wowzers. Quite a haul this year. Got a PSP, two Calphalon pans, The Incredibles, America’s Test Kitchen Live!, and best of all, three copies of my 24 hour comic, printed up in book form.

The pans are great, The Incredibles is hilarious, the ATK book is excellent, and the comics are a wonderful keepsake.

The PSP, though, is the surprise of the bunch for me. I knew, once Lumines was announced, that I’d have to have it. Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s games are system-sellers for me, and Lumines is no disappointment. Fundamentally relatively simple, but very fulfilling, and just a great experience all around. Now, the question is what’s next? Untold Legends isn’t supposed to be all that great, but three people at work have it, and are looking for a fourth to play with. Wipeout Pure looks really fun, and Metal Gear Ac!d looks like it could be quite interesting. Any of the EA games would be cheaper (for me), but neither of the two currently available really blows me away.

But yeah – the PSP’s a wonder – ergonomically, it’s everything the DS should have been but isn’t, and the screen is *gorgeous*. The speakers completely stink, but with headphones, the audio is quite good. The discs are curious – I expected they’d have a minidisc-like enclosure, but strangely, they’re actually open to the air. I’m worried that they’re going to get full of crapulence, and that having that cover is actually going to be worse than better. We’ll see, though. I’m definitely more impressed than I thought I would be, that’s for sure.