Merry Christmas and all that!

How was your Christmas? Ours was nice and quiet and the three of us came away pretty much happy with what we received, hell even the dogs seemed to be happy and weren't fighting amongst themselves. Which was nice considering in recent weeks they've spent the evenings growling at each other and starting mini fights over nothing whatsoever.

I've been looking into modifying the appearance of Floyddseuss, although its difficult to find a decent guide on how to piece everything together and its been a while since I've edited any HTML or CSS in any form, and considering the time of night, plus it's still a school holiday, I really can't get into the frame of mind to be able to concentrate on something creative that involves more brain cells than the Workshop on Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts.

So I've just stuck to playing with some fonts for the time being in order to find one with which to base the design of the template on, but I can't decide between the following three fonts.





Mind you, in retrospect, I quite like the last one.

Speaking of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, I recieved it from Missus and Sprog as one of my Christmas gifts and I'm really really enjoying it. It makes a nice change from all the shooting and racing that many XBox 360 games involve, and also means I can play it whilst Sprog is around, or even hand her a pad and let her pretend she's joining in.

We often do this together, sometimes, if the game permits two players and isn't too complicated she'll join in properly for a while. It enables me to experience some of the games that arrive through the post for me to write about on bitparade, whilst not neglecting the fact that one of my duties (and privelages) as a father is to entertain my child. Although her now being at full-time school has made getting gaming time in much much easier, but I also have to balance that with job searching, something thats becoming increasingly difficult in the current climate, especially when you take into consideration my lack of references because I've been the "stay at home" parent whilst Missus studies and works towards becoming a Nurse.

It's difficult for all of us really, but as I always remind her when Missus thinks things are getting too hard, its a means to an end, it'll take a while longer (she qualifies in two years time), but it'll make life better for us all and I've just gotta get my foot back on the ladder in any job (although I've ruled catering out because I know I wouldn't be able to stomach it).

Anyhow, back to Christmas, my gifts this year were:

Missus and Sprog:- VW Campervan model kit, VW Campervan mug, "My Dad Wished He Had One Of Those", Big Book of Top Gear, a Venus Fly Trap, The Long Way Down, Feeder - The Singles, Muse - Black Holes & Revelations, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts,a Nightmare Before Christmas Mug and a Light Sabre key ring.

Dad and Step Mum:- A Doctor Who T-Shirt and another one of those Camper Van kits mentioned above.

Mum and her bloke:- Smellies

Older Sister, her bloke and her two daughters: - The Dark Knight

So, not a bad haul for me really!

I'm sooo good at this blogging malarky!

Yup, after another lengthy break (ha! over a year!) I've remembered this existed and have come back.

So whats happened in the past year?

Stuff thats what. My little girl is now in full time education, and loving it! My missus is a Student Nurse proper, and is mostly loving it! and I'm trying to find a job, with not alot of luck to be honest.

We're in the build up to Christmas, and its feeling rather Christmasey for the first time in a long time, probably because the sprog is properly getting into it this year. She's had her Christmas party, play and fayre at school, she's visited Santa and we've been trying to hide all the presents around the house with, so far at least, quite a bit of success. The closest call so far has been a parcel arriving from my Dad at the weekend, she saw the big box, asked what it was and settled for the answer "nothing for you" and carried on doing whatever it was she was doing at the time.

We spent Halloween at Gulliver's Kingdom in Milton Keynes with my Dad, Step Mum, older Sister, her bloke and my two nieces, and despite the appauling weather, a good time was had by all.