Christmas happened!

[Dark Jaguar]

I got a Kingdom Hearts game! The name is confusing.

Today let's all celebrate the birth of a man who would from humble beginnings go on to change the world and how we see it forever.

Happy Birthday Isaac Newton!

[Weltall]

Happy Birthday, Moe Howard!

[Dark Jaguar]

<img src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/december_25th.png">

I also got a New Super Mario Bros. Wii. All those faults I had with New SMB DS? Gone! This game is awesome in all possible ways a Mario game can be awesome! Well, the name is still lame. Why not Super Mario Bros. 5?

The world maps? Far more epic in scope and they change as you go on. The details in the levels are really nice, with all sorts of nice small touches. Way more powerups than the DS game had.

Oh, and to top it off, the Koopa Kids are back! Nintendo recognized that those guys are a lot more interesting than "Little Bowser Clone".

[Fittisize]

The only game I got was Wii Sports Resort. Yay!

[A Black Falcon]

Just stuff from my dad today, and he doesn't give that much anymore...

-2010 Star Trek calendar
-Pass for watching 5 movies at the local theater
-"Roma: Fontana di Trevi" t-shirt (from when they were in Italy a year or so ago)
-Herblock: The Life and Work of the Great Political Cartoonist [Herbert Block], by Haynes Johnson and Harry Katz -- with 200 cartoons in the text an additional 18,000 on a DVD included in the case. I didn't know him by name, but evidently he was a pretty famous political cartoonist who worked all the way from the 1920s until 2000, shortly before his death in 2001. I looked through the book, pretty good stuff... he was definitely a liberal all right. I think it'll be pretty interesting to go though the stuff on that DVD as well, for sure!

I'll get some more stuff later on though, within the next week or so most likely. I'll post again whenever that happens.

[etoven]

Well, I got the complete Voyager Series
And A trip to the hospitable, intense pain and the inability to walk.

Right now I have -1,000,000 Christmas spirit points. Seriously the next person who says Merry Christmas to me is getting punched in the face.

[Dark Jaguar]

What happened? Did your spine explode?

Happy Decemberween!

[etoven]

What happened? Did your spine explode?

Happy Decemberween!

I wish my spine had exploded, at least then with no nervous system, I wouldn't be in so much pain.

[Geno]

I got:

UNDERWEAR! HELL YEAH!
T-SHIRTS! YES! FUCK YES!
DRESS SHIRTS! WOO HOO!
BLACK DRESS PANTS! Yay...?

Now onto the cool stuff:

Mario Kart Wii (very fun; my arms ache from hours of online play and unlocking stuff)
Naruto Volumes 14 and 15 DVD box sets
$25 iTunes gift card (went toward a season of Naruto: Shippuden)
A Japanese-looking ramen bowl with chopsticks and an oriental-looking spoon
$5 gift certificate to the comic shop where I buy my mangas
Should be receiving Zelda: Spirit Tracks in the mail soon

All-in-all, not a bad Christmas. Not the biggest ever, but we just got out of a recession and materialism isn't that important and blah blah blah...

Happy non-denominationally specific winter holiday to you all!

[Dark Jaguar]

My SPOON is too big...

[Geno]

No spoon? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[A Black Falcon]

A family emergency delayed it and made it a little less fun, but I finally had the rest of Christmas... here's what I got. Only one game, but some other cool stuff.

The Legend of Zelda -- Spirit Tracks (DS) -- This and Dragon Age were my top two games, and the game(s) I get are almost always from the top two... I'm quite happy with this, I really wanted it. It sounds pretty good.

Some headphones -- new. Look reasonably nice.

Speakers -- used, but they work well... no headphone jack though, but at least my computer does have a second audio out port on the side I can use for that.

Books
--
The Cartoon History of the Modern World, Volume II, by Larry Gonick -- the 5th and final volume in Larry Gonick's great Cartoon History series. This has been one of my favorite series for a long time now, and it's definitely sad to see it end... they're just such great books. I'll be reading this soon for sure!

Odyssey - by Jack McDevitt. Good sci-fi author, all of his books that I've read have been pretty good. Hopefully this one will be too.

Indian Summer - by Brian McDonald. The story of the first openly Native American pro baseball player, the Maine native Louis Sockalexis, who played in the 1890s. Sounds very interesting for sure.


I also got a USB cable extender/adapter kit (no idea why, I have no use for the thing...) and a pretty nice 70% cocoa dark chocolate bar. I also got a bookshelf that was made for me, or a wooden shelving unit anyway, so I have somewhere to actually put those books lying around on the floor and stuff... and maybe some of the games too. :)

Finally, I got $190. That's pretty nice... what should I do with it, though? Several things immediately come to mind...

1) Use that and a little money I already have and get a new Wii ($200)
2) Use that and get a used Wii and hope it doesn't break (~$150)
3) Use it for some DS games, because of how few those I've bought for several years now (PC games have been covered pretty nicely by this Steam holiday sale and that D2D anniversary sale this summer...), and on some of the other things I need for my consoles, such as a CD Backup RAM Cart for the Sega CD and a replacement laser for the TurboGrafx CD. Those two things are things I've wanted for some time now, I really need to get them sometime or other...

But yeah, a tough decision overall for sure.

[Geno]

I received my Spirit Tracks game and guide recently and I like it so far. It's pretty much Phantom Hourglass with a train instead of a boat, but I liked Phantom Hourglass, so it's cool. Zelda is a spirit who takes possession of a hollow suit of armor? Where have I heard that one before?



I have given her the nickname of Fullmetal Zeldalchemist. :)

[Dark Jaguar]

Possessed armor's been around a lot longer than that show. Heck I think a few episodes of Scooby Doo have that as the monster of the week. It's not like she got stuck in there because they were trying some dark arts to revive the dead or something.

[Geno]

I know FMA didn't originate the idea, but nevertheless, the brief moments in which Zelda possesses a phantom remind me of that show.

[Dark Jaguar]

To be honest one of the things I like about that show is it's like a modern Lovecraft story. Hidden lost cities, ancient formulas, forbidden science, horrible secrets from beyond space and time, and terrible monsters. About all that's missing is an elder god, but not every lovecraft story involved that either. Oh and the show has soul shattering terrified looks on people almost every episode, a typical lovecraft reaction to horrible realation. Above all else, the series has no shortage of people who've gone completely insane with forbidden knowledge, wandering naked painted up like a map for dizzy people.

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Incidentally whenever I talk about this show's Ice Truck Killer people think I'm talking about Dexter. What does that have to do with Dexter? Dexter is a show about a guy with a big secret working in a lab just trying to avoid his annoying little sister who's always messing things up and threatening to reveal him, I mean what does that have to do with serial killers?