Quick takes on the stuff I've been playing.

- Armed and Dangerous (PC): Very funny, fun to play, slightly quirky gameplay but still great. The Shark gun and the Topsy Turvy bomb are awesome. A bit too short in terms of hours-of-play-per-dollar, but still great.

- Call of Duty (PC): The Medal of Honor team hits another home run with this one. A must-play. I've only played the single player missions so far, but since MOHAA deathmatch is a staple at our LAN parties, I'll bet this one will become one, too.

- Halo (PC): Finished it earlier today. I had no idea it would be THIS good. There are moments near the end of the single-player game that are truly sublime in terms of evoking the goosebumps and the chills up your spine at the same time as it's causing the whole "fight or flight" adrenaline rush. Much of the gameplay is what I imagine Half Life 2 was supposed to be. In fact, I'm now worried that when HL2 finally does come along, I'll yawn and say "it's just Halo with slightly better graphics". Again, I haven't done multiplayer yet, looking forward to trying it.

- Rogue Squadron 3: Rebel Strike (GameCube): Lukewarm reaction. Didn't give me that "oh my god this is the coolest thing I've ever played" response that I got from RS2:Rogue Leader, but that's only because the sequel always has trouble surpassing the standards set by a particularly good first version. Basically, Rebel Strike is made up of all the stuff they didn't have time to do for Rogue Leader. Meaning that you get to do some particularly cool and intense missions, so that's a really good thing. And there's a co-op mode where you can play all the missions from Rogue Leader as two cooperative players. That's a nice touch. Anyway, if Rebel Strike and Rogue Leader had come out in the opposite order, I probably would have been saying "oh my god this is the coolest thing I've ever played" to Rebel Strike and being Lukewarm about Rogue Leader. Oh: Still no widescreen mode on this one.

- Quidditch World Cup (GameCube): My review is at Amazon.

Speaking of video games, finally got to meet Ed Rotberg tonight. Had a nice New Year's Eve dinner at my friends' house, and Ed and his wife were there. Great people. Talked a little shop. He's working on something for the N-Gage at the moment.