Yesterday was a pretty great day. It started off getting some local love from @mikeoz on Twitter. He works for the local newspaper, The Fresno Bee, and has written some really great articles. When I take the time to actually read the paper I always make sure to check out what he has to say. For the Fresno Bee employees there is a website called FresnoBeeHive where they add additional content that didn’t make the newspaper, and frankly the site is a lot of fun. They do concert ticket giveaways on there for local shows, the viewers get the chance to comment on the articles like on a blog site, and I find that that one website has alerted me to more things going on in my town than I could have imagined.

@mikeoz created a post on the site about Twitter. It was for the local community who hadn’t created an account or who was new to the site. Basically it was filled with recommendations. There was a section about which tv stations were on there, other cool local things/places who were on Twitter, Fresno Bee peeps, and then there was a category with just 11 “cool peeps” that he thought people should start off with.

I was totally delighted when he asked me Thursday evening if I would be cool with him putting me as one of the peeps. Of course I said yes and thanked him because it truly was flattering. Surprisingly there are a lot of locals on Twitter so he could have easily chosen somebody else because frankly lets face it, I’m not too terribly exciting lol!

As a result of that blog, I gained many new followers – obviously local ones – and I got to meet some of them at the Tweet Up that took place Friday evening at the Daily Grill. It’s always great coming across new people that you might not have found out through other means.

At the Tweet Up last night, that was wonderfully arranged by @FresYes whose real name is Jason Farris, Chris and I were only there for a little over an hour but we had a blast. We got there later than we wanted to but it was totally my fault. I couldn’t find a stupid top to wear. Then we had to leave earlier than we would have liked to but we have our obligations to our show and to our viewers.

It was great getting to meet everybody face to face because some of the people we have on Twitter use random images instead of self photograph for their avatars. @ShyTrbleMaker was a blast to meet. She was so incredibly sweet. We also got to meet @FresYes and @mikeoz, who came with his wife @tanyaoz. We met many others and there were loads more there that Chris and I didn’t even recognize!

During our conversations we came across @respres, Jeff Turner, and he showed us this great app for the iPhone called Qik. After going through the set-up of the app we can then stream live video. It will provide our Twitter followers with link in a tweet and then the viewers can start asking us questions as we are live. From what I was able to see there wasn’t a way to text the message to people but verbally answering is just fine. He had a great suggestion for us, since the videos are saved and then can be embedded or linked to, to use the video snippets as part of a weekly re-cap during our MehCast.

Absolute genius good Sir!

He was even so sweet to show us how it worked and gave Chris and I a little interview right there on the spot. In the interview we talked about our MehCast and our blog site so thank you Jeff for helping us get our name out there! We really appreciate it.

Another amazing display of Cali Love came from the couple who run Married Gamers. Every week on Saturday they do a Podcast solely about video games. Chris and I both have the Mr. (@leftybrown) on our lists and we were introduced to the Mrs, who is an Animal Crossing addict like us! Obviously we spent a bit of time discussing the game that is destroying our very lives, but we also talked about other things as well. They are going to be so awesome and so kind as to mention our blogsite/show during their Podcast that is runing today.

All in all, yesterday was a great day. It was a great day for our site, it was a great day for our show, and it was just great getting to meet our Twitter friends and making new ones in the process!

To everybody that I mentioned above, thank you so much again. We really do appreciate it and hope that someday in the future we can repay you all!

Here are some links to the sites I have been mentioning:

FresnoBeeHive : http://www.fresnobeehive.com

Jeff Turner (@respres) blog – and one of MANY : http://www.technosanity.com

The Married Gamers site : http://www.themarriedgamers.net

- She Who Has The Last Word

Back in 2002 I attended the wonderful Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3. It was everything I could have imagined, and more. There was so much going on that I thought I would succumb to sensory overload. Game demos everywhere, lights and neon that made you think you were at Times Square or the Vegas Strip, and people! Oh it was a sea of nerds, and it was beautiful!

I went all 3 days of that convention and my legs were so tired. The trick is to go around to each booth the first day and pillage for goodies. E3 is notorious for giving good swag. I came away with Link and Samus pins for my lanyards, game demos, a huge Sony bag, and a bunch of other stuff.

I was given a job offer from Sega (that couldn’t be accepted for personal reasons… and yeah, that was my dream job btw), and I even got the chance to attend the Sony After Party. There I met Hideo Kojima. For those of you who don’t know who that is, he is the Vice President of Konami and also the creator of Metal Gear Solid. It was such an honor to meet him and I had no idea what to talk about! I did tell him how I laughed at the part in Metal Gear 2 when you can knock on the inside of a locker door where a poster of a bikini girl hangs. When you do that, you hear a “boing!” sound as the fist hits the boob. So funny! Hideo always puts little details like that in every game of his and I think it’s fantastic. I even asked him about the Metal Gear that would be released after that and all he told me was that “there will be a Snake” in it. I can’t tell you how many hours my brain wrestled around with that comment.

What I really found cool was that Kojima-san and his friends all wanted to take pictures with me. I know that a lot of it had to deal with the fact that I am a blonde haired, blue eyed American girl who spoke Japanese but still, it was flattering. Then the icing on the cake happened when Kojima-san asked for my business card. Of course I didn’t have one so I apoligized but he gave me his! There I am, this regular person getting this incredible mans business card! I immediately thanked him for it and told him that one day I hope I get the chance to work with him because it would be an honor and a dream come true. It really would be.

I have yet to call him and it’s been almost 7 years. First off I have no idea what I would say, secondly it would probably be expensive as hell to call Japan. His business card did include his email and I have yet to do that either. I have no idea what to say! Really, what does one say when they are emailing a person such as him?

Lately I’ve thought about it though. Emailing him and saying sorry that it’s taken so long, and to help jog his memory I would attach one of the pictures that was taken but I don’t know. It could be pretty awesome or I could fail…miserably. If I do email him you guys and gals will be the first to know about it!

Here are some of the pictures taken from that Sony After Party, and yeah… my hair was bleached. Oh, you can obviously tell how excited I am by my enormous smile.

From L to R: Some guy who worked on Street Fighter and Suikoden, me, Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame and a Konami employee. Bottom: I have no idea.

From L to R: Hideo Kojima VP of Konami and creator of Metal Gear Solid, me, Takayoshi Sato who is another Konami employee

From L to R: Hideo Kojima, me, Akira Yamaoka of Silent Hill fame and Konami employee

Hope you all enjoyed the pictures even though I look totally different and way beyond excited but if you were there you would probably be that excited too. I did talk with Takayoshi Sato for a few months after E3 and we kept trying to schedule time to get together for lunch but that never happened. And for those of you who are unfamiliar with Akira Yamaoka he did the sound for all of the Silent Hill games, was the main guy behind the 3rd game in the series, and he also worked on the movie adaptation. He was a really nice guy and I have his business card somewhere too.

I would scan them for you guys but I don’t think they would appreciate me giving out their information on the internet like that. Sorry!!

Hopefully I can get into E3 this year. I might make more posts that are tech and video game oriented just because I would want to prove that this blog can qualify for a press pass or something of that nature. Who knows, I might have more pictures this June! Wish me luck!

- She Who Has The Last Word

Sweetie, you are unequivocally, undeniably, and unbelievably full of shit.

Internet friends, allow me to enlighten you as to Lindsey’s definition of “cheating” at Trivial Pursuit.  Verbally commanding the game to provide me with a particular dice roll (and, interestingly enough, the game providing me with the requested dice roll more often than not) is the apex of my cheating ways.

I still stand undefeated at Xbox Trivial Pursuit.

-Because I said so