12/26/2001:

Merry day after Xmas. Hope it's filled with as much goodwill as the past few days. I think the day gets a bad rep, with people returning gifts they didn't want, crowding the malls, etc etc.

I used to be such a little baby about presents. I remember Jason and I would call one another scant minutes after the opening frenzies to see what the other had gotten. The first year I gave presents, I was even worse; I got all sanctimonious about the presents I'd gotten for others. Thankfully, people change. I can't believe what a little brat I used to be.

I do have a love hate relationship with the sentiments of the season. On one hand, as Strip Kip says, "It is Christmas." That forgives so many things, right? I feel that the gooey icky feelings that people hate to feel and love to mock come from their desire to be in control of their feelings. And, really, Christmas can make you lose yourself. On the other hand, some of those holiday specials go way too far in order to hit those heartstrings.

My family has been playing lots of cards in the past few days. I seesaw around in the luck/skill balance and so I end up either winning or losing by large margins. We play "Heckuvagame" which cousin Mitch says is also known as "FYB." As I don't want to alienate the Union University fans, I won't expand the acronym. I like this game because every hand, someone gets nailed, unlike Hearts or Spades where things spread out a bit.

The videogame report: We've also been playing a lot of Super Smash Bro's Melee (gave it to my brother; it's a real gift that keeps on giving). It's really tempting to get a GameCube for this game alone. :-) Of course, I'd also need to enlist friends to be over constantly to play. Other new videogame is 007: Agent Under Fire (my brother's present to me; I love being in a family of geeks). I never had an N64, so this is really my first time owning a console FPS. It's not terrible to control (I used Halo type controls) and it's fun to play (da da DA DA), especially in multiplayer, where I'm extracting slow revenge for years of Marathon pounding that my brother used to dole out. Now, of course, I have an excuse to get a multitap and 2 more controllers. And, when I go back to the apartment, I have more incentive to get a bigger TV.

Merry day after Christmas. Welcome back to the net and our little corner of it.

kip

PS: We saw A Beautiful Mind today. I feel ashamed that it took me until the latter half of the movie to recognize the concept for which he won the Nobel Prize: Nash equilibrium. I even saw the curve on the paper he wrote and it meant nothing to me. Micro and macro were soooo long ago.