So far. It was not easy at all to get up this morning, after a week off. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, both belated.

The past few days have been very cold and surprisingly windy. Secretly, I love it. Even if I am getting old and crotchety, I still enjoy the coldness of winter's core. And I a certainly am getting old and crotchety--in fact, a year older and a year crotchetier in a few days.

What did you get for Christmas? I received, among other things, copies of Demon's Souls and Valkyria Chronicles, which made me really excited since that is exactly what I wanted. I also received a brand new jigsaw and, in an unexpected twist, a second hand miter box saw, adding significantly to the workshop inventory and capability. The latter was already used to great effect on a small project in the garage. Now I'm eager to get my workbench installed so I can mount it there and be ready for bigger projects. Man, I love home ownership.

I also received and read a book titled Racing the Beam, which describes how development occurred for the Atari 2600. For a nerd like me it was absolutely fascinating to hear how the thing worked, and how primitive of a computer it really was. The timing requirements for programming it were pretty ridiculous. It has made me really want to download a 6507 assembler and try my hand at writing a simple demo. It also gives me a new appreciation for the little wood-trimmed box gathering dust in my parents' closet.

I haven't started either new video game yet because I did not hit my Christmas goal for Grand Theft Auto IV. This game is proving, like Ninja Gaiden Sigma before it, to be much longer than I anticipated. However, I am making steady progress and plot revelations are taking place so I am hoping to be getting closer to an end. The road has not been entirely smooth, however. After dying five or seven times on the same mission several days ago, I threw my SIXAXIS controller across the room. Luckily it was easy to put back together and works just fine with no visible damage. I should note that I intentionally play the game with auto-aim disabled. Despite the aforementioned ragequit, I had a last-vacation-minute marathon session yesterday and finished many missions. When I get home tonight, I may likely play a few more.

I did, however, finish the HARD GAME CLUB-worthy (you can only be in this club if you like hard games) Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. This was one of the few games that I actually felt compelled to finish side quests and hunt down rare items, finishing with something like 98% completion. I thought the game was good for most if its run, but then I entered the last level and it quickly went to great. This is how you do a last level in a video game, folks. It is larger than all of the previous levels combined and is full of challenges, secrets, and rewards. I am currently waiting for my copy of Chrono Trigger to arrive and that will be the next NDS game through which I play since there is an opening that queue.

In addition to waiting for my annual evaluation (and associated moneyhats), I'm waiting for news on a big advancement opportunity at work. In all likelihood there will be no news until February or later, but if it came earlier that would be six kinds of awesome, unless you use the metric system, in which case it would be eight and a half.