Each day I gather up my courage and open the vast wasteland that is my electronic mailbox, hoping against all hope that something might be waiting for me there. Just a little something, yes? No. Empty — so very empty.

So here’s the deal, my legion of screaming fans; it’s time to let vector_black know that you love him. Don’t be shy… just no l337. Please.

(vector_black fully realizes that it’s hopeless.)

Hallo, dear fans!

After an extended absence, I am, at long last, able to re-connect to our nifty little online community. Wedge55 has contaminated my mind with a horrid tendency to speak aloud in chat room slang and butchered l337. Today I devote to cleansing my mind.

(vector_black knows he’ll never be clean again.)

Tomorrow I will be moving back to Davis. This means updates from me will be non-existent over the next couple of days until I secure enough Ethernet cable to regain access to the Internet. In the mean time, expect dorkclub.com staff members to run rampant in the streets, completely disregarding the newly implemented posting guidelines, as I am powerless to stop them. PopcornChicken, our newest staff member, will be among them. Hopefully I’ll get around to updating the Staff page to represent his place in our fold. I figure, with so many other, much more obvious, flaws in this site and its design, I might as well fix the small things first. The rest of you should follow PopcornChicken’s example. Act now! There’s only 18 staff positions left!

In the mean time, enjoy this Warcraft 3 Replay. It’s probably the last one you’re going to see for a while. And yes, it is an entire megabyte in size.

I’m sorry for doubting you Animal Crossing, can you ever forgive me? Don’t look at me like that. I said I was sorry! What do you want me to say? You’re beautiful in every possible way. I love the way your pointless gameplay is surprisingly fun. You are perfect. I’m sorry I had thoughts about other games. Can’t you find it in your plastic core to forgive me? What’s that? You can? Thank you Animal Crossing! Thank you! I promise I won’t do you wrong. Now, uh, can you hurry up and open Mr. Nook’s store?

By now, everyone should be well aware of this. Never underestimate Blizzard’s ability to hype a game. Yesterday at 5:00 PM PST, the Internet crashed thanks to Blizzard’s announcement. Blizard.com, Battle.net, IGN, Infoceptor, WarcraftIII, DiabloII, and World of War were all down and even sites such as Gamespot, Gamespy, and Gameforms were effected, their sites slowed to a near halt. It is now dorkclub.com’s sole purpose to someday have the ability to crash the Internet. All I need is 6 million fans.

In other news, I do not know how much longer I can hold out. I was Target yesterday and their copy of Animal Crossings was taunting me behind its glass shield. But I’m scared. Animal Crossings is a scary game. The fact that time passes just as it does in our own world leads to some rather daunting gameplay. Should I miss something special, I would have to wait an entire year before I could have the chance to experience said event once again. Whoever thought a game whose gameplay involves doing nothing could be so, well, involving? I was planning on purchasing either Starfox Adventures or Animal Crossings, but the more I hear of the ladder title’s glory, the more I’m impressed by it. Likewise, I had a chance to play a demo of Starfox Adventures yesterday, and it was, much to my disappointment, standard Rare fare. The game feels like it was made specifically to impress players and reviewers, but not to contain any actual fun. This certainly isn’t Rare’s next Conker’s Bad Fur Day. It’s more like their next Banjo-Kazooie. What to do? Should I purchase Starfox Adventures, one of the top reasons I picked Nintendo’s cube of joy over the competition’s offerings or should I buy Animal Crossings, who’s laissez-faire attitude will prove to be one of the most enjoyable, and frustrating, games I will ever play? The life of a gamer is a hard life to lead.

Now, I must go watch A Clockwork Orange. Last night was The Shinning, and I must keep the Stanley Kubrick marathon going. Tomorrow: not Eyes Wide Shut. Actually, I already did watch Clockwork Orange. Pretend this update was last night.

I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for breakfast today. It consisted of Skippy Super Chunk Peanut Butter and Mary Ellen pure seedless blackberry jam spread on two full slices of Oroweat oatnut bread. It was, for all intensive purposes, delicious.

My lunch was simply a bag of Ritz Bits Peanut Butter Sandwiches I purchased from the vending machine at work for $0.55. It was, for all intensive purposes, delicious.

For dinner, my wonderful mother prepared a dish consisting of Tyson frozen chicken, Golden Grain Mission fettuccine, Campbell’s cream of chicken soup, Precious shredded mozzarella cheese, and Inglenbrook Chablis. It was, for all intensive purposes, delicious.

I am sharing this information with you because I have no way to provide you with an image revealing the glory that is a pink backlit GBA. This is, as usual, LeadPipe’s fault as he does not have a digital camera he can actually use. He is, for all intensive purposes, an idiot.

I have never played a 3D game which has visually impressed me. It’s just something which has yet to happen and, given the nature of our current generation, won’t happen for quite some time. Dispite how hard developers try, you can still see the jagged edges of polygons, the blurry pixels of the textures, and artifacting in the FMVs of just about all 3D games. Still, most gamers, casual or otherwise, insist that three dimensional gaming is supior in all departments to 2D gaming, including graphics. Haven’t these fools ever played Legend of Mana? The reason I’m discussing this has to do with Konami’s latest Contra title, Contra: Pointless Subtitle, for the PS2. Like every Contra game since Contra III: The Alien Wars for the SNES, the latest installment in the long running series seems to “borow” liberally from its ancestor. By “borrow,” I mean manage to be the exact same game we all played ten years ago, only this time it’s a lot less visually impressive. All Playstation 2 images blatantly stolen from IGN.

Amazing, the boss creature in the SNES version is actually more detailed than the one in the PS2 version. The background consisting of a brick building (with windows, no less) is also far more interesting than gray.
I’m glad to see that after all these years nobody has yet to produce a believable flamethrower. Again, the smog-filled industrial complex background is light years ahead of gray. I think somebody needs to talk to the development team behind the PS2 version and get them to add some light.
The sky looks better in the PS2 version! Who’d of thunk it?

The bottom line: While it may look like crap, chances are it plays just as bad. But it can’t be any worse than Contra: Hardcorps, right? It’s really a shame there aren’t enough Castlevanias in the world.

This sure was a good television series when it was called M*A*S*H. These guys are shameless, they even reference M*A*S*H in all its glory on their own site. I especially enjoy the very Frank Burns-like quote used at the top of the page. Blasphemy. Am I really supposed to accept an HMO as a replacement for the United States Army? Please. I could just imagine the creators, sitting down for their weekly script meeting…

Story Editor: “We should make one of the characters clairvoyant, making them able to hear the ambulance sirens long before they actually arrive.”

Producer: “I agree. I feel as though having some strange, and often times humorous, announcements play over the hospital’s intercoms to act as transitional devices between scenes would really spice things up.”

Story Editor: “I Know! We could even have a character die! They could be taking a trip to Korea when their plane is shot down over the sea. It will spin in. There will be no survivors.”

Producer: “Why hasn’t anybody thought of this before?”

Ground breaking television, folks. Ground breaking television.

I’m going to go watch The Adventures of Pete & Pete.

For the first time in DORK Club history I have actually delivered on my promises. Does this mark the beginning of a new Wedge55? I doubt it. Folks, even if you’ve read the old Eternal Darkness review, which I know you haven’t, I would suggest you read the updated version as well. Only three sentences survived the update. It’s really a whole different beast. Oh, and just to warn you, it’s filled with a lot of bad jokes. Bad jokes which should never be repeated again. Just thought I should apologize ahead of time.

(Wedge55 secretly wants to be vector_black)

As we speak (humor me and pretend we’re speaking), I’m working on a completely new version of my Eternal Darkness review. If you have yet to read it, I suggest you hurry and do so. Actually, I suggest you don’t do so, as it is easily the single worst article on this site. That says a lot.

I should complete the new review, complete with more Megaman references, math equations, and Star Wars jokes by tomorrow. For now, enjoy a fresh new Warcraft 3 Replay actually supplied by somebody other than my neighbor or me.

Almost forgot. Although it’s been nearly a year (in internet time), I thought I should mention toasyfrog’s not so newest feature, King Vitaman’s Majestic Realm 0′ Breakfast Cereal, as it just might be the coolest thing ever. Actually, I had an idea to do something similar involving fast food chicken nuggets, but no sane man (or woman) should ever eat fast food chicken nuggets. Never.