Blue Hawaii Thanksgiving Waikiki has been pretty rad so far. I've logged plenty of beach hours already. My tan is coming back and I should have raccoon eyes by the time I return. My skin is most grateful for the sun--those nasty stress rashes are going away. I went surfing yesterday afternoon. There were like 20 people in the lineup, so I only went for two waves in 30 minutes. On the first one, I bit it and managed to hit my hip on the board. On the second one, my hip was twitching so I bailed. I spent the next hour hanging out in the lineup and tanning. Oh well, maybe I'll try again on Saturday. The highlight of the trip so far was Thanksgiving dinner with Don Ho. He put on a great show with the help of his family and a few guests. There was this man with a beautiful voice and a 14-year old girl that shreds on the ukelele. Don's daughter, Hoku, is stunning! She's talented, a little goofy, and beautiful. Check out some pics of the day one.

More Pics! I left some Tokyo pictures on my camera. They are in The Lost Pics folder. Christian and I went to G4 today. He was nice enough to take some vanity shots while I was filming. You can see them here and here.

Picture Time! Naturally, my sleeping patterns are all weird after coming back from Tokyo. Oh well. I'm sure Hawaii won't help things either. It's a small price to pay for getting to go to Tokyo and Honolulu! Check out my Tokyo pics.

Validation I may or may not buy this camera. I really want it. I was going to buy it in January when it's available in the U.S. But I can buy it in Japan now. Billy is playing the part of the enabler, but he really wants me to buy it to justify all the money he spent in Akihabara. I probably should save the money for my Hawaii and San Francisco trips...but the camera is way cool! Oh well, I have to check out in an hour so I guess we'll see.

Just Shoot Me Gah! I just had the worst television shoot ever. I'm definitely getting better with presence, but tonight's shoot was most impromptu. The television station saw me in the hotel lobby and grabbed me because they needed help with one of their shows... so I filmed three episodes with them. I aced the first episode since I knew the subject matter and it was fresh on my mind. The second two were not so good. The topics were things I'd usually do research on. Since I was basically ad-libbing most of it, the results were very...gak. Hopefully this won't dim my burgeoning stardom. Oh hey, since the shoot was in Japan, does that make me an international star?

Britney in Japan The Final Fantasy XII stuff has been fun. The unveiling at Roppongi Hills was neat and today's interview session was cool. There was one odd moment when I asked Yoshida-san a pretty hard question and he was all, "Wow, you don't mess around." He was having fun with it, but I felt bad since he's part of my favorite design team ever. Today I did lots and lots of walking and exploring. In the morning I walked around Shinjuku some more. I'm pretty familiar with the area around the hotel. Later on we (Billy, Scooter, Bryan, Charlotte, and two white guys) went to Ueno in search for this toy store my friend Andy recommended. It took a long time and lots of asking for direction, but we found it. Next we went to Shibuya and walked around lots. I bought the Japanese edition of the new Britney album since it has two tracks the U.S. version doesn't. There's actually a few CDs I want. Let it Be...Naked sounds cool from the few tracks I've heard. The Michael Jackson compilation is pretty neat. And the new Bon Jovi stuff looks like fun. Wow, I want three albums and none of them are indie-pop...very weird.

Disconnected Last time I was in Japan, I really enjoyed not having a mobile phone. It's the same this time around, but it's distressing how helpless I feel without an Internet connection. I got into Keio Plaza last night, but they ran out of DSL modems so I couldn't go online. And it's not like back home, where I can just got to a Starbucks and hook up over T-Mobile Hotspot. So I was feeling pretty helpless. It's crazy how much of my life revolves around the Net. Work is a given, but a lot of my social life revolves around email and instant messaging. That's pretty lame. Oh well, I think I'll kick it old school and write some letters. Raina and Kate will be up first. Thankfully the DSL thing is all sorted out...and I have plenty of wicked-cool Japanese beverages.

Ha! I told her...but she already knew (apparently I'm not very secretive when I'm drunk)...and it's cool.

Lost in Transition Gak. I just finished the hardware section of our Holiday Guide. Normally, this would be fine... except it's Friday night and I had less than two hours sleep last night AND I took a 6:00AM flight back home to kick off this lovely day. But it's all cool... ...because I had a lovely time on the road. I got hammered both nights. The first night was Shane's fault, because he reminded how fond I am of Maker's Mark. Eight Maker's and Cokes later, I was pretty gone. It was cool catching up with the boys and the lovely PR girls. Amazingly, I woke up at 8:00AM and made it to both my TV shoots. I kept my shades on for the first shoot, which was better for everyone involved--especially the viewers. I vowed not to drink during Thursday's party...but I dared someone to do a Tequila shot with me and he said yes. Highlights include serenading the denizens of The Tenderloin with Jennie. We bust out a mean version of "Wanted: Dead or Alive." Since I partied and worked hard in San Francisco, I'm going to chill out this weekend so I'm fresh when I go to Japan on Monday. Plus I've been really bored with life in The OC. Anyway, here are some pics of when I saw my old roomie. And here some pics from last night's festivities.

Bay Bound Again Surprisingly (really), I'm going to San Francisco tomorrow. I honestly wasn't expecting this trip, but the PR person booked me a hotel room because of our conversation last week. The problem is, I haven't spoken with this person in well over a month... but this person insists that we chatted last week. I really didn't know how to argue that one. Thankfully, another convenient business thingie (technical term) came up so the trip is actually a good idea... and I really want to get out of here because last weekend did nothing to help me center. Good news: My flight is on United and will help me hit 1K. Bad news: My return flight is at 6:00 AM so I can make my GOTY meeting. Oh yeah, download this or I'll get fired.

Star Power I had a lovely time in San Francisco (surprise!). Rob showed me a game and there was this PR conference I went to. Wednesday night I had dinner with Jennie, Jarik, and Lindsey. It was nice to hang out with three other Asians for the first time in forever (that doesn't mean I don't love you my pale-faced pals). After dinner Jennie and I went to The Clift where all sorts of PR people were mingling. And finally I had a really nice talk with the drunk girl that bedded me a few weeks ago (*snicker*). Some dude was hitting on Jennie at The Clift and he was bugging me. So I started speaking obnoxiously about myself. I think I had a run where I said, "Yeah, I'm on three television stations right now and do some web video. I'm a pretty big deal. McQuaid, get me a drink!" Unfortunately it didn't repel him. We just wrapped a shoot a few minutes ago. I'm pretty beat and got tons to do tomorrow. November sucks sometimes, but there are worse things I could be doing than writing about games. Ha!

Majestic Weekend I got to see my favoritest band in the world on Saturday. Since The Fairways broke up, Majestic is the lucky band that gets the prestigious distinction of being my #1. They haven't played in over a year and it totally showed. I had fun hearing the songs and all, but hopefully next time they'll be better. They opened for Pine*am (Playing Intense Neutral Electronica AdnauseAM) who were kinda neat. Their sound had heavy guitars, dorky keyboards, and cute Japanese girly vocals. Strip away the vocals and the sound is totally what Halcyon (one of my two college bands) would have sounded like if Manish wasn't such a egoist. My shoppertainment (thanks Christian) continues. I bought this nifty wallet from JFold. I decided I was too old to carry around a Pokemon wallet. And it was annoying that my old wallet cracked whatever credit card was in the top slot. Plus this wallet is cool and perforated and has sky blue highlights. I also found this coupon for free toner at Reflect. I'm sure I won't like it as much as my Kiehl's stuff, but it was free and my name is on the bottle. They sent me another coupon for free cleanser with the purchase of moisurizer. I might get it just so I have three bottles of skin-care products that have my name on it: raymond's cleanser, raymond's toner, and raymond's moisurizer. How cute! All this shopping to make me feel better has me feeling a bit shallow. Outside of boxing, I'm not really doing anything to improve myself or help anyone these days. Yeah, I know it's cool to do stuff for me, but it's my nature to care for others more. Kitten once said, "Sometimes you and I are really altruistic and want to care for everyone and everything. We wake up thinking we can change the world. Sometimes we wake up and just want a new pair of shoes."

Download this file or I'll get fired Please.