Per tradition, Marin gave me a couple new manga titles as part of my Christmas present. The unequivocal winner of this round of manga was Hayate the Combat Butler. Hayate does for comedy manga what Scream did for horror movies—but has the advantage of comedy being a much more endearing genre. But, to get the most out of it (much as with Scream), you ought to be a fan of the genre before reading; why should you find poking fun at nekomimi hilarious if you’re not already familiar with the concept?

Sometimes there’s something a particular manga-ka does that I really like/note, for some reason. Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina) draws pretty gals. Wataru Yoshizumi (Marmalade Boy) draws gorgeous eyes. And Kenjiro Hata (Hayate) nails facial expressions. There’s no need for the classic “throbbing vein” when you can convey annoyance in the arch of an eyebrow.

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In MacWorld AppleWorld news, uh… AppleTV and the iPhone (surprisingly named as such). Wow. I have to wonder about the 40GB hard drive of the AppleTV—that seems a bit small for more than a few movies. And, while the iPhone looks sweet… I just don’t use a cell phone enough to justify a two-year contract, let alone the price of the device itself.

I wish I lived in Apple’s world, though, where going online from your cell phone is an easy task that doesn’t nickel-and-dime you per kilobyte. Maybe in a few years.

Most notable, though, was the absence of the Macintosh from the MacWorld keynote. As if to underline that, Apple officially dropped Computer from its name. Apple, Inc. Hrm.

Typhoid Eric came and spent a few nights at my place in the middle of last week. I now have a cough, faucet-nose, and a temperature (collectively known as The Death). I’m blaming him.

Yesterday I pretty much drooled on myself and played Ridge Racer.

Today was a bit better: I got my garbage out, cleared out (and refilled) my dishwasher, and went in to work only to discover that they were shutting the computers down early for maintenance. And then I drooled on myself some more.

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Tomorrow’s MacWorld keynote by Steve Jobs looks to be a (relatively) monumental one; John Gruber’s predictions seem as reasonable as any I’ve seen—and even the Wall Street Journal has gone on record saying that Apple will release some sort of cell phone tomorrow.

Too bad I’ve already bought more minutes for my T-Mobile pay-as-you-go phone. (I don’t talk enough to justify a real cell phone bill.) Since the word on the street is that Cingular will be Apple’s partner, I looked at their plans this evening… and their pay-as-you-go plan doesn’t look terrible, either—provided that you’ll mostly be talking to other people on their cell phone (i.e. not a land-line). Hrm.

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Much of my time, recently, has been spent dealing with the ramifications of a realization that’s been growing stronger over the last couple months: renting is for chumps. (Okay, that’s going too far. But.) Plusses: lower monthly amount; flexibility with respect to moving in the future. Minuses: that’s all you’re getting—shelter for a month at a time. Once that month’s up, you have nothing but the fact that you were dry for that one month.

The one bit of advice I remember from Dr. Moulton, a finance professor I took a few classes form back in the day, was to buy a house as soon as you could afford one. The advice struck me as somewhat odd at the time—I’m what you might call debt-adverse. But I now see the side I was missing, back then: the idea of getting something enduring for your money. Renting fails; house plus mortgage does not.

The real problem is: can I afford it? (Answer: certainly not without renting, ostensibly to my sister.) Also: is there any place that would work that is available? The jury’s still out… though I do have a good bit of life on my current lease.

I coasted through the year. While I did move out of my parent’s house, the truth of the matter is that it didn’t change things much—I just have a few more things I have to take care of, personally. Most disruptive, actually, was having to move my stuff and rearrange it in a new location. That took a while.

But, yeah. Coasting. Year of rest. It worked for 2006, but it’s not a terribly good option for 2007. This is a year to get on the ball and make things happen.

At least, I hope it is.

I betrayed my friends! Mwa ha ha ha!

I was supposed to head up to Portland for New Year’s. Lots of people going to be there. Big party.

Problem was, I’m not a big-party sort of person. It’s not that I don’t have any fun in big parties—I just don’t have a whole lot of fun. I get a heck of a lot more enjoyment from various next-day activities that are generally limited to the people who I really know. Also, the party was being hosted by people I’m not terribly familiar/comfortable with (arguably because I’ve not attended parties hosted by them).

Also, I was invited to this other in-town party—consisting of some friends from dance—that was much smaller. The proposed agenda consisted of board games, movies, and fireworks at midnight. Things much more my speed, in other words.

And I did have a good time. We played Apples to Apples, lit fireworks, and watched Death to Smoochy. Janis, her housemate (whose name I’ve already forgotten, in a classic Brent move), and I were in the running for biggest Apples to Apples loser for most of the game, until I pulled out a single victory near the end to pull ahead. Other people were cleaning house so bad it hurt.

I’m sad to say that I never pulled out a kick-ass play during the game. My glory move remains having played General George S. Patton for the adjective feminine—and winning.

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Earlier in the evening I was playing a game of Snowcraft. The point of the game is to have your team win snowball fights—thing is, the first time you knock a kid down he’ll eventually get back up. Marin saw me at the end of a fight, where I just knocked down my last opponent for the first time. In a moment of weakness I actually spoke to the kid who I had just knocked down. Or, rather, I snarled at him: get up! (I finished him off immediately once he recovered, of course.) Marin died from laughing at me for that.