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I had a dream sometime around the time I woke up today. Maybe it was a daydream; I can't really remember. But I remember what happened pretty well.

I was obviously grown up. Perhaps dangerously close to old, even. I remember being in my study, in my home, which seemed like a place where I spent a lot of my time unwinding and still just relaxing on my own. Next thing I know there's a guitar in my hands and I've evidently figured out how to play it. I'm even calmly playing a chilled version of some blues song I started liking sometime years before. Midway through my song, I drop out of the zone for a second and notice my early-teenage daughter has fallen asleep on the couch in my office, listening to me playing.

Well, if she's early teens, I must be close to 45.

It's at that moment, as if she noticed the lack of music, that my wife appears in the doorway. Already having noticed our dozing daughter, she looks at me and smiles, satisfied at what her boy and her baby girl are up to. And I give her that exact same smile in return, the kind of thing where you share a vibe that's worth more than hundreds of words. It's because I'm happy at what the women in my life have become.

Ah, the wonders of Web 2.0. Social networking, project collaboration, photo and file sharing... if things got any more familiar the Internet would start to seem like a creepy place sometimes.

For all the greatness that is this already-happening techie mini-boom, there's certainly a problem with the photo-sharing aspect of that. Sites like Yahoo photos and Photobucket all have the same problems: clunky interfaces, no rapid-fire way of putting hundreds of pictures online, storage space limitations, no interfacing with popular desktop software (iPhoto, Picasa, ACDSee, etc). I've actually been meaning to rant about this for some time, because while I love what Picasa does for my photos on my desktop, it's a bitch and a half to get those photos online onto my university webspace - and my UT-allocated 75MB is about to run out.

But! Here to save the day is Zoto, essentially the Gmail of photo-sharing. 2GB of storage space, automatic conversion into 3 images (thumbnail/web-compressed big file/original file), super-easy organization into albums, and mass file uploading. All of that stuff is essential for use with my new camera, where full-res pictures take up 3.1MB a piece. Yeah, there are a couple kinks: the uploading software is buggy for really big uploads, there's no captioning, and it doesn't interface directly with Picasa, but seeing how Google is going to need a photo solution I could see an acquisition in Zoto's future, which would fix all of those problems. Despite the kinks, it's still better and easier to use for me than the old HTML+webspace, and it's easier for you guys to navigate. So without further adieu, I give you:

snagger.zoto.com! I'd recommend checking out the 'UT Orange Tower' gallery - it's a demo for the new camera and it shows one of the coolest things happening in Austin right now.

I've been doing a lot of gaming, finally. Since I reinstalled HL2 to try out some mods, for the game, I did a lot of stuff on Steam that I've missed out on in the last 6 months. Here are my verdicts from the Xmas break:

Call of Duty 2: If you played CoD1, skip this one, it's the exact same game minus the magic and passion that made it special. If you didn't play CoD1, skip this game and go back and play it instead. It's better.

Rag Doll Kung Fu: Forget the buzz. This game is a decent idea, horribly executed. Yay for the humor that rips off old kung fu movies, yay for the innovative graphics and supposedly frantic combat. Boo for the horrible control scheme that runs it all. Simplify this game and release it on the Nintendo DS and then we'll talk.

HL2: Lost Coast: Want to play a short bonus level for HL2? Pick this up. It's just as good as the original.

Guitar Hero: My hands are about to fall off because I've been rocking out so damn much. It's great.

Darwinia: 1 part RTS, 1 part crazy, imaginative game that takes place in cyberspace. Love it. Oh, and don't be fooled by the screenshots: while this game is far from gorgeous, it has some really cool visuals, and it makes a lot more sense in motion.

But the game I really like is...

Dystopia: It's a HL2 mod inspired by Deus Ex and objective-based multiplayer games such as Wolfenstein/Enemy Territory and Unreal Tournament's Assault mode. It's got teamplay, it's got futuristic weapons, it's got bio-enhancements (that are amazingly well-balanced), it's got a class system (mostly well-balanced), and on top of all that there's a parallel "cyberspace" map inside every map in the game where there are battles in cyberspace that affect what goes on in the real world. If you have HL2, this is a must-download, and I'd be very interested in organizing a game if anyone's down for playing.

Yeah, I kinda snuck off from A-town a few days ago and came back to Austin. I had seen everyone I wanted to see, and lots of people were too busy to do things often, so I basically just ran out of stuff to do. Meanwhile, Austin was massively high on the Rose Bowl victory, and I wanted to come be a part of that. (It died quickly yesterday once Vince Young announced his departure for the NFL, go fig - and what's up with VY's going away being the only correct prediction Lee Corso has ever made about Texas? Le sigh.)

Since we're still a week away from starting class, the town hasn't filled up yet. Things are slow, but at the very least there's something to look forward to.

To my many A-town friends: Don't take this the wrong way. I love you guys as much as ever. But a lot of you were just too damn busy!

So forgive me for running off. I'll be back, well, I don't know when, since I'm spending my Spring Break traveling.

I'm such a dork for posting this, but Texas just won the Rose Bowl and the national championship. During my college career. I'm a huge dork because I'm cooped up at home in A-town instead of being celebrating in Austin somewhere and going crazy. I think I'll do that next year. But for the time being, it's almost enough to revel in an amazing, amazing victory.