(TV/streaming video) New & Leftover Items, a Touch of 2024, and some Nostalgic Forensics

Christmas In September

A couple years back we did something like this and it worked out fine, so here's hoping it'll work well again, in this somewhat expanded form.

There was a game system at the time that older son Travis wanted, we knew it would become more difficult to find (along with a couple of key games) once we came close to Christmas, there were deals to be had on it months ahead of time and the thought of not only receiving them in secret (probably having it delivered to me at work) but having to hide the damned things for several months bordered on ridiculous, and that we might do all of that only to find on Christmas day that something was missing or not working properly... so with the open understanding that this was his Christmas present, we gave it to him months ahead of time. He was happy, and there were no dark emotions over it come Christmas.

This year the item in question is the X-Box 360 system, complete with a second wireless controller and two games:

Dead Rising, a Dawn of the Dead-like adventure as one finds himself trapped in a shopping mall over-run with zombies. Along with touting improved graphics and sound the game promises to allow players to make use of anything one can find in the mall as a potential weapon. (This is the one I want to play.)

&

Chromehounds - an armored vehicle, squad-based military game. (I was surprised this was a top want for them, as generally they eschew anything that pulls less than a 8 out of 10 on the gamer's ratings.)

- and this time it's a Christmas present for both Travis and Nick.

(Side note: We've already determined that 12 of the X-Box games we own are backwards-compatible for the system.)

It's set to arrive Friday -- well, at least all of the system bits. The games were shipped separately, probably a day or two earlier, via a different shipping method, and could even be part of today's mail... though they might roll in next week.

I'll update you on how it goes in the short term, and then again come December 25th when all that's left to come to the kids from us is closer to the stocking stuffer level, primarily leaving relatives to prop things up with their presents.


It's a crazy plan, but it just... might... work!