I lost 2 stone!

But alas, it was only in hair. Yes, after nearly 18 months of growing my ridiculous barnet, I've had to bite the bullet and go in to the dreaded hair-dressers. The nice Polish lady did snigger at me when I told her I did cut it myself a couple of times before she went to town with a pair of scissors and a water-spray-can-thing. 20 minutes later, I look like a Lego man - to be expected: no hair-cut looks instantly right on my bonce for whatever reason. Little bit of hair gel and it'll be right as rain - just for the moment it looks a bit odd.

I have also lost quite a bit of weight - six stone in 14 months no less - which was rather impressive. I'm now a shapely 16 stone and XL, instead of a 22 stone, XXXL monster. Yay! Still classed as 'Overweight' by the ridiculous scale of BMI, but I care so little about that I could genuinely pass out.

Bought and played Modern Warfare 2. Well, I say 'bought' - I didn't actually hand over any money for it. Gamestation were doing a deal whereby you traded in 2 games from a big list, and get MW2 for £4.99. I traded in 3 games, and hey presto, 3 games I don't play any more (Borderlands, CoD4, The Orange Box) becomes one glorious paragon of virtual entertainment.

The campaign is - difficult though this thought may be - infinitely superior to the previous installment. Everything about it has been kicked up a notch, and for those of us who've played the last one, that's really saying something. There's a particular moment in Call of Duty 4, and for sake of avoiding spoilers, we shall call it The Scene, wherein you are inside the head of a man who's more or less in the epicentre of a nuclear blast. Harrowing, haunting and meaningful, it was one of the stand-out moments of gaming in 2007. Modern Warfare 2 matches that intensity at least five times during the campaign.

First there's the highly controversial level in which you watch - or indeed partake, if that floats your boat - the massacre of innocent civilians. If your heartbeat is steady after its startling conclusion, you're not really human. Then there's a fantastic sequence in the snow of the Russian mountains involving ice-climbing and a snow mobile. Then there's the spectacular free-run across the roof of a Brazilian favela. Then there's the moment that you're winched to safety after rescuing a familiar face from the depths of a Russian prison. And finally, there's some good old-fashion movie referenes, most notable here being The Rock. Two sequences are more or less directly ripped off from Bay's seminal opus, but you can forgive them thanks to the sheer majesty that these two set pieces bring to the final few levels of the game.

Chances are that if you have any interest in the Call of Duty series at all, or indeed in FPSs in general, you've already got this. But if you're still on the fence - a piece of advice. Go out and buy it now. This is one of the most entertaining, harrowing and explosive adventures to have ever seen light on any platform. You do owe it to yourself.

Elsewhere...I start work on the 28th! Huzzah! Winter Wonderland again - so being cold and wet may well be the order of the day - but it's money. Yay! Handed in my contract and availability today with Fee, and hopefully we'll be able to score some extra work putting the place together. Fun times.

Can't think of anything else. So I'll leave it at that. Have fun, kiddies.