I’m not a gamer. I play video games from time to time, and I’ve been known in years past to play them to excess, but I’m really not a gamer.

Still, I had to try out On The Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness: Episode One from Hothead Games and my friends Mike and Jerry over at Penny Arcade.

In short: I loved it. It was challenging, but I was able to beat it. I was short 50 parts for an additional weapon-upgrade for Tycho’s tommy-gun, and none of the characters had their full +15 overkill bonus (they were all at +10.) Honestly, I don’t think those additional 5 damage points make much of a difference in the final battle… not unless there are multipliers attached to them.

It earns its “M” rating very cartoonishly. The jokes are obscene, the dialog is about what you’d expect from a Penny Arcade comic, and you spend a lot of time killing fellow human beings for little more than the crime of being hobos, clowns, barbershoppers, or mimes. Oh, and the little “fruit robot” is there (in great numbers — he’s your source of parts), and you can “distract” him with an orange.

I’m not a better human being for having played it, but I did learn a thing or two about the craft of animation by watching closely. It’s quite pretty, and I liked the music. I LOVED the writing. Jerry Holkins does things with words that border on sorcery. Not to knock Mike’s craft at all — I love his artwork — but it’s Jerry’s writing that always carries the day for me.

The game is definitely worth the $20 I spent.

I spent the last week reporting each and every thing I ate via Twitter. This was a very successful week for me, too, in that I was able to see what I was eating, where I was weighing in, and how I was progressing overall.

Then Twitter went down over the weekend, and I binged.

Let’s face it: I don’t want my diet to be a slave to the whims of somebody else’s technological issues. So… I’m going to be taking my Twitter diet to once-daily Live Journal posts. These will be friends-locked, but if you want in on the custom list just reply below. I’m sure all 700 of you don’t want to know what I’m eating, but I’m also sure that a few of you DO want to know.

EDIT: Oh, dang. The only way for me to include people in a custom group is for ME to friend THEM. *sigh*. No offense, folks, but just because you’re interested in my eating habits doesn’t mean I want you on my friends page (which is cluttered enough as it is.)

I suppose I could create a group?

I’m not going to be at CONduit this weekend in Salt Lake City. Sure, it’s only a 40-minute drive, and all my friends are there, but I need to take the day off.

I need to take the day off, so I can get some work done. The Bonus Story is STILL not colored, which means (for those of you following along at home) that Schlock Mercenary: The Teraport Wars has STILL not been sent to the printer. Today and Monday I’m tackling the last four pages of Bonus Story so they’re all colored and pretty and ready to be laid in.

Then, with my brain clear of that task, I’ll allow Sandra to start piling the “cleanup” tasks on me. Edits, image tweaks, cover art… all the rest of the stuff that must be done. With luck I’ll be able to finish it all by June 10th, and can do so without letting up on the buffer.

I went to CONduit last night to see folks and to record a few episodes of Writing Excuses. They were a lot of fun, and much more energetic thanks to the presence of an audience. We had Mike Stackpole (Author Guest of Honor at the Con) join us for two of the three ‘casts, and Dan Willis, Eric James Stone, and (very briefly) Bob Defendi also made appearances. Those episodes should be airing in a couple of weeks.