Cooking, Singing & Dancing?

Cooking, singing and dancing? My New Year's Resolutions? Nope....themes of new video games.
I have always enjoyed playing video games (even since my Atari 2600 and those afternoons of Pacman), now games seems to be changing, at least the ones I'm playing. I guess it started a little over a year ago when I got introduced to Katamari Damacy. If you have never played it (there are now two with a new one coming in 2007) you simply must give it a try. Basically you roll a ball around and collect things. For my birthday this past February I got Guitar Hero with an actual guitar controller. I am pleased to say that this time I have gotten some other people hooked on this game. For Christmas I got a game called Cooking Mama (where you have to chop, dice, slice and fry your way through recipes) and another called Elite Beat Agents (where you have to dance your way to saving the world). These two games are on the Nintendo DS and you do everything with a stylus instead of the tradition buttons and game pad. My friend Randy (another Guitar Hero!) recently got a Nintendo Wii and brought it over. We bowled, we boxed and played tennis. I was so impressed. Alice is now hooked on the Karaoke games which are also quite fun (unless you are someone having to listen to me sing through the TV). It seems that the games I have been playing are getting more and more fun. Less sitting down, more interesting controllers and overall more fun. I highly recommend that you try out any of the games I have mentioned. That is...if you want to have fun!

Cars (Not the Movie)

I love to drive. I always have. However, it is time to replace both of our cars. Alice's car is 13 years old and mine is 9. We both have about 160,000 on our vehicles. This last year we have spent quite a bit in repairs and there is quite a bit left to fix. We have been renting cars to travel and now my inlaws live 2 hours away in the mountains. I'm not too confident in taking our cars. Two weeks ago I couldn't get out of my car. The seat belt was stuck and when I finally got out it wouldn't go back in. This led to some interesting events at the garage (why is it that all car repair shops treat their customers like idiots and then charge outrageous prices to do repairs).
I am definately not an expert on cars, but I knew that I needed a new seatbelt receptacle (there were pieces rattling around inside of it). I called the garage and they said I needed to come in and pay for the part before they would order it. When I got there I had to wait 30 minutes for a technician to look at the car and tell me "the seat belt receptacle is broken and needs to be replaced". Really!?!?! Wow...what a sharp guy. Anyway, $175 and a few days later my seat belt was fixed. Good thing too because 2 days after I got it fixed I hit a deer. This time $2,300 in damage. I only have to spend $500 because insurance pays the rest. Like I said, I love to drive, but man this car stuff is really getting to be too much.

'Tis the Season

Merry Christmas everyone! Today is the 1st day of my 10 day break from school. It is always such a nice feeling at the start of a break. I do realize that these 10 days will be over with quickly, however, right now the break seems long. Things have been crazy and busy with us. The whole year has seemed that way. We are quite pleased that this year we are staying home for the entire holiday season. Nowhere to travel means we can do some relaxing and play with all of Doug's new toys. I have a number of things I would like to blog about before the New Year so I hope to add a few new blogs. I hope that everyone has a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!