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Some recent pictures of things I've come across:

Tencent, a huge Chinese portal, was at GDC a few weeks ago. They
apparently have a cowboy penguin mascot. Who knew?

In NYC, the cool new spot is the High Line, a derelict train line
running above Chelsea repurposed into a linear park. It's actually
pretty great - wonderful views, a good walk, and some great common
space design.

Last night, the undergrad Japanese associations at UCSD threw their
annual festival. For me, it was familiar territory and a very fun
visit back to my own undergrad days. The munchkin doing the ring toss
is the daughter of one of our Japanese government representatives (who
got rounds of applause from the assmbled undergrads watching the
ensuing cuteness of successfully tossing a ring) and the taiko
drumming group put on a great show with a little bit of American
showmanship and cute smiles. That, combined with $3 Japanese beer,
made for an outstanding night.

Say hello to my fifth set of wheels and my very first independent
automotive purchase.

It's a brand new 2010 VW GTI. It's like a Golf but fast. It's a pretty
basic trim but still really well decked out. I'm loving the stereo
(even if the iPhone adapter is really buggy), the Bluetooth, and my
super-awesome flappy-paddle transmission.

The interior is really fantastic. Good build quality, smooth and quiet
ride, but not without a slight growl from the exhaust.

This car is totally me, and I'm psyched to have it. Ask me for a ride
so I have reason to drive it!

Spring had sprung in San Diego just as my 'winter quarter' finals had ended. After three months of relative grossness (cold winds and rain, not unlike a Texan winter), El Niño gave way and the cloudless 75-degree days finally returned.

What better way to celebrate than to head to New Jersey, home of cold, desolate industry and rudeness?

As it turns out, in a short four days I was able to taste everything Jersey had to offer: the bleakest inner city, the pristine New England old money of Princeton, a quick jaunt into nearby Manhattan, and a simple American home life filled with central heating and fried food.

Let's start with my first real day of my trip, which was spent in Manhattan. Met up with my awesome cousin Kelly, better known as the art correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. She's unbelievably connected in the art world. She knows everyone. They all know her. She goes to Europe. And she's a great tour guide for Chelsea, the neighborhood where all the happening galleries are. She knew just the person to introduce me to the world of modern art, a world which I have zero percent comprehension of. Yet this guy - whose name I unfortunately forget - showed patience and passion alike as he walked me through what was in the gallery, who did it, and why. The 'why' is always what's gotten to me about a lot of modern art. It was here that I learned that every artist and every work have their own 'why.' And things began to make just a little bit of sense when I got a guided explanation of why someone would make a demonic skull out of Ikea parts or why someone would chop up an entire tree and throw it in a transparent box.

Kelly's good like that. She knows just how to show me her world, despite her awesomeness in the art field and my complete ignorance. She also knows where the good food at. Food pornographers, listen up: Cookshop, in Chelsea, makes the most unique burger I've ever had. Absolutely delightful.

The rest of my time was spent with my proxy family: Ali and Rex, two good friends from my UT days. They're a married couple, and they represent the two extremes of New Jersey life. Rex is a Ph.D. candidate at the posh Princeton U, while Ali is wrapping up being the hardest motherfucker on the planet. She's wrapping up a Teach for America experience. She's so hardcore that she's wrapping up year three. Of a two-year contract. She's endured three years in an inner-city New Jersey school, where I spent a day helping out. There were four and a half teachers in the room: Ali, two student teachers who've worked with Ali for all year, one more teacher whose status I don't know, and me. I'm the half, since my JET experience doesn't really count. With all of us, a room of fewer than 20 third-graders was barely controlled chaos. Every type of problem child, all in the same room at the same time, none of them literate, is a nightmare scenario. And Ali's been a savior to those kids. The Man has noticed: right as I was actually That Guy running to his gate in an airport Ali rang to inform me that she had interviewed for a scholarship that morning - and she had just been rung to be informed that she won it. A full ride to NYU Law School. She had clearly paid her dues, and the committee recognized that - as well as her passion and her clear intent on helping disadvantaged kids for a career. Well done, chica.

Rex kicks ass like it's his job. My IR/PS education paid off as I spent a day pretending to blend in at an IR Ph.D. program, complete with talks and free food. And, to my amazement, things made sense! What would've been nonsense gibberish six months ago was now understandable, thanks to my education. Hooray. So Rex's research is statistical in nature, and for those of you who know what this means, he has one million observations. Ridiculous.

So I mentioned fashion in the title. I knew that the next time I headed to New York I had to hit up the one American location of Uniqlo. That is, my Japanese Lord and Savior. Uniqlo (as in 'unique clothes') is the Japanese equivalent of H&M or Gap, or maybe even American Apparel. It's the cheap basics. Lots of solid colors. Totally my thing. I went on a shopping rampage, because a spree isn't an adequate word, and came home with a haul of stuff for $90. I'm now ready for summer.

Gaming happened there, too. Specifically, Ali and I dove into The Beatles Rock Band, which was my first time with the game. It was fantastic. I could, quite possibly, buy that game and be done with music games forever.

Yeah, I know I'm behind the times with the gaming - a forthcoming reviews post will illuminate as much.

In any case, I've had the quintessential New Jersey experience in four short days. With that in mind, there's no reason to stay there for any longer.

This year, I broke with tradition and actually made New Year's resolutions. Here are all two of them, in their fully resolved glory:

1. Be a perfect gentleman.
I spent too much of 2009 lavishing attention on girls I simply had my eye on. Granted, it's natural for red-blooded males to do as much, but after a while I started to regret not spending more time with the people who more consistently made me happy, like good buds from college, my brother + sis-in-law + niece, or dogs. [Yes, they're people.]

2010 is the year that I settle down with a nice girl and spend more time being fulfilled. I'm off to a good start - I hosted my former girlfriend from my tiny village in Japan and showed her a wonderful time around San Diego, without an ounce of hanky-panky. It was classy and enjoyable in exactly the way I hoped for.

2. Eat less meat.
Thanks to Sir Paul, I was awakened to the Meat Free Monday campaign, which is encouraging people to simply eat less meat, not give it up entirely. Not only is this a convenient new diet path for me to try, but one day a week without meat is relatively painless (and a nice gateway into two or more days).

Here are some good reasons why meat might kill us all:

-CO2 emissions are huge: depending on estimates, somewhere around 15% (give or take 3%) of all world CO2 emission.
Here's where my grad studies come in: as Brazil, India and China go from poor countries to rich countries, the world demand for richer (both in calories and in monetary value) food will skyrocket. If you've heard the phrase that meat-eating Prius owners are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than vegetarian drivers of normal cars, well, it's true. Climate 'skeptics' are quick to admit that methane (from cows) has 25 times the greenhouse-gas properties of CO2 (thus effectively acknowledging climate change, no?) - so stop with all the cows.

-If you thought producing biodiesel was bad for the world's food supply, consider how much basic grains go into livestock feed. It's a lot. Producing food for our sake would be more efficient and bring world food prices down. Africa would starve less, which would lead to less violence in that part of the world.

-It's just healthier not to eat meat. Populations with lower meat intakes have fewer health problems and much longer life expectancies.

-And, as aroon points out, we should be good to the animals.

And there we have, from my book, the recipe for a solid 2010. Wish me luck.

This is the fourth activity I referenced after my London trip.

Sir Paul McCartney. Fifth-row seats.

The man can play a show. An entire section of seating was set aside for his friends and family (it was the last stop on his tour, and the only one in England). Two-and-a-half-hours-plus with no breaks. So much heart.

As excited as I was to see the legend in the flesh, I was more excited for my mom. She is to The Beatles as I am to games. She knows every factoid, every detail, every ounce of their personal history. She spent her youth following them from the great Internet-less distance of rural Oklahoma. She never saw a Beatles concert, but I was going to make damn sure she saw the closest possible thing during her lifetime.

And she did. That box got a big, fat check mark put in it. For her and for me.

As miserable as the rest of the trip was (Mom + jetlag + British food = not fun), she was beaming for a solid 48 hours (before she caught swine flu on the way home and became more miserable). "We saw Pauuuuuul," she'd coo. During those 48 hours, miserable British food, or having to ride the Tube, or the weather became non-factors. We did what we went there to do, and it felt great to do it.

Indeed, we did it. We saw Pauuuuuul.