...some pics from Dr. Lara (m.d.)

...the end.

...some cameraphone pics

Some recent pics of pub quiz, bible party, and going out from my camera phone...












...the end.

...busy weekend

Went to a "dress up as your favorite bible character" party on saturday...I only have knowledge of the old (school) book so I went as the burning bush...only lame part is most people at the party didn't dress up...

coming up tonight: These Arms Are Snakes and Big Business at the Bottom of the Hill
tommorow: Death From Above 1979 at the Independent

...too much rock for one week. I'll have pics up soon.

...reading books on your psp

Haven't got mine yet but this might be a decent application: books.

...congratulations to Troy and Carensa

Clergyman: Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us togethaw today. Mawwiage, that bwessed awwangement, that dweam within a dweam...
Clergyman: Then wove, twue wove, will follow you fowever...
Clergyman: So tweasure youw...
Humperdink: [interrupting] Skip to the end!
Clergyman: Have you the wing?
Clergyman: Do you Pwincess Buttecwup...
Humperdink: [annoyed] Man and wife! Say man and wife!
Clergyman: Man and Wife.

...my new video game is out, first review is great!

So the latest game I've worked on (Tony Hawk Underground 2: Remix) came out yesterday and had its first review today...check it out , it's definately the best review I've had for a game I've worked on yet:

Thug2 PSP review

BTW, I worked on the first level (Santa Cruz)...

In case you're curious here are past games I've worked on that have come out:
Army Men Air Attack 2
Army Men Air Attack 2 - PS
Jonny Moseley Mad Trix - note: sorry world!
Wakeboarding Unleashed
Call of Duty: Finest Hour

...Santa Cruz

Went to Santa Cruz yesterday with Tamsen. She got to see all the spots in the THUG 2: Remix level I made...we had fun.

Here's some somwhat crappy pics from GDC. I got to see Nintendo's President, the designer of Silent Hill series, and the Lead of Resident Evil 4, in addition to many so-so talks:











...the end.

...sick last week, GDC this week

I haven't updated in awhile, partially becuase I've been busy but primarily because I got food poisoning on Thursday last week. I'm still not recovered but lets just say it was not pretty. Make sure you order your burgers cooked medium or longer.

Anyhow I'll be at the Game Developers Conference a lot this week. GDC is where geeks like me in the industry go to learn stuff...should be fun.

...books to get next

I'm just putting a list here for my own benefit so I don't forget what I wanna read next:

Black Sabbath
Whats the matter with kansas
Oral History of Punk
Another Poker book (undecided which one)
Love and Rockets

...Busy Week

Had a fair amount of stuff to do this week so far. Valentines day was fun...we went to a morrocan place...good food you can eat with your hand and girls dancing...can't ask for much more out of dinner. Then the guys who helped with Call of Duty: Finest Hour fly down to LA for the COD party at gotham hall...free drinks and gambling turned out to be a good time. Check out some badly framed and lit pics (some of them taken by Brad an actual artist...I took the bad quality pics of our activision friends dancing).
















...the end.

...reason #1 San Francisco is great

...If there was ANY band I could see right now it's be Journey WITH Steve Perry...none of this Steve Augeri nonsense.

In other news, in case you think big business doesn't control our country perhaps you should read this.

...XVIIII

A friend of mine Darion once said "you must be the only person under 30 that tivos 60 minutes every week". I think he might be right. I am getting to be a pretty nerdy old guy. I watch 60 minutes 1 and 2, British House of commons, and the Daily Show every week...well every day for the daily show. In addition I read the examiner (free daily paper) every day on the way to work and I read the SF Guadian and SF Weekly every week. Am I old and nerdy?

This isn't all I do, of course...

To counteract the above I have similar tastes on the opposite end of the spectrum: I tivo the real world, real world/road rules challenge, surreal life, 24, celebrity poker challenge, the amazing race, and the chapelle show...In addition I read all the free music mags from amoeba (amp, mrr, etc...), punk planet, guitar world and stuff like that pretty regularily.

I forgot to CAPITALIZE the stuff in paragraph 3...how marvelous!

...cam pics (dog, karaoke)

Check out this dog...it was huge and had pig-tails...for some reason giving your dog pig-tails makes it seem more human. This was outside tu-lan, a vietnamese restaurant. Over the past few years vietnamese food has become my favorite food...luckily SF has vietnamese restaurants everywhere and they are cheap. Not so much for FL which I only saw and eat at a vietnamese restaurant once in my life before the age of 24 :(










...the end

...Game Review Resident Evil 4 - Gamecube

Resident Evil 4 - Gamecube

Resident Evil 4 is the best resident evil game in a series that has lasted since the early days of the Playstation. It is also one of the best games of this or any year and stands as one of the best horror games ever made. Even those who haven't enjoyed the series or genre in the past would be wise to give this game a chance as it reinvents every aspect of itself in the name fun.

Director Shinji Mikami stepped in halfway thru RE 4's design and totally started over. Gone are most everything that made the RE series a chore in the past. Things fixed or made better in RE4: proper 3rd person camera, proper 3rd person aiming, very limited inventory/saves/ammo/health, relentless backtracking, switching to your knife. In addition all the new features were added to serve one purpose: make the game more fun. Context-sensitive actions such as climbing, knocking down ladders, jumping thru windows, and attacking work surprisingly well. The revamped fighting is a blast with the "zombie's" location-specific damage, shooting projectiles out of the air, and protecting the president's daughter all being more fun than I possibly expected. All of this with an incredibly helpful map, perfectly based saved points (except right after the disk swap - arg!), a fun weapon upgrade/balance system, and a couple bonus modes when you beat the game that extend the already long (~20 hours) game indefinitely.

Oh yeah and the game is beautiful. This consistent an artistic vision hasn't been seen since Metal Gear Solid 2.

RE 4 has me wishing for the first time ever in the series "please keep the series like this!" I can't think of too much they could add or change to the next Resident Evil game to make it much better, which is definitely a first! In fact I pray that they don't make like this a lot of shooters and allow you to move and shoot 360 degrees at any time. The list of things that could be improved upon is short: better script/story, more scares per hour (I only jumped once all game), better weapon switching and possibly a sidestep.

RE 4 is a fantastic game. There is no reason to not own this game if you have a Gamecube and you like to shoot things.

A

...ipod shuffle

I bought an ipod shuffle the other day. I had to get it off craigslist as the apple store SF and the apple store online are all sold out. I got the 1 GB version and I'm liking it so far. It's really small, light and battery life seems decent. I can use as much of the space as I want as a flash drive to carry between work and home. Basically I got it for this use and for trips to florida and E3 and vacation...but I've found I've been using it a lot more than I expected: in the gym, to and from work, etc...

I've been listening to a lot more music lately because of this little guy. A combination of that and me wanting to document my music interests on this site has led me to research and purchase a lot more music lately. It helps that Tamsen is really busy at work so I have extra time (and I'm waiting on her for all those good movies that are out).

In any case this will be my last/only ipod purchase until they put GAPLESS PLAYBACK in their ipods. A 60 GB gapless ipod would fit my whole collection and would be an instant purchase for me.

s

...pic of my friend Bill and his fiance

They make a good looking couple n'est pas?

...I don't wanna grow up - movie-blocking

One of the things I love in life is movies. Specifically movies at the movie theatre. At its best, seeing movies at the theatre is like going to a different world where you are involved in some other lives. At it's worst, it's kinda like watching tv in a room filled with annoying people. At some point I've lost the ability to tune out whats going on around me. As a kid it didn't matter if a bomb went off 4 rows ahead of me, I was immersed! Here's a list of things that can pull me out:

1. people kicking my chair
2. people talking
- 2a. people repeating the words of characters on the screen
- 2b. people guessing correctly whats about to happen
- 2c. people guessing incorrectly whats about to happen
3. people talking on cellphones
4. people text-messaging on cellphone (new entry)

In tonights showing I had 1, 2a,2c, and 4. I predict 4 will be the new 3 on its way to becoming the most annoying movie-block in modern times. A sea of lights...a sea of lights...

...resident evil 4

This game is fantastic. Finally a game that made me want to play it (I thought Half-life 2 ruined me for games for awhile). Mercenaries should be arriving soon from Brandon's friend at lucasarts...I'm looking forward to it...the reviews have been good and the commercials funny. In other news, a game I worked on (Call of Duty: Finest Hour) is nearing 2 million sold in America. Thats kinda cool if you think about it...

...movies, weight, and more christmas 2004 pics

Most people gain 2 pounds over christmas break. Somehow I lost 2...I did eat pretty healthily I guess. That makes 20 pounds I've lost since eating better (loosely following montignac method) and mildly working out. Anyhow I feel like I've seen a fair number of movies lately - see right sidebar - but there are so many out there I wanna see right now: A Very Long Engagement, Hotel Rwanda, Million Dollar Baby, In Good Company among others...

Here are the other pics from my trip home, check out my sisters awesome mullet:
































...the end.

...best of 2004

I reserve the right to change/add to this list. It very hard for me to remember a whole year these days. I might take me all of 2005 to remember 2004! Anyhow these are just some stuff I enjoyed in no particular order that I would recommend.

Movies and Dvds
The Office - Season 1 & 2 + Christmas Special
The Incredibles
Spiderman 2
Sideways
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
The Corporation
Fahrenheit 9/11
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mean Creek
Bill Hicks Live

Music
Devo - The Complete Truth About De-Evolution (DVD)
Journey - Greatist Hits (DVD)
The Who - The Kids Are Alright (DVD)
The Pixies (Concert live in Berkerly)
Mclusky - Mclusky Do Dallas
400 Blows - Black Rainbow
Nirvana - With the Lights Out
Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (10th Anniversary)
Local H - Whatever Happened to P.J. Soles
The Hives - Tyrannosaurus Hives

Games
GTA: San Andreas
Half-Life 2
Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy
Burnout 3
World of Warcraft
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
ESPN NFL2k5

...some phone pics I took in Florida

Florida was fun. I watched a few movies (see right sidebar), got and recieved presents, saw my sister and mom's new art, slept in, saw cheap trick, and got 3rd place in a 10 person poker tournament (no-limit texas hold 'em of course). Unfortunately no pics of the poker, but I got some pics of the other stuff:































...the end.