Saturday 18 December, 2004
Good deals
Well, we've officially started Christmas arrangements. We went and had a look at some Christmas Trees today - as our rent agreement forbids live trees (grabage disposal and fire hazard - in a building with over 150 apartments I guess there's point) we had a look at some artificial ones. Alternatives were very basic and slightly scruffy looking $25 tree from our local Chinese Homestore, or a fancy looking lights-already-installed $100 tree from Sears. After a short reality check we went for the economic option, but still got some decorations from Sears - for once it's of some use being totally late with Christmas arrangements as all decorations were now on -50% sale. Just think how much I'd save if I got them in a week's time!
Anyway, turned out that the scruffy looking tree at Homestore was the final one, so we got that one to go - at home I opened it and carefully twisted the branches and it suddenly started looking like a real tree. Lights cost $1.99 extra, so I think we got a pretty good deal here.
In my family the Christmas tradition is that the tree isn't decorated until noon on Christmas Eve after the official declaration of Christmas Peace (a Finnish Custom), but since that actually happens now 2 am our time, I think we'll do it when we wake up on the morning of 24th. As here, like pretty much everywhere else in the world, 24th isn't a special day, so Dragon had to especially take the day off so we can start Christmas celebrations the proper (= Finnish) way.
In other news, we bought some games to pass time on the holidays, two games for Dragon, and one for me. Now when it comes to games, I'm really difficult. I don't like violence or killing, and I'm not very good at platform jumping games or anything really that requires reaction time and lots of combos, so I'm pretty limited - that's why I like simulations like Sims or Pharaoh, and Myst games. I think I have today found a game that I can add to the list.
It's a game called Katamari Damacy, and the basic idea is that you roll things into a ball. Let me explain: I play the little prince whose father is the King of All Cosmos, and due to an unfortunate accident suddenly all the stars have disappeared. So my darling father decides to cash in a "favour" of my existance (gee, thanks dad!) so I need to create all the stars again. This happens by rolling big enough balls (called katamari) - it's done like rolling a snow ball when making snowmen. I roll my katamari over different things and they stick, the bigger my ball gets the bigger things get stuck into it. So I start with caramels and tags and mah jong tiles, and move into legos and mice and sparrows and teddy bears, all the way up to people and houses and stadiums and well... anything you can imagine. Fanstastically innovative and absurd, and great gameplay. Love it.
Posted by kolibri at 18 December 23:22, 2004Harro says you just can't get that game in Finland. Could you please buy one for us, we'll send money! The game sounds so weird, we'll have to try it ourselves too :) It must be really addictive!
# 2 - kolibri (on December 20, 2004 07:48 AM):
Well, if you email Santa your new address, I'm sure you'll get the game as a late Christmas present ;)
# 3 - Anonymous (on December 22, 2004 12:03 AM):
Remember that US titles for PS2 won't work in Europe, unless you have a modified box, thanks to that pesky region coding.
(I'm assuming we're speaking of the PS2 here, not being aware of it being available for other systems. I'd love to be wrong, though.)
# 4 - kolibri (on December 22, 2004 09:12 AM):
Yeah, it's a pain, but I believe they've got it covered.
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