Ends and Odds Uhm ... happy new year! January theme song: "Security" -- Joss Stone. It's for you. New Year's Eve was totally mellow. Kit invited a few people over and it was fun catching up. I invited Sad Girl over. She ended up staying for four days. I handled it much better than last time. I still had moments when I felt like a D.I., but she can't really hurt me right now and I do enjoy her company. Anyway, here are some pics from new year's eve. There's a rumor going around that I'm going to ask some short girl to marry me in the near future. To quote Captain Jack Sparrow, "That's interesting." I decided to spend my 2004 bonus on an adventure. Relaxing for a week was excellent, but family obligations didn't allow much time for introspection during Xmas break. So I bought a ticket to Bangkok on United (I have system-wide upgrades expiring at the end of January) and I bought an All Asia Pass from Cathay Pacific. I can go to more than 20 cities, but I better stay away from the Philippines. If I go there and don't visit family it'll be death by ceremonial yo-yo (Pinoy joke. Look it up.). I'm a big fan of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, but I should probably try out some new places. Hopefully I won't spend most of my time going around KL hopping with glee when I come across a place where a Jackie Chan movie was filmed. Work has been relaxing. Not everyone is back from break yet and there aren't a ton of games in. This month should be interesting. There are a lot of changes that are going to happen with many people. Some are leaving, some will have to move, jobs will be changing, etc. I wonder how it will all play out, aside from it being poorly planned. So yeah, Sad Girl was around for a bit. We watched a lot of DVDs and she drank a lot of vodka -- though not as much as usual. She's doing a bit better actually, though she's started a really scary habit. Since I'm in a better place and I'm not drinking with her, I behave a lot better with her. She's off again with the drug dealer so I won't be acting as her consolation prize for a while. She left with the rest of the vodka and my Napoleon Dynamite DVD, which I really want back. I doubt I'll see her until next month. Hmph. I really want that DVD back. Oh, I got the cutest fan mail the other day. This reader is sending me some graphic novels from my Amazon list and said some really, really nice things. He ended it by saying, "PS: You're easily my favorite game journalist, offline or on. You really seem like a regular geek who happened to get into gaming journo. Sweet." It's nice to see that not all the kids want me to shut up and die.