Who wants to play an altered reality RTS about sustainable publishing processes called Destructoid?  I'll be at the University of Miami's Launch Pad event today at 4 PM trying to explain whatever it is I do here.

I'm almost certain that, perhaps with the exception of star pornographers, I've one of the best jobs in the universe in the history of everything, ever.  I'd also like to believe that when I'm not asking my team to bring me calories and golden flasks of caffeine we're working together to create a company that publishes awesome -- a job I'm honestly figuring out as I go, as my resume hasn't exactly prepared me to do this, which is half the fun. I hope to do this until they drag me away.

Who's behind Destructoid? Some dude that didn't even finish college: Instead of taking another math class for the billionth time I really wanted to dick around on the Internet instead. Lucky?  Sure. But you have to create the possibility that luck will knock at your door sometimes by doing things like getting on airplanes and being in places you have no business being in (E3 2006, in my case).

Working on Dtoid is living the dream.  We believe in ten things* -- a list we compiled as a collective that keeps this ship together even in the crappiest of economic times.  It works for us. I live by it. Quitting college at a school that offered no web design classes when Barnes and Nobles had the web books required a leap of faith. I'd like to believe making those calculated risks can make all the difference, even if conventional wisdom (and your infinitely wise parents) think you're out of your mind. Be crazy. Have the nads. Don't wait until you're rotting to think about what could have been had you dared.

Anyhow, I've been given the unique opportunity to tell a graduating class of business students to work at the kind of lives and companies that mean something to people.  I'm a guest speaker at University of Miami's Launchpad's Science and Tech day, which will also includes mobile and game design talks.  I'm also looking forward to listening in on Alienware's Nelson Gonzalez (no relation) and the guys from Dell. My song and dance starts at 4pm, so swing by if you're free.  Look for the guy in the robot helmet.

[*Maybe 11. Ask me in person.  Buddha art by Justin Togail]

Update:  Today is the last day to enter the raffle.  Good luck!

A wise young man at PAX once asked me: "Why the hell is it so hard to meet up and play with people on Dtoid?" Good question! So we got to work and today I'm proud to unveil the new version of our community gaming meetup thing.  Try out Destructoid meetup+play!

How it works: We pick a handful of the most popular games on PC and consoles.  You add them to your Dtoid profile and set what timezone and times you're usually up for an online game. People can then see what games you own and you can send them a private message to meet up. You can even score the results of the match if you want to play competitively, and each PM gives links to your personal private chat room to facilitate meetup communication without compromising your privacy.

Try it out for a chance to win sick Vigor gaming PCs. 

We'll enter your name in a raffle for $1,500 gaming PC just for adding your games and sending one request to play.  Next week the most active players will be invited to a private meetup against Dtoid editors to compete for gaming prizes for Intel, including a beastly $5,000 PC courtesy of Vigor Gaming.  Don't you wish all beta tests worked like this?

Remember Cinematech?  It was a G4 show that played the latest trailers, cut-scenes, and commercials of upcoming video games (with a special segment on smutty Japanese games) with little or no commentary.  While these assets are now posted daily all over the web on sites like ours I miss being able to just leave it playing in the background while baking a turkey or having threesomes. With some help from Viddler we threw some duct tape together and decided to pay a little homage. The result is: www.destructoid.tv

What it is:  A site that allows you to watch all of our videos back-to-back, in full screen, without ever having to lift a finger.  You can move your mouse to the sides of the screen to skip ahead and resize the window to 480p HD, or 720p HD (when available).  The minimal interface also lets you drill down by console, all which contain hours of video.  If you'd like more control you can also browse by playlist.   Destructoid.TV also works on the PlayStation 3, but not the Wii (face!) so we'll work on fixing that. 

In the coming days we'll also add channels for our video originals (Hey Ash, The Video Game Show, Video Reviews) as well as event coverage. We hope you like it -- let me know what you think!

Advertising: No matter how retarded your idea is someone will eventually bump into it and pay attention.

While not surfing for pornography one of our readers spotted an advertisement for Alliance of Valiant Arms, a two-year old Korean FPS that ijji acquired recently.  (They added a lovely coat of localization & Internet bubble wrap for European and American audiences this year).  The game seems to borrow heavily from popular wartime game franchises, so its no surprise that this made it into the marketing.  Better than Call of Duty 4 and Counterstrike combined you say?  "Why wait for Modern Warfare 2?", it says. Check out the gallery below. This must be the greatest FPS of our generation! 

Or not.

You can't blame them for trying. The banner ads appear to be real testimonials from fans, but exactly where these comments were posted remains a mystery.  Their authenticity could not be confirmed by doing Google searches for either of the player handles.  Maybe they were translated from the original game's Chinese and Korean communities, or sent privately though the air to their minister of propaganda by a bilingual carrier pigeon ambassador.

Curious like to see how it stacks up? Check out AVA's site and try to sneak into the beta.  Maybe we can see our our reader testimonials stack up to the ones that made the ads. If you've played it let's hear your comments.

Shameless self-promotion: I'm hosting a Weird Games Panel at Infinite Bits, Miami's biggest video game convention.  We'll kick things off on Friday, 6 PM at the Doubletree near the airport but the convention runs all weekend long. You can save a few meseta on admission as pre-registration is still open.

If you were mad enough to stay up with us last weekend you may have caught a few of the unusual games in my collection, which include Super Mic Chan where you use a USB PS2 microphone to literally scream at meteors while avoiding monkeys to save planet earth, or eating falling hot dogs with a floating clown head in Snacks N' Jaxon which I detailed in this ancient malformed blog post. I aim to traumatize with ten obscure titles from my questionable game collection. All games will be playable, so I will need a few volunteers and will be awarding those brave souls with swag for making an ass of yourself. Oh yes, there will be video.

There's plenty of other cool stuff going on at the con, too. They have one of the most expansive retro game museums I've ever seen, Twin Galaxies will be hosting official World Record competitions, there's an Unreal Engine 3 level design thing, and special guests like Billy Mitchell, Doug Walker, Ben Heck, and the guy that made the Metal Gear Awesome series, Egoraptor.  It wouldn't be a proper nerdfest without a Rock Band faceoff, video game cover band performances and movies, and they've got that covered, too.  Also, some guy in a  robot suit from Hialeah.

Should be good times, see you there!

For some reason I could not find a single photo of Benjamin Franklin dressed like a thug in full bling. If it is all about the benjamins, why hasn't someone thought of this? Google images has failed me once again. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places.

Anyway, quick contest: One of our ad sponsors has offered up $100 to a random reader for taking a five minute survey.  Just fill out the thing and the last question will prompt for contact details.  It's your average "how much time do you spend gaming/what consoles do you like?" type stuff. Your contribution into this readership study allows us to continue bringing you high quality educational content daily.  The sponsor is choosing the winner, so once that's done we'll update this post immediately as soon the drawing is done.  Good luck!

Just a quick site update: You can now login and comment with your Facebook account. Better late than never, right? Since FB is larger than most countries and 40% of the Internet is always logged in we thought this might shave 5 seconds off your daily web commute.

If you're a lurker and have never used Dtoid, just click "Connect" and you're done. We'll import your avatar from Facebook automatically and the gates of commenting and blogging will open to you. You know the drill: Don't suck or we'll lock you in the refrigerator with the other severed heads.

Existing Dtoiders - it's easy to migrate your accounts to also login with Facebook.  Here's how: First, login to your account the old way and edit your Dtoid profile to match the *primary* email address on your Facebook account.  Save your changes and logout.  You should now be able to login with Facebook.  Otherwise if you have different emails you may end up with a dupe account, as we principally use emails to identify people.

Just a little something to make using Dtoid easier.  We also improved some functionality for Opera 10 users. Next up we're improving the comments system and our photo gallery.  How can we make Destructoid better for you?  Suggest a feature in our feedback system and we'll hop to it!

It's funny how you often meet people on the Internet through unusual and fleeting circumstances. 

For example, weeks ago I'd heard that they were making a Tucker Max movie so I checked out the site, bracing myself for a story about sorostitute midgets doing helicopter spins on him in a stolen hearse.  Instead, his blog was about how the Chicago Transit Authority had pulled all of the I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell ads because they found the ad campaign was demeaning to women. I look at the banner and it says "Strippers will not tolerate disrespect. (Just Kidding)."  Is this really worse than the "I support single moms" shirts that the cool kids wear to school? They were looking for people to help spread the word (and I'm always a sucker for the underdog) so I got in touch, and to my surprise they had a gaming story for me. There was a Halo cameo in the movie with something special too: a unique controller made just for the film.

Legendary game hardware hacker Benjamin Heck was approached by the movie's prop people for a "highly customized Xbox 360 controller for a game-obsessed character".  The controller didn't actually have to be functional, but knowing Ben he absolutely did make it real -- and gave them two for backup. Destructoid is now happy to bring you the exclusive clip of Drew raping someone with it in Halo. Warning: it has NSFW language, but nothing your baby nephew doesn't already say on Xbox Live. 

Surprisingly, the controller looks rather comfortable and practical.  I think I want it (also, inside of me).

Destructoid turns four next year. That's ridiculous. Surely we should be either bankrupt or lecherous sellouts by now, right? Somehow we're still here by no small contribution of Dtoid's plucky editors and more importantly our community. We're here because Google says 1.4 million people read us each month for some reason. 

What the hell is wrong with you people? 

So how did we get here, you ask? Well, there's about 16 editors across various cities so when we alternate robbing convenience stores its much harder to track. There's also the fact that there's nothing else in the world I'd rather be doing right now than listening to the F-Zero soundtrack while drinking the uncarbonated remains of last night's midnight Taco Bell soda. If you're curious about what motivated me to start the site I did an unflattering interview with the folks at The Gamer Studio about the site's early influences and how you too can  become an abusive husband at your trade. The article exposes me for the hack publisher/web designer/writer/human being that I am, which is important for you to know if we're going to continue being Internet friends. 

Some critics of Destructoid may not appreciate our granola success and have even come to attack my under qualifications, and that's OK.  For them I offer them this answer: I'm having a lot of fun learning what to do along the way, but my immediate Saturday plan to beef up my journalistic acumen is to watch Muppets in Space. That's the one where Moses tells Gonzo that he's doomed and kicks him off the arc, I think.

Let's do it again!  Destructoid's 24/7 Gaming Meetup begins again today this time with competitive skill-ranked matches in Unreal Tournament and participation prizes for casual gamers. Here's how it works:

1. Join FNF and complete a duel in Unreal Tournament 99' against another player (don't have the game? It's $10 on Steam or on GOG.com) to be entered into our raffle for the $1,300 PC.  Each completed game (win or lose) is a point.  PLAY NOW

2. Play competitively if you wish to win bigger prizes! Up for grabs: high-powered gaming systems from Velocity Micro and Vigor crowned by two grand prize PCs valued at over $5,000 each.  The first leg of of the tournament will be hosted by Velocity Micro - check out the prizes and specs.

Hit the jump for the rules.  Good luck!

Who wants a $100 American Express gift certificate, courtesy of our sponsor? (Dtoid_Hammershark and Phantomile won the last two.) It may as well be you. Asus is curious about what gamers want future gaming notebooks to be like, so we're doing five more $100 giveaways to contribute ideas to their crowd-sourced PC. At the end of the year they're actually committed to building the most popular suggestion. Exciting, eh?

You may have already spotted our topic this week on the sidebar: Dual-Screen notebooks. Asus debuted a concept system (that thing pictured above is real, sans Starcraft II, which nobody's touching until next year) last year and is contemplating mass production. I got my panties wet and later in a bunch when I read about this thing -- it could be way, way cool but it could also suck in various ways. I wrote about it earnestly on my weekly WePC diatribe, which we invite you to weigh in on.

How to win the booty:

Tell Asus what you think by posting a comment on this WePC.com  thread (not in the comments below).  If you don't have an account on WePC, please register your username as "Dtoid_YourName" so I know how to contact you later (Dtoid_Niero).  You may post your thoughts *once a day* to increase your chances to win. Important: This is a moderated discussion by Asus and Intel, so you must stay on topic or your comments may be deleted. The winner will be selected at random next week when we give away the next $100 gift card. All territories are eligible to win. Comment away. Yes, dudes that already commented are registered. Good luck!

The limited edition run of "Become" by Ashley Davis!

Update: SOLD OUT!

Thanks to everyone that ordered. They're being printed right now - we'll have photos and estimated ship times for you next week. The shirts ship on the 25th, so expect them in early September.

Thanks to everyone that participated in our MAINGEAR Call of Duty 4 raffle and tournament, sponsored by Intel.

Casual players: If you completed a match or played for a bonus ticket you've been registered to win the $1,300 PC this Friday, so best of luck!

Skill ladder players: We'll be combing through the results this week and will announce the players that move on to the semi-finals soon.  These guys will be playing for a chance to win sick computers.

Random prize winners! Congratulations to Smurfee Mcgee who won the Cyberpower gaming mouse, and five Overlord winners: Grizbo, NV_misfit, Renemonney, Zakupilot256, and KenjiXSamurai. Nice way to start a Saturday, guys!

Not one of our winners today?  There's still a ton of other contests going on, such as posting a comment for a chance to win a $100 American Express gift certificate from Intel & Asus. We're also giving away an Xbox 360 for dressing up funny as well as a PSP. Check our contest page for more updates! 

First, a matter of old business: Congratulations to Dtoid_Hammershark who takes home a $100 American Express gift certificate, courtesy of our sponsor.  Asus is curious about what gamers want future gaming notebooks to be like, so we're doing five more $100 giveaways to contribute ideas to their crowd-sourced PC. At the end of the year they're actually committed to building the most popular suggestion. Exciting, eh?

Last week I proposed an overclocked water-cooled gaming dock that notebooks could use as external performance upgrades.  The idea was met positively, but with concerns of actual performance and price.  Secondarily, many comments pointed out that netbooks would greatly benefit from such a technology, which brings us to today's topic. What if these upgrades were not bulky docks, but slim snap-ins that you could pick and choose from?  For example, if you don't care about battery life you could simply buy the video card dock.  If you don't care about gaming, you could buy the long-life battery one. Kind of like robot pancakes. The cost, bulk, weight, and engineering complexity of these things might stand to be more reasonable this way.

How to win the booty:

Tell Asus if this idea is awesome, stupid, or if you have a better one by posting a comment on this WePC.com  thread (not in the comments below).  If you don't have an account on WePC, please register your username as "Dtoid_YourName" so I know how to contact you later (Dtoid_Niero).  You may post your thoughts *once a day* to increase your chances to win. Important: This is a moderated discussion by Asus and Intel, so you must stay on topic or your comments may be deleted. The winner will be selected at random next week when we give away the next $100 gift card. All territories are eligible to win. Comment away. Good luck!