Pink Berries and Apple iMacs

I had my first Pink Berry experience today. What can I say, it was pretty damn good. The yogurt is tasty, the toppings are fresh, and the atmosphere is modern. As I told my friends, it felt so 'Apple iMac.' The walls were pristine white, the area was clean (they manage to make pebble rocked floors seem classy), it just felt... now. Back it up with a great product in a fun packaging, throw in some buzz, and people will line up in droves.

Some Recommendations...

Here are a few places on the interwebs that I recommend you visit.

Shoot Club - One of my favorite writers on the web, Tom Chick. This is an always entertaining, often hilarious, and quite touching look at friendship-- with gaming as the backdrop.

Zero Punctuation - I look forward to every Wednesday for another lashing of a game by Ben 'Yahtzee' Croshaw. Fast talking, brash, and brutally honest; trashing video games has never been so fun.

Menu Screening - A plug for my brother and his friends' website, featuring foods in the L.A. area. They have reviews, but more importantly, pictures of each item they sample.

Slickdeals - Here is where you can find daily deals discovered by deal finders everywhere. Check out their forums for other deals, but watch out; you just might burn a hole in your wallet.

Hoopshype - Has a roundup of the daily rumors for my favorite sport, basketball. Boy do I love the gossip.

The Brotherhood

After a fun night out in Laguna Beach with the guys (My brother Chris and my cousins Nate, Paolo, and Peter), in which we ate at the Japanese restaurant Mosun and hit up the club upstairs, Club M, we decided to hit up Del Taco.

We're sitting in the drive-thru placing our order, most of the guys still a little buzzed from the evening, when some guy two cars behind us thought it would be a good idea to open his mouth.

"Hurry up you queers! Bunch of (female genitalia)!"

See, not a good idea for several reasons:
1. Sake bombs.
2. We were hungry and tired.
3. 5 of us, 2 of them
4. My ass just got thefted and I was waiting for someone to take it out on.
5. Most importantly, we had the PIEDOT (aka Peter) (aka Mixed Martial Arts trainee)

Soon enough, I started yelling at these guys in some colorful language, while Peter was, as the guys called it, "turning green". I calmed down a little, especially after the worker from Del Taco came out to try to diffuse the situation (good luck), but Peter kept calling those dudes out.

"Are you gonna apologize," he screamed.

Silence.

"Now you're gonna be quiet, huh?"

After a couple long stares in their direction, and a bunch of more choice words thrown their way, the guys in the car directly behind us (who weren't involved) were pretty shaken and the two dudes who picked the fight were in their car, dead quiet.

Of course our car started laughing hysterically, urging Peter to yell at the Del Taco worker to get us free food.

Long story short, I have never seen Peter so passionate about anything before.

Afterward, we went to Peter's place, laughed it off and while eating our tacos Peter kept saying: "Nobody steps to my boys." For all the crap we give each other, its good to know that we have each others' back. Peter gained a lot of respect from me that night.

I think Paolo said it best when he told Peter, "I'm glad that I'm on your side."

We all are.

My Ongoing Christmas Wishlist

In no particular order and constantly updating:

San Francisco State University Sweater
I've wanted one of these since I started attending this University over 2 years ago. Now that I'm done, I should really get one.

Unreal Tournament III
Ok, despite stories of horrendous sales figures on a game that relies on its online community, I still want this game. I want to support it for a variety of reasons: 1) Unadulterated FPS goodness. There are so many class based shooters now, sometimes it is just nice to go back to old school gameplay.

Xbox 360 Bundle
Mine got straight jacked. I loved it.

ASUS Eee PC
Lightweight, small form factor (the size of a hard cover book), and flash based memory make this the most mobile computer on the market. Coming in at about $400 bucks, it is the perfect companion in world where being connected 24/7 is almost a reality.


updated: 12/23/07 11pm

Blog 2.0

It's time to take my webentity (has anyone coined this term yet? If not, I'll take all the credit) to a whole new level. I'm done with college (for now), and I need something else that wastes my time. There is going to be some major blogging going on, so please get ready readers (both of you).

To the right are two new blogs that I am starting. Ray the Gamer is my video gaming industry blog, while Ray the Director is my film and television blog.

Edit: Incidentally, today is unofficially the 10 year anniversary of the blog. This is according to one of my favorite websites, Arstechnica.

Check it out:
Blogging celebrates is tenth birthday