Team Fortress 2 Raises Over $430,000 For Japan Relief Efforts

That above is the exact amount: $430,543.65. All of it will go directly to the American Red Cross to be put to use in relief efforts for the devastating natural disaster that occurred in Japan a month ago.

The money was raised from TF2 players purchasing special hats that were available to purchase for a limited time. I've decried and bemoaned TF2's Mann Co. Store since its inception, but this was a very nice use of the service and I commend Valve for doing putting this together. Of course, if they really wanted to raise a lot of money, they'd include earnings from selling crate keys, but that's a whole different story...

Congratulations to Valve for raising a lot of money for a very worthy cause.

3LL's 3DS Odyssey: Part 1

Hello, dear reader. It's been a week since I've made a new blog post, and coincidentally, it's been a week since the 3DS was launched in North America. And what a week it was. A week of seeing, a week of believing. A week of StreetPassing, a week of SpotPassing. A week of reality augmenting, a week of face raiding. A week of... umm, sorry about that. Didn't mean to go all Charles Dickens on you. Apologies.

I decided back then to forgo rushing some quick impressions up on the site and instead wait a week, get a good feel for the device, learn its ins and outs, and then write about my impressions, thoughts, criticisms, and what have you. I'm going to break this up into parts, since I'm sure no one wants to read giant, rambling walls of text. This first part, appropriately titled "Part 1", will be about my launch day experience, which I'm sure a lot of you will find boring, but just think of it as a necessary introduction into more interesting things to come later, okay? Alright, here we go.

Before I could set my eyes upon the 3D screen for the first time and start playing, I had to, you know, buy one. All signs leading up to the launch suggested incredible scarcity, so naturally I didn't do a pre-order, because I'm just that cool. Instead, I phoned up a bunch of local retailers to see if they were going to have any. First GameStop, no luck. Second GameStop, the same. Third GameStop, they said they'd probably have a few. Cool. I decided to also try the local Target, and the helpful man on the phone said that they were going to have a bunch available. Right on! I always knew not being prudent and refusing to get a pre-order would pay off in the end.

Early morning, Sunday March 27th, and it's time to head out and pick up my 3DS. I got there a little bit before the store opened, just in case there was going to be a bunch of people lining up. There weren't. Oh well. I got in and, at last, purchased my Aqua Blue 3DS. The person working there said they had 24 3DSes, which surprised me a little that they had so many available, but as I'd learn later, it seems like supply shortages turned out to not be much of an issue at all. A lot has been made about whether this means the 3DS is selling poorly or whether it just means that Nintendo manufactured an adequate supply of units this time as opposed to the Wii launch, where there was nary a Wii to be found anywhere (except on eBay for a ridiculously gouged price). I'm inclined to believe the latter.

And so, triumphant, with 3DS in hand, I returned home. Then, all of a sudden, without warning, THE MOST INCREDI*... nah, I think I'll stop here for now. Tune in next time to hear about my initial impressions! Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

* nothing exciting or unexpected actually happens, I'm just trying to drum up suspense for the next part of this feature.