I’m back from the sunny west coast and wow somehow that city manages to be the exact opposite of Sonic unleashed. Alright, let me explain. Just before I left for California I set myself a goal of getting through Prince of Persia and Sonic unleashed, I had enough time so it seemed pretty reasonable, Prince of Persia was exactly what I expected, no more, no less and rather quick to get through, so then it was time to put the old ‘chog through his paces. Since Sonic Unleashed isn’t a new game I had plenty of time to get my expectations adjusted by the experiences of others which have been entirely negative, but being the sucker that I am I set the game of on the GameFlu and was astounded to find that the game wasn’t able to meet my amazingly low expectations, in fact I couldn’t complete the game (fortunately I wasn’t scheduled to review it). To steer my ramblings back to my original analogy, I had an idea in my head of what I’d expect from San Francisco and somehow the city exceeded my expectations in every way. There you go Sonic Unleashed <> San Francisco or perhaps Sonic Francisco != San Francisco depending what takes your fancy (I prefer the latter)

My new wallpaper (helps to have 4 screens)

There’s a few peeves I have about most American cities that I’ve visited, mostly the problems are with the planning and the store selection. Where I live (Kansas) has a very ‘city in a box’ feel, as if I’ve been let loose on SimCity and made some generic heartless area, where building placement is decided by metrics and numbers “These people are so many miles from a Walmart, place another”, “the people need more Applebees” etc. One of the greatest things about SF is perhaps how it reminds me more of a city like Torquay with its feel but just far more geeky and of course, geeky is win. I love the small business, grocery shop feel, I love the fact that I saw more iPhones and smart phones in 4 days than I have in my life and I generally love how it’s not Kansas.


Perhaps my favorite shot

We got to do a lot of neat things while my wife and I were there for 3 nights, as you saw before I rudely busted in on the Giant Bomb crew, but I brought British gifts, so hopefully tonight's Bombcast won’t be scolding me for my actions. We also saw just major historic sites, such as the worlds largest LOLcat


The CNet / GameSpot building (didn’t get a chance to enter)


Loud fish mammal creatures


And plenty more on my Picassa Album (http://picasaweb.google.com/madelk/SanFran09?authkey=ciB0RUwjay8)

Obviously I had a great time and I look forward to getting back into the city, I just wish more places were hiring and not firing.

EDIT: For clicky images check out my wordpress blog http://madelk.co.uk/blog/?p=365 unless I find the time to edit this blog again later