I've Only Been Into It For A Couple Hours Though, But I'm REALLY Into It

I decided that it might be fun to list the stuff I'm currently "into". Theoretically this type of list might inform or inspire a reader to check something out, but the reality is I'm the only one who will read this so it's more just for historical purposes. I think it might be fun to find this blog 5 years from now and remember all the stuff I thought was great back in '08.

As an aside, I really wish I'd made a list like this every year of my life. It would be hilarious to see what 12-year old Dave was all about. I can make an educated guess (G.I. Joe, Transformers, spandex bike shorts, and my brother's-friend's-sister) but I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of stuff and my time line for others might be way off (perhaps 12-year old Dave thinks G.I. Joe is lame now! That was 11-year old Dave, and he was a loser).

Anyways, onto the list. I'll break this into two categories: tech stuff, and other stuff.

Tech Stuff

• LINQ - In the spirit of Brick Tamland, I love LINQ! I'm not sold on LINQ-to-SQL, but LINQ-to-Entities is the best thing since sliced bread.
• Lambda - I'm finding some nice places to use Lambda expressions, and it's happening more often. I can even write them without referring to old ones for guidance now!
• NHibernate - This is really recent, as in this week, but I've finally gotten around to looking into NHibernate and I really think it's cool. Nothing like being 3-4 years late to the party, but whatever.
• Gateways - I stole a cool Service and DAL architecture from some DinnerNow samples and have used it in a couple of projects now. It uses 'the Gateway pattern' (if such a thing actually exists) and just seems clean to me. Again I'm probably late to this party (and likely butchering terms - terms are not my strong suit), but whatever.
• Macs - I'm dying to own a Mac. Yes, I am a marketers dream. Yes I'm jealous of Steve and Juan, those handsome, Mac-toting, metro-sexual bastards.

Other Stuff

• Call of Duty 4 - This is a surprise to me and everyone I know. I hate on games like CoD all the time. I'm not a big FPS fan in general. And to top it off, previous versions of CoD made me sick when I watched or played them. But I've fallen for this one, aided by the fact that 7 of my friends also own it. Private matches are the bees knees.
• Super Mario Galaxy - No one should be surprised by this. SMG is right in my video game wheelhouse, and it hits a home run. Fun times.
• Motion-sensing light switches - The bathroom at the office I'm currently in has one, and inspired me to install them all over my house. I will be posting about my experiences soon, I just need to find about 3 hours to type it all out.
• D&D - My friends and I have been getting back into D&D after a long hiatus. Yes, 30-year old men playing D&D in my basement; we are the uber-nerds. I don't care though, it's been a blast, and soon version 4 will be out and I'll get to soak in a bunch of new rules etc (my personal favorite part of RPG's is reading the books and making characters. Actually playing is merely icing on the cake).
• Running - My wife and I just started a 10-week class at the Running Room called Learn to Run. I don't think I'm going to become 'a runner' or anything, but the class looks to be enjoyable and will hopefully prepare us to run in the relay portion of the Manitoba Marathon this summer (the other time I ran it my 'training' consisted of using my elliptical machine twice in the week leading up to the race... I did ok, but the idea of pacing was foreign to me and that last mile was pathetic and excruciating).
• Hockey - My spongee and ice hockey seasons have just ended, but I felt this needed to be listed. Despite my ineptitude, I love playing all forms of hockey. I wish I could get into a summer league of ice hockey. Oh well, maybe some year.
  

I think that's it for now. I can't wait to review this thing in 2013 and discover what a dork I was!