Bring on 2006

I’m not going to make a New Year’s Resolution this year. Last year, for the first time, I made one. I didn’t even come close to following it through. While I exceeded my expectations in other areas, the one I had promised myself to improve on was left hanging and has pretty much diminished. And as such, I broke a New Year’s tradition this year. Instead of going over to a friend’s – who has hosted a radass New Year’s Eve party for the past 5 or 6 years, Deanna and I went and saw King Kong. We’ll ring in the new year with our daughter Hannah at the stroke of midnight while sipping on our drinks of choice – a cool Keith’s for this guy and Spumante Bambino for my lady. Sounds good to me!

It’s been quite a year. On the family front, we sorted out everything we needed to in regards to our daughter and Deanna’s ex. All the paper work is done and things are great. We received the official government document verifying Hannah’s name change on December 23, which was by far the best Christmas present we could have asked for. She’s now an official Brett! When they moved here from BC nearly 4 years ago, we all had last names. Deanna used to call us a mutt family. Hah!

We welcomed a new little kitty into our home back in October. Gaius has grown quite a bit in the few short months we’ve had him and is becoming quite the little pain in the ass… but we still love him!

I quit my salary job with full benefits at a fairly large corporation to work for a non-profit organization based in another Country back in July. Couldn’t be happier about that decision. The people I’m working with now are amazing and I love they stuff we’re doing. 2006 is the year for TV on the internet and it will be interesting to see what’s in store for DTV. The Windows version is so close now – can’t wait!

While I shut my business down back in July, I’ve continued to do some freelance work. Which is both good and bad. Extra cash is nice, working 12-13 hours a day is not. I really, really want to try and cut down on freelance in 2006 and spend more time on the important things. Doing more for myself and my family.

It was a good year for gaming. Speaking of which, I’ve been slacking on the reviews lately. I actually have 3 I’ll be rolling out soon. Maybe a couple more since I rented an Xbox 360 for a few days. I put some major cash into my PC and upgraded almost everything. Only really got it running awesome a couple weeks ago when I sorted out the heat issue. But I’ve played quite a bit since then. Even went back to replay some games that didn’t run great the first time through. Finally dropped the loot on an LCD and totally stoked on it. Widescreen gaming is a bit of a pain, which I’ll write about soon. I’m really looking forward to all the new stuff that lies ahead in 2006. I think once the PS3 hits the streets, we’ll see a huge change across the board.

I played drums once in 2005. Literally… one time. I set up my kit back in November in my Dad’s garage, but haven’t been back since to play. I definitely need to get on that. Even if I’m not playing in a band, I need to keep playing music. The amount of music I’ve listened to over the past 6 months is ridiculous. I pretty much have music on 6-8 hours a day since I’ve been working from home.

Lastly, things up in this bitch have been great! Since the reboot back in November, I’ve turned this site around in a huge way and totally glad I put all the work I have into it. I’m part of a great network and have met tons of awesome new people from around the world.

So here’s to a great year that’s passed, and to the new one that lies before us.

Happy New Year to you, and all the best in 2006!