Normally, I wouldn’t discuss my personal political beliefs on a site that’s intended to focus primarily on my professional life, but the fact of the matter is that this election is simply too important for me to keep quiet.

I know politics can be confusing at times, so hopefully I can shed some light on things for anyone who’s still on the fence. If you’re wondering who to support, I’ll break it all down for you after the jump.

This amuses me, but probably only because it hasn’t happened to me yet.

Apparently, there’s going to be an announcement about E3 2009 later tonight/early tomorrow.  Current rumors seem to point to it being open to the public (for a fee), which means it’ll be much closer to things like Games Convention Leipzig and PAX. Personally, I dug this year’s event WAY more than the previous events, but I recognize that I’m in the minority.

As such, my personal E3 “wish list” would be:

- Hold it anywhere – literally, ANYWHERE – but Los Angeles.  I realize there’s next to no chance of that happening, but I despise that city more than any other place on earth.  And I’ve been to THREE cities in Alabama.

- Four day show (Thursday-Sunday).

- Days 1 and 2, press and pros only.  This will give companies time to make “whiz bang” announcements and to do dedicated interviews without being swamped by fans.

- Days 3 and 4, open to the public.   This should be plenty of time for fans to see everything and bringing them in at the end gives the press an incentive to get E3 coverage out quickly to help direct fans to the best stuff on the floor.

- “Backstage” area with decent security for press and pros to continue doing interviews and presentations far away from the thumping techno madness of the show floor.  No public access on any day.

- Maintain reasonable booth babe restrictions.  Trust me, people will want to take pictures with your booth babe, even if she’s wearing as many as THREE postage stamps worth of costume.  Borderline nude models create nightmare bottlenecks all over the floor and make us all seem creepy and weird.

- Seating for the public.  LOTS of it.  In dedicated, strategically-placed areas that are away from main walkways.  PAX does this very well and it gives the “tired feet and DS loving” masses somewhere to rest up without creating human pyramids in the middle of every hallway and alcove.

- ANYWHERE but LA.  Hey, it can’t hurt to ask twice.

I guess that’s it.  If nothing else, this SHOULD mean the death of E For All, which was 1000 times worse than any E3.

Our Launch Party was held last Thursday in the Sequoia Club in Georgetown (a neighborhood in DC).

I didn’t take a ton of pictures because… ya know… open bar + all my friends = distracting.  Nevertheless, what shots I DID get can be viewed here.

I tossed in some other shots from various launch-related events that have happened over the past month.

[UPDATE] Here’s a quick video pan-around of the club where we held the party:

FYI, I’m off all week.  Which is, to be honest, kind of weird.

I haven’t taken more than a day or two off in a row in… well… YEARS.  Anywho, The Hickman is starting to crack down and force his minions to stay away from the office and relax a bit.

I spent my first two days doing chores, but now I’m MOSTLY done and I still have three whole days to kill.  Current plan:

- Watch all of my favorite movies repeatedly.  Which basically means “watching Patton over and over again while wearing the helmet Paul gave me from Patton’s army.” Did I mention that Patton is available on Blu-Ray?  Because it totally IS.

- Read.  My “to read” pile includes a bunch of Mark Twain and George Orwell essays, Sarah Vowell’s new book and a nice chunk of the old Ostrander run of The Spectre that I picked up on the cheap at a local funnybook shop a while back.

- Jog.  Or walk briskly.  Or something.  The last few years have been – for lack of a better term – ri-goddamn-diculously brutal on my overall health.  I’ve never been skinny, but before we started WAR I could at least do a few chin-ups.  I recognize that it’s my fault for letting work trump fitness, but I figure this is as good a time as any to get back on that particular horse (also, I’d rather not look like a land-whale at my wedding next spring).

- Play games that have nothing to do with MMOs.  Lego Batman and Dead Space, I’m looking at YOU.

So… yeah.   Don’t expect anything useful from me for at least a week.

P.S. Out launch party is this Thursday, so I may have some pictures from that shortly.