Lunch meeting at Houston's in Irvine yesterday. Met with a new printer we just did some work with. They let me choose the restaurant so we ended up here.
Just saw this new feature on Flight Club's site - charts to track historical pricing data for rare sneakers. So genius...
So, by the way, Vanessa won this year's 0484 NBA Bracket Contest and the $84 Chipotle gift card. My roommate Amy actually came in second place. All of this just really makes you wonder how these 2 girls who spend their free time watching Gossip Girl and all of the Real Housewives series' managed to out-predict all of our other friends and clients who claim to be avid NBA fans.
Saw a commercial for these Sharpie Liquid Pencils the other day - made them look like an incredible breakthrough in writing technology. They're not. Everyone just stick with the G-2's for now and I'll let you know if I discover something better.
Lastly, Halo Reach, the newest installment in the franchise was released last week and grossed $200 million on it's first day. Only nobody cares because nothing beats the original, 'Halo 1'.
Matt and I do not play video games (believe it or not) but in high school and college Halo 1 was the one game that we played with some of our friends. When Halo 2 was released, we all thought it would be an improved extension to the one video game that we bothered playing occasionally. Only it wasn't - all the subsequent Halo games have sucked.
Anyway, I was on John Mayer's blog recently (don't judge, just listen to my story) and he had posted the following entry which so aptly described, with both incredible detail and cunning literary charm, the mystique of Halo 1.
"I miss the days when all I would do in my free time was play the first version of (the video game) Halo. The game was perfect. It was so balanced in terms of risk vs reward you could lose yourself in it for hours, if not days. People would plan to meet up only to challenge each other to multiplayer battles. Male-female relationships struggled under the Halo regime. When the sequel came out, it’s as if they changed too much in the fundamental experience, and the game lost its once unfailing charm.
All the game developers had to do was put out a sequel to Halo that added new maps, weapons, vehicles and opponents. Everything else was pitch perfect. I know the franchise has done extremely well, but I wish they’d revisit the first Halo and just add some new secondary elements while keeping the heart and soul of the original going. Forget about XBOX live functionality. In person multiplayer only. I long for the days when every TV in the house would be ripped from it’s location and repurposed as part of a makeshift home arcade. Lock your doors, pour 64 ounces of your favorite beverage and tell your loved ones you will be in touch. I may just have to break out the original and spend a weekend revisiting the good old days way back in the 2000s.
Sent from my flying car"
It's eerie how adamantly I agree with his exact sentiment. I immediately e-mailed a link to that post to all my other video game nerd friends. When I had dinner with my brother last Sunday, we spent a good deal of time arguing over the merits of Halo 1 vs. the subsequent franchise titles. Today he e-mailed me this picture along with some disparaging remarks about people who still play Halo 1. (if you don't play video games, don't bother clicking on the link - it even took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on in that picture)
Anyway, that's it. Sorry, I'll do my best to refrain from blogging about video games (or John Mayer) in the future.
