Alex, Bert and I went to Summerthing in Golden Gate Park on Sunday. The weather was dismal but people still filled up the park and Bert’s sunny shirt and total lack of coat made it a fun time. We showed up when The Last Goodnight was playing their last song called Pictures of You. This is a picture of them playing Pictures of You.

The Sign Guy makes an appearance at any event in San Francisco with his ever-changing Sign of Mystery. When Burke visited we were lucky to see him at the baseball park. I feel really lucky because today I got so close to him that I could see his Nostril Hair of Mystery.

Alex and Bert also got to stand mere inches away from Sign Guy. However, he appeared to be taking a break from trying to confuse the masses. I guess it’s pretty hard work carrying that sign around.

After the Sign Guy sighting we saw our good friend Michelle Gorski play a really good live show under her musical pseudonym Ingrid Michaelson. Michelle is pretty much like a super heroine of music. She’s all mild mannered animating girl during the week and then she hops around the US slaying evil with her wonderful voice.

On our way home we saw a very important public service announcement about sharks and soup at the bus stop.

Edit: I’ve been told that perhaps the photo that I have up of Michelle playing as Ingrid isn’t the most flattering. Here are some better ones.

I have to end the suspense, I’ve received two many emails and instant messages about this. As you can no doubt tell since you’re well versed in video games and all that, the picture above is that of a Big Daddy from last year’s critastically well reviewed Bioshock. I have accepted a job at 2K Marin to work on the sequel.

I was going to hold out and post this later but Andrew “I only post Valve-related humor on my website anymore” Burke is coming to town this weekend and I would probably have forgotten about this. Then Amila would be mad and that’d be no good.

It’s pretty neat, I wanted to work on a film and I got to do that at DNA. I wanted to work at a LucasFilm company since 1999 and I was able to do that. One of my favorite art styles is Art Deco so I’ll get to work on a project in which that’s featured. I think after this I will simply have to retire as there’s nothing left in the world that could possibly inspire me.

Oh, and my car is dark gray. Also, I counted the buttons today, there are over four hundred and ninety six thousand on the dashboard alone.

My real-life character finally caught up with my World of Warcraft characters and I bought a mount today.

Ever since 2003 I’ve been talking about buying a car. When I moved to Texas, DNA put me up with a car. Then I moved back to the Bay Area and I could either borrow a car or I would just take a bus. Then I bought a bike and I rode that around. But with the job change, my commute changes and requires a car.

So as I’ve grown a bit, my taste in cars has too. It’s gone everywhere from a Mini Cooper to a VW Golf to a Subaru Outback to an Audi A3 to finally a Toyota Prius. The Prius is the lamest looking of the bunch, but it has a lot of buttons on the inside that do things like talk to me and make topographic maps float above my head. It even has a rear view camera so I can see evil ninja tacos approaching from behind. The geek in me, which is a large part of me, is rather satisfied.

And it gets eighty-fiveity billion miles per gallon so I bet I’ll pick up some hot hippie chicks in it. Yay…

Today is my last day at LucasArts. Some of you know where I’m headed but for now I’m going to keep it all hushed up. Don’t worry though, I’ll post about it in just over a week. Think of it this way, if you still visit my website then you’ll have something to look forward to!

So onward I go. Into the sunset. On a horse…

San Francisco held the third annual Icer Air event over the weekend. Two years ago they put a bunch of snow on one of the steep streets in the city and people wearing poofy pants launched themselves off of ramps. Everyone was happy and this made for some really interesting and beautiful photos. However the residents on Fillmore street became upset because none of them owned ice scrapers and they were all late to work the next day. They now hold the event in the Pac Bell baseball park and only the second baseman and center fielder get upset.

Some of the skiers went down backwards. That impressed me. All of them did moves I don’t the names of. That didn’t really impress me.

They had an amateur bike contest across McCovey Cove. It was great to see people out there having fun and an audience to cheer them on. However, the amateur contest vibe reminded me of so many terrible story lines from the Tony Hawk video game series.

This band rocked out for a bit and this skateboarder also rocked out for a bit. I don’t know the name of the band, the skateboarder or the trick he’s doing.

You may have realized that at this point I’ve successfully ignored the fact that I haven’t posted in over two months. Good job, me.

I just saw Stardust, a film I knew nothing about 3 hours ago. I say, go see this film! Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer and a whole bunch of other people did a really great job to bring you cinematic candy and it would do them no justice if you didn’t see this film right now. It was everything I wanted Pan’s Labyrinth to be, a great little fairy tale adventure that reminds adults about the way they used to look at the world.

Go see Stardust now!

Hey kids! Do you like good stuff? Are your ears thirsty for something stellar? Do you have a cd player or an mp3 player? Do you find somewhat depressing lyrics wonderful? Did you enjoy The Bravery’s debut album and want an incredibly satisfying follow up?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, go pick up The Bravery’s new album, The Sun and the Moon. It used to be on iTunes but something happened. It’s gone. For now. But I bet a store or two has it. Go. Now.

It’s a great album. It’s so good that I’m not even going to post YouTube clips of the songs because you can’t be disappointed if you just go out and pick this album up. Or, steal it and tell the RIAA to shove it.

While you’re out picking up music, it wouldn’t hurt to also grab Arcade Fire’s second album, Neon Bible. Don’t steal this one though.

Here’s a list of fun things that should entertain you soon.

Echochrome - click to play the video

Beautiful Katamari - click to play the video

Guitar Hero 3 - click to play the video

LittleBigPlanet - click to play the video

Assassin’s Creed - click to play the video

Burnout Paradise - click to play the video

Skate - click to play the video

I can deal with the fact that this movie was horrendous, except for parts that weren’t. I’ve also accepted the brand new insect look of all of the transformers. But why did the central plot of the film revolve around the Allspark, something never mentioned in the old cartoons? Why couldn’t the Autobots and Decepticons have just fought over some good old fashioned, pink, glowing energon cubes? Why?

I thought the movie was dreck yet I came out of the theatre with a massive grin on my face. Go check it out if you can see it for free, you won’t be disappointed once you get past the first 2/3 of the movie.

I finally figured out what the secret to Lost is. It has nothing to do with the smoke monster or the Others or the numbers or anything like that. The secret of Lost is in how the show should be watched.

When Lost came out I knew nothing about it as I didn’t watch TV. On a whim I decided to download season 1 and after a few episodes I was absolutely hooked. I remember flying to visit a friend and watching 6 episodes on the flight. On the way back, 6 more. Then that night, 4 more.

Season 2 came out and like millions of people I watched it week by week, and wow, the show sucked. Week after week we viewers were tormented with long drawn out redundant episodes and Michael running around yelling, “Waaaaaaaaaaalt!” When the DVD came out for some reason I bought it and watched the episodes again back to back and noticed that the season wasn’t actually that horrible. It lacked the punch of the first season but by no means was the abomination that I remembered.

For season 3 I decided I would hold off watching any episodes until they were all available to watch. As my co-workers and friends complained familiar complaints about the declining state of the show, how episodes were shown with no seeming connection to the greater plot, I just covered my ears to avoid spoilers.

Having just finished watching season 3 over the course of a few nights I can say that the season was actually really good. I can empathize with my friends who watched in on a weekly basis because there were a few episodes that dragged on or that had little impact on the main storyline. But, when watched in the context of 23 episodes back to back, these weaker episodes just rolled on along blending in with the good. When a cliffhanger episode was followed up by an episode focusing on a silly character, I hadn’t built up anticipation for a week only to be disappointed. I just popped in the next episode and got instant satisfaction.

My advice to any Lost fans out there, it’s difficult, but just ignore that the show is on TV. When the DVD comes out or if you like iTunes, pick up the season and watch it in one go. You’ll be pleasantly surprised.