For about a week now I've been clocking three, four hours a day on Mass Effect in the name of finally finishing the game. I'm not the biggest RPG fan, so playing the game takes me outside--way outside--my comfort zone. Which is no doubt why I stopped playing it on at least three previous... [Read More]

[Get caught up: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.]I... [Read More]

[Missed earlier chapters? Read one and two.]According to my MapQuest map, Maryanne's apartment was only a block... [Read More]

[Missed Part 1? Click here.]I got off the plane at LAX and retrieved my crappy suitcase from baggage claim. Then I headed for the cab line outside the terminal.My cab driver was gifted with a terrific amount of neck hair.... [Read More]

There's always this sort of great moment at the end of any day at E3 when your appointments are finally finished. You get carried along with the outgoing tide of convention-goers all making their way towards the exits. And, suddenly, you emerge into the late day sun of L.A.Ahhh.There's something terribly primal about this moment. Everyone seems to slow down a bit. Some people pause for a second, stopping in their tracks, squinting up at the sky, and letting the sun fall on... [Read More]

Proven Scientific Fact: It is not humanly possible for one person to process the scope of E3 2010. For the past 48 hours, I have had controllers shoved into my hands, undersized 3-D glasses pushed onto my oversized head, and games--hundeds of wonderful, terrible games--crammed into my now-even-more-nearsighted eyes.Metaphor for E3: OK, imagine that you go to a Pie Eating Contest and eat a lot of pies. Then you go to a Hot Dog Eating Contest and eat hot dogs galore. And then... [Read More]

I've had a lot of shit jobs in my life.Example: For several years I worked for an old boob magazine in New York. You know what a boob magazine is. Don't make me spell it out for you. My job was to write and edit copy that would ostensibly make heterosexual men uncontrollably excited.On my lunch hour,... [Read More]

If you've followed my writing over the years, even out of your periphery, then you know that I enjoying drinking. A lot. On a regular basis. Beer and I have been friends for a great many years.But lately, beer hasn't exactly been a good friend to me.It's not the drinking that's become... [Read More]

If you haven't played Alan Wake yet, and you plan to, be warned: I'm about to shine a light on its finale AND PULL THE LEFT TRIGGER. (Which makes your beam really strong, and totally drains your flashlight's batteries.)Actually, wait. Hold up. Don't go anywhere.What I'm about to... [Read More]

The apartments here (in Vancouver) are unlike anything I've ever seen before, anywhere on earth.For the same amount of rent that might get me a studio apartment (with a square footage on par with what a taxi cab's trunk would have) on a terrible block in a terrible neighborhood/terrible borough in New... [Read More]