Hope everyone had a good nondenominational holiday.

I had an 8 hour shift on Xmas day which I honestly didn't mind much.

The store was only open 1-9pm so I didn't have to get up early and go straight to work, it also was a good enough excuse to not go to church.

I didn't get much this year, which I can't complain about, there's nothing I really wanted anyways.

I got mostly small stuff like chocolates, lotto scratchies, magazines etc.

My brother did get me a couple thousand Wii points which is probably my favourite gift, I downloaded Yoshi's Story, Kirby on the NES, the internet channel and of course, Super Metroid.

I've been absolutely rocking the Yoshi's Story, is slightly more fun than I remembered, though the presentation is over the top childish- when the yoshis' sing it's sickeningly cute.

My friends came round a few nights ago and well, we didn't even play Halo or Street Fighter like normal, we played a little Guitar Hero, but the main event was Mario Galaxy.

They picked me up from work and I was just gonna show them it for a few minutes, but they kept telling me to "keep going", "get another star" etc until I let them play.

I got 60 stars that night so I beat the final Bowser, which was.. alright.

The final level was pretty cool, but Bowser was nothing special really.

And then I got that congratulations picture sent to the message board, so we then did the 192 piece puzzle of it in the photo channel.

I don't know why it was so hilarious, it took us about an hour because of the sky, sitting right up against the TV trying to identify artifacts and dithering and where those specific pieces belonged.. really needs the option to zoom in, or at least when you peek at the solution it switches immediately so you can see exactly which pieces are wrong.

We did get it done eventually, it just took ages, not recommended.

Over at Pixelation each year there is a secret santa thing and for this year I got a member who only really said he likes this smilie:

So I made him this:

I'm not really proud of it, it's pretty rushed and uninspired, but I dunno, you might be interested.

There were some fantastic gifts though, which I will now show:

The last one is the one I was given, it's still a WIP but it's looking pretty cool so far.

Twinsen,

I really want to get a demo out before the year is up, and there's not much I can do other than remind Cocopuffs on what needs doing, and well.. I'm not sure if we will get it done within the year.

I mean that like a good thing, I was sure I'd be certain we wouldn't get it ready in time, but I dunno, maybe we will.

Cocopuffs went and finished the cutscene which I really wasn't expecting, now it's pretty much just glitch fixing.

I've also been brainstorming some ideas for puzzles and levels with a specific gimmick, they'll be fun.

What else to talk about..

For the last two weeks I've been getting asked every single day, at least once, without fail, if we rent Wii's and Wii games.

We don't.

And on Xmas day I had 4 phone calls asking, and 2 people came in asking.

It's pretty stupid that we don't, because whatever you think is good about PS3/360/PS2, that's not the reason it's getting rented.

Halo 3 rarely leaves the shelf, uncharted has been rented twice, ratchet and clank never rented yet, but all the singstars, buzz games, dance games etc are almost always out on hire.

Not to mention we can't resurface PS3 discs, so if they get badly scratched we have to buy new ones.

And then we don't even have a PS3 or 360 for rental.

As we all know, the Wii has tons of mini game collections and party games, and that's what gets rented.

Plus it's the cheapest, smallest console, and you can get free games, free controllers etc with certain purchases.

So I told my manager Darren that I've been getting asked every day if we have them for rent, then 6 times on Xmas day, and I don't know how he did it, but he said something like:

"Do you know why they were asking us for Wii?"

and I answered with "because we were the only store open that day?"

"No, because the Wii doesn't make money"

I was just sorta like, wait what?

They want the Wii because it won't make us money? Come on there was at least 6 potential customers on Xmas day, that would've been like 25% more money that day.

To be honest, when I got the job he did ask me that semi-fanboy question and he was pretty.. odd discussing the Wii.

So I figure I'll just skip Darren and ask the owners about it, I'll probably go all out with sales figures, comparisons etc, and hopefully we can get, I don't know… one Wii and a couple games for rent?

Even then that's only a few hundred and we'd easily make that money back within a month or two at the most.

OH!

And how 'bout that winamp?

Don't you just fuckin' hate it every time a new version comes out, and that stupid pop-up shit happens every time you listen to a song?

What the hell is wrong with them, it's an MP3 player for fucks sake, get it right and leave it alone.

It's not like a new mp3 file comes out that winamp can't operate so they need to create a fix or something.

It's just annoying as hell that they insist on everyone updating for some small change I will never notice ever.

So, that's about all from me.

I hope you guys had a great whatever and had lots of fun with your family and friends.

BYAAH!