Today my new business cards arrived. Once I got past the shock of seeing the 1UP logo sharing billing with UGO’s, I had to deal with a second (and far more terrifying) realization: in a fit of rash madness, I asked them to add the URL to the Retronauts Twitter to the card. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but in the cold light of reality there’s a truly unnerving sensation that comes from seeing something so transient permanently imprinted to your own identity. I have to hand one of these to Shigeru Miyamoto in a few days, and brother, is he gonna laugh. Well, he won’t, because he’s the most genteel game developer I’ve ever met, but I’ll see the disappointment in his eyes, and I’ll know.

On the plus side, though: hey! EGM. It makes me a little sad to see the magazine return knowing I won’t be contributing to it in any capacity this time around, but that’s definitely outweighed by the whole “Hey! EGM” aspect of it. Besides, I already have my placebo replacement.

And speaking of Retronauts, I’m sure most people who read this site also follow the blog… although it’s sort of difficult to find from the main page of 1UP at the moment, so maybe not. For whatever reason — maybe relief from having the Quarterly out of the way, or perhaps an adrenaline rush of fear as I hurtle toward the assured death that is E3 — I feel like my Retronauts posts this week were really, really good. Unusually good. If you’ve missed them, please give them a read:

• A Bionic Commando Primer, Vol. 1: Wherein I bag on the arcade game.
• Can Ghosts ‘N Goblins Make a Comeback?: No, I really don’t hate the series, you big babies.
• Gaming’s Noble Failures: An ode the Super Mario World‘s most wonderfully useless feature.
• Samus Aran and the Mysterious Case of the Wall Walkers: A treatise on a classic game-breaking maneuver.
• Something Old, Something Blu: A rundown of the Star Trek movie games (or at least what actually is known of them, since most of them were never completed).

Aaand it’s about time for me to head off to E3. Wish me luck.