Post Apocalyptic Wasteland

Since finishing my finals, I have been mostly doing chores around the house and playing a new game. Fallout 3 is incredible, I can't stop playing it. The above trailer does a good job establishing the game's theme. It takes place roughly 250 years from now, which is about 200 years after nuclear war destroyed Earth. The game begins with your birth in an underground vault society near Washington D.C.

The first several hours of the game are dedicated to your life as a child, where decisions you make while in your playpen and at birthday parties form your character's skills later in the game. You eventually emerge from the vault and embark on an adventure throughout the ruins of Washington D.C. The atmosphere of the game is amazing, you explore the ruins of the Smithsonian Museum, Jefferson Memorial, Capitol Rotunda, etc. I just accepted a quest to search for the original Constitution, which is supposed to be in the rubble of the old Rotunda. On my previous quest, I had to install a radio transmitter at the top of the Washington Monument, and it was very eerie standing on the observation deck surveying the wasteland below. The game also does a good job of creating a past history. You will meet people who relate American history to you, but from their perspective they have various things wrong, names and dates confused, etc. The attention to detail in this regard is very cool.

Also, our Christmas Tree has decided to prematurely end the Christmas season on its own. I don't know why, but after only being in our apartment for two weeks, it is spontaneously losing all of its needles. I am not kidding, if you barely touch the tree, hundreds of needles rain down to the ground. We are going to be knee-deep in pine fresh needles before we manage to get this thing out of our front door. Right about now I wish we had a sliding-glass door I could just kick the thing out of.