I was recently invited to be a guest on TPG Cast with Adam Ames and Phil Cordaro, and though Adam sadly had to miss, Phil and I had a great discussion on how I got started with Matt Chat, academic gaming, DRM, where the industry is headed, and much more. These guys are a hoot, so please check out their other episodes if you like this one.

Pebble Armchair Arcade FacePaul, aka @prode81 on Twitter, has made available one of the first Pebble watch apps, a nifty Web browser-based watch face generator. The link is here, and it's a simple, but great way to experiment with your own Pebble watch without knowing a lick of programming. Check the image below to see how the Armchair Arcade watch face turned out, plus you can scan the QR code with your phone to put it on your own Pebble. If you like Paul's work, don't forget to donate!

Hi, folks. I thought that today, in the spirit of the "top" lists that are so ubiquitous these days, I'd offer you a list of five reasons why you should care about Armchair Arcade. Many of you may not even know what it is or how it got started, but even those of us who've been around since the early days might like a little refresher and a personal view. So, here goes.

Reason #5: Founded in 2003. That's right, folks, Armchair Arcade has been around for eight years. Actually, its birthday is in September. There's not many non-commercial websites that can make that claim, especially not many dedicated to vintage games and computers. You should feel comfortable making this your home base, because you can rest assured we are here to stay. You can read our about us page or our FAQ to learn more.

For all you frequent fliers out there, you might have noticed an article in the March 2011 issue of Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine entitled, Play it Again, Man!. It was written several months back (thank you, print lead time) by Jennifer Nalewicki under advisement from yours truly and my frequent partner-in-crime, Matt Barton. Besides mentioning us and Armchair Arcade, you'll also see a nod to our book, Vintage Games, in the header. While it's not a long piece, it's nice to see something targeted to mainstream audiences like Spirit Magazine is featuring positive videogame content. Check out the print version on your next Southwest Airlines flight or click here for the PDF or here for the decidedly less fun text-only version.

As we enter our ninth calendar year of operations here at Armchair Arcade, I just wanted to take a moment on behalf of the entire team to wish everyone out there a happy, healthy, and successful 2011, and reflect on what has come and what will come around here. A lot has happened since Armchair Arcade's founding in 2003, some bad of course, but most of it very, very good. We released a year and a half worth of original Webzines before moving exclusively to an available-content-right-after-it's-created blog format, which began in October 2004. We've produced four major books to date, with the promise of more on the way. We've been in production on a major feature film documentary since 2009, which we expect to finish and release this year. We've been producing popular Web videos since 2004. And of course we recently entered the podcasting arena with our eclectic Armchair Arcade Radio, which is already onto its sixth episode. Though that's just the tip of the ongoing saga that has been Armchair Arcade, it's something I'm quite proud of and quite thankful to have you along for the ride after so many others have come, gone and even come and gone again (and again).

Anything new you'd like to see us tackle in 2011? Have other ideas? Have some feedback? Let us know in the comments. We always love when you make some noise out there!

We're proud to announce that Chip Hageman is now the newest team member of Armchair Arcade. Many of you already know of Chip from his blog posts at Armchair Arcade and his recent contribution to Episode 5 of the Armchair Arcade Radio podcast, and of course his Websites, ArcadeOasis.net and Shmuptacular.com. Join me in welcoming Mr. Hageman to the team and be sure to check out the About Us page for more on him and the rest of the Armchair Arcade staff, which spans the United States, Canada, and Europe.

We're proud to announce that Rob Daviau, a.k.a., MaximumRD, is now the newest team member of Armchair Arcade. Many of you already know of Rob from his long-time membership at Armchair Arcade, and of course his many MaximumRD YouTube videos. Join me in welcoming Mr. Daviau to the team and be sure to check out the About Us page for more on him and the rest of the Armchair Arcade staff, who know cover the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Unfortunately, I jumped the gun a bit on declaring everything "fine". Oddly enough, at my regular job, it has still not caught up with the changes, so I was working from the old Website and ONLY seeing that when here. I've disabled all the old stuff now so hopefully there will be no more confusion. I also tried to move all of the changes on the other site to this new site, so everything should be caught up now. Hopefully my work location can catch up by Monday, because I can't even check my e-mail there due to the delay. Anyway, below is the message I had put on the old site when I thought it was the new one, hence the confusion... (I'm using LogMeIn Pro right now to access my home PC at work)

Well, following up my now non-existent blog post from yesterday entitled, "Armchair Arcade Deluxe Collector's Edition", it looks like the switchover to our new host went without a hitch. The reason why yesterday's post is non-existent is that the site on the old host was still being updated while the nameserver stuff caught up, but it looks like everything flowed through nicely. So now we have unlimited everything with Hostgator. I was so impressed with the truly seamless switchover (we're talking new site, old site, e-mail addresses, etc.) that I signed us up for their affiliate program, so if you wish to check them out, use the banner below (I'll probably move my personal sites over as soon as they're up for renewal as well). We're going to kick the tires until our monthly renewal next month and if all goes well, we'll sign up long term. We still have the site (no longer updated naturally) at the old host as a backup plan and that will be active - assuming all goes well - until that's up for renewal again, at which time we'll cancel.

So, in simple terms, what does this mean for everyone? Basically that we no longer have to worry about hosting images and files on our Website. We can record podcasts and store the files here, which can automatically be polled by iTunes. We can store large PDFs of manuals and scans. We can incorporate more images. Etc. The sky really is the limit now.