Into the new year...
2008. My how time flies. It was funny when it turned 2001 and seeing how far away from the reality depicted in the movie "2001" we were, but now we're a mere 2 years from its sequel. Incredible.
The holidays were fairly uneventful, but good. Spent a bit of time catching up with old friends, meeting new friends, and just chilling with family. Played a helluva lot of Wii Sports (still is by far the most perfect game on Wii - several of my mom's friends are now considering buy a Wii *just* for Wii Sports), Guitar Hero 2, and wailing on my new Epiphone Les Paul! It's a fairly solid, but bare-bones guitar, but I realize more and more how much I enjoy just even practicing scales. Between my friend asking me to do vocals for him at a local cafe and Seppo wanting to put together a band, I'm really excited about actually doing some music! Though, I'm not nearly good enough to actually be able to play guitar in a band, so I'll be stuck either doing vocals or wailing on a cowbell :D
Back in the office now, and I need to get myself in gear. One of my goals over the next year is to finally make Director, which means I need to prove myself as a manager. No more messing around. I don't intend to be a hard-as-nails type of slave driver (hell, I don't think I could be even if I tried), but I definitely need to step up. I'm getting sick of just going through the motions every week. I need to accomplish something.
Another goal for myself this year is to either take some serious steps towards buying a house/townhouse/condo, or get married. We've been putting off the wedding for many different reasons, and the house is the current one. But if that goal isn't realistically going to happen within the next year or so, I say screw it. We're not getting any younger, and we're financially stable enough to be able to realistically start a family (though I'm not sure we could realistically start a family *and* save up for a house...). One of my step-dad's friends that came over for New Years is actually a real estate agent down in LA, and has a lot of contacts up here, and said he'd hook me up with names and info. We'll see how that goes.
Turns out my Xbox got repaired much faster than I expected! It is apparently waiting for me at the Fedex office as I type. They tried delivering it on 12/31, but being down in LA, I wasn't there to receive it. Kudos to MS for having repairs done over the holidays, but boo on MS for having faulty designs to begin with. Still, the process for getting my Xbox replaced was about as painless as one could expect. I spent a total of 10 minutes on the phone with customer service and they were efficient, polite, and knowledgeable. While I hope people never have to deal with a broken Xbox (I've been going through withdrawals), if you do, at least MS takes care of you properly.
But, while my Xbox was out of commission, the stack-o-games has piled up. I wasn't intending on purchasing more games, but all the good stuff just kept going on sale! Picked up COD4 ($39 at Target), Assassin's Creed ($39 at Best Buy), and Zak and Wiki for Wii (not on sale, but figure this is a game that's not going to be on shelves for long). Will pick up Mass Effect at some point, as that was the game I was looking forward to the most, but not until after I finish Bioshock :P
