After about a zillion sightings of “the cake is a lie hah hah hah I’m so funny and referential”, I broke down and rented Portal yesterday. Well, I rented “The Orange Box”, strictly speaking, but really… Portal. And it was a good thing to rent. I’m not about to drop 60 bucks on the 360 version right now, and the PC version, while cheaper, comes with the spectre of “Hey, we can turn your software off, remotely, if we feel like it. See? ” that is Steam.

I know it puts me squarely in the tinfoil-hat-crowd to avoid Valve products because they require Steam to work, but I’m OK with that. Saves me money.

Anyway. Portal. Damn fun game. I get the cake jokes now, AND the obsession people have with Weighted Companion Cube, and the ending credits / song are all kinds of awesome.

Video game rentals are mighty pricey these days – playing Portal set me back 8 bucks for about 4 hours of portal-hopping puzzle fun. I suspect that will go up to six or so before I take it back, as I suspect I’m going to have to replay through the second half, the half that my wife couldn’t stay awake long enough to see, at least one more time. 🙂

“Let’s Learn Japanese” progress: Episode 40/52. Episode 39 featured “Yan goes out, gets drunk, and gets in a fight.” I do love this program. I kind of wish they’d kept Mary Althaus as the host for the second season, but I’ve slowly gotten used to the new instructor.