Assignment: How Did You Spend Your Holidays?

So, I never really got around to updating what I was doing while on holidays. Yes, there was some squirrel activity at my parents’ place, but some humane handling of that situation by a qualified individual seems to have solved the problem. I was actually kinda hoping we’d have to go up to the attic and set some traps in order to catch & release the critters ourselves, but Kim was getting skittish about the whole situation and called in the professionals.

Kyle was visiting in London during my first week back, so one night he, Patti, and I went to see the SpongeBob Squarepants movie and then went out to Jack Astor’s afterwards. We were able to convince Patti to come to the xmas party that weekend. On the Friday evening I drove those two to New Hamburg where the party was being had at Sven’s parents’ place. Patti got a ride back to London that night with Chris & Meghan as she had to work the next day, so she wasn’t able to stay for Movie Day the 14th. All in all, the actual movie lineup wasn’t spectacular. I actually only stayed awake completely for a few movies and a number of ones I would have watched were on too late (Napoleon Dynamite, Garden State, Saved). I got a good night’s sleep because the next morning I drove Kyle and Christine to Toronto. It was actually my first driving experience in TO, and I survived just fine. The expressway here in Kitchener-Waterloo just isn’t the same as taking the 427 & Gardiner.

I took a stab at doing some xmas shopping at brick & mortar stores, but the experience was just frustrating. Particular DVDs (Clerks X, Bourne Identity) I was looking for just couldn’t be found anywhere: Future Shop, Wal-Mart, HMV, Best Buy, etc. In exasperation, I didn’t even bother buying some of the ones that *were* in stock; I went home and ordered the titles I wanted online and avoided the hassle of doing the searching myself.

I fit in a number of holiday related movies over the break: National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Muppets Christmas Carol, A Christmas Story, and Elf (which was shown at Movie Day). There’s still a few more to fit in before the season is too far gone: I watched Home Alone 2 earlier today, and Scrooged will definitely have to go in the DVD player soon.

Halo 2 was much played over the holidays. It has everything the original does, plus a few new twists … it’s definitely a winner … mostly. I have to admit I was somewhat disappointed when I unexpectedly finished it. It ends on such a cliffhanger, it’s actually rather annoying. Well, I still have to work my way through it on Legendary and Heroic difficulties. I also set up a free Xbox Live account and played a number of games online. The system is really good if you don’t have a group of friends who also have the game, as matches in various configurations can be set up automatically. You can also check out your detailed statistics from your games online. Very cool. I’ll have to see about setting up my laptop as a gateway to my Xbox now that I’m back in KW. I don’t want to invest in a wireless adapter for the console as I don’t know if I’ll play much online in the long term.

New Year’s at Sven’s parents’ cottage was a blast! It’s way up north in a place called Sundridge (about an hour south of North Bay). After something came up last minute with Patti, it ended up just being me and Laura driving up there from London on the Thursday. Sven, Mandy and Christine had left the day before, and Kyle bussed it to North Bay from Sudbury and was picked up there Thursday morning. This was by far my longest stretch of driving, and I didn’t know what to expect up north. So, it’s a couple hours to Toronto via the 401, and then we got onto the 400. I didn’t realize it was so developed all the way up to Barrie, and somewhat beyond. Even once we got onto highway 11, it was a comfortable two lanes for much of the trip. In all, it was about a five hour drive. The weather was perfect, Laura brought along a bunch of good CDs, we chatted, and it was a good trip. Billie and Ryan arrived from Ottawa a couple of hours after we did.

On New Year’s Eve day we did a big grocery shopping trip for supplies; lots of food to see us through. Sven’s GameCube made the trip, and although Donkey Konga was accidentally left behind, many hours were spent with Mario Party 6 and Mario Kart. We fit in lots of other games, like Speed Scrabble (taught to us by Billie), Trivial Pursuit, and Cranium. We never did get around to some basketball in the snow.

Oh, I also spent a good chunk of the trip getting my site updated. This involved mainly customizing the blog and image gallery applications. I hope to have things unveiled very, very soon.

Well, that pretty much briefly sums up my holidays. Just getting settled into the new term now; it promises to be very interesting. Real life, here I come.