gamasutra has a list of the top pc games of 2005 by sales.  as has been the case for like 20 years now, way too many people are buying the sims and its expansions.  one of these days will wright is going to be spotted sporting ridiculous gold chains and diamond teeth.  it's just a matter of time until he loses control with all that money.  :) 

also on the list at #4 is a game called guild wars.  hmm that sounds interesting...  maybe i'll go buy a copy (or twelve) of that one!

ok so i was originally scheduled for jury duty back in november but it was the same week as thanksgiving and i was leaving the state so i had to postpone it.  it was rescheduled for this past wednesday which was absolutely terrible since that is when we were pushing a new live build for the Guild Wars Factions beta event.  whenever a whole bunch of new code is promoted live people have to be around to make sure no bugs were introduced and if they were they have to be fixed asap.  there was also still polish to be done on new stuff going live so being stuck in jury duty that day would be bad and subsequent days even worse. 

fortunately a letter i brought with me explaining the situation to the court was convincing enough to get me excused (not postponed) from jury duty!  the bad thing was i still had to get up ungodly early (6:30am!) in order to make it to the court on time and i ended up staying awake until 10:30am the next day when i finally left work.  i would have liked to try jury duty, but just some other time... not the day we were pushing a year of development live!!

all week i was looking forward to sci fi friday and i wasn't
disappointed.  battlestar galactica is impossibly good.  it's
easily the best television show ever created.  after you see this
week's episode go to aol.com/battlestargalactica. 
there are spoilers so wait until after you've seen the episode!.  the site has more previews for next week than aired on tv so it's worth checking
out.

christmas was fun and relaxing.  i started writing a text on a
special technique i came up with for making spikes and spiky
things.  i haven't finished it yet, but here's a couple images as
a sneak peak.

in other news, i'm almost half way to
my goal of 1000 subway points!  do you know what 1000 subway
points means?  100 oatmeal raisin cookies.  that's
right.  100!

it's christmas and that means it's time for me to migrate to the midwest.  i'm hoping to find some time to code some
elite max scripts to feed my new addiction.  if i do then maybe i'll post some.  i'll
probably also be spending lots of time playing video games with my
brother and sister.  last time i was home we beat every one of
the updated games in the psp namco museum.  that was
awesome.  :)

oh, speaking of the psp... i have to say that grand theft auto liberty
city stories is fantastic.  sure everyone has already played lots
of gta on the pc and ps2 but come on, tearing through the city on a motor
cycle while firing automatic weapons at pedestrians NEVER gets
old!  the multiplayer is especially great.  i've
been playing it during lunch with friends at work and it's so good that we've been trying to
convince everyone else who has a psp to get it.  this is so that we may one day
achieve the dream of a 6 player wifi gta psp deathmatch.  you gotta have dreams.

anyway, while on holiday my internet access is going to be somewhere between 'nonexistent' and 'quite spotty'.  i expect this will be causing some twitching of my eye lids and occasional violent bodily convulsions as i adjust, but please don't worry.  i'm drinking some v8 now to help ward off the internet withdrawl and peculiar midwestern viruses and i should be returning safely in a week and change.

happy holidays.  :)