A few items of note happened over the past month!

Dish Network introduced a new HD-only programming package for just $30/month. Now there’s no need to pay for SD programming that you probably aren’t going to watch anyway. I’m considering downgrading to this package to cut my bill in half, but I don’t want to lose SciFi and a handful of other non-HD channels that I still watch. What to do…

Culdcept Saga finally came out in America after two years of localization-related delays. I can say it’s easily the best strategy/board game I’ve played on the 360 and it remains faithful to its PS2 roots. Please buy this game and ignore the ho-hum reviews. It really is a lot of fun and I’ll play with you online! I’m guessing they weren’t planning on selling too many copies because it retails for just $40. A friend of mine somehow bought a brand new sealed copy on eBay for $26! Download the free demo if you’re still on the fence.

Blu-ray won and HD-DVD lost. I always thought ‘HD-DVD’ was a more logical name than ‘Blu-ray’, but what’s in a name? I’m just happy that finally we have a winner. The only big losers here are HD lovers outside of North America…Blu-ray titles are region locked and HD-DVDs are all region free. Sucks for them! But they’re used to it.

And then there’s Kate.

I’ve spent the last month at home doing the things that new parents do.

I didn’t check my email for an entire month. In fact I mostly stayed away from the Internet for all of February. That felt so good that I still get goosebumps just thinking about it.

I don’t think you can really explain what it’s like to have a child to anyone who hasn’t had one themselves. It’s both exhausting and exhilarating. You’ll want to spend every minute you can with your child and attend to her every need. When you hold your baby in your arms and she looks into your eyes, nothing else in your life matters. Nothing!

Kate’s one month old now and hitting all of her developmental milestones right on schedule. Babies don’t start smiling until the second month, so the fun times are just around the corner. We’ve already taken her to Disneyland. Twice! She slept through most of it though.

Tammy’s been posting updates over on her blog at tammypants.com so be sure to check the archives there for plenty of photos.

If nothing else, having a child is a great test of your marriage. If you and your spouse were a good team before the baby you’ll be a great team once the baby’s born. I’m happy to report that “Team Brett & Tammy” is freakin’ amazing.

So that is what’s been going on in Brettland these past few weeks. How have you been?