...and some pics from Jessica's birthday party.

Some pics from my phone at the party in some hip little bar. The cake looks like a fireball here...The whole day was fun because after this we went bowling! Thanks to Tom for setting it up and for Scott and Sally for the ride yo!






...the end.

...the winning streak continues

More good luck this week...a week or so ago I won a trip to Seattle for 2 nights...the luck continued on Saturday night with the first Shaba no-limit texas hold 'em poker tournament. I actually managed to outlast 20 other people to win the grand-prize ($100 Best Buy gift certificate)! Tamsen managed to get a very respectable third place, especially having not too much knowledge of the game. I think she may be my good luck charm...in addition to my Sabbath shirt...




...the end.

...quick question

Does anyone know if the star wars "the clone wars" animated dvd is any good? I'm considering buying it...

...another reason to get a mac

So recently Trent Reznor just released the newest single from his new album in garageband format. Man I really want a mac with garageband 2 so I can mess with this 16 track song. Granted the song isn't too good...I got a bad feeling about the album as well. It all falls into my universal band theory:

1. Band A is great and put outs good albums (in this case Broken and The Downward Spiral).
2. Band A puts out an album that is not as good as their previous works (The Fragile). Usually this album is more "mature" and has less edge than past albums; oftentimes this album takes longer to make as well.
3. Every album from then on the band will never regain their past talent.

Bands that fall into the above (Smashing Pumpkins, Hole, Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Guns N' Roses, Metallica...). I have asked many people and have never heard of a band that was able to overcome step #2. The lesson is, like The Beatles, strike while the iron is hot...if you are making good records don't stop for anything...keep cranking them out!

...fell in love with a psp

...got a psp last week as a present from work (yay!) then returned it last night as I was sick of my 8 dead pixels driving me insane and keeping me awake at night (boo!)...as soon as best buy gets some more in I will get another one, then return it if it is not pixel puurrrfect...repeat ad infintum until I get something deserving of the quality $250 should get you.

On a positive note, the bird that comes by to wake me up all the time has been incorporated into my dreams without waking me up last night....

...pics from last weeks shows

The pics from the 2 shows I went to last week as promised:


Oxen guitarists both had no wires for crowd action...this guy got a beeer mid set!



Big business played a new song without vocals so they invited anyone to come up and sing.









These Arms Are Snakes singer danced around so much he was drenched in man-sweat.




I was joined at concert #2 (Death From Above 1979) by Tamsen...which was nice as I usually end up going to shows alone.



The actual pics from the DFA show aren't so great, but this one below shows the middle band (controller controller) notice the guy in the white shirt with a mohawk...thats the DFA '79 singer.

...the end.

...some current game reviews

Currently playing or just finished:
Freedom Force 2 (PC) - B+ so far
Fight Night 2 (PS2) - B
Brothers in Arms (XBOX) -B+ so far

Also saw Sin City (grrrrr ate) and changed the layout here on the right. The book and movie reviews were getting too low on the page so I mixed all the reviews up. I'll have last weeks band pics up tommorow night.

...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