Hello and I'm sorry.  Hello and I'm sorry to everyone I've let down and to all the people I've yet to meet and then let down.  If it means anything, these last three weeks have brought me much closer to my ultimate goal of being accepted into the government's elite SSI total disability program.  I've paid taxes for a number of years now, and I think it's high time I reap some of the benefits of my brief period of productive citizenship back in the 90's.  I've always been pretty antsy about going outside, but two and a half weeks ago my brain manufactured a Todd McFarlane-esque detailed miniature version of this larger problem by convincing me that I should also be afraid to go upstairs.  That left the kitchen, the bathroom, the coat and broom closet, the bedroom, and the room with the old TV available for use, but restricted my access to the second floor, which contains my computer and the big television attached to the Nintendo, the Playstation, and the Dreamcast.  I feel better now.  But I'm sorry that I've missed a few updates.  

I know that within the game community, I'm viewed as a crusader - of might and magic but for justice.  I realize that I'm often perceived to be quick to anger, difficult to like, hard to kill, under siege, on deadly ground, under siege 2, and the glimmer man.  It's a responsibility that I take seriously.  So I understand it when hundreds of you send me vile, angry letters every time I disappear for weeks at a time.   However, understanding is not an excuse.  All I can say is that - assuming all of you manage to come to my house and then also manage to enter one of the parts of my house that's safe to me on that day - you're all dead, like Bruce Willis during the last ninety minutes of the Sixth Sense.  I didn't mark that as a spoiler because I'm fucking crazy.  And if any of you gets a phone call from the Ohio Disability Determination Services, I'd appreciate it if you mentioned that fact.  Feel free to point out to them the death threats I often make and don't forget about the frequent and shameless Sixth Sense spoilers.   If you need some prefabricated descriptions of what a deranged murderous nigga I am, you can get some good ones from rap.   Change the words around so it doesn't rhyme, though.  Because that might tip off the DDS caseworker that you're just stealing your testimony from rap.  With the government's finacial help and your continued support of our benefit claims, we might just make it through this Internet implosion in one piece.

On the other hand, if we updated every day, we might end up having to print some things like this story about Majestic on IGN.  Everything I know about being a man I've learned from IGN For Men, which is IGN's version of Celebrity Sleuth, only without all the nudity.   In fact, just before my recent breakdown, one of their editorials convinced me that I'd sure like to screw that Jennifer Love Hewitt.  So I hate to say anything bad about them.  But if I don't, who will?  Certainly not me.

Majestic is an upcoming game published by Electronic Arts that appears to be a mix of a därk email client and David Fincher's The Game, sort of an American McGee's Outlook.  A few days ago, there was a public demo of it at a conference called DEMO 2001 in Phoenix.  The IGN story's strapline promises lots of first-hand information:

Revealed to a stunned crowed [sic] at DEMO 2001, Majestic makes a big impression.

The article then proceeds to not mention anything about the actual demonstration.  Nothing.  Not one word about what was shown, or any specific reactions to it.  There's a recap of some previously available information and some enthusiastic quotes by a few people who attended the rumored demonstration but who also have a financial interest in saying nice things about Majestic - such as EA VP of production Neil Young.  The closest IGN gets to mentioning what happened or what the game looks like is in this sentence from the first paragraph:

the word on the street is an astounding "wow".

With these nine perfectly chosen words, someone at IGN has finally crafted the ultimate, empty fucking kiss ass preview.  Expect to see this string of words a lot, as it's about to become an enduring OMM catchphrase.  Note to the person at IGN who actually gets paid a salary to worry about these things: I'm not a professional editor, but "wow" isn't especially astounding.  I even opened up Notepad and typed "wow" in all caps, but that only made the word mildly intriguing, and that's only because "W" looks sort of like Lara Croft's tits, which kind of remind me of tits, which reminds me that, thanks to some compelling arguments on IGN for Men, I'd like to wax Charlize Theron's ass.  Maybe "astounded" would have been a better choice.

Today, I discovered this account of the Majestic demo on C-Net news:

The team from EA.com had it even worse. As the presenter began his demo of "Majestic," a suspense thriller that allows people to interact via chat, e-mail, voice mail, fax and the Web, everything just blew up.
 
The presenter, an executive vice president named Neil Young (no, not that Neil Young) was fast on his feet and talked his way around the glitch for a few minutes until the system could be resuscitated. Then the system blew up again...

Which may explain why the IGN piece contained so little information.