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No, not the HBO prison series, but the magical one where houses fall onto evil witches.
This holiday-time brought snow, barking puppies, and a little portal to Oz, right on our kitchen table. A portal made out of gingerbread. The general idea was to abandon the instructions and make a house worthy of the most unique ginger-people. I think that succeeded wonderfully.

Besides that, it’s been a very cold and relaxing end of December. Getting ready for my birthday and New Years, and then it’s back to real life.

Everybody else having a good time?

The whole package is called the Orange Box and it’s Valve’s latest 5-pack with all sorts of Half Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 goodness. The game that is getting all the attention though? Portal. A short, two or so hour game, the premise is simple - you’re an unwilling test participant in some sort of techno-future lab. Your one and only chance of escape is held with the object that you’re testing - a handheld portal creating device. Shoot once to make an orange entrance, another shot yields a blue exit. Walk through the orange to pop out the blue. Sounds simple enough, until you’re having to use portal physics to stay alive.

Besides the amazing use of the simple portal device and its associated physics, the game also shines through its environment. The creepy, futuristic lab/asylum voiced by a crazy, cake-promising artificial intelligence shows the exact image of what I don’t want the future to be. All works out in the end though, to an extent. What does work at the end however, is the credits. Basically, they’re amazing. Go rent the game just for the credits. After two hours of thinking in a whole new way, the end of the game makes for a very happy conclusion.

So yes. 10 heart-covered cubes out of 10. Go play it.

It would seem that my turtle trio was hungry. Or brownfish #2 perfected his jumping skills and is now living in a puddle outside. Either way, my pet count is now -1.

And he didn’t even say goodbye. How rude.

On another animal-related note, as requested, here’s a picture from our first Santa Cruz thanksgiving. Rock.