The All American Birthday

Now turning 28 isn't the sexiest of birthdays. In fact, it's probably one of the more humdrum or troublesome ones, as you realize your twenties are quickly fleeting and soon you'll be thirty, are still in school, have no job and in no position for marriage or any of that family stuff that your friends are starting to do.

Still with all of that working against me, I was determined to have a good one. Unfortunately, it was a Tuesday, so I still had to go to work. So I put on my new (bad ass) Rolling Stones t-shirt and headed towards the tube.

After I made my usual commute to the office my friends surprised me with breakfast - a handful of mini chocolate muffins and a pair of (delicious) donuts, all with candles. They sang and it was nice, and as previously mentioned, delicious.

Then it was back to work - the perfect remedy for a birthday when you're too old to just get drunk and pass out and too young to hate the thought of getting older and just want to sleep. So we got cracking on our assignments.

At lunch time I made a quick run to Subway for the sub of the day (Tuesday is meatball marinara - and there is no $5 footlong in England. Not even a £5 footlong) and paired it with my birthday present to myself - a can of Mountain Dew, bottled back in the good 'ol US of A with the familiar list of ingredients. Yay America!

After doing a few more hours of work, the group informed me that we had to get going. They had planned my birthday for me and swore to keep it a surprise. Of course after the mega surprise party that Jenn had thrown for me years ago, I've learned to be a little more aware of my surroundings and at least had an idea of what dinner would be like.

It was what I hoped - we went to a place called 'The Big Easy' which is an American themed crabshack and steakhouse. Fantastic. On Tuesdays they also have a great deal, called their deluxe lobster bake. It looks something like this:





That would be a whole Maine lobster, atlantic crab claw, tiger prawns and mussels served with small potatoes and a complimentary Becks. (Not pictured is the incredible belgian waffle ice cream sundae for dessert.) And to make it even more American - when we sat down we noticed an autographed picture of Stevie Wonder, who has eaten there and then they started playing "Kiss" by Prince. It was my own little slice of Americana.

After dinner and dessert I was informed that the party would continue. We hopped on a double decker (and got the front row on the top) and headed towards Picaddilly Circus. There, I was taken to 'Funland' or as I shall refer to it - British Dave and Busters, just without the restaurant. We headed upstairs to the bowling alley and got our bowling on with a few drinks. I was fairly embarrassing, threatening to not break 100 until, when in the 10th frame I finally hit my groove and rolled back to back strikes (the strike dance followed). In the end I had a 106, allowing me to save face.

From there most people headed back home leaving me and Deanna to explore the arcade and play some games. Basically the equivalent of mom and dad going home and leaving the kids alone in a candy store. After waving goodbye to our friends our eyes beemed as we went exploring. The plan was to look around for a while before playing anything, so that we wouldn't waste our time or money on not-worthwhile games.

Of course, within 2 minutes of making this plan we had already started pumping 1 pound coins into Time Crisis 4 to play co-op. It was a lot of fun, and D is a pretty good shot. We finally broke away from the machine and continued looking around. We found bumper cars, but without the rest of the group we took a rain check. More games were played - including the obligatory Sure Shot basketball, some skee-ball, and... a knock-off version of DDR which ended with exhaustion and laughs, mixed with some crushed spirits. Fortunately, digital dancing isn't real dancing just like Guitar Hero isn't playing the guitar.

In the end we cashed in our tickets for 3 bird shaped whistles (one each for D, myself and Julie).
It was the greatest international birthday I ever had, thanks to a great group of Americans.

Food Review - Hot Dogs: The Dogfather

It's only fitting that I review this place first because it may have actually inspired this whole idea. Prior to the opening of the Dogfather (which is on my block) I had only known of a single hot dog purveyor (Zogs Dogs, which will be reviewed later) and was quite content with giving them 100% of my non-at-home hot dog purchases. So the Dogfather opened (I live in Little Italy, so you can figure how they got the name) and it was obvious that I had to give them a shot. Here's how it goes down.

The Dogfather is open late nights (next to Golden Boys pizza, a North Beach staple - despite the fact that they only serve Sicilian, or "sheet" pizza to the non-Itlos) and hopes to attract part of the stumbling home drunk crowd. I visited there for lunch one afternoon before having to go to class. The inside is really cool - flat screen TV in the corner, comfortable tables and of course the whole reason I said it's cool in the first place: table top Pac-Man machines. Two of them. Badass. Of course, you can dress up a shit sandwich with the finest trimming but in the end you're still eating shit. On to the food.

I ordered a foot long with bacon (I'll give San Francisco credit, every hot dog seller has the add bacon option), and a side of fries. I took it home eagerly anticipating what may be.

Overall, it was alright - good, not great. The bacon was the same fairly narrow strips you'd find topped on a Jr. Cheeseburger at Wendy's. You know the bacon I'm talking about, narrower than any strips you'll find at the supermarket, looks crispy but is strangely flaccid. The dog itself wasn't bad. I remember looking at it though and disbelieving that it was really a foot long. I've had plenty of foot longs in my life - most of the time at Yankee and Mets games. Those are Nathans footlongs. They're not that thick but you know it's 12 inches long. (That's what she said).
Anyway, the Dogfather footlong, whether it really was or not, was thicker, so I didn't really mind although it did seem off to me. The taste wasn't bad. It had a slight snap to it but in the end it wasn't any more delicious than the hot dogs you'll find at AT&T Park (also to be reviewed later). The fries though, were very good. Crisp, golden and delicious. But since this isn't about the fries, it's not really enough to make the Dogfather any more worth-while.

An additional side note. While this doesn't pertain to me, since I eat my dogs with only ketchup (some call it 'sacrilege' I call it being a 'purist'), according to early Yelp reviewers, the Dogfather was charging extra for "toppings" like sauerkraut, onions and relish. That's just a violation of cardinal hot dog rules. Those things are free. Ask any street vendor in NY and they'll tell you the same thing. That's part of the hot dog. I just choose not to add them. I understand charging for real extras, like my bacon, but 'kraut, onions and relish are fundamental staples. It'd be like charging for ketchup or mustard. I'm hoping they've since changed their policy because that just kills your legitimacy immediately.

The other problem I have, and this is just the way shit is in California, is that it's not just "the Dogfather" it's "the Dogfather, next line: salciceria". Seriously now? You're selling hot dogs (yes, I understand you have "gourmet" sausages as well) and trying to target the drunk, coming home from bars crowd. Salciceria is about as pretentious (cocksuker) as you can get.

Decent enough hot dog, but not for the price (meal came to around $11). Really only worth coming back to have an order of fries while playing Pac-man.

Heavy Rain - Hero

Today I finished my first playthrough of "Heavy Rain" the interactive movie experience for the PS3. I'm going to shy away from calling it a game because, well it's really not. There's no game designed control scheme, the action is pre-determined with a series of button presses and controller motions putting you through what boils down to a game of Simon to determine if you "pass" or "fail" the sequence.

Now don't get me wrong, because I loved the experience. I had been waiting for this game since I had first gotten a glimpse of it and heard the concept at last year's E3 - thanks again to G4 for their live coverage. Anyway, the story is what makes this a worthwhile experience. For the "game type" a mystery is perfect. Your cast of characters are everymen (and an everywoman), not superheros, government trained killers or anything like that. No super moves, special attacks or anything other than thinking, and the occasional quick reflex. For me this was a refreshing concept.

As for the critiques, yeah it starts off a little slow in chapters that are basically tutorials design to get you immersed in the world of the game and familiar with how the controls work. But seriously, it's not much fun to take a shower, brush your teeth and get dressed. If you can just accept this opening slow moving part of the ride (like the ascent up the first hill on a rollercoaster) you'll be okay. Next, some of the button movements you need to execute are a pain. In particular the shake the controller up and down. I failed that in just about every situation it was required. Sometimes you have to do it for a while and somehow I'd go to fast or something, and then during your standard quicktime event, somehow I wouldn't do it correctly there either. I don't know, it got frustrating at the end of the "experience" and required more than a few re-loads (since I was going for the best ending on this playthrough). Finally, and this is a complaint I'm borrowing from one of my favorite game critiques (Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw - star of "Zero Punctuation" on theescapist.com ) - while throughout the game your actions change dialogue, how characters interact with each other, and what endings you'll receive upon completion - the killer is always the same. Sort of lame and it zaps away motivation for playing through again. Why exactly would I when I already know who the killer is? I suppose the developers were hoping on trophies and seeing the different endings to be the motivation, but it's sort of a weak one.

So those are my few minor complaints about Heavy Rain, but overall it was definitely enjoyable, a bit hard to watch at one point (if you play it, you'll know what I mean), and an interesting and unique experience. Well worth the price of admission for this show.

Reality isn't friendly

Sure this commercial probably won't win Sony any points with women but it's pretty close to accurate. Remember years ago when GTA: Vice City came out and then there were reports of couples breaking up, marriages ending and a whole slew of couples therapists being able to add new cars to their garages. God of War III is another game like that, glad that Sony is staying true with this "It only does everything" campaign and making the tongue and cheek joke everyone knows is reality.

GDC 2010 - Disappointment

So I went to the Game Developers Conference today, on a free Expo pass that I got from a friend at school. Thank goodness because if I had to pay $250 to get in there I probably would have rage killed and teabagged everyone in there like a 15 year old on Xbox Live. At least I would have had the common decency not to shout racist epithets while doing so.

Anyway, here's why it was a disappointment, and it's probably my own fault - incorrect expectations. This isn't like the TGS (Tokyo Game Show), CES (Consumer Electronics Show) or E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) - no, this is a convention for Game Developers to learn about new industry technologies, paddle their resumes around, network with other nerds and occassionaly catch a glimpse of top quality developer's masturbatory material. For an ad school student, you're really out of place, no matter how much you like games.

Want to know the highlights? There were 2: 1) Registration - you have to enter your name, company name and position which will be printed on your badge. Thanks to some genius programming those are all required fields. So being the quick thinking writer that I am, I filled them in. Bob Tallman "The Next Big Thing" Miami Ad School. Yup, that's probably my number 1 highlight. 2) Watching a couple of guys play through probably the first 2 hours of God of War III. Game looks great, the boss deaths are awesomely hilarious and fun - killing Poseidon was great.

Now don't get me wrong, it was intersting to walk around the expo floor and see a veritable whos-who of the industry: Naughty Dog (whose Uncharted 2 picked up 5 more awards), Ubisoft, Telltale Games, 38 Studios (owned by Curt Schilling and now involved with EA on a major project), Blizzard and their evil half - Activision and many more. But all of these companies were trying to recruit young developers and other talent and gain favor with them by offering small trinkets and schwag, and for me, there was nothing relevant. Oh well, it was an experience, and I did get some industry mags for free and got to see God of War III, Final Fantasy XIII (has me worried) and the Playstation Move up close.

I guess it was worth the $2 bus fare.

The Gift of Awesome - Thanks Hillary

So today I had to be at school for a make-up session of my Typography class which was canceled on Tuesday. I'm not a fan of being at school on Friday, or any of my regularly scheduled days off for that matter, so I was just hoping to get through class quickly so that I could get some work done before going to Cobb's Comedy Club tonight to see Jim Norton, the highlight of my day - or so I thought.

As I was walking out of class I was stopped by Hillary, one of the school's administrative type people who said she had good news for me. I had asked her yesterday about when a particular class is offered and figured that she had heard back. "Gaming concepts is being offered next quarter and I can take it?" I asked. She responded that while that wasn't it, I was close. I was puzzled. Then she handed me a small strip of paper. I read it - Redeem this ticket by registering on-site for an Expo-Only badge. The letters GDC above it. I flipped it over to verify and I was right.

I was handed a ticket good for a free pass to the Game Developers Conference this March. Unfortunately, the last day is March 13, the day I leave for New York but all that really means is I need to cram as much as I can into Thursday and Friday. So yeah, I'm going to be at the GDC and get to see all of the new stuff that Sony, Microsoft and everyone else are going to be putting out.

I'm psyched.

3 in 1 Game Review

Note: I'll fill in the gaps between my last post and now when I have more time - needless to say, went home, got sick, got better, started up school again, got busy, lost motivation, and now we're here.

Game 1: Bayonetta

I downloaded the demo from the Playstation store because there was a lot of hype about this game coming out from Sega. The story, as far as what I knew/know, puts you as a witch named Bayonetta who uses a combination of guns (including a pair that make up the heels of her shoes) and black magic to fight off angels and I assume discover the origins of her birth/re-live her childhood and come to some sort of dramatic conclusion. Whatever. The gameplay features a metric shit-ton of combination attacks, too many for me to remember so I just resorted to button mashing during combat, and some quicktime events to perform "finisher" type attacks. As for my major problem with the demo - besides the laundry list of attacks that felt like overkill, was the running attempt to make the main character, Bayonetta, into some perceived ultimate sex symbol. Look, when Laura Croft was first created she was just a hot chick who you played as while you ran, jumped, climbed trees and looked for treasure. Sega apparently found this to be too subtle and tries to sexualize all of Bayonetta's movements - something that will probably find favor with the 13-17 year old male crowd, but by the time you're my age it just seems gimmicky and annoying.

Result: won't buy

Game 2: Dante's Inferno

Another massively hyped release, with legendary source material so I was interested to give the game a try. What I found was something I struggled to get through in even a demo. The graphics for some of the scenes was just too graphic for me. Not lose your lunch disgusting, but enough that I didn't want to look at the screen. Then we got to the gameplay - as I started to play I had this unshakeable feeling that I had done all of this before, and I was right. Ever play God of War? Swap out Greece for the layers of Hell and there you go. Yeah I guess there isn't really much more for me to say. Like Bayonetta this game has already come out, and I'm happy to say that most reviews have also deemed it to be a mostly cheap God of War knock-off and it reviewed disappointing scores. Score another one for me.

Result: Will not ever play

Game 3: Heavy Rain

Okay, now this one I went into with high expectations, anticipation and a sense of dread. There are so many ways it can fail and since I want to like it, it made things tougher. I will say that while going through the tutorial and finding out that you have to hold down a button to walk was incredibly disappointing at first, and that the player movement is reminiscent of old school Resident Evil games, I found that through playing the demo this was just a minor inconvenience. The nature of the action doesn't require the quick, precise movements of a more complicated control scheme - the game is story driven and most of the important events occur during set cut-scene/quicktime sequences. The actions are performed in context, so there are no official button settings - i.e. X doesn't mean jump, in one scene it may dodge a punch from an attacker while in another it may be part of a button sequence necessary to successfully find your car keys. Additionally, the quicktime scenes are more like movie segments than your typical, pain in the ass "Press X to not die" variety and if you mess up you can usually recover. Also worth mentioning is that the game is dynamic, so different actions and choices affect the way the game/story unfolds. While questioning a source for information I was able to ask only a portion of the questions my character wanted before time expired. At the end, I wasn't sure if I had asked the right ones, and gotten all of the information I needed, but was unable to simply talk to the source again. This ambiguity was a refreshing change, it made me feel like the game required additional skill and thought compared to many of it's contemporary counterparts.

Result: Still waiting on reviews to confirm it's worth the price tag, but itchy trigger finger to buy

McRib Road Trip

It's been an exhausting day, let me tell you.

My alarm woke me up at 8am because I was silly ambitious enough to believe that I could take my medication, a shower, eat breakfast, pack, catch the bus and then catch the 9:15 train. At 8:20 I packed it in realizing that wasn't going to happen. Reset the alarm for quarter to 9 and tried again.

This time I was up, showered, packed and had my pop-tart as I was on my way to the bus. The bus dropped me off at the Caltrain station with about 15 minutes to spare so I figured that was enough time to grab a donut and hot chocolate for the almost 80 ride to Sunnyvale (on weekends all trains run local and with Oregon in town to play Stanford they added an extra stop. Oh joy). Anyway I got to Happy Donut and ordered. Unfortunately, there were a few other people and only 1 woman running the counter so it took a bit longer than expected - i.e. I bought my ticket for the 10:15 train about about 10:14 and jumped on seconds before it started to pull away from the station. Great beginning to the trip.

I managed to catch a minimal amount of zzzs on the train, maybe 20 minutes, after I had finished my donut and hot chocolate. They were good, not Dunkin Donuts good, but not something to complain about. When the train finally reached Sunnyvale I jumped off and began the mile walk to my old apartment. Okay fine, it's .9miles according to Google Maps but I have to change sides of the street so I round up. I was relieved when I made it to my car, one because she was still there in one piece and two because it meant that this trip was really ready to begin. I piled my gear in, selected the first CD and promptly headed to 7-11 to get some on the road nurishment. I was really looking forward to a bear claw but they didn't have any, so I grabbed a frosted apple danish and a Revive Vitamin Water. As I explain in the video, it was a bit too early for the Mountain Dew Big Gulp. I wound up barely drinking any of the Vitamin Water as the hot chocolate just sort of kept me full.

Anyway, after packing up the snacks I programed the GPS and hit the road. I reached California's famed Highway 101 at 12:27pm. The GPS told me that I would be riding it for about 247 miles and at the time I thought nothing of it. Unbeknownst to me, that at about 55 miles out, just past Gilroy, 101 is no longer a freeway and just a two lane road. Almost like the Taconic but without the familiarity I was baffled as to how fast I could go, so I just found some cars and kept up with them.

Then the farmland came. The cows, the crops, the John Deere tractors, all of it. Some of the hills and mountains in the distance were really nice, but oh my god was it boring as hell to drive though. This of course, went on for hours. At around 2:30pm I convinced myself to pull over and stretch/get some gas (I was running at half a tank). About 10 minutes and $31 later I was back on the road. Here's where it started to get fun. When I originally set out my GPS said my arrival time would be 4:40pm. Just before I took a break I had gotten it down to 4:32pm. When I jumped back in the car it was suddenly at 4:42pm and I wasn't happy. Still a two lane road, now with some trucks and stuff so speed is anything but constant. I'm probably about 70 miles from the exit I'm supposed to take off of 101 when my GPS informs me that it's low on battery. Just fucking great. I didn't need it to tell me to keep driving 200 miles and countdown for me, but now when I'm going to need actual directions you're going to crap out on me. Brilliant. I really think I bought into the hype of those things too much. I hate it. I think all of your problems can be solved with a paper map, a navigator or an internet capable phone that can display Google Maps.

I'm getting close to the turn-off and the scenery is incredible. I'm in Pismo Beach, I discover after checking a sign or two. Unfortunately it doesn't last for ever and we're back to farm country. Finally get to make the turn-off. Signs are telling me that Santa Barbara is only another 70 miles away - I can't wait. Then I notice that the next turn I need to make is to get onto 101 South (in about 20 miles). That's the exact road I just got off of. Again, California's highway system is retarded. Also, many fewer rest stops, and small road side conveniences than you'd notice. Jersey - 1, California - 0. So I'm heading towards 101 (again) when guess what? You know it. The GPS goes black. So I know the next direction is to get on 101 S and after that I guess aim the car at the water and try not to go through any walls? I manage to get a few quick glimpses as to the next direction before the battery totally dies. This of course requires me to re-turn on the GPS, wait for it to load, accept the warning not to type or input things while driving, and then hit the map button - while driving; 3 times. I manage to wind up on a road and see a sign for a visitors information booth. Bingo I can find information there.

Except that they're charging $3 for parking and I don't know where the hell I am. So I pass it up and start driving down, what I now know, is Castillo St, right near the harbor. It's really pretty and the sun is starting to set. Well I need to find State St to get my McRib or find a place to stay for the night. (Lesson learned, plan this part in advance for all future trips). I pass by a few streets, and see a bunch of small little motels, all with bright red "No Vacancy" signs. Okay, that's a problem I'll tackle later. I finally find State St and start counting the numbers, I"m looking for 1213. I'm at 26. Great. State St. is the main drag, like you see in all of those movies - typical California. The sides are littered with shops, and restaurants, there are pedestrian crossings every half block and stupid traffic lights. Traffic goes at a snails pace. Oh, and there's no streetside parking either. Despite all of that, I finally make it to the 1200 block and spot MckieDs on my left. At the corner I make a right and follow the signs for a parking garage. I park and grab my video camera, I'm gushing with excitement and the need to pee. I exit the parking lot, cross the street and enter. There are signs, signs saying "The McRib is back!" I'm so happy, it's not in vain. As is expected the guy in front of me takes way too long to order. I wrote a pretty funny short piece about that in high school but can't seem to find a backup copy anywhere. When I'm home I'll have to look for the original paper and re-type it, because it was good. Anyway, there's some funny commentary of me on the video whispering behind him how I will kill him if he doesn't hurry up.

When it's finally my turn I excitedly tell the girl "I want the McRib meal!" She asks if I want the large and for no reason I say "yes". I pay for the food and wait for my order number to be called. I get it and sit down, anxiously awaiting to see the treatment of the McRib. It's got it's own special box! It's big, not the little McRib Jr. they tried to pass off during one of the "McRib farewell tours" years back. This thing is big. I open the buns to check - onions, pickles and sauce. We're good. I close the sandwich back up and take a bite.

Delicious. Look, I know it's probably unreasonable to say that a single food item could be worth traveling 300 miles (when I travel 3,000 back to NY it's for several food items), but it sure seemed close. I loved every bite and the possibly two minutes it took to devour. I think I wiped my mouth twice or it would have been less. After enjoying both the meal and the afterglow I returned to the counter and asked what time they closed that night. 10pm was the answer. Great. I'm in good shape. I exited and looked to tackle my next obstacle. Uhm, I have nowhere to sleep. I started walking up State St. to see if I could find some more hotels, motels, Holiday Inns. With the GPS out of commission I was sorta left to hoofing it. I walked up past the 1800 block and found one place with vacancy. It wasn't much of anything and I had set a reservation price at around $50 when I left. When I saw how Santa Barbara was laid out I figured I'd have to raise it, especially being Saturday night, but still didn't want to over pay. The guy said it was $99 for the night. For that crappy place, I couldn't do it. So now I was a bit worried as I walked back to the lighted sections of the town.

Oh yeah, aside, since I was planning on taking pictures of Santa Barbara at sunset. By 6pm it was completely black, like midnight anywhere else. And the streets are pretty poorly lit so there's no pictures of anything. What a bummer.

So as I'm heading back realizing that all the signs I've previously seen said "No Vacancy", don't have a GPS or Internet connection to help me find new places, I'm sorta fucked. Then I decide to do the unthinkable. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I went back to the car and got my laptop and GPS and charger and headed to Starbucks. I waited 10 minutes or so for a table near an outlet to open up and began charging my GPS. Oh yeah, I ordered a small "Signature Hot Chocolate" for $2.95. They called it a "tall" when they gave it to me but the think was anything but. It also wasn't that good. The medium, actual medium, hot chocolate I got at Happy Donuts for $1.64 earlier that morning was far better. Fucking pretentious Starbucks assholes. Then there's the best part. Since when did Starbucks stop giving away free Internet? I'm sure it was a while ago and I didn't get the memo because I never got there, but now I really have no reason to ever again. So my laptop is useless and I'm waiting for my GPS to charge but that only helps if you pick a specific location it can get you there. I needed Google Maps.

I won't say Verizon to the rescue because I was able to use my phone inspite of them, but it was a saving grace. Note to self, upgrade to Android phone as soon as possible so that I can use the internet when I'm in a bind. Anyway, I wrote down the names of some hotels and played some Elite Beat Agents while waiting for the GPS to charge. Still couldn't beat the last level. GPS is charged, the crappy hot chocolate is done and I'm done laughing at everyone at Starbucks so I'm out.

Into the car I program the hotel. Holiday Inn Express sounds good. If I'm going to have to pay more than I wanted, I better get a name I trust. Of course the GPS tells me to go the wrong way on a way one street and then I somehow pass it, which then renders the GPS useless because if you pass the destination it thinks you, I have no idea what the fuck it thinks, but it doesn't show you how to get back there if you miss it. Helpful.

So driving around Santa Barbara is like driving around those little towns on the Jersey Shore. No lights, small signs and one ways going the way you don't want them to go. I wind up lost I think a town or two over. Great. Pick a new hotel so that the GPS is no longer useless. Days Inn. Should be affordable. After some fighting I convince the GPS that I can't drive through a gate onto a private road and we find away around. I reach the Days Inn to find no vacancy. But at least now I know how to get to Castillo, that main strip. I find a place with vacancy and park the car. But rather than go in, I head a few blocks up to show around. Pass another with vacancy to find a third. So I figure I'll work my way backwards. That third place has a 2 queen available for $149. And now I'm realizing I'm screwed again. Head back to place #2 which now suddenly has "No Vacancy". Great. Head back to where I left the car, still don't go in because I decide I'm going to play with fire. I head to State St. A few blocks up I come across a small hotel whose name I recognized from Google Maps. The guy tells me it's $69 a night plus tax. I walk out and head half way up the street to see if I see anything else. At this point it's around quarter after 9 and McDonalds closes at 10. I quickly dart back in and take the room. Then I run back to the car and drive to McDonalds. Stash it on a side street and make my order - 2 McRibs and a medium Sprite.

Side note - this McDonalds was really weird. Aside from having the McRib, all size drinks are $1 and Big Macs are $1.50.

Anyway, I collect my order and run back to the car. Hop in, pull a U-ie and head back to the hotel. Grab all my backs run up to the room and scarf two 2 more McRibs, both delicious. Now I'm exhausted, I've written this to be posted when I get back home and have an Internet connection and I'm going to call it a day/night.

Although I'm not really looking forward to the ride back. Oh well. All in all, I think this will be a great story.

Welcome to relevance!

I won my Playstation 3 before my first Christmas working at Google. I didn't even have an LCD TV at the time. Once I got the system though I immediately upgraded my television unit and things were great. Well, the TV was great for playing all of my PS2 and XBox games, watching movies and football. And then later after I built my new computer playing games and watching movies on that. And then when I got my Dreamcast, playing games on that.

Needless to say, the PS3 had been little more than a pretty decoration, a talking point or a trophy of the one time in my life that I've ever won some sort of raffle. It wasn't really much else. I have a pretty large and (I think) awesome collection of DVDs and I'm in no hurry to rebuy them all as Blu-Rays, and there just weren't any "must have" games that I felt I needed to go out and get. So I just kept playing all of my old ones and occasionally checked in on my PS3 by playing a new demo or something. They all looked great but reviews would come out and I'd be underimpressed enough to be able to pass up the $60 price tag. Infamous was the first game that I almost bought. It was interesting, looked nice, the demo was fun and the reviews came back solid. In the end I passed though and instead took up and old Final Fantasy game I hadn't beaten and then Resident Evil: Code Veronica (which reminds me, I really should finish that game).

Then Resident Evil 5 came out. Fortunately from playing the demo I knew there was no chance I was going to own it, even though I really did want to know what happened in the story universe. I spent layover time I had in Terminal 5 at JFK watching all the cutscenes on YouTube and saved myself $60 and a shit-ton of frustration.

Then the demo for Batman: Arkham Asylum was released. It was a game I had been tracking, eagerly anticipating mostly due to my comic/super hero nerd tendencies. I wrote about this game before, how the demo blew me away and I knew I had to own it. I bought it, beat it, have replayed it a bit to unlock more stuff and am glad that I have.

But that was just the beginning. It seems like now, right now, the flood gates are about to crack open and my PS3 will finally ascend to the top level of my entertainment hierarchy. A few weeks ago I played the Uncharted 2 multiplayer beta demo - and I've never played an online multiplayer game EVER. I mostly wrote them off as well... let's say retarded 12 year olds and in-denial frat boys who like the idea of tea bagging each other in games and then awkwardly talking about it like the thought has never gone through their mind.

Anyway, loved the demo and got addicted to all the different types of games. It was then decided that this was my next purchase. Sadly the local game shop down the block had sold out. They next shipment comes in on Wednesday/Thursday and they're putting aside one with my name on it. I even traded in a bunch of old Xbox, PS1 and PS2 games to help me pay.

I figured with Batman and Uncharted I could be content for a nice long while and not get sucked into making the PS3 the focus but then I remembered - Assassins Creed II comes out next month. That game is sick. Then God of War III for the holidays, Final Fantasy XIII (which I'm almost guaranteed to pre-order), Heavy Rain: The Case of the Origami Killer (if you have never heard of it, check out trailers) and a bunch of really good games on here or on their way. And to top it all off, it was officially confirmed that you'll be able to start streaming Netflix to your PS3 next month.

Sonuvabitch. I was hoping to get a little more use out of all of the other things in my life. Guess those new Sony commercials are right, It only does: everything.

Built from the parts of lesser nerds

Full disclosure: I'm laying in bed, under my covers drinking a bottle of chocolate milk as I write this. Probably the most fitting scenario possible.

Now I'm not claiming superiority or anything like that - I worked at Google and even though I could hold my own in some circles, I met and saw some people who were well beyond me. But that's at Google. When lined up against the relative "norm" of the population I score pretty well on nerd and geek, with computers. For the most part I've managed to keep myself out of the Dungeons & Dragons, cosplay, Anime import, etc. groups. To my friends back home I am the nerd they call with technical questions and many are somewhat impressed that I built a computer for my mom for Mother's Day a few years ago - because the idea of building a computer on your own is so foreign, but mostly because doing that for your mom on Mother's Day is just so gosh darn sweet.

So the other day my mom called me because a friend of her's at work needs to get a new computer - and apparently I have "Nerd to Call" status in the PS105 teaching circle, which is actually nice. So I asked my mom the simple questions, what is she looking to do with it, what programs does she need, how much does she want to spend - the basics. Of course, I got the response I was expecting - bare minimums. That's no fun. But I rattled off some tech. specs to look for on the showroom floor, cautioned about particular components to avoid and threw in some opinion on other things. My mom was happy for the assist and passed along that her friend would be thankful as well.

It was nice to do a mitzvah like that, unfortunately they happen too infrequently for me, but it always leaves me with an emptiness in my mouth. I want more, a bare essentials machine has no excitement for me. Sure, I realize that some people don't do all of the things I do, but why not? It's really not that complicated and it so fun.

So since I've last spoken to my mom I've been compulsively checking out sites and articles for parts and ideas. I keep going back to the idea of a Home Theater PC (HTPC), since the machine I currently have is just about 75% there, but I don't really have money for parts. Besides, as much as I love my box and if asked to sell it would demand an exorbitant sum for it just out of sentimental value, I would want to start over from scratch with a new project, a new idea.

As a way to stave off my frustration with not having the financial capabilities to build a new machine, let alone the space, time or necessary power outlets - I've gotten very nostalgic and tried to back track how I got here to this hobby and occasional obsession.

When I was small my family always had a computer in the house. Sometimes more than one. Either my dad saw the future in them, was equally interested (which I'm pretty sure was part of it), or found a way to steal them from his office without ever being detected. Whatever the case was, I saw them go from a single 5.25" drive to a pair, to a 5.25" and a 3.5" to just two 3.5" disks to installing my first CD-ROM drive a year or so after my dad left. I was maybe 11 at the time and while nervous, still pretty confident that I could install this new piece of hardware. Of course I left out tons of stuff, VGA, Super VGA, DOS, Direct Access, Windows 3.11 and all of that, because that just starts going down a pretty nerdy path. Games were pretty much the driving influence in my interest in the technology. As games got more complex specs increased and mediums changed. A 3.5" disk holds a lot more memory (1.21MB) than a 5.25" (I think they were 785K) so it was more convenient to install 12 disks for Wordperfect than 25. Haha, we actually did stuff like that back then. With games leading the reasoning I also became aware of other great new technologies. I was on the "internet" in 1988(citation needed) without even knowing it. We had a 12.2k modem hooked up for a while. I watched baseball on the Super VGA monitor a couple of times - one machine had a TV tuner card in it. Speakers, microphones and all of these great things that really had no practical use at the time except for showing off or making your kids go "wow." Like the mouse. That was a mind fuck.

Anyway, at 27 it's fairly obvious now that this is part of my life, though I probably would have told myself "well duh" back in the 80s. I suppose there was a chance that I'd grow out of it or lose interest, but there are too many shiny accessories and that's usually my downfall. So I'd just like to hope that my life continues in such a way that I'll always be in a position to explore and keep up with this. Maybe even build a Home Theater PC for my kid when he asks why all the other kids dad's took them to Best Buy and asked them to pick something out and all he got was a UPS truckload from Newegg.

So if you're reading this and you're looking at your old machine, on it's last legs, running slow and unable to do new things, why not give your friend Bob here a call. You'll get a certified, 1 of a kind machine that you can show off to all your friends, and you'll have an extra happy friend.

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Preview

I've been excited about Batman: Arkham Asylum since I first saw screenshots on Gamespot. That was maybe a year ago. The treatment of the characters and the environment looked awesome. A few days ago I got my usual fairly spammy email from Playstation telling me about the new things at the Playstation Store. When I saw a playable demo for B:AA I got excited. Unfortunately, no matter how excited I am about a new game I still have to go to class and this week has been brutal.

Anyway, tonight I finally got a chance to download it and check it out. Uhm, wow. This may be the first PS3 game I buy new - it's that good. I'm anticipating at least an 8.6 rating from Gamespot and probably something in the 8.8 from IGN. Wait that looks backwards, IGN's numbers are usually lower. Whatever, I'm not going back to erase the sentence. Onward with my review.

The combat system looks beautiful - the moves that Batman pulls off are insane - and is incredibly user friendly - point the Bat in the direction of the guy you want to kick the shit out of and hit square. Someone coming up behind you? Back and square. Guy to the right? Right and square. And if some poor bastard tries to sneak up behind you while you're beating one of his friends - hit triangle to unleash a counter attack. Occasionally the camera will zoom in to give you movie quality close up of Batman being more badass than Val Kilmer was (George Clooney was too easy).

Not only is the combat fun but there's a not too forced (at least in the demo) stealth mechanism. It mostly relies on grappling around from parts of the ceiling and using "Detective Mode" to see infrared images of bad guys, wait for them to separate from each other and then take them out one by one. I died a few times during the demo for the same reasons I failed a bunch of times in Metal Gear Solid4, because there are so many options you want to experiment and push your luck. It was fun.

Other things in the demo. Apparently there are "Riddler Trophies" hidden through Arkham. I found 2 in the demo but wasn't enlightened as to what they do. In addition to those trophies you can unlock profiles of all the characters. They're pretty cool and some of the inmates have audio tracks of them being interviewed by the asylum's shrink. I suppose at this point I should mention that the voices are done by the cast of Batman the Animated Series, score!

My only complaint about the demo is that it ends just before the first boss fight. I'm curious to see how boss fights are handled. I'm thinking it may be a bit like how God of War does them, which would be awesome. But that's possibly a bit nit picky.

Batman: Arkham Asylum comes out on August 25th, so a little less than 2 weeks from now. If you've got the disposable income I would pick it up. I don't, and I still might. Marathon game session a few days to beat it and then turn it in. Although I'm sure unlocking all of the character profiles, interviews and extras will take some effort (which I won't initially put into the game) and cause me to hold on to it long past the time when it has any trade-in value. Maybe I can use some birthday money to invest in it. I haven't treated myself to a new game in a while.

The King is Dead

Yeah I know, no one needs to read another Michael Jackson reaction/tribute article but this is a major pop-culture event so I've go to write something about it.

First off this is huge because he is/was a prominent celebrity of my generation. Take a step back babies of the 80s and realize this - our celebrities are starting to die. Now of course you'll always have your "die young types", your River Phoenix's, Kurt Cobain's, Chris Farley's, but Michael Jackson died outside of one of the typical overdose, car crash, suicide, etc. celebrity cliches. The people we grew up watching and thinking were cool are old and getting older, hell Guns N' Roses has been on (good) classic rock stations for almost a decade, and they're soon going to be the celebrity deaths the world is talking about. It's a bit worrisome when you use it to look back at yourself and realize you're not a kid anymore.

Okay now for the historical pop-culture placement. Michael Jackson was the King of Pop. No one can take that away from him - hear me Justin Timberlake? Usher? (queue video clip from the Boondocks where Martin Luther King Jr. tells Usher "Michael Jackson is not a genre of music!") Thriller is still to this day the best selling album of all time, and thanks to the music industry being a bunch of jerks it seems like that will never change as tech savy teens find new ways to "obtain" music. Michael Jackson was the front man of the great '70s motown group, the Jackson 5 with his brothers, then went on to the most successful solo career ever, his Pepsi ads in the 80s were classic, he married Elvis' daughter, was accussed of molesting little boys, had a 3-D movie adventure in DisneyWorld, was controversial for grabbing his crotch and wearing one white glove, starred in a music based movie - Moonwalker (I'm tentative to call it a "musical") and the subsequent video game (which was awesome), lent his speaking voice (but not his singing voice) to a classic episode of the Simpsons, dangled his baby off a balcony, actually changed his skin from black to white, outbid Paul McCartney for the Beatles catalog and then licensed their songs for commercials, was a prominent child rights and health advocate via the Heal the World Foundation, had Jon Landis direct a 14 minute long video for Thriller and on top of it all amazed everyone with the moonwalk, which has to be the most attempted to impersonate dance move in the history of humankind.

In short, the man is a pop-culture legend. For all his good and evil (which I believe was the result of a tortured soul thanks to the well documented abuse at the hands of the Jackson Family patriarch - I mean, look at that family, all the kids are screwed up. Michael as the youngest and most talented, probably also got it the worst), it's up to us now to decide how to remember him. It shouldn't be too difficult though, his music and his (dance) moves will live on forever. Don't believe me? When your kids get to be around age 5 show them the music video for Billie Jean and be ready to scrub up scuff marks as they try to moonwalk across the kitchen floor.

Personally, I'd like to think that the Michael Jackson we all loved still exists, somewhere out there.

Elite Beat Agents

This afternoon while I was visiting my mom in the ICU I beat the final level in the Nintendo DS game Elite Beat Agents (EBA). I got pretty excited and was definitely impressed with myself. You see, EBA is a rhythm game and I suffer from a condition that makes these types of games more difficult for me - namely, being white.

However, I pushed and powered my way through the game to reach the final level. The game is great fun when you have a few minutes to kill during a commute or sitting at an airport. Basically you control the Elite Beat Agents as they help people around the world with actually minor problems that are major to them. Examples - a high school girl who is babysitting three kids while trying to ask her football player boyfriend to "go steady"; a sea captain who is the victim of a mutiny by his crew after failing to find buried treasure, and so on in that order.

Actually, the situations are very cute and lighthearted, save for one really touching level where you are trying to console a little girl who is sad because her daddy went on a business trip before Christmas and obviously died, breaking his promise to be home in time for Christmas. It's weight comes out of nowhere compared to the other levels but it does sort of make you feel good when you complete it. I think the final level jumps pretty far in difficulty, considering how many times I failed, although that could also be the result of the fact that I was grooving along with "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

If you have a DS I suggest playing Elite Beat Agents because it's lots of fun and has a pretty good soundtrack, although all the songs are covers.

The space that's in between insane and insecure

I just touched down in Phoenix, I have a three hour lay-over before my flight leaves for JFK. I'll get in at 5:11am tomorrow, June 7th, Mike's birthday. The irony isn't lost on me and it's got me worried. It's safe to say that I'm not in a good emotional state. I'm bouncing back and forth from sadness, to rage and everywhere in between. I'm in that state where I honestly believe that if I got into a fight with anyone, anyone, I'd kill them and think nothing of it.

My iPod is doing a fair job of keeping me in check, but when I heard "Let it be" I was on the verge of losing it in tears. I put my sunglasses on and hid my head from the other passengers on the plane. Then I'd get a song like "Badwitadaba" and just wanted to stand toe to toe with some sort of physical manifestation of what's put my mom in this condition and obliterate it. I started thinking about the new game Dante's Inferno that EA is releasing and showed off at E3. The main character is fighting his way through the 8 circles of hell using a scythe, the one he took from the Grim Reaper. I remember hearing that from the developers and it instantly gave the character badass credit. What happened?, he died, the Reaper came for him, he punched him in the face, took his scythe and then decided he was going to fuck up hell? That's basically what I've been feeling on and off.

I had to skip "Stairway to Heaven" when it came on. Not a good sign right now.

I'm just writing this to stop myself from going insane. Sorry you've had to come along for the ride.

E3: Sony

Coming into the press conference the PSP Go was already leaked, so you had to wonder how Sony would react to losing potentially one of their trump cards. So kick off video is showing literally about a hundred titles flying by, while Queen's "One Vision" is playing, so you get the feeling Sony is going to stay on point in their presentation. Okay, high production intro videos are nice, but in the end mean little.

First game they're showing off - Uncharted 2: Amongst Thieves. This is big for them because everyone is expecting that God of War III won't be an '09 release. What I thought was odd was that the demo started immediately in gameplay, without an intro movie to set it up or anything. At the time I wasn't sure what they were thinking, but shortly into the demo Drake climbs up to a rooftop and pauses for poise overlooking, well the world. It seriously looked realistically picture-esque and stunning. The gameplay looked good too. I never played the first one (it's on my list) but given it's good reviews and how this sequel looked, this game is going to be good.

Next they showed off a demo for M.A.G. the 256 player capable massive multiplayer battle game. Unfortuntely the presentation focused on 1 particular character giving commands to his squad and so didn't really show off anything impressive. A bit of a disappointment.

Then Sony brought out the PSP Go and explained all about it. Most people had already learned the info via the leak and people like me didn't really care. Plus they're selling it at $249, which I personally think is ludicris, and not in the "what's your fantasy" kind of way. Oh and for some sadistic reason, when the Hanah Montanna special edition PSP there was massive "pop". Ah, sarcasm and pedophiles.

However, then they started talking about some games for the PSP and it started to get me considering picking up a PSP 3000. Only considering since I don't get to spend much time with my DS as it is (and I love my DS). But the PSP is obviously a big part of Sony's plans going forward as indicated by special guest - Hideo Kojima. He's back, and he's talking about a true sequel to Metal Gear Solid 3, exclusively for the PSP, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Not only is it happening, but Kojima promised that he is actively inolved in the game, and it serves as the missing link explaining from MGS3 to Outer Heaven. Watching Kojima on stage I got a glimpse of what it's like to actually be a rockstar (when you're not in the music industry) as opposed to the "corporate rockstars" I ranted about earlier. Shameless plug.

Then they talked about changes to the Playstation store and tried to show off Playstation Home. Home is still pretty impressive - technically but I still can't see a really practical use for it. They do go on to say that the Playstation Store has had a lot of downloads, blah blah, over 90 pieces of exclusive content, getting warmer and will start releasing more PS One games, interesting, starting today, oh that's nice, with Final Fantasy VII. Oh by the way. Not a game changer, but a cool announcement.

But that's not all. Here we go with a new video from Square Enix for Final Fantasy XIII. More than what Microsoft showed off and it looks great. But probably won't swerve people to the Sony side since you can get the same game on the 360. And then the announcement. Here's a first look at the next game, Final Fantasy XIV, exclusively on PS3. Wow. Movie looks great, got me all excited and then it happens. Title screen comes up, Final Fantasy XIV and right underneath "Online". D'oh! Well that just took me down a peg. A whole peg! But good job Sony in getting exclusivity back.

Then we start talking about the idea of play, create, share - epitomized by Little Big Planet. But it's not just LBP, introducing the team behind a play, create, share kart racing game. The game play looked liked a new version of Mario Kart (minus Mario and friends) with the ability to customize your characters and their karts. Then they showed off the track creator, and made a new, pretty cool looking track, in under 5 minutes. The key to this game - you'll be able to share your characters, cars and tracks with other players. That's actually a pretty cool concept.

Next has to be the reason why Sony shrugged off the PSP Go getitng leaked, and joked that it was the worst kept secret at E3, because it kept everyone off the trail of their best kept secret - the motion controller. Sure, it's been rumored but no one had much of a clue about it. Not only did Sony talk about it, but showed various tech demos to show off what they were able to do with it. And they made a good point - in some situations you need to have buttons, giving it a leg up on Microsofts Project Natal. However, throughout all of the tech demos shown there was nothing to address the idea of moving, or lower body movement. So Microsoft still has the advantage there, but if they can build a full body motion tracking camera, so can Sony. But in terms of the demos, they showed off the ability to write using sub millimeter precision, fight using a swoard and sheild, controll units from above (a possible RTS on console solution) and throw shurikens and fire a bow at zombie skeletons. Wii Motion Plus, you just got served worse than Voltron. Perhaps even more shocking than the demo was that it was announced that Sony Motion Control is scheduled for Spring 2010.

After everyone collectively gathered their thoughts from that Sony kept pounding the ground with a demo of Assasin's Creed 2. Sure it'll be on 360 as well, but it looked insane and the crowd yelled out with delight after witnessing a simultaneous two handed palm blade kill on a pair of guards. Oh and there will be exclusive content for the PS3 version, provided that you buy and play the PSP game Assasin's Creed: Bloodlines. Then there was the trailer for Gran Turismo, which must have racing facings on edge. Next was a trailer for The Last Guardian, from the producers of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. It looked beautiful in that sort of "obviously artisitc, hate yourself for being impure in the face of this obvious beauty" way. That had lots of people clapping, although for me I really have minimal interest in those games.

And then it was time to close the show, with the coup de gra, or however you spell it. God of War III demo. Graphics upgrade, check. New weapons, check. Seamless looking deadly combos, check. And then the guy playing the demo thought it would be fun to show you that you can not only kill a centaur, but knock him down, cut his body open and spill out his entrails. At this point the bloodlust of the crowd was probably quenched. But the demo proceeded. Eventually we come across Helios flying through the sky fighting one of the Titans. Kratos heads towards an arrow turret and is preparing to fire when a Chimera (which looks incredible) comes out of the shadows behind him. During the course of the mighty battle Kratos cuts off the beast's snake tail. And then cuts out the lionshead from the chest. Just for good measure, in the end Kratos knocks down what's left of the chimera, pulls off one of the horns and impales it through the creatur's eye for the kill. Bloodlust elevated to a new level.

It looks like Sony is hitting the comeback trail hard, but the price point for the PS3 is still going to be a tough obstacle. Microsoft stole the last big third party exclusive Sony had and their first party exclusives are a bit more known (Halo, Gears of War) and offers downloadable exclusives for many of the multi-platform games. That said, Sony has made strides to close the gap and the new battle it seems, Natal vs. the Motion Controller could swing the whole thing. Oh, and a few hours after Nintendo seemed to get new life, Sony may have just kicked it out of relevance for core gamers.

E3: Nintendo

As it was honestly and bluntly put by the G4 correspondents covering the Nintendo press conference, "last year's event sucked" and Nintendo really needed to step it up.

Through the first 10 - 15 minutes it looked like last year all over again. Their first "big title" was New Super Mario Bro. Wii, which looks like a 1.5 version port of the DS title. You know you're in trouble when you're porting games from the DS. Talking about the Wii Fit plus = borring. They did finally explain the Wii Motion Plus and showed Wii Fit Resort but now that we've all seen the Wii before the novelty didn't last long. What was funny though was Nintendo Golden Boy Reggie Fils-Amie winning a 3 point contest at the buzzer by sinking the moneyball.

Reggie then started talking RPGs and my ears perked up. A new Final Fantasy Wii game that looked pretty good. Not sure how the combat is going to work, but at least you know there'll be a pretty good story associated with it. Then a new Wii version of Kingdom Hearts. A fairly solid strategy there - go to Square Enix and beg them to help you out. Also there's a DS game called Golden Sun which is supposed to be a resurrection of a franchise but I've never heard/played it.

And then it got really boring. The non-gamer philosophy, Iwata talking about a Wii vitality sensor. It's a friggin pulse detector for your finger. Let me put it this way, I actually was considering giving up and watching something else. I had half written a blog in my head declaring the Nintendo I grew up with dead and gone.

The woman who's not Reggie gets on stage with one last attempt to save the day. There's more Mario news. Like Bart Simpson saving the Fox network, Mario's going to have to save Nintendo. Video showing off Super Mario Galaxy 2. Afterwards the audience actually applauded - something I had heard and seen at Microsoft, EA and Ubisoft's presentations but was absent throughout most of Nintendo's time.

Good, but not exactly show saving. Out comes Reggie for one last attempt. He says that he reads the blogs (code for, I understand you're tired of games focused on non-gamers and you need to show your core some love) and has some titles from third parties to show off. First, Conduit from Sega a third person shooter that looks pretty good and needless to say is highly anticipated. Then, he shows a teaser trailer for a Resident Evil game. This would have been impressive except it looks a lot like a shooter remake of Code: Veronica. Although it did feature/show Leon, so I'm not sure where the storyline goes. They showed Steve Burnisde as well, lending more to the Code: Veronica theory. Lastly, a prequel to EA's Dead Space. Not surprisingly, a shooter. So the response seems to be, hey we can make games for core gamers just as long as they like shooters. Maybe RPGs depending on how Kingdom Hearts works out.

Then Reggie asks rhetorically "can Nintendo make these kinds of games?". "Absolutely" he answers, and to do it right they partnered with someone who is experienced in more adult themed games. I think everyone was wondering as the video started up.

Flyover of water, I know I've seen this intro before, then rising up through the clouds into space. Okay maybe not. Then the logo appears - Team Ninja. I knew the water was familiar. Team Ninja and Nintendo team up to bring a new version of Metroid (Metroid Other M). The demo showed Samus jumping around and blasting away a la Ryu in Ninja Gaiden. The promise of exploring her back story is a real selling point as of course is working with Team Ninja - guys who make games where you slice people up and cut off their limbs. This is the game Nintendo needed to make.

Few high points early, definitely dragged in the middel but ended relatively strong. Not a bad job from Nintendo, but Microsoft still has the top show so far (not counting EA and Ubisoft because that'd be comparing apples to bananas).

Sony's on deck.

E3: Microsoft

I just watched Microsoft's E3 Press Conference (thank you G4) and I have to say - I think I need to separate XBox 360 from the rest of M$, they seem to be less evil. Well, with the exception of the project natal camera with facial and voice recognition. As Kevin Perrera said, "this is some skynet level stuff".

They started showing off some of the big new titles: the Beatles Rockband, Modern Warfare 2 and Final Fantasy XIII. None of those are exclusives for the Xbox but "All You Need is Love" will be an exclusive song download and two exclusive map packs for Modern Warfare 2. It's a recurring theme, Xbox gets extra stuff for every game. I'd like to begrudge them for that, but I really can't. They can ask for it, probably even demand it from publishers, based on their massive userbase and the popularity of Xbox Live.

Tony Hawk showed off a new peripheral stakeboard controller, which at the time seemed awesome. But after they showed of Natal at the end, it makes you wonder why you would need a peripheral in the first place. Probably more of a stop gap.

The new Splinter Cell game looked pretty cool and there was a game called Andrew Wake, which I had never heard of before, that looked really interesting - sort of a third person mystery adventure.

Then Microsoft started talking about all of the features beyond games. That was a good time to catch up on the Daily News Sports page. I peaked in a few times though. Yeah Netflix on your 360 is nice, ooh look they're adding Last.fm - don't care. Facebook on 360, not interested. Oh what a surprise, Twitter the scourge of human existance. Well they hit all of the major buzz words, so by corporate presentation standards that's a success. One thing they showed off that was pretty cool was a type of share feature, where you can watch a movie or show with friends (indicated by their avatars) who aren't there. Sort of like a remote watch option. It actually seemed pretty cool to me, mostly because my main contingent of friends are back on the East Coast and I had thoughts of getting us all together to watch the Mets vs. Yankees together and having my avatar jump up and down after David Wright took Sabbathia deep.

After that segment ended another suit got on stage and unleashed one hell of a surprise - Hideo Kojima, legendary producer of Metal Gear Solid. I believe it was a this point that myself and almost all other Playstation 3 owners looked derisevly at their PS3 and wondered "why?" or "what am I going to do with you?" Fortunately I got mine free, so it's an easier pill to swallow. Anyway, MS suit guy throws Kojima an alley-oop when he says "I can't wait to see what's next for Solid Snake." leading Kojima to quip "I didn't say anything about Solid Snake." Queue a teaser trailer showing that the new game, Metal Gear Rising is starring Raiden, back in his cyborg ninja suit from MGS4 and has a makeshift bandage over one eye.

Finally Microsoft went beyond all the speculation of a "motion sensing controller" to show off project Natal. Basically it's a camera that recognizes voice and faces, does full body capture and is used as a controller, without the controller. Interesting stuff, but none of the games they showed off were practical. Then they brought out Peter Molyneux who talked about what he and Lionhead Studios have done with it. They showed a demo of this artificial kid, Milo. In the demo one of the people at Lionhead holds a conversation with Milo, sees her reflection in a pond and swirls the water in it and even draws something on a piece of paper and passes it to Milo, who reacts and comments on it in real time. That was some crazy stuff. Like Kevin said, skynet type stuff.

Anyway, it was a very impressive press conference. I mean they had Speilberg, Paul McCartney and Ringo. Then again they also had Yoko. Still, it's going to be very had for Nintendo and Sony to keep pace. Fortunately, I just need to wake up at 9am tomorrow to find out what they've been up to.

'Scuse me, while I kiss this guy

I flew to Seattle tonight (writing this as if it isn't 2am Friday morning) and was seated next to, possibly, the worst passenger I've ever been seated next to. Midway through the flight, as we're flying over nothing spectacular this guy leans almost completely over me to take a picture of said nothing spectacularness. His elbow was literally more than midway across my tray table as I was trying to play Elite Beat Agents on my Nintendo DS.

Of course it got more frustrating when we actually got near Seattle. He then had to lean across to look out the window. This forced me into an uncomfortable position of having to turn my neck as far to the left as possible and hold it there during our decent because even looking straight in front of me would have resulted in my first man kiss - he wasn't my type. After enduring both a painful and awkward 20 minutes or so (because at no point did the thought, "hey, maybe I'm invading this guys personal space like" seem to cross his mind) we finally landed and I was free.

Going off exploring tomorrow and with any luck will remain man kiss free.