You know…  I’m really getting pretty sick of the commercial extravaganza that Christmas has become.  It’s absolutely rediculous.

Last week, when I was shopping for an anniversary card for Terri, Hallmark already had all their Christmas stuff out.  Christmas cards, ornaments, decorations, candy…  All sorts of festive stuff.  In October.  Halloween hadn’t even happened yet…  Nor had Thanksgiving…  But they were already trying to sell you stuff for Christmas.

Target had their Halloween decorations in one aisle, and their Christmas stuff in another.  Again, ready and willing to sell you festive junk for a holiday that is months away.

I’ve heard radio stations playing Christmas music already…  Seen commercials suggesting that you should start shopping immediately…

What ever happened to spending any time with the family?  Just kicking back and enjoying each-other’s company?  All I see any more is buy, buy, buy!

There’s finally a cracked version of Dead Space available for download on The Pirate Bay.  I’ve been checking there almost daily since release day.  Yes, I did purchase the thing…  But I’d rather not keep the disc in the drive all the time, I’d rather keep it safe from damage.  So I’m hoping I’ll be able to download a simple no-CD patch from Game Copy World before too long.

I’ve also been looking around for a Fallout 3 download.  I really don’t want to buy that game without giving it a try, and once again there will be no demo available.

I really don’t understand why companies aren’t making demos anymore…  It used to be a great way to evaluate a game before you spent your money on it.  And with the way DRM/activation works these days it can be very difficult to return a game that you’ve discovered isn’t worth the money or doesn’t work on your machine.

I guess Fall is over.  It’s still October…  Not even November yet…  And we’ve got decent snowfall today.  Not the light dusting we saw a week or two back, that was gone by breakfast time.  We got a good couple of inches last night.  The plows were out.  Schools are closed in some of the higher elevations around us.  And while a lot of the snow has already blown away or melted, it is still falling from the sky at this very moment.

I was really hoping for a nice Fall day on Friday.  It’s Halloween, our Anniversary, and I’ve taken the day off.  I was hoping it would be nice enough for us to enjoy the last of Fall…  Get out of the house, walk around a bit…  Now it looks like we’ll be darting for cover and huddling in our coats.  Not what I was looking forward to.

Courtesy of EXTRALIFE:

Courtesy of Penny Arcade: