And man, what a week it was. In my travels throughout my life, I've had the great fortune to enjoy some of the "finer things". Even so, I was taken aback at the excess, opulence and beauty of Monte-Carlo. It is truly one of the most amazing, if not expensive cities in the world.

We stayed and held our event at the Monte Carlo Bay hotel, which is easily the swankest place there (and as above, that is saying something).  Ferraris, Bentleys and Lamborghinis were everywhere, just parked ramdomly on the street. An Astin Martin Vantage barely gets a second glance in Monte Carlo... they're like the Kia's of Monacco, they're so common and low brow. Go get a "real car". It's rediculous.

And with that excess, comes the price tags. You know it's an expensive place when it's almost less expensive to rent out a 200 foot, 3 story yacht in the marina ("I gots my flippy floppies") and stock it with hooch from the supermarket, than it is to just drink at the bars in the hotels or in town. Beers were commonly 20 Euro ($30) and with 50+ people hanging out, that adds up very, very quickly.

 All the same, the event as a whole went off without a hitch.  Our European team, especially Ben LeRougetel and Joe Pigeon, really did a fantastic job. The feedback I've received from the media on our products and the value of the event (access to producers, quality of the product demos, logistics) was extremely encouraging and constructive.

I had several conversations with the media (unsolicited) in particular about Capcom-Unity and our Western product development efforts and how because of them, they perceive Capcom to be one of the more progressively thinking publishers (especially Japanese publishers) today. I can't really explain how good that makes me feel because I do think the team here has been building something special over the past several years. It's really nice to see those efforts recognized.

Along similar lines, I spent a lot of time with both our US Unity contingent and our European community members. A fun and passionate group, that brought a special "je ne sais quoi" to the event. I assure you, the product demo sessions would have been less fun without them so I'm really happy we were able to get them to attend.

Lastly, now that the event is done, I'm anxious for Tuesday to get here to see the embaro lifted so I can see the reactions from fans to everything we had to show last week. Again,  I'm cautiously optimistic.

Kramer and Ricardo are on a boat!

The Dark Void demo room... pre demo.

Captain Kraig (our director of design)

The Hub Room - where free hands-on play time was provided

It's not a secret that I do a fair amount of traveling. As such, my gamerscore isn't as high as I'd like it to be. I don't have as many trophies as I probably should.

And while I've always been a huge PC gamer (closing in on 200 hours logged and 130 out of 175 achivements in Team Fortress... and those hours are dwarfed by what I've spent historically on WoW and EverQuest) I've quit all MMOs a slew of other games I used to play when I had more time at home (also pre-daughter era).

But when I travel, that doesn't mean I don't game. For several years, my trusty DS fat, PSP1000 and my blue Japanese PSP2000 have served me well on many a flight and in many a hotel room.

So I was pleased to come home and find that the DSi I'd preordered on Amazon months ago arrived. Matte black thank you very much. Speaking of which, what is with that blue color Nintendo chose?

I plugged in Henry Hatsworth and yep, it plays DS games (though on a much nicer screen than my fat used to). Messed around with the camera and albums for about 10 minutes and wondered to myself, why doesn't my normal digital camera have a nice calendar association and album management feature like this? While I'm wondering, why isn't my digital camera touch screen enabled?

Got it working with my wireless network but why is WPA not part of the standard setup? I had to go through the advanced procedures... what's so advanced about WPA when most routers in the last three or four years have supported it and nearly all security experts deem WEP as insufficient protection? Anyway, onward.

I performed a system update. Went to the DSi store... picked up Opera. Checked out how Capcom-Unity.com looks on it (not good due to the flash nav bar in case you were wondering). Then drew some penises in Pictochat because... you know, what else are you going to use it for?

Yep. It's a cool piece of kit that will serve me well for the next several years of travel. Seeing as I'll be on a plane for about 12 hours and in a hotel for a full week, starting a week from Saturday, I'm looking forward to some extended play time with my new toy.

But that's not all.

Office mates with more svelte hardware (especially those in our Osaka offices who carry around the most mini-laptops you've ever seen; they look like Fischer-Price toys) make fun of me because I've been lugging a Dell XPS 1710 around for nearly three years. The thing weighs about 12 pounds without the 165 watt power supply (which is like another 2-3 pounds by itself) but it was a solid dual core/Geforce 7900 system that could play most games rather well. But no more.

I've upgraded... to something that weighs only about 10 pounds... but the 225 Watt power supply (which I'm sure will suck a Boeing 777 dry on a trans-oceanic flight) weighs about 4 pounds.

And this is why, my laptop bag has wheels.

In any event, my portable gaming capabilities have improved, and that makes me happy. May your portable gaming needs be as satsified as mine.

I'm a huge fan of the power of user created content, and there's few games out there as supportive of UCC as the Trackmania series.

Case in point, the game allows for people to create, showcase, share and even sell content to other users. In the showcase category, I stumbled across a nifty clip within the Youtube-like Trackmania portal from Ptitnono999.

Some very cool stuff.

I hope people make stuff half as cool as this when we ship Flock! and its full editor in the next week or so. :)

Yeah, I've been swamped so apologies for the lack of bloggitude. It's probably not going to change any time soon. SFIV and RE5 are out the door. GDC is over and tomorrow I head to Japan for a week of meetings.

So today was a happy day in my little office. I received a nice package from Mad Catz and our licensing team and I'm so pleased, I just had to share.

Woe be those who touch my stick...

Teh Box (with Teh Padding)

Teh Box (with Teh Certificate)

Teh Stick (still in Teh Open Box)

Teh backup weapons (weapons for friends who play at my house).

See you all on PSN tonight.