The trip home was alright, watch­ing Men In Black 2 (not a very good movie at all) and tak­ing under five and a half hours. I like the fact that I can pur­chase a bus tick­et at any time, and not have to wor­ry about book­ing and reser­va­tions. I’ve always liked the idea that I have the free­dom to pick up and go when­ev­er I please. Of course, this only works when I have a guar­an­teed place to stay at the des­ti­na­tion.

My Candela’s came in last week. They are quite nice, although they look rather cheap dur­ing the day­time when they’re off. They give off a decent ambi­ent light when oth­er (more pri­ma­ry) lights are on, but are good at set­ting a mood when they’re the only things illu­mi­nat­ing a room. It’s a has­sle to always let them burn out to pro­long bat­tery life, since that means that I’m usu­al­ly going to bed with them on, and for some­one who wakes up from the first slit of sun­light pierc­ing the room, it can be an annoy­ing thing.

I found a great astron­o­my book for Darren, cov­er­ing every­thing from the small­est detail in pur­chas­ing a tele­scope, to the pat­terns the plan­ets make in their orbits. Astronomy is some­thing that I’ve always found to be mys­te­ri­ous­ly inter­est­ing, a seduc­tive past-time I’d be afraid to be con­sumed by. A few peo­ple I’ve talked to have felt the same way, although some with an even more severe emo­tion. I would have tak­en up such a hob­by as soon as I had the means to, if the area I live in was­n’t so unbe­liev­ably light pol­lut­ed. It’s as if the may­or wants to keep the lights in the city bright enough to have a con­stant day­time. I’m fair­ly sure that I’ll buy a decent tele­scope even­tu­al­ly, once I’ve set­tled down in a con­do and have a career.

I can’t wait to get back to my plea­sure box and begin fool­ing around with Movable Type. I just hope that my host can pro­vide enough flex­i­bil­i­ty for it to work.

When I got home, a stack of red envelopes and wrapped box­es were wait­ing for me. My pre­ma­ture exit at Christmas left gifts unopened and mon­ey unclaimed, quite a wel­come sur­prise. I got anoth­er $50 gift cer­tifi­cate for Futureshop, which will most like­ly be going towards Vice City as soon as it comes out. I haven’t played a very absorb­ing game in a while, the last ones being GTA3 or Neverwinter Nights, but my favourite is still prob­a­bly Half-Life. And with Half-Life 2 slat­ed for a fall release, well, I find myself becom­ing unhealth­ily excit­ed.

I’ll be split­ting a box of Onslaught with Darren today.