This afternoon we decided to take some pictures of this historic 2010 snowfall. At last count, the snowfall reached 2 feet locally. Although it looks pretty, this one is going to difficult to dig out of, at least for a few weeks.

And of course, pictures!

More pictures at my Flickr page.

As I’ve noted, I got sick this month, (did I mention twice? Just checking.), so it has put a pause in my latest GUARDZ! comic. I have a new one queued up, which will be completed in February. In the meantime, I have been working on this piece, which was inspired by the Wipeout games that are on the Playstation consoles. This one should also be done soon, but here it is, as a work in progress. Enjoy!

I’ve been meaning to start this year with a blog that listed everything that I was looking forward to for 2010. Then an interesting thing happened: I got sick, twice, and back-to-back. I know that my illness isn’t the same one, carried over an extended period of time, because 1) I got better, and 2) the symptoms changed immediately after I recovered from my first illness. I’m feeling slightly better, but I’m not trying to push myself.

It’s still January, so I still have time to get this list out. So, here it goes, and in no particular order. I’m wondering if my opinions will change at all when the clock strikes midnight on 2011, but I think this will be a fun little exercise on expectation and disappointment.

(side note: games such as Final Fantasy XIII and Bioshock 2 did not make this list simply because I don’t have enough information on them, at least not enough to get excited about).

1. Mass Effect 2 (videogame, Xbox 360)
2. Heavy Rain (videogame, PS3)
3. God of War 3 (videogame, PS3)
4. Gran Turismo 5 (videogame, PS3, tentative)
5. Siege (Marvel Comics event)
6. The A-Team (movie, June)
7. Clash Of the Titans (movie, tentative)
8. Tron: Legacy (movie, winter)
9. Iron Man 2 (movie, winter)
10. Alan Wake (videogame, Xbox 360)
11. Lost (TV, final season)
12. Mod Nation Racers (videogame, PS3)

Virginia Beach Sunrise

Let’s face it: traveling is expensive, and vacationing is equally expensive. With the economy just inching back into some state of stability (only to become shaky a few weeks later), one may think that it’s hard to do accomplish anything in the few scant days that qualify as a break from work. Vacationing on a limited budget and within a limited area hardly seems like a vacation at all.

Yet, it seems that I’ve traveled more this year than in previous years. Because we’ve had to be creative in how to stretch our dollars, we took a long, hard look at what was in our back yards, and actually discovered a vacation lurking in our back yards, vacationing in our home state. It’s one thing to travel far away from house and home to discover the new and exciting, it’s simply a revelation to discover it right underneath your own nose.

And we don’t seem to be done yet. There’s still a wealth of sites to see here in our back yard that is the state of Virginia. We’re definitely going to plan on it.

See more of my vacation pictures at http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbasallote/

After a 3-year+ hiatus, GUARDZ! The Comic will be returning on it’s regular, not-quite-monthly schedule. After some consideration, I decided to stick to my old webcomic instead of coming up with a new one, and I have a ton of old and new material to work with so I should be able to stick to some sort of regular schedule. No school means more free time to work on my comics!

You can see all the old stuff at guarzthecomic.com