I didn’t even write a letter to Santa this year, but he was still good to me. As well as a COOL CRISP £5 NOTE, he brought a lovely plastic molded Gibson guitar down the chimney with him, and a copy of Guitar Hero II. Bonus.

Between that and the two Wii that my brothers received (there are two much more deserving kids bawling their eyes out. I hope.), it made for a very energetic Christmas. The Wii was more impressive than I had perhaps expected, and I still find myself sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to get in my 5 minutes of Wii Sports Fitness testing done. According to the white box of wonder, my fitness age is 27, a full 6 years too high - but a compliment when the borderline libelous age of 79 was awarded to me on Christmas morning. And I’d been to fucking mass and everything.

Nintendo were absolutely vindicated in going down this growing-the-market, getting-grandmothers-to-play route, when my usually-rubbish-at-videogames girlfriend trounced me and my brother at Wii Sports. It appears that for gaming glory on the Wii, actual real life sporting skills may be needed. (Balls.)

And Guitar Hero II. The difficult second album, really. The first was, according to memories formed in one rolling-rock fuelled night, a masterwork of quality track after quality track. This one, though, is quality track after whatthefuckisthisshitiambeingforcedtoplay.

As well as leaving me a cool crisp £5 note featuring an alcoholic ex-footballer ex-living person, Santa also did not take £20 from my wallet, which was nice, as I used that £20 to pick up to bargains in the Game sale:

Rogue Trooper - HALO, but not featuring really shit pink aliens.
Yakuza - The most appallingly localized game this side of Zero-Wing, and yet I can’t stop playing it. Even though it has random battles.