Well, after the 25th, I pretty much dropped off the face of the map as I celebrated Christmas and took an extended break from BZP. As I understand, there were subsequent riots in the street due to this absence, but fear not citizens -- I am back!

So here's what I've been up to lately...

Being the careful planner that I am, I went Christmas shopping on the 23rd. The mall was packed and selection was limited, but I somehow managed to get exactly what I was looking for. I got in a lot of driving practice as well, ferrying my sister to her various orthodontist appointments and now that the strike of whatever union gives out driver's licences is over, I'm going to need all the practice I can get to get fully licensed (as you can imagine, totalling two vehicles did not help my confidence behind the wheel).

On that note, I got another battery of x-rays and CAT scans to see how my chest was doing all these months after the accident. And I must say, a CAT scan is much different when you aren't still woozy from anaesthetic. And in other leg-related news, I'd say I'm up to 90% now. I'll be in peak physical condition again in no time.

I got my marks back from last semester as well. Turns out if I had gotten 1 percent more in any one of my courses, I'd still be on the dean's list, so I'm going to see if I can talk to any of my professors about that because that's just annoying.

Well, with that out of the way, onto Christmas.

I ended up getting The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks (FANTASTIC game, by the way), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for PS3 (although I like the fact that you can actually get Trophies in this game, it does seem a bit similar to Order of the Phoenix minus a few bells and whistles and unfortunately comes nowhere near the masterpieces that were games 2 and 3; good graphics, mind you), LittleBigPlanet (which I really haven't had time to properly dive into yet), and Scribblenauts (which is a fun little puzzle solver to pass the time).

I also got my sister LEGO Batman and thanks to co-op mode, I ended up playing quite a bit of that as well.

Now, if I might divert your attention for a moment for a mini review of Spirit Tracks.

When I first heard they were making a game based around the steam engine, I was a little dubious, but Nintendo had yet to steer me wrong in the franchise so I decided to stick with them. This game was BRILLIANT. If Phantom Hourglass had a flaw, this corrected it. Great story, great characters, great side quests, great puzzles, great action, great gameplay, great everything! I also really enjoyed Zelda in this game and she is by far my favourite incarnation of the princess: high-fiving Link when they complete a level, wanting to beat up Byrne, freaking out about Malladus wanting to take over her body (and not really caring about him wanting to destroy mankind ), and taking control of invincible metal soldiers. For once, she deserves having the Legend being named after her.

So yeah.

On Boxing Day, we went to visit my mom's side of the family and we did a present exchange game. I wound up with a mountain full of candy, but for a moment I was in possession of a pair of highly-coveted Canadian Olympic mittens (if you live in Canada, you probably know what I'm talking about). Not that I normally wear mittens, but I would've liked the bragging rights.

Then we spent a few days with my dad's side of the family before it was off to Florida for a week.

Sadly, it was not one of the best Florida vacations we've gone on as the temperature barely ever went above 10 Celsius. Our house was nice, though; easily 20 foot ceilings and a private pool in the backyard (which was unusable as it had no heater). We still had fun as a family, though, doing much more mini-golf and bowling than going to the beach like we usually do.

Well, fun's over and now it's back to the old grind.