Ara was surprised to find a mosh pit at the Minibosses concert, Alon was NOT surprised to find Sony backtracking on their own marketing spin (again), Rich couldn't figure out why either of them cared about the girl who got fired from Nintendo for blogging, and listener, Pen-15, wondered what we all think game reviews are really all about.

Is there any chance Bungie would actually leave Microsoft? Did Ara actually like a game (apparently Odin Sphere doesn't suck)? We learn from Ernie that talking about the Tokyo Game Show is actually pretty boring, although the idea of 200 booth babes in a line is kind of appealing.

Alon, Ara, and Rich were all at the Play N Trade launch tournament/fiasco for Halo 3 last night. Scratched discs just weren't pretty. Rather than talk about the actual game, we choose to talk a bit about its aspect ratio in split screen. Listener and official ChatterBoxer eThug, PEN-15, gets his questions answered regarding how to go about entering the video game industry as a writer. Low and behold, Ara has some good things to say about a game - it's Kororinpa, and you might want to give it a try.

In preparation of Halo 3's release next week, we play a song from SarcasticGamer.com and try not to discuss the game at all. We do, however, let Rich tell us about Manhunt 2, which kind of sucks. We also talk to Val, the owner of Play N Trade, a killer game store in Chandler, AZ. Alon has a hissy fit about experience leveling after watching people play the Call of Duty 4 beta. Also, Ara rants about the Chinese government setting some game design ground rules to curb game addiction.

Ara reviews the game industry salary survey for your pleasure and explains why attempting to enter the industry as a tester is not necessarily a good idea anymore. We all explain why E for All will be a lame convention, reminisce about why everyone should read the book, The Game by Neil Strauss, and we even find time to talk about the ActionClix Scarab unit from the new Halo universe ActionClix game. Go buy a Prius.