If you have a Wii or PC, and you haven’t got this game, get it.

It is akin to Portal in so many ways.

The humour. The physics. The visuals. The sound effects. Everything is perfect.

And for a game that only costs about 12 bucks, it has a surprising amount of depth to it. And most importantly, it is challenging. Also, you can play up to four players on the Wii, which makes playing the game somewhat easier, but may destroy your relationships with people.

Essentially, World of Goo has you building structures to solve puzzles. You build these structures out of tiny blobs of Goo. The Physics is very realistic. Build an unstable structure, it will collapse. Or fall over. Or roll away (if you made a sphere). The physics gets even more exciting when you start getting access to balls of Goo with realistic vector physics…and then there is planetary orbits in the mix…

This game made me drool. It is so much fun…I cannot express it.

And it is hilarious. Hilarious. Not since Portal have I been this entertained by the dark humour of a game.

Get it. Now. I’ll wait here.

I’m so close to getting my Christmas shopping done.

This year has been…staggering. I’ve bought gifts for more people than usual. I’m buying for eight people now. The five core Grant family members, my Grandfather (who lives with my parents now), my baby cousin Denise, and my girlfriend, Katie.

I’ve acquired most of the gifts, which was difficult because work keeps me busy from around 8:30 am until 9:00 pm with very little room for shopping at any point afterward. Some of the gifts were ordered from online (eBay or Thinkgeek) and other stuff I managed to find at Square One (which is on my route back to Waterloo).

I think that I have purchased items across all of the six categories of gifting. What are these six categories you ask? (Oh, you didn’t?) Well, I’ll tell you.

Granite’s Gift Giving Guide (and Alliterative Title Emporium)

Consumable

The tastiest gift of all! Consumables are anything that you can…consume. Chocolates, candy canes, baskets of Christmas meats and cheeses, or homemade preserves. Consumables are delicious Christmas gifts, although they enjoyment you can get from them is short-lived. Unless it is a jar of honey that you received from your aunt, which has somehow lasted for a year now, despite regular use.

Novelty

Hilarious and incredibly impractical. Novelty gifts are often cute little trinkets that - while entertaining - have no practical application and the longevity of these gifts is minimal. Bobble heads, hilarious fridge magnets, tiny Christmas ornaments that sing hilarious parodies of Christmas carols are all novelties. You’ll love them for a month at most, and forget about them for a while before they reappear when you’re rummaging through old boxes. Usually received as Secret Santa gifts due to those cursed price limits.

Usable

The broadest category of them all. Includes stuff from lotions and scented soaps for women to a rather large and completely awesome toaster oven for a young university student. Video game systems also fall into this category. All the gifts that I receive from immediate family tend to fall into this category, because I usually get games or some sort of appliance (my LCD TV and toaster oven were both Christmas gifts).

Clothing

In my opinion, the most risky choice for a Christmas gift, especially when shopping for a girl. :S You get something that is the wrong size, and it doesn’t fit. The gift was a bust. You get something that is too large, they take offense to it. Believe it. It happened when my mother bought my cousin a shirt. Clothing is a dangerous path to tread for something like a Christmas gift, because it can go over well or incredibly poorly. And then you will be killed.

Sentimental

Gifts that may seem to fall into a previous category, but have some sort of emotional attachment to them. I would lump in gifts that little kids make their parents out of macaroni, but also something that someone mentionned they wanted months ago, and you just happened to discover it and have it nicely wrapped under the tree. If someone you hold dear collects something, and you find something perfect for their collection, this is the kind of gift that I think is sentimental.

Romantic

Anything with a precious metal or stone in it. A spa package. A weekend getaway to a romantic destination. Basically, anything that will get your partner all fired up is a romantic gift…although I don’t think flowers cut it on Christmas. It has to be something more substantial. I don’t know that guys ever receive romantic gifts…unless you are a fan of watches…and your woman is aware of this. :S

In conclusion, I am extremely bored covering a CS class that doesn’t need teaching, and this has helped me pass the time.

To the powers that be:

• R4 for my DS (never have to buy a game again)
• Wii Points Card
• Wario Land: Shake It! (for Wii)
• Rent for next term :S

That is all.

Ugh…

This co-worker of mine is incredibly useless. Some kids were in the next room panicking about their Gr. 9 science test, and rather than helping them study, she was on MSN and Facebook.

!!

To those who are on DC++, can you see if anyone is sharing Toon Boom Studio?

I need to find a copy of this software somewhere, and if DC++ has it, I’ll at least know it is functionning (and not virus filled).

Ugh.

Stress - Exams are on the horizon. Which means that - in addition to my exam - I have a work report due soon as well. Shite.

Relief - I have found a place to live for the next eight months. And it isn’t with randoms. Erin and Shay (from high school) are my roomies. It was odd. Katie found the listing, and I phoned the guy…then he told me that he was roommates with them. I saw the place, saw how close it was to campus and how decent it was overall (it has everything I need), and I was sold.

Stress - This job is slowly killing me.

Stress - Katie’s Christmas gift is elaborate and difficult to shop for, because it isn’t something I would normally buy. Cannot leave too many details…she may be watching <.<

Relief - The TSA gave me a laugh this weekend, when my Secret Santa gift was a box of condoms. :P Check out Facebook for the video. It is too dark to actually see the condoms, but it was a box of condoms wrapped in other condoms (that they’d filled with lotion to give the impression of use). We all had a good laugh at my expense. I enjoyed the gift thoroughly.

Stress - New Years. Who is coming? I’ve received something like two responses!!! :(