Wha?

I found out today that two friends of mine are dating (well, one's a friend and the other is a guy I sort of know). I just walked into a room at our weekly get-together and their hands were clasped together, romantic-style. Apparently they've been together for a month officially, a couple of months unofficially.

So, this irks me. I don't exactly mind them being together (I sort of predicted it); I just kind of wish I'd known earlier. It just kind of sucks being left out of the loop. I think (not 100% sure on this) that their secretly being together might have been a factor in why she had to cancel hanging-out plans with me a while back.

Oh well. I guess I'll get over it.

Nextbox

So there's a ton of new information leaking out about the successor to the Xbox 360. These are the things I hope the next Xbox improves upon, aside from the usual graphical upgrades and whatnot:

Blu-ray Drive
It's silly that something that's supposed to be the media center of the living room can't play the eminently rising home video format. As if that weren't enough, there are already games on the Xbox that take multiple DVD discs; clearly a storage upgrade is necessary.

Kinect
The Kinect sensor isn't sensitive enough. It's a cool idea, but it really needs more oomph behind its level of recognition before it can really be something incredible.

Smoother Interface
The most-used element of the 360's menu system is the guide menu. Unfortunately, the guide is a tad bit sluggish. It takes a second or two too long to bring up when pressed, and moving between sections of the menu (especially when dealing with friends lists and things of that nature) can vary in time taken. Since this is apparently mainly a hardware design issue, it can be solved with an upgrade. Essentially, it just needs to be snappier and less laggy.

Better Quality Hardware
The first 4 years of the 360's life cycle were plagued by the redring catastrophe, something no game system should ever have to deal with. It's totally unacceptable. Additionally, the system itself, apart from design flaws, was simply constructed out of cheap materials.
The controllers' D-pads barely work, and they can't seem to handle power consumption correctly. When a wireless 360 controller is below 1/3rd battery power, it will intermittently shut off for no reason, with no warning. It can easily be reconnected with no problem, but it takes several seconds. So, essentially, your controls just go dead for a long moment, and even afterward they're still in danger of doing so until you replace or recharge the batteries.
What's even more frustrating is that PS3 controllers, while inferior in design, are much better-made than the 360's. PS3 analog sticks and buttons are slightly more responsive and sensitive, and their battery usage is far, far better. PS3 controllers don't even come with an officially-made wired option; wireless is the standard. Futhermore, the system (A) gives you ample-yet-subtle warning when the batteries are getting low, and (B) keeps the controllers running until the last possible second, with no connection problems whatsoever.
So, overall, I just want a system that works and works well.

Changing

Things are changing for me.
This Fall, I'll be attending some university; don't know which one yet. I don't know if I've told anyone else, but I think I might want to go to LeTourneau University, which is around 3 hours West of here. Mostly, I think I might go there because I'm going to be changing my major from English to (possibly) aeronautical engineering. That'll be a really huge change; I'll need to live on/near campus, and therefore won't be living at home or near anyone I know for the majority of my time in school for the next 2-3 years. Longer, if I get my Masters' degree.

My beloved bible study group is (sort of) breaking up soon. The leader of the group is going to be taking a new full-time job and one of our other members will be out of state, so we won't have anyone to keep the same structure and all. Tonight we had a cookout/get-together dealie-thing, and I suggested that we just slightly reorganize the format of it so that we won't need just one person to be there every week. I suggested that we could use my house as a place to get together sometimes, and I'm sort of thinking that I might end up being the guy that actually ends up organizing the study week-to-week, even though I don't want to be the "leader." So I left our get-together tonight thinking "oh, hey, cool, we'll still be able to have our awesome group." Then I remembered that I'm likely leaving in the Fall.
Boooooooooooo.

Then it sort of hit me. I might be leaving everything behind. I'm not going far, exactly, but there's a lot of things I won't be able to do for the first time in years. I won't be able to go to my Saturday night family get-together dealie (which I've been to nearly every week since mid-2004), I can't exactly start dating anyone around here for the next few years, and... well, yeah. Things will just be odd. My entire life will likely be entirely different. Which is... a good thing? I think? I've sort of been hoping for this for a long, long time. But still...

I guess I should look at it more as an adventure. I'm starting a new life somewhere else. So... yay. I think.