California

"There is magic on this planet, it is contained in water." - Loren Eiseley

DAMN! Touring the halls of ILM/Lucas Film, eating piadinas at Pixar (and pouring Sprite while Pete Sohn turns in his plate!), strolling the lots at Warner Brother's Studios and meeting Christian Slater after a shoot and seeing a lot of the live action props from Watchmen, 300, The Matrix, Harry Potter, Last Samurai, and more, visited the famous bitchin Gnomon school in Hollywood (I am going there), Beverly Hills, I saw the largest living thing on the planet - General Sherman - a gigantic beast of a tree living happily in Sequoia National Park, and the world's crookedest street in San Francisco, wild bear cubs and their mother in the forest (holy crap!), one of the most exquisite and acclaimed aquarium's in the world in Monterey, not to mention some more wild dear, elephant seals, and dolphins, this all lead up to the climactic BAD ASS ending at BlizzCon which was one of the most awesome things I've ever been to, met my heroes and got the autographs from their entire art team - Chris Metzen, Samwise, Twincruiser, Peter Lee, MG, Glenn Rane (SONS OF THE STORM)!

Whew! California was so good. I definetly plan to move there when this is all done with - beautiful weather, beautiful sun, and a stone's throw away from Hawaii. Why the hell wouldn't you live where the waves are? I can't stand living inland. We went non-stop for 2 weeks, usually sleeping in a different place each night. I'm disoriented now that I'm home - drained by the experience.

Starcraft II is bad ass beyond belief - me and my brother kept going back in line to get another taste of it. Any doubts that I had prior to playing evaporated. Those guys at Blizzard are some crazy super nice talented bastards, I love 'em. They also previewed a snippit of a StarCraft II cinematic that is yet to be released - trust me - it is nothing less than absolutely FRIGINCREDIBLE! Kerrigan petting a hydralisk? Yes, please. What struck me the most was the overall impression I got from seeing them in person - I got a real taste of the style and flavour they are all about. They have a perfect blend of seriousness and fun - the embodiment of which is found in Chris Metzen and their in house band TAFKAL80ETC. You NEVER think its nerdy when Metzen is explaining dragon aspects and magical energies - it's only ever bad ass.

There's too much to say! So I will leave it at that and keep the rest in my mind. One more year to go. California, I'm coming back.