Merry secular equivalent and a heartful hola to all my amigos, amigas and ZX81s at this festive time of the year. I don't really have anything planned this week, so I'm just going to jump right into a Mento Miscellany and talk some random nonsense for a few hundred words. Like anyone will notice the difference.

Skyrim

Skyrim is still a thing I guess. It's probably what I'll still be playing come 2012, though I'm perilously close to achieving all I can achieve at this point. Unfortunately, as is always the way with Bethesda, my burnout point is now rearing its scaly head and promising to breathe the icy cold death that is apathy all over my stalwart Redguard which in this analogy represents my patience, I can only suppose.

I've reached the conclusion of the Mage Guild, Companions, Thieves Guild (man, did that take a lot of randomly generated side-quests. Thanks Radiant coding!) and now the Dark Brotherhood knows that I done did in that headmistress from Matilda so I'll be jumping into that nest of vipers presently. I'm also 13 for 15 on my Daedric Fetch Quests, the deadliest and most devious of all fetch quests, and still have a few things like a massive crime spree to stage and a civil war to win. So.. busy busy.

I feel like any game I have deliberately chosen to spend this amount of time with is a worthy GOTY pick, regardless of the many very accurate and pertinent complaints people have made about this game. One of my grievances is that I have killed several foxes and have yet to discover any amazing leaves. This is what patches are for though, ultimately.

Steam

I am also partaking in yet another scavenger hunt from the malevolent Hive Mind Intelligence that was once Valve and its employees. As that hideous creature stalks its away across Seattle using Gabe Newell's many knives as its makeshift limbs, it briefly paused its Starbucks-crushing to set up what might be their most insidious meta-game yet. Now there's an opportunity for actual free shit and the chance to be entered into a sweepstake where the grand prize is owning every single one of Steam's 1400+ games. It's got me installing terrible Indie games of my past I seemingly cannot escape from, just to load them up for five minutes so I can stand on a branch or attempt to dodge a horrific array of swirling blades or direct a tiny chicken towards some delicious snowflakes. Like I said: Insidious. Don't they know I have people to ritually murder elsewhere? (You all can choose to interpret that comment as one that pertains to the Dark Brotherhood discussion, above. If that makes you feel safer at night.)

Xmas Gifts

Obviously the gifts I receive are no business of anyone's but my own and Santa. But he told me that elucidating on my new inventory might give you fine people who read these things some hints on the stickpeople comics to come. That's for those of you who spend time thinking about those things, even if that time is so small as to be yet unobservable by modern science. I know I don't think about them, and I'm the one ostensibly taking time to craft them.

Perhaps the creme-de-la-creme of my haul this year was the oft-maligned modern day classic that is Deadly Premonition. Perhaps I'll come across a joke neither of the ERs caught once my coverage begins in earnest. I've also happenchanced-upon (real word) Skyward Sword, Super Mario Land 3D, Majin & The Forsaken Kingdom and two comic-definites in Bastion and Amnesia: The Dark Descent, thanks to some overly generous Steam/GB pals. I'd offer them this 50% Machinarium voucher in return, but I've decided that one of my New Year Resolutions is to stop deliberately antagonizing people. There is still five days left to go, however.

A Monthly Thing

I may start doing a monthly thing. No, not bathing. As a grown man living in the 21st century, I'm well aware that I need to do that at least three times a month. This monthly thing will, in fact, be a thing I will do monthly that I don't already do monthly. Beyond that, I have nothing definite planned. I just felt like doing a monthly thing. It could be entertaining? Though almost certainly not as entertaining as Alex Navarro's Screened introspective on Nic Cage looks like it will be, in a series I would've called Cage'd Heat had I felt I could get away with it.

While I'm being reductive towards how relatively little I contribute to Giant Bomb, I also want to give the mightiest kudos to Jeff, Ryan, Brad, Vinny, Patrick, Drew, Dave, the ever-changing intern line-up (including eternal bros GlenTennis and Babylonian), TurboMan's blustery Best Ofs, Hamst3r's musical mash-ups, ArbitraryWater's generosity in giving the gift of prone attacks and coup-de-graces, omghisam's generosity in giving the gift of allowing me to watch a simulated rape in real-time with good company, TeflonBilly's generosity in giving the gift of pants-pooping horror, Video_Game_King's generosity in giving the gift of staving off blowing up the planet with his orbital moon lasers for another year, Psycosis' addiction to anime ladies with no clothes on, ahoodedfigure and Claude for being sagacious and wise (respectively), dankempster and Dalai for showing all of us language-impaired how to write a damn fine cup of coffee blog, SparklyKiss and Gamer_152 for completely stealing a modship that should be rightfully mine in a world where everything's backwards and people wear shoes on their feet and hamburgers eat people, the extant mod cabal (including said hamburger) for their hard work over the year in spite of unfortunately banning the internet's favorite choleric ne'er-do-well in the process and finally the 215 people who - for no raisin - decided to follow the antics of that cad of a swine Mento. Had he not been replaced by a brain squid months ago, he would thank you all a second time.

Now For Something Less Sycophantic

And what could be less obsequious than a retrospective of all the lives that were lost this year?

I.. I think I have something in my eye. Until next year, everyone.