Time for the traditional annual clean-up. For some reason, Japanese people like to clean their entire house from top to bottom at the end of each year. I guess it makes more sense than doing it in the Spring, from a calendar point of view, but think of all the dust those long months of winter with the heat turned up high create. Anyway, this year is no different from the last one - cleaning walls, ceilings, windows etc really sucks. Last year I had to do everything in a couple of days, but this year I'm doing it in smaller chunks so I don't go insane. Another thing I need to address is the game room. It's twice as bad as the last time I pictured it. The stacks of boxes, books and CDs have all grown and every step must be taken gingerly in order to avoid a pile of things crashing to the ground. Good job we haven't had any tremors recently!

The FFXI IME petition currently stands at 223 signatures. Not bad for a sporadic idea. I was given a glimmer of hope by a Square friend, but my last email fell on deaf ears - will have to see how it pans out. That said, my FFXI days are numbered. I'm not playing enough to justify the subscription fee, so I'm going to be closing down the account very soon and concentrate on other things. I'll have to have a big screenshot-taking session beforehand. I'll be taking the FFXI sites down too, apart from my photo album. Apologies to those who are inconvenienced by this. Please save any files you want to keep now!

Been getting good feedback about Game Science. It's been hard to keep adding news at times, especially when not much of interest has been happening in the games industry. We'll try and get some new sections on there soon, to broaden our appeal, and also to let DCharlie and LEOsh do a bit more work. Thanks to all the people who keep visiting, though. If you have any suggestions for content or anything else, don't hesitate to leave comments here, or drop me a line.