San Francisco is one of the most strangely organized cities I've ever seen. It's like the settlers of 1776 were looking around the Western reaches of this new territory, saw this incredibly hilly terrain and thought "this will work." And it does work, it's just hilariously ridiculous looking. Tim, Ian, Scott, and I did the tourist thing early in the day which means, of course, the old school cable cars had to be used. As we traveled up the steep hills of downtown, every single side-street we passed had some sort of gorgeous cityscape to behold. I can't even begin to imagine how much of a ludicrous pain in the ass it is to drive through the city, though.
Of the touristy things that we saw was the home of the 1996 Michael Bay epic cinematic film entitled The Rock, starring Hollywood's Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage. Enjoy this tiny iPhone picture of Alcatraz (LOOK HOW TINY IT IS):
So that was fun and stuff. Without a doubt, though, the highlight of this little excursion was Newspaper Man. Newspaper Man was a made wearing a suit made out of the comic strips of newspapers sitting on a lone chair along Fisherman's Wharf. As the four of us were walking by, Newspaper Man said "Why do French people like eating snails?" We all looked at each other, somewhat confused, until Tim said "... No, why?" at which point Newspaper Man triumphantly proclaimed "Because they don't like fast food!". This man was poised to become my new best friend... Until he revealed that his face was covered in clown make-up.
On our way back downtown to pick-up our press passes, I discovered that cable cars are dumb. And they have hard seats.
Going into the Moscone Center for the first time, even though it was almost completely empty when we were there, was definitely something. This is a large building. As I remarked on the enormous size of the Moscone building nearest our hotel, I discovered that it was just one of the building that make up the "Moscone Center." Big cities are a weird thing. And check me out:
And behold the poster boy of the Game Developers Conference:
At night the GameDev.net crew (myself included) all went over to the GDC Kick-Off Cocktail Hour, hosted by SparkPR. It was a rad little shindig and we talked to a bunch of great people, but the most astounding development of the night was the discovery that Tim 'nes8bit' Barnes moonlights as a bit of a poolshark.
The night ended with some of us going to a super random, out-of-the-way Asian Fusion place called SO near the Cocktail Hour. Also an endless bowl of noodles that made anyone serving a dish look incredibly intelligent. Incredibly.
Quote of the night goes to Tim: "I don't own a motorcycle, because then I couldn't drink and drive."
