Psychonauts is on a lot of things these days. It’s on this Forza car, for example.

(Nicely done, Mr. Cochese.)

Oh, hey, and also here:

In fact, if you look today, it’s even on the front Page. Woo hoo!

I’m glad that it’s available on Gametap, because soon you won’t be able to buy it in too many other places. I just found out the other day that Psychonauts is officially OUT OF PRINT.

That’s right. We tried to order more copies for our company store, but our friends at Majesco informed us that the warehouse had been cleaned out, and there were no plans to make any more. We still have some copies in stock in the Double Fine Action Retail Operation (located up front, by the printer, next to the place where Daniel’s supposed to put that plant), but once those are gone, I just don’t know where you will be able to buy a box of the Excellent Game anymore. According to the last royalty statement we got, we’ve sold about 400,000 copies, not counting digital distribution, or our company store. So maybe that means there are, like, 100,000 copies out there in “the channel” as the kids in marketing say. So mayyyyyybe you could still get one. But just to be safe you should probably buy about five copies right now, before the rush starts. (Plus, an extra five to sell on eBay someday, which will surely put your kids through college.)

I’m torn on how to feel about this news. It used to be very final and sad when a game went out of print, but now that it can live on through digital distribution, it doesn’t feel quite so dire. And it also means that there’s not a big warehouse of unsold Psychonautses somewhere in Jersey.

So, hopefully, Raz will live on through channels like Gametap and Steam and Trygames and in the hearts of pure-hearted gamers everywhere.

Oh, and in Europe. THQ is still pumpin’ those out, bless their purple and yellow hearts. Go, PAL!

Dear Diary,

Well, last weekend I finally got up the nerve to buy that door stop. Thank goodness it came with instructions.

No, I am not defecating you. Those are the actual instructions for the door stop. I wish I had seen them sooner. That would have saved me the 45 minutes I spent trying to shove the damn thing through the keyhole. And now I’m sure I voided the doorstop’s Full Lifetime Warranty. Oh, why did I try to install this myself?

Why can’t all instructions be that helpful? For instance, these instructions from the Guitar Hero II manual, page six:

Lies. Lies and fairy tales.

Of course it’s my fault for assuming that this page from the Guitar Hero II manual meant I could play GUITAR HERO II on XBOX Live. Which you can’t. No, they just wanted to remind you that you can play XBOX Live in general, and play anyone and everyone, anytime, anywhere. They specifically did NOT say you could play anyTHING.

I’m just bitter because I actually challenged our producer Gabe to an online battle and he’s like, are we going to play in your imagination? Because it’s not multiplayer online yet. There’s going to be a patch or something.

Sigh. I’m not being critical. It’s only because I love the game so much that I want to play it on line. But now all I can do is play with dumb old stupid me.

Actually, I can’t even do that, because here is a picture of my XBOX screen right now:

What the hell?

Okay, so the Christopher Lambert problem may be related to the fact that I was watching Highlander at the time. My XBOX it made a sad, chirping sound and locked up with that checkerboard pattern. It looked like someone had pulled down a security gate made out of glitter, locking me out of the fun store for the evening.

I want to send that screen shot to MS customer support but I’m afraid they would taunt me. Like, “The static you are seeing, that’s the Quickening!” Or, “There can be only one… reason for this problem!”

Ha boo ha hoo ha hoo, I laugh through my tears.

But I’m not worried. I’m sure that since my XBOX cost so much it must have at least as good a warranty as that doorstop.

OR what, you ask? Haha. No stupid, that's not a question. OR is the official two-letter abbreviation for Oregon. It's a state! No foolin'. In case you aren't familiar with Oregon, here's a little history: A long time ago, some travelers visited California, and made their way to the town of Humboldt and fell in love with it. They were so taken with the dampness, and the abundant marijuana, that they stole the plans for Humboldt, smuggled them over the border, and founded an entire state on its principles. This was back before towns could be patented.

Anyway, for more information, you can play the videogame they based upon their adventures.
	The main point of all this is that tomorrow, THURSDAY JUNE 7, a bunch of the Hickee guys are having an art show and they're going to have some new paintings up for the rest of the month and you should go there. But first go to Scott's blog to read about it.
P.S. Okay, there's one more thing in Portland that I just remembered. While you're up there for the Hickee show, you should check this out as well.

Hey, get a room you two!

Is there anything more majestic to behold than the sight of two wild animals locked in a primal contest for their very survival?

Maybe you can’t tell from this crappy cell phone picture, but what you are looking at here is two gargantuan rats that hate each other’s guts so much, they’ll fight in the middle of the sidewalk. They don’t give a *&#$%!

I thought my rat days were over, now that Double Fine moved to the new offices with the heating and the one-way toilets. But last night I was walking up Fourth Street, passing under the freeway construction that’s been going on for the last decade, and I have to stop because the sidewalk is blocked by what looks like a pile of playful kittens. But no, these are not kittens. These are two giant, plague-coated, Norwegian rats. And they are not playing. They’re trying to kill each other.

Like a couple of drunk sailors tumbling out of a bar, they rolled around on the sidewalk and carried on their battle for all passers-by to see. One was on his back, and the other was on top of him, biting at his neck, and kicking his hind legs into the first one’s gut. He was kicking over and over, and even though I know he was probably trying to disembowel the other rat with his hind claws, it was kind of cute. The kicking made him look like he was hopping up and down. And the way the loose, brown fur flopped around, he looked like a tiny Snuffleupagus.

I approached the deadly vermin thinking they would get scared and scamper off, but no. They just kept jumping on each other, ripping at each other’s throats. So I took a picture.

Then this guy walked by and I explained enthusiastically, “Rat fight!” And he looked at me like I was nuts, and then I looked down and the rats were gone. And now I think he probably didn’t see the rats, but though that I was challenging him to a rat fight. Which I wasn’t. I would never challenge anyone to a rat fight unless I were armed.

I was walking through this Mexican restaurant today, just to use the phone, and somehow I tripped and fell and my mouth landed on a Chicken Mole Torta and I ate it.

This just in: Yesterday was not Friday.

All day long I thought it was Friday. As I stepped off the train and walked to my house, I was thinking, “Man, that was a long week, but at least it’s Friday, and now I have a long Memorial day weekend ahead of me with no plans except to sit around in my bathrobe and play Guitar Hero II.”

And then I saw all my neighbors had their garbage bins on the curb and I wondered how I had managed to miss garbage day and then I remembered that I had watched “Lost” the night before and that oh my god it was Thursday, and I dropped down to the sidewalk and pounded the cement with my fist and I cried and cried.

But then an angel came down and spoke to me and said, “Do you really wish it were Friday? I could make it so, but that would mean that you would lose that day of your life forever.”

And I said, “Heck yeah. Do it to it.”

And the angel said, “Okay, but first let me show you what that day would have been like, had you not wished it away.”

And he took me under his wing and flew me into the future that would never be and I saw that Daniel would bring donuts to the office, and that later Levi would bring in two kinds of cake. And I figured that I should probably bulk up on calories because there’s no food back at the house and if I had to go out and shop for groceries at any point this weekend I’d have to change out of my bathrobe and that would ruin the magic plan.

So I said, “You know what, angel? I guess every day is precious and I should never wish one away, ever. Why don’t you take me home. I think tomorrow’s going to be a pretty good day.” (And I kind of half-winked, half-squinted at him for emphasis while I said, “pretty good.")

The angel looked a little embarrassed and I could tell he thought what I said was corny, but he had to act nice because he was an angel. And then I tried to pretend that I was being ironically corny, but that just made it worse. So he took me home and made some excuse about how he had to be somewhere else and then took off.

So I pulled our garbage bins to the curb and went inside the house and found out that my wife had bought me some new socks. True story.

I had a dream the other night that I died in an earthquake. I was on the tenth floor of a building, and it started shaking, and I thought, “Oh cool, the Big One is finally here!” But then the view out the window started changing and I was like, “Uh oh. Building’s falling over.” And then I died.

People say it’s boring when other people talk about their dreams. So, I’m sorry for boring you. BUT I wanted to tell you so that if I DID die in an earthquake, you could point at this news post and say, “Whoa. Freaky.”

And also, this: I feel that ideas come into your mind through a small, imaginary tube. And the tube is only one idea wide. Only one idea can flow through it at a time. And for days this idea of dying in an earthquake has been sitting at the end of my own tube. I didn’t think it was an interesting enough idea to actually turn into a news item, and so I just left it sitting at the end of the tube. But then I began to wonder--what if leaving that idea sitting there, clogging up the tube, means that no other ideas can come out? There might be a whole bunch of good ideas in there, stuck!

And I also wondered if you leave your idea tube jammed up like that for a long time, does the grand dispatcher of ideas re-route the idea traffic to other tubes? I sure hope not. Oh man. What if it’s too late?

So here I am, flushing out my idea tube. It feels really good. Maybe I should get them all out. Maybe I should purge the tube of all ideas that never made it on to the news page. Okay, let’s see…

Once, on the way home from work I saw a guy walking down the street wearing a cape that he made out of a towel that was printed with images from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. And I swear to god, this guy had a chicken on his head. Just sitting on top of his head, snuggled down into his bushy hair, as the man walked with long, stately strides. He was like the Chicken King of Sixth Street.

I never mentioned it because it sounds like the kind of thing that someone would make up. “I saw a guy with a chicken on his head!” It just sounds phony. But I swear it is true.

Oh, it feels good to get this out.

Here’s something else I never mentioned: When it rained really hard at our old offices, sometimes the downstairs toilet would overflow with raw human waste from the city sewers. I never put that on the news page, but that had more to do with recruiting purposes than with the idea tube.

(Our new bathrooms are awesome and have automatic soap dispensers and never overflow with human waste, just so you know.)

So, in summary: Death by Earthquake, Chicken King, Raw Sewage.

Now that that’s all out in the open, I’m sure some really awesome stuff’s going to happen.

I don’t know, but it must have been awesome, because now you are free to purchase Double Fine Action Buttons in two different sizes!
(Single-headed baby buttons not available. I don’t even know who’s baby that is. Please don’t sue me, anonymous baby mother.)

Dear Travis,

Thanks for your letter. Although my schedule does not allow me to respond to each fan letter individually, I wanted you to know that it’s letters like these that really make it all seem worth while. So thank you for playing Psychonauts and/or sending in your resume.

Sincerely,

Tim S.

Ha ha. FrontPage! That’s crazy. The very idea! Ho ho.

Thanks for playing Psychonauts!

Love,
T.S.

Okay, look. I’ll admit it. I did originally make the DF website in about two hours with FrontPage just so we would have something up for E3 2002. And people write in all the time saying, hey, you should have an RSS feed, and forums, and nudity, and animated buttons, but look--I don’t know how to do any of that stuff, okay? There, I said it. You are looking at the very limits of my skills here, and this website is just about as good as it’s going to get, ever.

(Tears.)

Unless… somebody applies for this job. The time has finally come for us to hire a web person! To do web stuff. I imagine a beautiful future where we have RSS feeds out our ass and more forums than you could shake a stick at. (That actually wouldn’t be too many forums because I’ll bet after shaking an actual stick at a web forum you would feel pretty dumb and you’d probably give up after about three.)

Anyway, you could be the expediter of that dream. The Bringer of Tomorrow™ is what your official title would be.

We have ice cream drumsticks in the freezer right now. Get hired soon before they’re all gone!

Okay, this such a crazy coincidence, that I’m just going to have to pretend that we meant to do this.

On this day, April 19, two years ago, the most Excellent Game Psychonauts was released unto the world, bringing about 100 years of peace and tranquility to the earth. (Much like Psychonauts, the peace and tranquility are just a little late.)

But on this exact same day in 1943, Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann deliberately ingested the first dose of LSD, and therefore was himself, the very first Psychonaut.

Man, we are effing GENIUSES for releasing Psychonauts on April 19th! I’m so glad we thought of that.

(I wonder if we actually did do that on purpose, but I just can’t remember because of all the LSD I’m constantly taking.)

Kurt Vonnegut died yesterday, and I just wanted to say he was awesome. You're awesome, Kurt! Slaughterhouse Five is a lot of people's favorite book, and there are others who prefer Cat's Cradle, but the first Vonnegut book I read was Breakfast of Champions, and I think that will always be my personal favorite. Although there's something about Sirens of Titan that I really enjoyed. And Galapagos. I read everything he wrote. He had a huge impact on me in high school, and was one of the main reasons I got into writing. So, thanks a lot, Kurt Vonnegut!

Here was the best part:

Shaking Shigeru Miyamoto’s hand on stage. I was so excited that I tensed up and crushed his gentle fingers in my vice-like grip. Look how he winces in pain!

“Did you get a chance to play Psychonauts yet, Miyamoto-san?”

“Please… ow… you’re crushing my hand.”

“I could send you a free copy! You’re awesome!”

“We’re on stage. People are looking. I’m right-handed...”

“I really like it when Mario swims! Where did you get the idea for coins?”

“Gahhh! I beg of you.”

“Ha ha! What’s up with that Wario guy? Why does he hate Mario so much?”

And then his translator tasered me. But I didn’t mind. It was a magical experience that I will never forget, because if I ever started to, I could just watch it again on Gamespot.

I wanted Loco Roco to win more awards, though.

Hey, everybody look the other way while I tell Loco Roco how I really feel about it, okay?





Hey, Loco Roco? I love you.

Okay, I have to admit, I got this picture, like, eight years ago. I just never put it up because I thought, surely, tomorrow I will be able to think of something funny and/or mean to say about them. Every day I thought that, for the last million years. But what could you say about these two lovebirds? Giuseppe and Agata from Sicily have everything! They’re young, and in love, and they have TWO copies of Psychonauts! They don’t even have to fight over it. They can both play at the same time! And look at the awesome sunglasses that Giuseppe has! How cool is he? Those rocks behind them are famous rocks from Greek myths. And they can eat Italian food every night and, apparently, not get fat. Oh, but I can’t resent you, young Italian lovers. Because you love Psychonauts so much. And because I’m half Italian.

(I’m actually not half Italian, but I’ve learned that it pays to just say you are as much as possible because every once in a while it will get you out of a speeding ticket or into a fancy restaurant, if the cop or the host is, themselves, Italian. Saying you’re Norwegian gets you nothing except for a polite grunt or maybe a silent stare. We are a cold, cold people. Luckily my wife is half Italian, when we have kids they will be able to speed down the highway eating lutefisk as much as they want.)

So, like I said, I’m half Italian. To all of my fellow Italian’s I say to you, “Amo i Pesci de Babel!”