Birthday presents, video games, movies and rediscovering the joy of four strings

I intended to get a post in before my birthday, but other commitments have sadly drawn my attention away. So I'm going to condense all my recent thoughts/experiences into this post, as I can't say whether I'll get to write again before Christmas!

My birthday has come and gone once again, leaving me a year older but blessed with some really cool presents. Lauren covered all the bases by getting me Enslaved: Odyssey to the West on PS3, a Adidas/Star Wars T-shirt and the Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary! If you can't be a kid on your birthday then what's the point of having a birthday? As we both had the day off, we went out and bought a Christmas tree, which was an interesting experience to say the least. When we got the tree out of the netting, we realised it's a little too big for our flat, and had to rearrange our furniture to accommodate it! It looks nice now it's decorated though, so I have no regrets.

I haven't played much of Enslaved yet, but my initial experience has been very enjoyable. Although to start with it seemed to lack risk (impossible to fall off ledges, low damage in battles), the difficultly/danger jumps up quite quickly after the tutorial sections are done, forcing you to use all of Monkey's agility and power, alongside Trip's intelligence and technical skill. The game's visuals are absolutely stunning, with vibrant colours and crisp detail. On the subject of striking visuals, I recently purchased Inception on Blu-ray. What a film. Like The Dark Knight, I think I'll be repeatedly watching Christopher Nolan's latest masterpiece, as its concept generates so much debate and split opinions. Is it all a dream? Does Cobb get back to his family? Am I dreaming right now? Of course not. I got out of the Matrix ages ago...

Over the past few weeks I've got back into playing the bass guitar, as my friend's bass was recently fixed, allowing us to use it for music at church. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to play the bass; it's been great to brush up on my Rage Against The Machine riffs! Having the bass for church has been very useful, because when I've played electric guitar recently its not worked very well with the other instruments (treading on the toes of the piano and acoustic guitar), where as the bass has really added some power and definition. Don't worry though, I'm not abandoning my six-string roots! Got a load of Christmas carols to learn for Sunday, so I'll leave it there. If I don't write again before the 25th, Merry Christmas!