It has been a long time since I was watching a movie and literally felt the brain cells dying. The dialogue and situations in Rush Hour 3 were so absolutely horrific, I felt ashamed of myself for laughing at the jokes.

Offenses in Rush Hour 3.

1) Roman Polanski makes a sodomy joke.

2) Brett Ratner somehow made Zhang Jingchu appear ugly.

3) The entire thing was forced plot line after forced plot line, with forced dialogue pushing it all forward.

4) Jackie Chan makes porn references, and in the credits, it is discovered that Brett Ratner is feeding him lines. Why am I not surprised?

5) Jackie Chan was forced to take a picture with Paris Hilton at the premiere. He seems displeased.

6) It made me ashamed to say I was amused by the first two Rush Hour movies.

Hopefully Death Proof next weekend will wash the bad taste out of my mouth!

In other news – BIOSHOCK! TOMORROW (I HOPE!)

I set the high score on his account, which funny enough was 1000 or so points below the high score on my account. So now we are right next to each other on the global rankings.

Afterwards, we broke out the most awesome USB peripheral of all time.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the humping dog.

It started off with a little drunken debauchery for a co-workers welcome back to drinking party. He was hospitalized with illness for a few weeks, but has since recovered, so we gave him a warm and drunken welcome. This included Ben screaming “WAKAMEZAKE!” quite loudly in the restaurant, to the horror of the surrounding Japanese.

It was funny, because this week, I actually had 3 nomikais. On Monday, I had some food with some ex-coworkers, then Wednesday I got some grub with the localization team to welcome a new member and say goodbye to Eric, then Friday’s fun. I’m kinda nomikai’d out for a while.

How would you like to be that poor girl on Monday?
Too much Yakiniku this week!

On Saturday, I headed to Namba. First, Mai and I picked up 3 Transformers tickets. Then we went to Shisen Ramen, which is a chain of upscale ramen joints, and had some lunch. After that, we walked around Namba for a bit, and then met up with Mikami-san. I took him over to a n import dvd shop, because I wanted to buy the blu-ray version of 300, and he was impressed less with the content than the design sense of American dvd covers. It was interesting how he described things, and I think I learned something. Afterwards, we chatted about the future over coffee and then went to go see Transformers. I cannot recommend Namba Marui Toho Cinema’s screen 2 enough. They have an LED projection system AROUND the theater, which they can project images onto the walls for some of the in-theater commercials. It is an amazing effect. They also use bone crunchingly loud DTS sound, which was incredible, the screen is gigantic for Japanese theaters, and the ambient lighting is actually LED stars embedded into the walls. It was almost something out of a theme park.

Transformers was all sorts of awesome, and we all digged it, especially me because I was able to recognize all the homage to the 80s show. I just wish there was more Prime and Starscream, but they both had really cool scenes nonetheless.

I took this picture for Andrew.

Today, I went out with Brin, Noriko, and her boyfriend to motorcycle shops. Brin, in his silliness, is purchasing an import, full power 2007 Honda CBR600, so we went to find a jacket for when he wont be wearing his full leather racing suit. He settled on the Alpinestars SMX Air Flo jacket, but they didn’t have his size. I’m a big fan of motorcycle clothing (I have an Alpinestars mesh jacket even though I don’t ride) so it was fun to go around with Nori and Brin and see all the bike stuff. I was searching for Brin’s jacket on the net, and I found one I really like as well.

Obviously I’m after the white and red version. 2006 model, so it might sell out before I get the chance to buy it.

This is a sweet jacket too.

In gaming news, I just broke 7 million in Stardust HD, and I’m staying on the ball with Everybody’s Golf 5 (Hot Shots Golf). I find myself playing more games lately, and thinking about more game ideas lately, than I have in months. I think my passion for gaming is slowly being reinvigorated, and it is a wonderful feeling.

I leave you all with this ode to Japanese television:

I took Friday off and went with Mai to Universal Studios Japan. I quite like their Hollywood Dream roller coaster, even if it is incredibly tame. It has some good elements.

I doubt anyone remembers, but iNgen was the name of the genetics company in Jurassic Park. I loved that movie so much, I wanted to be a geneticist in elementary school.

After USJ, we hit up Chicago Rib Co., where I indulged in some tasty baby backs and breaded chicken wings. They were excellent as always, but I prefer the ribs at Outback. Anyone want to go with me?

After that, I saw Ratatouille, which was brilliant, genius, and exceed my lofty expectations at every turn. I absolutely adore that movie. It proves that no matter the medium, plot/story is essentially about crafting a common human experience in varying molds. You could teach a course on this and use Ratatouille as the text. It is essentially the same plot as Cyrano de Bergerac; however, it makes interesting decisions all along the way. The movie was about food and a rat, but it could have been about motorcycles and a cripple, or artists and a blind man. Absolutely excellent.

Saturday I was lazy all day with Mai, then at night I DJed at an event called Eden. It was small, but quite fun.

Finally, today I slept off the long night, and watched an excellent film from Hong Kong called Protege. It is a Derek Yee movie starring Daniel Wu, Andy Lau, and Zhang Jingchu (who will be in Rush Hour 3 and is absolutely captivating). I can only describe it as Requiem for a Dream meets Infernal Affairs, with more Requiem elements than Infernal Affairs. Ultimately, it is flawed in parts, but it doesn’t compromise for a happy ending and it leaves you with both questions and a message. Definitely seek it out if you can find it.

On the gaming front, I beat Rainbow Six Vegas, which had one of the worst endings ever. I really loved the game, and I can’t wait to dig into multiplayer; however, I was turned off by the ending. That being said, I can wholeheartedly recommend the game for fans of shooters. It was good fun to think about how to approach situations, and it doesn’t have the skull crushing difficulty of previous R6 games. I’m also getting into Minna no Golf 5, which is quite fun. I haven’t tried the online yet beyond browsing the lobby, but I am looking forward to getting into it.

I also bought the 20th anniversary Metal Gear boxset.

The iPhone has well exceeded the hype. Considering what it enables with its browser and the possibility for open development, it very well could change the world.

A device with this ease of use and mobility, coupled with a social networking platform could create true mobile social networking. Imagine if google maps could display other iphone users with similar interests in that are logged on in your area. What if you could find out that the person sitting on the other end of the starbucks likes the same 1980s cliche cinema that you do.

Not only does this have the opportunity to make us more social, clever creatures – it provides a gateway to technology experiences that introduce non-core users to the true ideas behind social technologies. If Time magazine says “you” are the person of 2006, the iPhone will allow you to express why in 2007 and beyond. I am 100% drunk on this Steve Jobs-spiked cool aid.

BTW: Check out this picture I took downtown today.

This is going to be a long one, so I won’t kill you with everything above the jump; however, if you want tales of E3, Top Gun on the big screen, Ikea and assorted fun, continue on. Even if you don’t check out the rest of the post, definitely check out the gallery section of the site… I ponied up for a full flickr account, so the gallery is now organized into photosets. http://gallery.technolustomega.net

So right after I posted about Paul van Dyk, I took off to E3.

It wasn’t nearly as overwhelming as I thought it would be, and the work was not as hard as I thought it would be, so I had a great time. I won’t write about the games, etc. because that has been covered to death, but I will say that I loved the energy the place had. It’s great to see people feeding off the games and what they mean, however disingenuous that energy may be.

(It was neat to meet Sakurai-san…)

And just as neat to meet the GameLife crew.

Another really cool bit of E3 were the parties. It seemed like I was going out every night. Monday night I had a dinner, Tuesday night I went to go see MI:3 (which I thought was good, but significantly lost steam in the last act), Wednesday was our company party, Thursday was the Sony party (WITH INCUBUS! I LOVE INCUBUS!! I was really excited to see them live once again!), and Friday was the Microsoft Party with the Crystal Method. What was great about things was that I got into all of these parties in my first year at the company. Apparently for someone in my position, I was quite lucky.

(Incubus at the Sony Party)

(Bumped into Mizuguchi at the MS party on Friday)

(The Crystal Method…)

When I got back from E3, I had some serious jet lag that seemed to last for a week. It was like my get up and go just got up and went (no royalties to Aerosmith needed…). But being home did allow me to start to redecorate my living room, something that I had been planning to do for a while now. I bought a couple of viespa cabinets off of rakuten and started from there.

Then I went to the 100 yen shop and bought spray paint and wood boxes to make the speaker stands. The cabinets are holding my games and my vinyl. Very easy to use.

I also took the chance to clean up the cable creep and ugly bookshelves that were near the TV.

Even though the room was only half empty, I decided to go ahead and entertain my old host sisters with a Mexican dinner party. They plopped down on the TV, and I began to cook. The menu – Chicken Nachos and Quesidillas.

Around this time, my friend Anthony Pringle also visited. It was great to see him, but it was also sad, as he was returning to the states the next day along with his sister and my friend Patrick, who was studying at my old alma-study-abroad-mater Kansai Gaidai. I also got the chance to see Top Gun on the big screen at a very nice theater. I never realized how much fun that movie was (and I love it) or how absolutely absurd it can get. Between the insane tongue kissing to the absolutely hilariously obvious musical cues, it is pure 80′s cheese, and that excites me. I came away convinced that you could watch Top Gun with your eyes closed and no dialogue (just SE and Soundtrack) and understand the movie perfectly well.

The next week, I had to take a business trip to Tokyo. I decided to foot some of the bill myself and stayed at the Mercure Tokyo Ginza, a French modern designed boutique hotel in the Ginza shopping district. I was very impressed with the digs, especially for approximately $135 USD a night.

I took the chance during this trip to check out IKEA in Minami-Funabashi. The place is gigantic, and in a matter of no time, I had dropped $200 USD to finish off my living room, among other things. Here’s how the room turned out.

I also picked up a wok, enabling some great spicy chicken stir fry!

Finally, I’ve taken up the game of darts with some coworkers. It is a great way to unwind Fridays after work, so I’m more and more motivated to get better. However, since I am still a beginner, some peculiar things still happen. Like missing sideways.

I’ve got to practice DJing more… Been listening to the excellent new Ferry Corsten album, and it is inspiring me to practice more, but it is primarily an issue of time management. I wish I was as capable of managing my hobbies and free time as I was my money. Along with getting more exercise, it is something I definitely need to work on.

P.S… Mai is doing great.

On Friday of last week, I popped down to the Apple store to pick up my newly rejuvenated PowerBook 12″ (which may soon be replaced by the rumored 13.3″ Macbook). While I was there, since Golden Week promotions had begun, I picked up a Golden Week scratch card. Usually all you get is 10% off, or a poster, but someone right in front of me won a Macbook Pro. I was a big luckier than a poster, coming home with a FREE 1GB IPOD NANO! I’m impressed with it, although I was disappointed I had to take white instead of black.

Another piece of good news was news that Mai is going to be joining me at the company that I work for! Too bad she doesn’t start until next April, but I am very excited for her. It is crazy to think that I’ve been at the big C for 8 months already.

The early part of the week revolved around me playing lots and lots of Battlefield on the X360, a game that I am very impressed with. I still have quite a few games sitting around that I need to get on playing, but I love playing on Xbox Live too much, and I believe it kinda sucks away my ability to play other games as completely as I would like. I also picked up a DS Lite for Mai, and she has been playing for a couple of hours a day (SM64 DS… a strange choice, but a good warm up for New Super Mario Bros!)
On Tuesday, Mai and I made some Indian food at home. Chicken Tikka Masala to be exact. Easy to make and it was very tasty. I am pretty sure we will add it to our regular rotation of dinner selections.

Thursday, I visited my old host family and checked out the very western and very well designed Kuzuha Mall. I was really impressed with it. Afterwards, we visited my old host grandparents, going out to dinner and being serenaded by the grandfather, who seems to have taken up Karaoke as a profession; much to the chagrin of his granddaughter, as one can see in this picture.

Last night, we went to go check out Paul Van Dyk at Underlounge in Osaka. It was one of the most insane DJ sets I have ever heard, and probably the best trance set I’ve heard in recent memory. The man definitely deserves his #1 ranking in DJ Mag. It was an insane night.

Mai and I on the way to the event, warming up to a little music.

A stop at Freshness Burger for a classic burger and a cold MGD. I forgot how absolutely terrible US beer is compared to Japanese brews.

Josh (my old Kendo club kohai who is studying at Gaidai) and I bumped into Eshiro from work at the club. He was wearing a killer donkey kong shirt and in his usual party mood.

The man himself.

I like Max’s Prada shades, but I’ll stick with my D&G FTW.

No matter what club I am in, I always bump into Tomoyo!

Mai was in a great mood!
And finally, here is some video insanity from the night.

A note to LiveJournal viewers – These videos are playable without going to YouTube by using the Technolustomega.net blog.