For my 25th birthday Aronn and I took a trip out to Dallas to visit our long-time friend Doug. Unfortunately Peng, his wife and our good friend as well, was visiting family in Japan But we still had an amazing time

Benz

So after years of talking about getting Peng a nice car, he finally got her a wonderful white CLS550 AMG. She seemed to be very proud of it as we were forbidden from thousands of miles away to place our luggage in the trunk without the utmost of caution. “Ultra nice” is an understatement: the car had everything and drove beautifully.

New condo

Doug’s old apartment at The Ashton was incredibly impressive in its day but pales in comparison to his new condo, which his dad bestowed upon him after moving to an even more astronomically exorbitant house elsewhere. After the long tour I wanted to stop and take a breather, but through a glass door to the left of the entrance saw marquee lights and what appeared to be a movie poster 10 or 15 yards down a slender hallway. Oh no he didn’t. So there was our guest room: the movie theater.

No Peng

Like I said, Peng was absent for the few days we were there. I haven’t seen her nor have I spoken much Japanese in a year now so it was a huge bummer to miss out on that. All the more reason to go back again and soon I reckon.

Big Doug’s place

Doug’s dad recently put some of the finishing touches on his palatial pet project: an Italian villa-style mansion that I cannot begin to fully and accurately describe. Highlights: four story thin chandelier won from a hotel bankruptcy, four story square/winding glass staircase, a Vegas style infinity pool, secret doors to 1) a large climate controlled wine cellar 2) a huge club, complete with a bowling alley… I mean, it could go on and on. Breathtaking to say the least.

Borderlands

That night we all played 360 Borderlands for a few hours, got pretty far, then crashed. But the next day we got a taste of how horrendous the 360 can be re: local multiplayer save games as my level 19 something that I had initiated on a guest account was completely missing. Game was great but I cannot love it, play it again, or finish it still because of the loss.

Houston’s

Well, you may just want to read my Yelp review of Houston’s. It was a great place that most closely approximated a J. Alexander with a Texan bent.

Some hours at the mall

I birthday shopped at Hugo Boss and elsewhere. Picked up an incredibly classy coat and scarf and then some v-neck and long-sleeved t-shirts from a few other more punky places.

Kenichi

Again, gave this one a Yelping. The verdict: delectable. Although not as legendary as Nobu in both taste and atmosphere, Kenichi is definitely one of the better Asian restaurants in the area. As with most places where amazing sushi is simply a prerequisite, I felt this place was made by the sides. Wasabi mash and cornbread bites with chili-butter were top choices.

Goats

We saw Men Who Stare at Goats – decent – at Studio Movie Grill, which is for some reason the coolest theater concept to me. It has become a sort of cornerstone for my trips out there, just something we always do.

Craig

Craig Marquis finished 9th at the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event final table, where he could have gone much further were it not for a heartbreaking runner runner suckout by the other guy. Doug is good friends with him through one of his employees so we stopped by his house to meet, greet and play some Rock Band. Had a great time, and Craig seems like a chill but sharp guy.

Return

I suppose the most immediate reaction to this trip was my application to UT Law. This observation is probably just a result of hanging out in nice areas, but there still seems to be something about Dallas and Texas in general that makes it a wee bit more prosperous on the whole than a Chicago or many other cities. Whether it’s the free-market Republican state government that’s motivating entrepreneurs to create what seems to be the hundreds upon hundreds of successful and large small businesses, I don’t know.

The weather is nice, the people are friendly (the women, beautiful), the economic outlook seems to be facing straight upward.

More Dallas trips, more games, more memories of great times

On another note, I want to hang out with Doug way more than we had over 2009. Hopefully, I can convince Peng and him to come up here before Christmas for the shopping and wintery season, but if that fails I don’t see it happening before the snow dissipates. Somehow we’ll need to meet up over the next three or four months.

These guys are all so excited about games that it transmits a sort of infectious desire to get back into them. Having sampled Borderlands, Dragon Age, Rock Band, and Worms all for the first time convinced me that what comes out today isn’t as trashy and opportunistic as I thought. Looking forward in my mid-term I’m back dabbling in WoW, I’ll be playing MW2 a lot over the next couple of months, and I feel genuine excitement for FFXIV if not just to watch.

Speaking of FFXIV, lastly, revisiting many dearly held memories has strengthened the retrospective value of BG in my life. I love how today it propagates across three different games, albeit in forms that may not attribute any credit to me, and all the organizations are by my measure wildly successful. Fourteen will need us. But over the long-long term James and my dream of the gaming royalty house now must be realized. Whether it emerges as a symbol of waste/manifestation of a mass of wealth or a sound business model that pays for itself is yet to be told. I cannot stop thinking about it though.

Anyway

So it goes without saying that the trip was unbelievably fun, appropriately relaxing, and as usual motivating. We spent a bit more time geeking out that I had expected but the one time we went to a bar, called the Social House, it was lame and probably couldn’t have resulted in much unless we went with more people we knew. All in all, Dallas, you rock.