Thanks to all of you who have sent me birthday wishes, I really appreciate it and it made my day a lot better. It's still frightening that one year has actually dared to pass again, but here I am, older, and yet still the same ... old child.

As one would expect, the last few days I relaxed a bit and spent some time with Auriane. As of today I continue working on my projects. Antaran still needs a bit of polish, but I expect it to get the final cut next week. HQA Comic, you're next.

I've got a few recommendations for you. Here's the insanely addictive Puzzle Quest - Challenge of the Warlords for the DS. You can do everything in this game. Choose a character, select a job, level up your character, get a mount, level your mount, craft items, get more towns, build structures in towns, train skills, fight monsters - you name it. And the best part is that it's all based around this puzzle system. It's really hard to put this game down once it has sucked you in.

Next up: Movies. Check out Freedom Writers, No Man's Land and Pursuit of Happyness.

And now I've got some irrelevant gaming news for you.
- As I see it there's still no second patch out for S.T.A.L.K.E.R., so I'll wait a little longer before going back to that again.
- The PSP received a price drop and is now available for 169 bucks. I hope Nintendo drops the price of the DS Lite now, because I'd love to have one.
- I took a quick glance at the C&C3 map editor, but I couldn't get myself interested in doing a map.
- Final Fantasy 12 for PS2 was the first FF I haven't bought ever since the legendary purchase of FF7. A friend of mine told me FF12 was a masterpiece, but other sources tell me it's boring and way too similar to the MMORPG FF11, which still leaves a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. Also, FF12 plays in the world of Ivalice, and the last time I entered that world was through Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, and I can't really say that the aftertaste is a lot less bitter. And now FF12 Revenant Wings is coming out for the DS, throwing FF12 with Final Fantasy Tactics Advance into a pot, adding real-time strategy. I don't know if I want to eat that soup. They even re-used sprites of FFTA.

Oh well.

On a rather personal note, I've already written about my new schedule that allows me to work from Vienna every second week. Since parking my car in Vienna during weekdays costs way too much I'm kinda forced to go by train again. It's been a long time since I've traveled by train. It's a bit less convenient, but it actually saves me a lot of time. I won't just sit in my car for two hours staring at the pavement. I can actually be productive again or read something. Most plans for HQA were made in trains. Now that HQS is on the horizon, maybe that's actually a good thing. Another good thing would be to actually possess a laptop. I could finally make music while traveling. That would be sweet.