SLIGHTLY LESS MANKY PRODUCTS PAGE MAKES ITS DEBUT.

In honor of Groundhog Day, I have put up a version of the official Double Fine Products page which is considered by several people here to be just a little less manky than the previous products page. Though it is mostly just the same old recycled crap, it does have a couple of surprises here and there, and much fewer broken links and no icons that say “New” but are actually 2 years old. And I have to admit that this has nothing to do with Groundhog Day. But very few things actually have much to do with Groundhog Day so I figured no one would notice. As if groundhogs are so cool anyway. I’d like to see a bunch of groundhogs make a products page. Whoa. Wow. Where’s all that anger come from? I’ll have to examine those feelings next time I’m at Bikram.

I think I’m just overtired. (I hope so, because I like the expression overtired. “Hey, are you overtired?” “No, I’m just tired enough. I’m in the sweetspot, you know? Not undertired, not overtired. Just nicetired.”) I want to write more about the excellent game but I’m so sleepy you might pick up on that and get the wrong impression. You might surmise from my slow, lethargic diction and lack of funny that I was less enthusiastic than I really am. Which would be a tragedy because I am hecka enthusiastic about this game. Hella, even. But I am tired because we had to pull two all-nighters in a row to make this last milestone. The team did, I mean. *I* was at home watching “The Apprentice” on TiVo. But I’m still tired because it took me forever to wade through all the pleading “I’m tired,” and, “I want to go home,” emails from the team. Sheesh. Don’t make me come down there, guys!

It was milestone number—if I remember correctly—eight million and five. We build them and then send it to the publisher through the air, in a magical cloud of a million, colorful little particles. (Like that little cowboy guy in Willy Wonka!) Then, up in Seattle, men with gasmasks and big, rubber gloves pull the bright dots out of the air with butterfly nets, roll them out into a game-like putty, stuff that into a sack and throw it into quarantine for six months to make sure it doesn’t have any diseases. Then they shine a bright light in it’s cage to scare it, and bang on the bars with nightsticks. Then they shoot it with a hose, tell it that it’s family is dead, and then put on frightening shadow puppet shows through the bars. They flash the lights on and off randomly while making that “chh-chh-chh… cah-cah-cah…” sound from the Friday the 13th sound track.

If you’ve ever played a game and it’s acted kind of funny, now you know why. They go through a lot.