Or at least, my amazing return to making blog posts. I got swamped with stuff (and am still one assignment behind) and just fell out of the habit. It’s amazing how, when you’ve got a lot of work-writing to do, fun-writing just plain stops.

So yeah, today was Christmas and I got… not much of anything, really. But everyone liked what I gave them, so that’s fine. I get enough stuff throughout the year that Christmas presents are nice, but hardly necessary. I don’t have the opportunity/resources to give people stuff they like very often, though, so it’s really satisfying to see it pay off.

While I was back home for Christmas, I got to put some real distance into Elite Beat Agents. I had to do something while hanging out in the church’s back room waiting for the service to end, after all, and it was handy. I’ve been playing it a bit at a time for almost two months now, and I’m finally up to the last song on what I assume is the highest difficulty level. Despite my initial misgivings, I’d give EBA a solid 5 out of 5 if I was reviewing it.

I really don’t like to give out 5s, but if I can play a game for two months straight and still look forward to more, noticing improved skills and feeling a strong desire to get even better to see if maybe there’s a 20th song to unlock beyond the 19 I’ve got already, I don’t have much of a choice. The stories are dopey and the songs would cause me to throw the radio out the window if I heard them away the game, but none of that’s really important once I start playing. If I need to re-do the first two sections of Ashley Simpson’s LaLa 10 times running to max out the combo, I don’t have a problem with that. I’d be ashamed to admit it if I was talking about any game other than EBA, but what can you do? It’s just that good.

I liked EBA’s prequel just as much, if not a bit better due to its style and setting, and still pop it out now and then in a vain attempt to clear Ready! Steady! Go! on expert. I got Osu! Tatake! Ouendan! this spring, played it through most of the summer, worried at it a bit through fall, and then went straight on to EBA. Including Gitaroo Man, that makes three all-time-great music games from iNiS. Whatever it is they do next, I’m paying very close attention.

In unrelated news, I took another crack at learning to do something in Photoshop tonight. I needed a nice change of pace, and looking at incomprehensible menus that use a familiar language in bizarre ways seemed just the thing. This is what I made-

I’ll admit it’s got its share of problems, like the resolution of the Wii, the curve on the flipper left over from where the bucket used to be, the font on “Wii” needing an outline to make it easier to read, and several other things, but I’m happy with it for the moment.