THQ PR Sam flashing some of the cash at his disposal from within a stretch limo.

McDonalds for breakfast, in a stretch. I have a strange job.

The X ride at Magic Mountain – the only thing in the world more extreme than a guy jumping out of a helicopter on a skateboard and the skateboard is on fire and the helicopter is exploding maybe.

I spilt my drink, and this guy pulled out that card. It was pretty surreal, but he gave us our own cards to use in the event of further accidents.

Dan and I had been to Santa Monica beach last year too, so we decided to tour it on reclining trikes this year.

A busker – or maybe just a girl playing guitar for fun – being appreciated. Drive-by photography; you don’t get the whole story.

Rollerblades are faster, but I am faster than some regular bikes on one of these. There are no gears, so you have to pedal pretty stupidly.

Mike makes movies of his trips for X-Box World’s coverdisc, but probably doesn’t use much of this footage.

View from the mansion the THQ event was hosted at. It looked a lot like a proper LA party. They hired models to talk to us, who I avoided because I had a lot of developers to hunt down and interrogate.

Just the car we rented to drive from the Vivendi event in San Francisco, to Lake Tahoe for snowboarding. Apres-pre-E3.

Matt being extreme. Ellie, Martin and I had never snowboarded before, so we all sucked and had to take a lesson. Good news: I am now a Level One snowboarder. I get a new power at two, I think.