Christmas and such

It's been nearly 3 weeks since I've posted anything, and that's mostly been because there's been very little going on lately. Christmas was of course this past week and it was a fun one, with time spent with family for most of it.

Christmas Eve I went to my aunt & uncle's place as usual, this time with my cousin Graham rather than my mother (who didn't go at all). Turnout was smaller than past years, but there were a few people on vacation (like my cousins Ryan and Amy), or ill. It was fun as usual with a great dinner.

Graham and I left there about 9, so I was home by 9:30. For the rest of the night, until about 4:00 a.m. I played cards (canasta and crib) with the people upstairs as well as my step-brother Dallas (who's recently bought a house about 2 blocks from here). I drank too much (gin & OJ, yum) and played too late into the night, but it was fun despite getting beaten more than winning.

Christmas Day was spent at Dad's place (at least, after I'd mostly recovered from the excess of alcohol the night before) where it was just Dad, Willi and Janita since Janita's boyfriend was in Calgary with his family and Lindsay & Treleana didn't come to town for Christmas. It was a fairly sedate day, with a good chunk of it spent watching football. Dinner was wonderful as always and of course I ate too much. For gifts I got a pair of shoes (which were very much needed), some movie passes and a Chapters/Indigo gift card. I broke in the shoes last night and my feet were hurting a bit, but that's what new shoes do. They'll be fully broken in soon enough, then they'll feel alright.

I've of course been doing the movie thing a lot lately, watching as many as 5 flicks a day some days. I go through so many one blurs into the next and I can barely remember what I've watched. Yesterday, however, was a little different in that I went to the theatre to catch a couple flicks. My friend Jean-Paul was in town from Calgary so he and I went to see The Departed (which was wonderful and very Scorcese-like) at the cheap theatre before meeting up with a couple other friends for dinner then going to see Casino Royale after dinner. Casino Royale was somewhat disappointing (it was unnecessarily long and the writing really left a lot to be desired) but The Departed was fantastically acted and directed and held together well, though it could have shaved about 15-20 minutes off without losing any plot points (that is to say, it had some pacing issues).

That's about where things are at now. New Year's is still up in the air... I was invited to Dad's place but I opted to not go, rather intending to spend the night with a few friends or something. It looks like the front-runner is a shindig happening at Dave's place, meaning we'll hunker down with some craps or poker and video games and the like... or, it'll be drinking our faces off. Either or. Nothing's been finalized yet, but I imagine something will get sorted soon.

And to leave off with a joke, here are some rejected concepts for Wii games:

You waited a week to post about THIS?!

Neglect over this blog is setting in again it seems. That being said, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to post this link. The product in question, a vibrator, is apparently drawing ire from Apple, which will likely propel the product into the mainstream limelight soon.

The promo from Jonathan Ross is priceless.

Lego Star Wars II -- Finished

Last night I polished off Lego Star Wars II and got my 100% completion gamer score achievement. Very fun game... a little tedious at the very very end when I had to keep running around the fountain (the one you build after getting all 99 gold bricks) to get studs to buy the last few extras (the 4x, 6x, 8x and 10x multipliers). I was pleasantly surprised to see the multipliers compounded, so by the time I got the last one I was rocking a 3840x multiplier. For kicks I redid the first level and collected a couple hundred million studs.

So, with that out of the way, I shall move back to NHL 07 and finish off my season so I can sell it off and properly begin my EA boycott.

Outpost Gallifrey - Back from the Dead

Outpost Gallifrey, the largest Doctor Who community on the web has resumed operations after a hiatus of a couple months while the editorial staff underwent major changes. Welcome back, OG... we've missed you. Today features a lot of catch-up posts about recent events, but there's some notable future information in there too...

Neglect

I've not forgotten about this, I've really just had very little to say as of late. Too much on the brain as it were, what with Christmas and so on.

About the only thing that's gone on recently was the crib tournament from this past Thursday where I wound up 4-4, at least breaking even (without getting skunked; one of the victories was by skunk though). Oh, and helping to move a thousand or so bottles of wine from my Dad's old place to his new one before losing possession of the old one. That happened last Saturday, and I was sore for about 2 days afterward. It was... strenuous.

More later perhaps... today's election day in Canada with both the national Liberal leadership and provincial Conservative leaderships at stake. The TV is tuned to CBC currently... and yes, Belinda Stronach does look good as a brunette.