I'm making the trek up this weekend to the Bay Area to visit a bunch of my dorm buddies from college. I've been up to Northern California many times since a graduated from Cal in 2000 (I can't believe it's been NINE years!). But this will be the first road trip I'm taking specifically to catch up with my good friends.

I found college to be an instrumental part of my life. It's the first time where I had an extended amount of time away from family. For better or for worst, decisions change drastically when you begin to think primarily for yourself.

The cherished moments are countless, but one thing everyone can agree upon is what I call 'College Comfort Food'. During those late night cravings amidst studying for Finals or when you just can't handle another helping of USDA Grade 'D' beef hamburgers at the Dining Commons, you can always rely on those handful of eateries to fill the void in your belly. Restaurants of this sort must fill 2 of 3 needs: 1. Cheap 2. Open Late 3. Filling. Chances are your college has AT LEAST 1 pizza place, 1 mexican place, and 1 hot dog place that fits into 2 (if not all 3) of these qualities.

At Berkeley, the hot dog place of choice was TOP DOG. Now Top Dog was a bit of an enigma because it wasn't cheap (around $4-5 per sausage) nor was it really filling... but because it was the place that was opened the latest in all of Berkeley and had a prime location that was super close to a handful of bars and (more importantly) Fraternity Houses, it became a haven for Berkeley-types looking for some yummy comfort. The sausage/dogs are suprisingly sophisticated for a late night food option. It's a helluva late night/drunk/hangover food but it'll set you back quite a bit of money, particularly if your on a student budget and have a major case of the munchies.

More Pizza is probably consumed at College campuses than anywhere in the world. That's probably because it's one of those foods that consistently fulfills all three categories. It also happens to add a super special bonus option to the list: DELIVERY! But if you are a true pizza-snob, you walk to your pizza place of choice since eating it in-store is ALWAYS better than what they pass for pizza through delivery. The battle of Pizza comfort foods at Cal (at least during my years as a student) was consistently between FAT SLICE and BLONDIE'S. For some reason, students originally from the Bay Area and older classmen were into the delicate balance of zesty sauce, hot melted cheese, and cracker-dry bread crust of Blondie's. Young kids (particularly from LA) loved the greasy gooey cheese fest that was Fat Slice. I was a diehard Fat Slice dude my first 2 years in school. Then something clicked during my Junior year and I became super loyal to Blondie's.

Before the days of Chipotle (or even Baja Fresh for that matter), Berkeley had LA BURRITA. For me it was ONLY about the Carne Asada burrito. Super basic: beans, cheese, sour cream, and meat. But what really made this burrito sing was the jalapeno salsa. You'd grab one of those dinky plastic salsa cups (or ask for an 8 ounce plastic water cup), fill it up with super picante jalapeno salsa and drown every bite of burrito in that stuff. I swear that salsa did wonders to my digestive tract (no need for herbal colon cleanses when you can get ahold of this stuff!). My buddy Wallace would sweat like he was in a sauna every time he ate it (beads of sweat on his nose, sweat POURING from his brow and sideburns). But despite the pain of eating something so spicy, we'd be back at least once a week for some demented taste bud punishment.

I plan to make a visit to Berkeley on Sunday primarily to revisit these comfort foods. I have no clue how I'll hold up, but it's sure to be a fond nostalgic trip for my aging tastebuds (and a horrifying one for my stomach)!

Michael Jackson. You have and will continue to mean so much to generations of people. You defined what it meant to be a music icon. You taught us the full potential of a music video. You showed us that dancing can be cool. You made one of the finest examples of a Popular World Music.

Yeah, there was a time when the crotch grabbing during dances got out of hand (although it gave us an excuse to intersperse spazzy dance routines with our own crotch grabs amongst parents and elders!). We were bummed that you couldn't see that you were a naturally handsome dude the way that we all did. The fascination with Peter Pan and animals was a little weird, but we didn't care... because you were Michael FREAKIN' Jackson.

More than anything we all wished you could understand that we loved you for your music, performance, and humanity.

Thanks for the music. Thanks for the entertainment. Thanks for that awesome glove and swagger. You will be remembered as more than a talented human being. You will be remembered as a superhero. :-)

Here are a few of my favorite Michael Jackson bits:

SMOOTH CRIMINAL

REMEMBER THE TIME

THRILLER

MJ, PRINCE & JAMES BROWN

As a relatively young medium, videogames have been evolving at a dramatic rate. Back in the late 1970s/early 1980s gaming was in a very primitive and abstract form. Games were glorified technical demos with simple concepts, simpler graphics, and a nagging sense of addiction that had videogame enthusiasts itching to insert coins in a huge arcade cabinet for another round of play. Now in 2009 (30 years later), we've got big budget games with hyperrealistic graphics and game physics built on real-world principles that can be played in the comfort of your own home.

As with our movies, most gamers gravitate towards games founded on easily defined concepts. We love to imagine we're the latest greatest guitarist in an up and coming Rock Band. We love living our criminal fantasies through gameplay sessions of Grand Theft Auto. We want to kill things with guns in one of many excellent First Person Shooter games like Halo and Left 4 Dead.

Even the groundbreaking interactive game systems from Nintendo found it's success in easily definable concepts. The Wii became "the" system to get when parents and grandparents discovered that with it you could play 10 frames of Bowling in your living room. The Nintendo DS was seen as a quirky project until kids whose parents refused to buy them a pet dog could get the next best thing: an interactive puppy in the sensation that was Nintendogs.

It's interesting how even with the limitless options that are provided to us within the context of videogames, consumers positively respond to the most familiar of concepts (why do you think licensed games continue to succeed despite mostly poor quality product?). But I firmly believe there is room for stuff that's a bit more experimental... and I'm happy to say that it seems that most developers are finding that opportunity in the newly explored realm of downloadable games on the newest game systems like PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, DSi and (to a lesser extent) Iphone.

Of the more experimental games, I LOVE games that attempt to give players a psychadelic experience. With videogames' ability to surround players with a multi-sensory interactive experience (audio, visual, tactile) its possible to overwhelm the player's senses and create an experience unlike any experienced in the real world. Here are some of the finer examples of videogame psychadelia: Tempest (1980s), Rez (1990s), Frequency (2000s), Bit Trip: Beat (2009).

BIT TRIP: BEAT (WII)

FREQUENCY (PS2)

REZ (PS2)

TEMPEST (ARCADE)

Last night after work, I drove out to Palm Springs to visit a childhood friend. He was attending a work related conference after a 15 month tour in Iraq as an Army Bomb Technician. We grew up together. It's pretty wild seeing how divergent our career paths have gone. I'm still residing in Los Angeles making toys and editting comics. He's out putting his life on the line fighting a war in Iraq by disarming and detonating bombs.

When meeting up with longtime friends, there's a constant sense of familiarity that comes with seeing them. It could be years between visits. Somehow despite the occasional lapse in communication, everything feels like old times the moment you see them. As a child I could have easily seen my buddy as a professional voice actor or basketball player. He had the uncanny ability to perfectly imitate Jim Carrey's and Jamie Foxx's best bits from "In Living Color" at the age of 13. He was also the first person to dunk a basketball at our Junior High. Despite that, the path he took led him away from Entertainment to a career in the military.

These days he's in the US Army EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). He's the bomb guy. During his two tours of duty in Iraq, he and his team would be the ones to survey the scene and disarm any explosives. Most of the time that'd involve an impressive robot that can disarm bombs via remote control. Sometimes, usually in the case of a second explosive device on scene, he'd have to risk his own life to quickly disarm a bomb by hand. He'd also be the guy that would investigate the devastating remains of any explosive detonation. Those charred remains often involved bits and pieces of an abandoned car. Those were the good cases. The bad ones involved indistinguishable parts of someone that was once living.

I am amazed and humbled by the work he does. The horrors he sees and sometimes experiences are the sort of thing I wouldn't wish on any enemy. And yet through it all, he continues to be the genuine friend I've known since the age of 3. Mad love to him and everybody else who has bravely chosen to serve their Country.

Jerry's been obssessing over these painted spray paint cans that have been randomly nailed into telephone poles throughout the Silverlake neighborhood. He had pulled one down on a recent walk (with some muscle; those nails are in there good!). While I was over at his house yesterday, Jerry charmed me into assisting him in taking down a few more.

We have no clue who's putting them up. I guess its by 'RW' as a part of his 'Art Is Alive' street campaign. Each spraypaint can is carefully crafted with nifty spraypaint patterns and illustrated with paint markers. The artist put a lot of time and care into them.

I hope the artist isn't bummed that we took a few of them down. They're too lovingly crafted to be left on a telephone pole. I have a feeling Jerry's itching to start a collection. His daughter has Pokemon. Jerry now has 'Art Is Alive' spraypaint cans. Collect Them All!

It's about due time for some more King Katch photos. I'm not quite ready to reveal his face... but I wanted to show off his immensely radical (haven't used that word in a long time!) Fists of Fury! His hands are twin monstrosities of mayhem! You also can get a better sense of King Katch's overall height next to the Tequila figure. Please note that the Tequila in the picture is the production model rotocast vinyl figure while King Katch is in his sculpt stage. We're expecting the final production version to be 10% smaller than the sculpt (due to production shrinkage from the molding process) so while King Katch will be clearly larger than Tequila he won't be QUITE as big as what's shown in pictures