And a happy new year. My resolution is to treat my mind and body better than I do; its such an overused New Year�s resolution that I don�t think I need to elaborate.

In the meantime, while I�m still pretending to adhere to the aforementioned resolution, I completed the video game Halo today, earlier this morning before I went to bed. I felt like lounging about the house, in any case, and it was either play video games or read my assignment for next Monday, Mary Shelley�s Frankenstein.

Halo was good, not great, but good. Like a bad movie, it entertained me for hours and hours, but left me unfulfilled. My pulse was never racing (like it did for Goldeneye) but I still felt an odd compulsion to beat the levels.

It�s a sad thing, your last video game. Somehow, I knew when I was playing Halo, even when I bought it, that this was the last hurrah. I will buy no more games for N64 or X-Box, and my skills at the electronic arts will slowly dwindle. Years from now I may even forget the Goldeneye controls I spent hundreds of hours burning into my brain. Perhaps thousands of hours.

The sad truth of the matter is that I�ll find the video games of the next generation incomprehensible, and maybe even consider them a waste of time despite my many happy childhood hours. It�s all over.

I can accept this; I still have Counterstrike, for a few more years at least. Still, video games were a huge part of my life (and I suppose their multiplayer games will remain so, from time to time), much like the Legos I cherished in my innocent youth.

Legos, now that really still depresses me. Everyone knows that Legos are cool; ask any teenager, maybe even any adult, and unless they, like my poor innocent cousins, have been seduced by the vile Playmobile menace, they�ll readily attest the ultimate superiority of Legos, above any other toy, even.

Although I still enjoy Weeble-Wobbles, for their stubborn refusal to fall down.

Anyhow, when I was little I swore that I�d still play with Legos when I was older, that I�d spend all my money to get the really expensive sets with like six guys and gold and cannons and such. In fact, I did at one time spend almost all my money acquiring a Lego �Islanders� set, the complete set, mind you.

Then, it was gone. Not the set, which is still somewhere in my closet next to the briefly popular boardgame Thin Ice and a few Mousetrap pieces. The urge to buy and play with the supreme toy, I was referring to. I know I like Legos, but I�m not about to purchase any, and I don�t have the slightest idea what I�d do with them if I did. I don�t want to play with them.

Looking back, there�s a whole string of toys I was utterly comitted to, each of which I forgot in turn. Since I was the object of my parents� brief, surprisingly liberal attempt at toy-buying without regard to gender bias, I�ll forgo a list of my childhood toys (it wasn�t that bad: there were no dolls and guns were plentiful), but needless to say I�ve been fooled many times.

How could I keep falling for it? Is it a trick after all, or can the mind change so much in a matter of years, of months, so as to suddenly disregard a beloved toy? Halo brought me to a conclusion that was half-formed in my head for a while; I know by now that only creepy guys who live in their mother�s basements and date much younger girls (or, more likely, no one) play video games all their lives.

But Legos� I guess this whole video game thing brought it all back for me. The video game console is the modern child�s Matchbox car (ah, my hundreds of Matchbox cars� sigh) or Lego set. It is the preferred status symbol of the prepubescent, and the constant companion of the postpubescent geek, and now, it is out of my life, like the Legos I loved so much. Off to the side, but just not as interesting, for whatever reason.

On a less depressingly whistful note, my break has been fine. I spent a very large portion of my non-Halo time with the guys, loosely defined as the group of Graham, Larson, Manney, Dylan, Adam and Jenna, give or take a few people depending on the situation, doing the usual Perkins-Graham�s-Movie Theater routine, which is fine; its the best entertainment this town can offer.

You never regret your entertainment choices in Brainerd, you merely take comfort in the fact that you managed to find something to do.

Ah, and the things I did -I did so many things I never stopped. For New Year�s I stayed at Graham�s with the guys, and as anyone can tell you, we played X-Box long into the night, except for when we went to pick up Larson at some other, much less sober, party and my mom called while we were out and apparently concluded that we�d driven to Duluth. Which, needless to say, left me spluttering. Spluttering.

When I wasn�t with the guys, I did get to see a few girls; I ate at 371 Diner with Danielle, and gave her her Christmas present: five magic beans in an apothecary jar. Well, we thought it was freaking hilarious, so there. I hung out with Beth before she left for the cities, and forced her to see Babe, which I�d been talking up for quite some time. Meghan Rahn also got cajoled, by the unstoppable tag-team of Graham and Dan, into having coffee at the Coco Moon with us, which was interesting. Her ideas are perpendicular to everyone else�s at times, which makes for great conversation.

Ah yes, and she�s, as my mom put it once, �One of the greatest people on earth.� I guess some people just make me want to be a better person, and being around Meghan made me want to start reading Frankenstein for Monday. But, well, I�d rather sleep and play video games. I suppose now, without Halo, I�ll have plenty of time to read in any case.

Speaking of sleep, I�d just like to officially observe that my hetero-life-buddy Larson and I got in a huge fight yesterday, and that, well, I hurt him pretty bad. When you see Larson, if you can even recognize him after my magnificent fisticuffsmanship, remember: Don�t mess with Dan. Larson would like to warn you himself, I�m sure, but the doctors say he can�t talk for quite some time.

My fists of death will pound your face into a bloody pulp! Fear me, lowly mortals, and my chin-shattering fists!

I suppose I�ll visit Larson soon. 201 Bed 2. Later.