So Christmas has come and gone, and I did not get Guitar Hero III for the Wii, as expected, because it's bloody impossible to find. (I did, however, get Super Mario Galaxy, with all of its old-school-recognisable-but-modern-day-posh glory, which has been keeping me up late at night.) So, I soon began the futile task of trying to find it myself.

I have been visiting stores randomly, asking staff about shipment times, and have had the websites for several shops open on my browser at all times, occasionally refreshing in hopes of good luck. I even scavenged eBay, but with a 70% markup as the market rate, I held off.

Today, as I worked, I continued refreshing those websites, and repeatedly seeing "This product is sold out". I was discussing the predicament with a friend when something startled me. I refreshed Future Shop's page and saw the number 36 appear.

I rubbed my eyes. "Yes," I thought. "That's a 36. And the button says 'Add to Cart'".

I terrified the bunny as I dashed across the room to get my credit card and frantically filled out the order form before those 36 were snatched up. After forgetting my password, and having to update my address, I was expecting error at any point, and was shocked to find a success page greet me at the end.

In the few minutes it took to complete the order, the stock had dropped from 36 down to 10, and within moments after that it had gone back to zero. By chance, I had hit the only few minutes within a week or two that they would have stock.

And very soon I shall rock.

You know you've been playing Guitar Hero too much when you spend late Sunday night doing this:

Song: Eric Johnson - Cliffs of Dover
Difficulty: Medium
Score: 100%
Streak: 631
Notes Hit: 631/631
Star Phrases Hit: 14/14
Points: 155431

That took me dozens of attempts, and is unlikely to be repeated any time soon. I feel a strong sense of achievement, though my wrists and fingers feel a strong sense of ouch.

I'm afraid to move up to "Hard". The orange button scares me.

A friend's parents have rented a cottage in Quebec for the winter, so a few of us made the haul out to La Belle Province last weekend for a skiing trip. We had done this trip two years ago, but that ended with someone's broken tibia, so we were hoping for much better this time around. Myself, I had spent that trip on the bunny hill learning to snowboard, and so to avoid making another 7-hour drive just to spend my time falling on a small pile of snow, I went and bought my own snowboard gear and have been practicing at the local hills, hoping to take better advantage of the slopes that Quebec has to offer.

I don't think we could have been more fortunate.

We left Toronto Thursday evening, and arrived in St Sauveur around midnight. Just as we were approaching the cottage, it started to snow, so we were fortunate to avoid that for the drive. When we awoke in the morning, there was a foot of fresh snow on the ground. 'Twas a good omen. The drive to Tremblant was slow, but when we got there, we found a relatively empty mountain - since it was a Friday morning - and lots of fresh powder. Perfect.

With no lines, we got tons of mountain time in, and I improved immensely on the board, actually making some turns properly. I'm still pretty terrible, however, so I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, and somehow managed to twist my ankle on one fall. It wasn't until I removed my boot that I discovered how much it hurt. That injury would prevent me from hitting the slopes the next day, but it was still an awesome time, and I am officially hooked.

On Sunday, we went tubing, and had even more luck. We arrived just when it opened, and we were literally the only ones there and had the slopes to ourselves. By the time we had left (a half-hour after we were supposed to) only about a dozen or so other people arrived. Our butts were frozen, but it was a load of fun.

So, in contrast to the last trip, this one was a huge success, and you can expect me to keep practicing my snowboarding on the local hills.