Console Wars

Until the current generation of video game consoles, I've always managed to own most of them. For the 128-bit generation for example, I had the PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, and the XBox. But for the current generation, I only own the Wii. The high prices of the PS3 and the XBox360 combined with a relative lack of quality games for those systems early on held me back from making the investment.

But unfortunately, I feel let down by the Wii. Just like with the Gamecube, Nintendo has front loaded its releases with promising games towards the launch of its system followed by several years of nothing. And in the meanwhile, the PS3 is catching up in terms of quality games. I think I'll be jumping ships to the PS3 in the very near future... I figure it might be nice to have the Blu-ray functionality as well.

And honestly, I had some serious thoughts about getting the 360 a few years ago... but Microsoft's unwillingness to fix the ongoing red ring of death issue with their system makes it a very poor investment.

I probably missed the boat with the current generation of gaming systems... for the next generation (still several years away) I'll be vary wary of making Nintendo my only/first choice... I'll probably grab one of the other systems first and then grab Nintendo's system after it proves itself worthy.

Japanese Wedding Customs

So my fiance and I are starting the preliminary stages of planning for our wedding. I figure it'll be good to get as much done while I'm still on "vacation."

One of the first steps is trying to figure out how big of a wedding we want to have, as in, how many people to invite and how big of a venue we need to look at. While discussing with my parents which family members they thought could make it over here, I learned something shocking and new to me.

In Japanese weddings, you're expected to pay for the travel & lodging expenses of ALL OF YOUR GUESTS!

Wow, did not know that. Considering the flight alone is $1000, inviting just 5-10 of my relatives could wipe out the entire wedding budget! No wonder I wasn't invited to my cousin's wedding last year... And my parents appear uneasy with the thought of asking our relatives to pay their own way to fly over for our wedding. With this new revelation, it appears as if I'll have to follow my cousin's cue and not invite anyone outside my immediate family members as far as family goes. As for my friends and my fiance's side of the family, we'll follow standard American protocol.

Engaged

So as most (if not all) readers of this blog probably know already, I got engaged to my girlfriend of 3+ years during our trip to Japan. We're both pretty excited about it, and we've begun to brainstorm a little bit about planning the whole thing. Also, I apologize for not posting anything here during my trip. Hopefully the photo uploads to Facebook made up for it.

So here are some pertinent information that you all might find interesting:

-It definitely won't be till 2011
-Due to vacation restrictions of my residency program, possible months include May, August, September, and October. If I had to guess right now, I would bet on August or September.
-It'll definitely be in central Ohio.
-Not doing a traditional ceremony in Japan.

Will keep posting updates and thoughts here and there as we go through this whole planning process.