Oh Christmas Tree ...

For the first time in my adult life I actually have a Christmas tree. Not a "real" tree, mind you, as they tend to be messy and have a habit of needing to be watered (something difficult to do when both I and my boy will be flying to our respective homes for a week for Christmas) or else there will be a not so nice Christmas surprise of a dead tree and a pile of needles on the floor. Not to mention the obvious problem of where to find a real living Christmas tree here in Memphis; its not like living in Michigan where every corner seems to have some display of Christmas trees for sale. Its about 6' tall, strung with lights and as of last week, decorated mostly with my old childhood ornaments that my mom was kind enough to send my way.

My first two years here in Memphis, Christmas snuck up on me; I was heading to the airport to catch a flight home before it even sunk in that it was the holiday season, let alone nearly Christmas. Christmas' sneak attack was not solely made possible by my lack of Christmas decorating (the fact that it snows maybe once a year here in Memphis and rarely drops below 40 degrees certainly helps mask the fact that the winter holidays are rapidly approaching), but it surely played it's part.

I've certainly enjoyed the Christmas/holiday spirit that the decorated tree has brought to our apartment. I'm a rather rational (some might say usually lacking in emotion) person, but Christmas still has a magic to it, one that I can surely feel this year. The tree seems durable enough, so I expect to be setting it up in whatever apartment/condo/residence in whatever state and city that I call home next year (the IRS has been dragging its feet, but I have to imagine I'll be in and out of training come this time next year).

Prince of Persia

Because lately I have a good deal of time on my hands (not complaining in the least, mind you), I decided that before I actually got into the new Prince of Persia (I picked up my pre-ordered copy last Wednesday as all pre-orders were upgraded to the collector's edition for free), I would check out the old trilogy that was on the PS2/Xbox. I picked up used copies of the 3 games (Sands of Time, Warrior Within and Two Thrones) on the Xbox (at Gamestop) for $4, $5 and $10, respectively. I'm glad I did. I just finished Sands of Time earlier this evening (morning) and I loved it. It's a relatively short game (it took me just under 10 hours to beat), but it is a treat to play. The graphics, for its time as the game was released in 2003, look great, the controls are smooth and the gameplay, while challenging, is not stupid, make-you-want-to-throw-your-controller-at-the-tv, impossibly hard. Once you beat Sands of Time, you can unlock the original Prince of Persia (on the PC, back in the late 80s I think) game, though if you play the game on your 360 like I did, when you try to play the original Prince of Persia the screen just goes black. It's easy to see after playing Sands of Time where Ubisoft got the idea for Assassin's Creed.

The 360 Prince of Persia is calling my name pretty loudly, so I may be waiting to play the rest of the Xbox trilogy until after running through the 360 game. I haven't seen more than the opening cut scene of the 360 game, but the graphics are simple yet stunning and the music is beautiful (as a nice bonus, a short game soundtrack is on the collector's edition disc).