Seriously, it's really cold. I also have a cold. Getting a slow start to the year here at GeekNights. Of course, our year started with MAGFest. Rym went on a business trip to Istanbul. Not a whole lot of time left for podcasting. That's OK. On Wednesday you can expect things to get back to normal, at least until PAX East. 

It's going to be on March 22-24, 2013 in Boston, MA. They are looking for people to take up the red (black) and become [E]nforcers. Saturday badges are sold out, so if you didn't buy them the first day they went on sale like we told you to, enforcing is a good idea. It's a good idea even if you do already have badges. For the first time we also have applied to enforce. Join us. It turns out we are going to be doing two new gaming related panels there as well. We'll have more details on that once they get their schedule live.

You know we here in the Front Row Crew enjoy a wide array of geekeries. As seasons change, our moods float from one geekery to the next, and back around again. Sometimes it's anime season. Sometimes it is bicycling season. Sometimes it's rabbit or duck season. Well, right now it is gaming season.

On the table top, I have been playing Android: Netrunner somewhat seriously. I've been attending an NYC meetup, and even a tournament. Rym and other people I know are starting to get into it as well. It was the subject of a recent episode. It's probably going to be a focal point of many conventions to come, so now is the time to get on the bandwagon.

On the desktop I have been playing not much else besides Natural Selection 2, which continues to rapidly improve with each patch. Rym and many forumites continue to play Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on our official server. Choose wisely. You don't want the aliens or the terrorists to win.

Sr. A asks,

What are your favorite/recommended videogames, anime, manga, boardgames, books, films and whatever other medium you like? Could you provide a GeekNights Top 10 or so for each of them?

Well, Sr. A I don't want to get up on you, but this question is pretty lame. I'm only answering it because there weren't any other questions mailed in. So if anyone else has a question please send it to geeknights@frontrowcrew.com. 

Top ten lists are pretty boring. They are really only used as linkbait by lazy blogs. They get a lot of views and a lot of comments because people no matter what you put on the list there are tons of people who will agree or disagree. No two people will have the same list. You can really pick almost randomly, and get a lot of traffic and discussion.

If you listen to GeekNights, I think you should know what we like. How can you listen to someone talk for hundreds of hours about geekery and not know what their favorite things are? Everyone knows what we prefer because we talk about it on the Internets constantly. What's really interesting is what all the quiet people think. If we could get lists from everyone else and combine them, then we could perhaps learn something. Maybe we'll do just that.

We announced The Great Gatsby as our next book club selection quite some time ago. Rym didn't bother to update the web site with it until recently. When he did, a forum thread was automatically created, and shit exploded. Apparently people have really strong feelings about this classic and ultra-famous book. It's actually surprisingly short. I read it for the first time, and the episode will happen soon. Like it or not, a book of this significance is a must read. There's no time like the present.

With a dearth of Thursday show ideas, we managed to come up with the idea of discussing parking. A little weird seeing neither of us still owns a car or drives on a regular basis. Still, it is something that affects the lives of anyone who lives anywhere that cars are present. 

We came back from MAGFest, and immediately blasted out an episode. Not only do we talk about what happened at the con, but also a bunch of the new board games we played there.

Right before New Years we pulled out this episode that seemed to go over quite well. We took a look at the new anime chart and judged all the shows based only on the jpg and the text blurb. Spring anime is already starting, and it seems like we were quite right about many of these shows. It should be fun to go listen to the episode and see how strong our powers of anime prediction are.

While we haven't been podcasting, we have been editing and uploading a lot of the videos we recorded some time ago. There's a lot more in the hopper, but we're going to take our sweet time uploading them unless they get a lot more views. 

While it's freezing cold in the real world, the forum seems to be sunny with a chance of zombies. The Say Something Nice About the Poster Above You arose from its grave after an entire year without activity. Also keep in mind the aforementioned Gatsby tornado which seems to have moved on, but is schedule to return in a few weeks. 

Press [X] to give up.

I'm going to remove this section from the newsletter from now on except when we have received something. You know where to send it.