At the moment, I have four handheld gaming systems sitting next to me, half of which are plugged in to recharge their spent batteries. I’ve got one of those old white Gameboy Advances, a Gameboy Advance SP with random Nintendo stickers covering it, an original Nintendo DS (one of the large, grey ones) and an Onyx Nintendo DS which is so covered with stickers that the husband can’t stand playing it. I’ve got a stack of GBA and DS games next to me as well as cords criss-crossing the arm of the loveseat. Why the mess? Duh, I’ve been playing video games.

Now that I’ve completed the Sinnoh Pokédex on Pokémon Diamond, I’ve been using the GBA games Pokémon Leaf Green and Pokémon Fire Red to start filling out the National Pokédex, and I’ve been finishing up other post-game randomness. Both GBA devices are for transfering Pokémon between the GBA games and then I yank them out and put them in the DS to transfer Pokémon to Diamond. I like collection games. I think it’s the innate need for categorization and organization of random stuff that comes from being the kid of an engineer and a librarian.

Beyond Pokémon playing, I just picked up a copy of Cooking Mama 2, which I didn’t know was coming out but saw at Wally World and decided to grab last night. It’s an improvement over the original because there’s so much more customization and there’s the option of cooking through an entire dish without constantly having to return to the dish’s main screen to click on the next step. There seems to be more variety in the recipes as well with a much more global menu than before. Most all of the dishes on the first Cooking Mama game were Japanese (and a number of Italian, I noticed). Now there are a number of French dishes and some Spanish ones too. I wonder if I’ll unlock any German recipes as I go. So far, I’ve unlocked probably fifteen recipes. The booklet that came with the game said there are 68 recipes to unlock, so I’ve got a ways to go. Fun game, and definitely a great game for kids because it’s so hands on with the stylus.

I haven’t been playing WoW in the past couple weeks. I really ought to log on and at least clean out my chracters’ mailboxes for when the month runs out. I’m fine with it running out soon, and I probably won’t re-up the account until this summer when I have more time to play than the weekends. Pokémon and Cooking Mama are games I can play for short spurts and then move on to doing something else around the house, whereas WoW does take larger chunks of time in order to get much accomplished. I’m so close to getting my main to 70 that I’m tempted to play, but I know I’ve been spending too much time with Pokémon as it is (and now Cooking Mama) during the weekend.

As for right now, it’s eleven on Saturday night and I spent most of last night waking up every couple hours, so I’m kind of tired (stupid insomnia). I’d like for the weather to clear and warm up tomorrow because I’m planning on going grocery shopping and would love to pick up stuff to grill for dinner. I want to get a chance to put my new Cooking Mama skills to the test. 😉