Heads up, peeps – episode six of the Tubenauts podcast (“2Shoats1Crate”) is up and ready for your listening pleasure. I host, we talk about benefactoring and shoats, we interview Trustee Marc Adams. As usual, it is full of win! Listen here.

We also got blogged by community liason Joe “burdenday” Wagner!

I’m super pleased to reveal that I’ve been asked to be a Steward on PMOG. Mostly I’ll just keep an eye on the forum, help direct people to the right areas, that sort of thing. But I love PMOG and its community and am honored to have been invited.

Also, I have it on good authority that each of the five of us were chosen, at least in part, to represent archetypes, just like the Planeteers.

One type is professional, one is conservative, one is a naysayer…mine is “kindness”.

Which makes me Ma-Ti.

“By your powers combined, I am Captain PMOG!”

While preparing for this week’s podcast recording, I realized I didn’t post about last week’s! D’oh. The shame is on me.

Last week’s discussion was a review of The Week of Order, a comparatively calm stretch of donating crates and donning armor as people burned through the mines left behind in the aftermath of Chaos Week. It’s just like the moments after the last, huge blast of Fourth of July fireworks have gone off, and the wind changes, bringing the scent of burnt powder and smoldering paper remnants, which drift down to where you sit cringing on the grass, hoping they don’t land on your blanket and leave burn marks.

This week we talked about missions – specifically, “what’s their deal?” There were some hilarious moments, including a movie announcer intro and a Miss Teen South Carolina acceptance speech, and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as.

Give it a listen.

I’m back home after my travels. I kept myself busy on the plane by writing out blog posts. Wasn’t that thoughtful of me?

Anyway, this week, the Tubenauts gabbed about PMOG’s player-generated Chaos Week, a celebration of all the mischief-making classes in the passive gaming world. User drudge (who couldn’t be reached in time for the podcast, but who I tracked down for this entry), came up with the idea after a discussion about a massive amount of mines on Google.com:

“i figured i could get like a handful of desroyers in my minign services thread to help me mine the badge sites…then i thought why just limit it to a handful of desroyers and just the badge sites

so i decided to try and get everyone involved on the chaos, i figured a day woul dbe too short and peopel might miss the chance, so i figured a week would give everyone a day to create chaos

i also figured it would be a great way to sorta keep the fictional aspect of the Torch of roder and Torch of Chaos going, keep epople in the CHAOS or order mindset and to have fun with it”

Many players stocked up on tools like mines and weapons, and added the “mine me” tag to others’ profiles, in preparation. But when those tags were removed, a player created a form for people to submit the names of “deserving” mine targets.

In the podcast, the Tubenauts discussed their strategies for participating in Chaos Week; my favorite was passing mines via crate to Shoats so that they could join in on the action. I asked drudge what he had done in advance of the event:

“as far as preperation goes, i saved up all my mines, portals and nicks. i bookmarked every forum thread that had peopel stashing creates so ic ould just open all 52 tabs up at once and easily check every page for free crates, did that to like 3 forum threads, i bookmarked every known torch of order participant who was being public about it and flaunting their goody-2-shoes around, i also bookmarked every staffers page/trustees. i got all the badge sites bookmarked as well so i could make sure to leave 10-20 mines each day one very badge site.”

I received a couple of tags and mines, but because I was away during the week I didn’t see much action. Luckily, I’d just received my Normandy badge a few weeks ago, so I did get to experience a bit of the Chaotic fun, but I am sad that I missed out on the madness. Thanks to the Tubenauts for filling me in – you guys are the bomb! (Ho ho ho.)

I think I missed posting this, the second edition of the PMOG comic – by me and the excellent tonedef, who willingly added in friendly kitties at my request, and who is therefore win.

Greetings, gentle reader,

I have visited distant lands, and while the challenges of surviving the journey have prevented me from posting here, I have much to share.

Last Tuesday I recorded a PMOG podcast, as a member of the Tubenauts, and it is about 20 minutes of pure game-related hilarity. Check it out here, and listen to the June 18 posting. It’s had over a hundred downloads so far…not too shabby!

Yesterday I published “The Seven Forgotten Modern Wonders of the World, as seen in film (via YouTube)”, a film tour of landmarks that are so well-known, they’re now just a part of the various city landscapes.

I published new mission on PMOG, Housing solutions from the FUTURE, today! “Global warming, melting ice caps, overcrowding…these innovative homes offer solutions to problems encountered in our changing landscape, draw attention to how we inhabit modern spaces, and address vital human needs.” Go sign up for an account, install the toolbar, and have a look.

(As an aside, my goal is to include an exclamation point in the title of every mission I publish. Four and counting!)

Edited, June 11, 11:30 AM:

Yay! \o/

I am very happy to share the first strip for the brand-new PMOG-based comic, “Shoats for Breakfast”. This comic was written by tuguy, drawn by tonedef and masterminded by Zous. I’m going to help contribute to future strips, so stay tuned!