What I've Been Up To

Sorry for the lack of updates - I'll try to get back on track. Here's what I've been up to lately in quick recap form:

• Several amusement parks - California Adventure twice, and the Disney Christmas party at Disneyland. The second trip to California Adventure was with Kimmel - we convinced him to ride his first ever looping roller coaster. He bravely made it through the loop and barely batted an eye when we got stuck 3/4 of the way through and had to walk down the emergency stairs!
• Poker - played $3/$6 Hold 'Em at the Commerce with the KMan. Or with the KMan's money rather, he staked me halfway, while he played $20/$40 across the room. I lost, he won. Why does the Commerce give free steak dinners to players at the $20/$40 game, but charged Brad for the smoothies he bought us?
• Prince of Persia: Warrior Within - I picked this up for $17 a few weeks back. I'm currently stuck on an annoying boss fight. Much like the first game, the fighting is just something I'm willing to endure in order to get to the next amazing platforming sequence. The prince's grabs and time-reversal are great ways to keep this from being frustrating, much like the wiggle room that Mario's jetpack afforded you in Super Mario Sunshine.
• The Professor, The Banker, and the Suicide King - on loan from Kimmel, this is a good read so far.
• Java Certification - I am looking into taking the Sun Certified Java Programmer (CX-310-055) exam. There's this big push for personal development metrics at work, and this is a quantifiable way to show that I am taking it seriously. It's also not a bad excuse to learn a bit more about up to date features of the language.