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Feel the Burn, Mario
Okay, I know that I shouldn't be excited about this. I also know there is no way I am ever going to be able to afford to have one of these in my house. But a company called Powergrid Fitness has devised the perfect way for a nerd like me to stay in shape...
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Kilowatt! 
The Kilowatt uses isometrics to give you a workout while playing video games. It is basically the worlds most difficult and potentially frustrating controller. What nobody told the designers of this machine is that Microsoft already tried marketing a controller that has the same basic functionality as this. It was the original X-Box controller.
Kilowatt has been designed from the ground up to be a strain to use, and that strain is supposed to be good for you. So let me get this straight... I can actually use video games to make me healthy??? Are you frikken nuts?! Where do I sign up!
One of these and a copy of SSX3 or Tony Hawk Underground and with the amount of games I play I'd look like the guy in the picture above in a week! Hmmmm.... On second thought, I'd look terrible in a red thong bikini, maybe I'm better off without.
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 Scribbling Below the Belt
I'm pretty certain I have mentioned Penny Arcade before, but if I haven't let me give you a brief rundown on who they are... Penny Arcade is a web comic that has been running for quite a few years now. I have been following them for quite some time and find their comics to be pretty damned funny. In addition, the commentary provided by Tycho is the highlight of my morning, three times a week.
Recently, however, they have become involved in a messy rivalry with another web comic, drawn by a guy who calls himself Squidi. Basically the story goes like this... Some of the users on the Penny Arcade forums were using avatars that appear to be modified versions of artwork from his site. Squidi went on the offensive and demanded they be removed. The people using the avatars claimed that they weren't based on Squidi's work, but had instead been based on a "How to Draw Sprites" tutorial on the web.
As with many internet debates, within a few minutes the forums were alfame with.... Er, well with flames. People on the Penny Arcade side declared that Squidi was, indeed, a total asshat, and people from the Squidi camp were of the opinion that PA and PVP should just get cancer. Pretty soon other web comics were joining in, have a peek at this comic from PVP.
So Squidi took a shot at PA. PVP took a shot at Squidi. PA returned fire.... And in all the shooting, the only casualty was maturity. Still, the truth of the matter is that if you don't take it too seriously, it makes for fine entertainment.
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Junky Resume
I felt that today I needed to address the title of my Blog, yet again. You see, I have never really qualified the "Junky" portion of the title. So today I am going to relate the depths to which I have sunk in the past for video games.
Although I have been a gamer since the days of Atari 2600, my first really crazy video game memory comes courtesy of the original Final Fantasy. I would have been about 15 or 16, I guess. I might have been older. I used to rent both the games and an NES from our local video store in Devon, a little place called Hilltop video, as I recall. There was a place right nearby that sold used cassette tapes, and I bought a copy of Symphony in Effect by Maestro Fresh Wes on my way home.
All I remember of the next few days is that same tape set to loop and my characters leveling up... Dungeons whizzing past... And the monsters!!! THE MONSTERS! I slept a grand total of about five hours in three days, I think. I solved Final Fantasy, and from that point on I was completely hooked. Since then I have risked life, love, career, and more for the sake of games.
Once, while I was managing a little arcade in Devon, I had forgotten my keys to the arcade and the owner was a 40 minute drive away. When the guys showed up to deliver the new games I couldn't let them in. They had brought a new track and field game, and I was dying to try it. For some reason I was obsessed with track and field games that year. I decided that keys or no keys, I had to get into that building. The arcade itself was located in a large building that used to be a repair shop for large trucks. The ceiling was about 15-16 feet high. I borrowed some tools from one of the delivery guys and scaled the building, working my way over to one of the sylights. I unscrewed the cover and lowered myself in, grabbing hold of the steel beams that supported the roof, I then made my way hand over hand to the wall where it was only about a two foot drop to the top of one of the video game machines.
In retrospect I probably could have killed myself. All it would have taken was a slip of the hand or foot and my head could have been cracked open on the concrete floor. But the thought never occurred to me, I had a mission... I also had an obsession. The thing that makes me a junky is that I'm not entirely sure that if I were put in the same situation now I would do any different...
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Buried Treasure
I stumbled across a site today that was linked off of the web interface for my Laser Squad Nemesis account. The site is called the Multiplayer Online Games Directory and is actually a great resource for finding both the bigger blockbuster games and the little indie games.
The thing that never ceases to amaze me is how many people are out there doing this sort of thing. I find it very encouraging to think that there are sites like this where smaller developers can go and get their games listed fairly. You'd never be able to get equal representation at the retail level, that's for certain. Anyway, I was just coasting through the listings on the site and found a remarkable wealth of excellent seeming games. It's worth checking out if you are looking for something a little different.
Oh, and I'm not sure if I mentioned it already, but I have been playing a quirky little title called Dungeon Scroll. It's basically a spelling game, but for some reason I can't put it down. You are given a jumbled bunch of letters and have to make words out of them. The trick is that you are fighting a monster, and the longer you wait the more damage he does to you. Longer words do more damage to the beasties, and you can't use the same words twice on the same level of the dungeon. It's probably my second favorite game to ever come out of the Independent Games Festival, next to Insaniquarium. So get over there and buy a copy of Dungeon Scroll for a measily eight bucks, you won't regret it, and I won't have to spend every night crying myself to sleep because corporate America is killing indie developers at the same rate as rainforests.
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