Deciding to fly into LA for 24 hours to attend HARD Summer LA with Kane, Bhan, Megan,  and Simon was one of the more ridiculous impulses I’ve ever done. The reward came in the form of incredible sets by Duck Sauce and Boys Noize. I really thought I’d have enough stamina to come back into San Francisco on Sunday and see Rx Bandits at the Regency Ballroom… shit was I wrong. I passed out cold at 8:30pm and missed the show.

Sorry Matt, Steve, Joe, Chris… I failed you.

2 months and no posts… life’s been pretty hectic. The new game pushes on and the end doesn’t seem to be close in sight but we’re pushing to the end. The game will honestly be the crowning achievement of the past year.

In other news, I’ve secured a new apartment… a loft to be exact at the Franklin Lofts at 16th & Bryant in the Mission. It is a 3-story work-live loft with concrete floors, 2 full baths, and a private deck… I’ve got the keys but will most likely move in mid-September. I’m really stoked to move-in and ping J.Chorng about all the vast options to deck it out real nice. Bear with the lo-fi iPhone photos for now…

The ladies always got the best of the best from my G-MA’s greenhouse. I, too, one day wil have a garden of her and my grandfather’s magnitude…if not greater.

Grandma & My sister Olivia this past weekend on Easter.

Work at ngmoco has been ramping up fairly hardcore. With the success of our two new games We Rule & Godfinger, the company has been blowin’ up; so many new hires that I don’t even know 1/4 of everyone’s name. Amit and I are gearing up to work on our 2nd game and he’s positioned himself as the lead coordinator, or as the process calls it, the ScrumManager, which I’m totally fine with. I’ve been practicing Ruby (an elegant programming language) a lot lately and brushing slightly with Ruby on Rails (framework atop Ruby for websites) in order to get my chops up to less-than-failure status (I’m so fucking tired of PHP). While I cannot delve into details of the new game, it’s going to blow Epic Pet Wars out of the water… guaranteed.

Moving on… it’s not the weekend yet, but it’s time to post bangers anyway… at 6:45AM.

thanks to jimmy on this one. he loves some neo tokyo as much as I do.

PS: thanks to j.chorng for the mad photoshop skills. he’s a pro.

Black Friday is now a hoax. You can get better deals online on nearly every single thing a brick and mortar electronics store can offer. The only thing that may be worthwhile is a game console “bundle” of sorts where you get a game system and an extra controller + 2 b-list games or some shit for the same price as the console alone. I no longer find any excitement in camping out for shits and giggles at Fry’s. So, Black Friday, I declare that you’re officially an absolute waste of time.

Instead, I held out for Cyber Monday… which, apparently, is an even bigger hoax where internet retailers try to lure buyers into some false promise of better deals than they normally offer during the holiday season after Black Friday. Again, this is true that it is bullshit most of the time but there are gems & loopholes here and there. I only say this because I ordered an HDTV for my room for what I think is a pretty good deal. Nothing super fancy, just a 37″ Vizio LCD that does 1080p and only cost me 4 bills. Not bad, right?

However, Black Friday wasn’t absent of all joy… killer party located at the standard J.Chorng/j.Chorng household was in full effect, and included so many faces that I haven’t seen in so long (some of them 4 fucking years) that it couldn’t be anything less than legit. Seeing the likes of nearly the entire Troy High 2004 ASB crew was awesome, to say the least. We even somehow managed to coax Tamby and Hata to come out, making the entire situation feel like Irvine House circa 2005 all over again… and even Michelle didn’t pass out in 30-60 minutes like she usually does! I’m sure you can head over to Jesse or Will ass Chang‘s respective blogs to cop some photos of the action in DSLR goodness… irresponsible goodness at that just because Jesse and Jimmy just procured an absurdly badass camera. Expect some 1080p @ 60FPS porn of Jimmy in the near future to show up on Vimeo.

In other somewhat personal news, many of you probably aren’t aware but in the past 3 months my Grandmother (Mom’s Mother) has been struggling in the hospital and then in a rehabilitation center. Many of us family members prayed for a miracle as things just kept getting worse, but out of nowhere she made a huge recovery over the course of 2 weeks! She’s now back at home… chillin’ as she should be now with some extra nursing help but otherwise doing great. I love my Grandma. Period… and am so happy she’s OK.

One thing I’ve learned is that when extremely tired, one is more prone to impulsively buying tons of shit online. In my case, I found myself knee deep in a vinyl order from both Insound and Amazon in a single night, nearly browsing their entire catalogs. The first round of goodies have come, and I’m pleased with all of them. I thought for a bit of time again that I need to cool it on procuring records so quickly. In my mind, a strange preconceived notion exists that vinyl is something that one is supposed to collect slowly over many years and do so via browsing a record store meticulously. I admitted to myself that while I’m down for that, I just don’t have the time usually to head out to Amoeba or some of the smaller record shops around SF to browse for an album only to be let down that they don’t carry it. Also, purchasing vinyl online avoids tax which is another win and hell, everyone loves opening packages. So, clockwise albums I now add to my collection are Boys Noize – Power, N.A.S.A. – Spirit of the Apollo, Elliott Smith – From a Basement on the Hill, Simian Mobile Disco – Attack Decay Sustain Release, Bibio – The Apple & the Tooth (apparently limited to only 1,000 prints!), Minus the Bear – Menos el Oso and (not pictured) RJD2 – Deadringer… and more are on the way.

Big things are happening at the ngmoco:) camp too, but I’ll save that for another post. For now, here’s Hot Chip’s title track off their new upcoming album “One Life Stand” coming out early next year.

And lastly, Mich… so what do you all think? Should I submit this shit to Look at this Fucking Hipster?