for space.)

The last bit is about Scribblenauts. I can’t wait for Scribblenauts! Get this – somebody makes a game where you write in what objects you want your character to get… and they GET THEM. How great is that? You need a ladder in a game, you type in “ladder,” you get a ladder. You need a machine gun, you type in machine gun and – presto! I would literally give a finger for their database. I mean, not even kidding, that database is worth a small finger on my left, non-dominant hand. To me. (Erm, if I could use it to build a text game off it.) In fact, I’ll go ahead and say that if it contains what I think it does (properties of tens of thousands of everyday objects and animals) that it is the single most-valuable resource in video games today.

And apparently the game was at PAX, well before its release date.

I’d risk a little bit of flu to play it. It’s not like you’re guaranteed to get it. (Swine flu or a few minutes with Scribblenauts, actually.)  However, the thing is, I’ve been teasing my imagination with how it’s coming out next week and everything. I typed “Scribblenauts” into Google News a few hours ago at work and saw something about how it might be pushed to October. Oh no! It might just be the European release, which – honestly, the Europeans don’t deserve this indignity. I don’t have all the facts yet, but I can’t wait till this game comes out, even though there’s little chance it’s going to be as good as it is in my head, based on what I know of the concept.

At any rate, where I really wanted to go with this is how it would be great to make a language-independent, open source DB that was filled with all sorts of characteristics about everyday objects and creatures, for IF. I’ve started to finally implement things like “desk_class” and “table_class” in my own works-in-progress, but man, it’d be great to have access to more. Text game languages give us dozens of verbs “built in,” why not a complete living room set or office setup?

Someday!

After being on the Nipponese end of Roy Halladay destroying, laying nuclear waste to their pathetic teams for fucking years, anonymous douchebag fans from the American League East hopped onto a few of the Blue Jay sites I frequent to jump on Roy for the first bad month he’s had since coming up to the big leagues for good.

I wasn’t even aware he was having a “bad” month in August, because for the first half of it he was still superior to anyone the Sox, Yanks and Rays were throwing out there. It wasn’t lost on the mewling bitches of those teams, though, no doubt stalking Roy’s Baseball Reference splits page, hoping – praying! for something like this, since he’s the best player in the division, and will be till the day he leaves it or retires.

(I’m going to throw in the possibility that some of the anonymous comments were also made by Phillies fans. Normally, if a fanbase is heavily involved in trade talks and the trade falls through, people move on. Philadelphia sports fans will hold a grudge for the rest of their natural life, so engaging in a little trolling the month directly following the trade deadline is within (their) reason.)

On Friday night, Roy Halladay took the mound against a lineup with, what, a single guy that the Yanks actually drafted? Didn’t matter. Halladay no doubt also took a long look at the assembly of pukes and clownshits that Rogers Communications gave him and just went to fucking work.

With Roy on the hill, this team can trot out – actually, there is no way to exaggerate who Rogers Communications could or couldn’t play. Nobody I can plausibly submit would be worse than Kevin Millar hitting fourth, Vernon Wells hitting fifth and Joe Inglett, John McDonald and Rod Barajas hitting wherever the fuck they were hitting. This miserable, contemptible organization gave the best player in franchise history some of the worst players in baseball… and it didn’t matter. It didn’t fucking matter.

This will be the one game I remember from this season. Hopefully, in the yeasr to come, it will be the only game I remember. I have no doubt that the human garbage that own this team will get rid of Roy, the only player worth watching in the last ten years. They’ll fuck it up, and fuck it up at a level where letting 3 of your first 5 picks go unsigned (as they just did in the draft) seems calculated and shrewd. At this point, the pieces of shit running this team – Nadir Mohamed and Paul Beeston, mostly – are nothing short of super-villains, as far as I’m concerned, for the carefully plotted and executed plan to fuck this team over for the next ten years. It wouldn’t surprise me if they were rolling their eyes over the course of Halladay’s dominating performance, since the quicker he disposed of those Yankee fucks, the less time people had to purchase whatever overpriced shit they were hawking at the ballpark.

All this going on, and the worst part of this season is that it has forever tainted my impression of Cito Gaston. He doesn’t pinch hit. He can’t manage a bullpen. He is completely beholden to righty/lefty matchups and (this is the worst part) too fucking stupid to pull platoon partners later in the game when the opposing team has gone to their bullpen. Don’t get me wrong – he’s still middle of the pack in terms of common sense when it comes to the small pool of Professional Baseball Managers, but Cito had the distinction of being the only guy to ever win anything with any of the teams I follow, and now I look at him and see him leave Kevin Millar in the game when a right-handed pitcher enters the game, with Lyle Overbay (.380 OBP) sitting on the bench with his thumb jammed up his ass and just steam. I know the right move, and he doesn’t. It’s infuriating.

But for one night it didn’t matter. For one night the Jays beat the shit out of the collection of mercenaries that got it al right this year, and should sweep a World Series victory. A one-hit, complete game shutout against the best team money can buy. That’s Roy fucking Halladay.

What exactly does Sounders’ Open Cup title mean?

“Aside, congrats Seattle on its first title since the Sonics in the late 70’s”

did you forget the roller derby title of 83?

Or the horseshoes title the Seattle Ringers won a few years back?

Does a title drought really end when the title won is in a sport nobody cares about?

I gotta mention, saying the Sounders winning some made up event ends a title drought is equally as moronic as people who say Pat Summitt broke Bobby Knights record for all time Div. I college basketball coaching wins.

And we get your “sport”. It is dull and boring with broken rules. Teams are inclined to play a passive do nothing snorefest, and the game often gets decided by a sub game that has nothing to do with the actual sport. Having 22 people run around for fours playing keep away is made pointless when you just line up guys for penalty kicks at the end of games.

Maybe football should line its best defender at the goaline and the other teams running backs each get a chance to run past him for overtime.

Maybe baseball should line up just the pitcher and hitter and have him try to hit the ball behind him to end extra innings games.

Awful sport, defended by people were not talented enough to play other sports, and A LOT of fun to ridicule.

I just cant help it, I come to the PI to read up on the Seahawks and Mariners. Then I see these multiple serious articles about a 4th rate soccer league and a human money toilet of a womans basket ball league and and it blows my mind. The PI really uses this many resources to cover two boring awful leagues?