Happy New Year!
It's now 2005. It's a big number, yes. You'd think it'd be even bigger in Roman numerals. But no. It's just MMV. See, 1999 was so much bigger. MCMXCIX. Oh well, we must deal with it.

Top of the list! The major worldwide news. As of this blogging, the number is currently listed at over 140,000 dead. I personally find that insane, and am unable to fully comprehend the abundance of grief that must be associated with that number for people who have personal attachments. Right now, the US has donated $350 million (officially), and Japan has bumped their donation up to $500 million. We can beat that! Private donations, baby! Here, let me help, if you're not sure where to start. There's the American Red Cross (for credit cards, just go here and pick "International Response Fund"), the Mercy Corps, the Habitat for Humanity, Unicef, CARE, and others. But there's a start. Pick one! Pick many! A little from everybody adds up.

Anyway, now that the important stuff is out of the way, now I can talk about the non-important stuff. Like my new year! It wasn't too important at all. I spent it with the family, chillin', watching Leno, Letterman, and Conan. Conan had an interesting countdown (for the Central Time Zone, no less). Giant replicated heads of Oprah and Jim Belushi were put up, and for the countdown, approached each other for a massive tongue kiss. Sort of. It was slightly freaky, where the only reaction you can think of to have is to laugh. So yeah, technically it was funny. But I do like Conan, he's got some good stuff.

What else has been going on? Well, me and my sister went to exchange gifts. She traded her GBA copy of Metroid (excellent game, but she has differing tastes) for the Sims on the Nintendo DS. I think she's quite happy with it. I traded the phone she got me (after I got my other phone, which she did not know about until too late - land line, not cell) in for Band of Brothers. I put down a little bit more to get that, it's ten hours. But excellent. I've only watched the beginning of it, but it's a high quality reflection on WW2 and the impact it has on people's lives, in more of a personal way. It's not like Aliens, where the loss of a character like Private Drake doesn't affect you in any major way. Except to make Vasquez really pissed off.

And aside from that, hanging out with friends, keeping up with kung fu, and playing a bit here and there. Playing Metal Gear Solid 3. Oh, so good. I do really like it. Although I don't know that everyone would. The beauty of it is that you can approach it in a ton of different ways. Go gung-ho, pull out the AK and leave no flesh untouched by propelled spinning bits of metal, or go sneaky sneaky, tiptoe behind a guy to wrap your arm around his neck and make him tell you secrets before you slice his throat. OR just avoid enemies altogether. Throw a spent cartridge on the ground to make them say, "Huh?" and look over there while you walk by. Still being sneaky sneaky, though.

I think it's time to go watch some videos I borrowed from Fred. Fred's a big anime guy, and he's got me started on a little series called Naruto (check it out if you're curious - erm, for $3.50 a month). It starts kinda silly, but then gets into ninjas! Which are cool. And some more serious stuff, always throwing in the silly for a rest. Can't get TOO serious with ninjas. It's dangerous.

So! Time to random link. I've got a good one. Being a bit of a fan of games, sometimes the best ones go unnoticed. You should try out some of the better small games that are higher quality than many of the "blockbusters" other people play. Careful, though - you might actually like them.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 6:56 PM | 2 comments