If I had more time on my hands, I think I might ask Santa for:

The Valve Complete Pack!

The package costs $99.99 and includes the classic Half-Life and its expansions:

• Half-Life
• Half-Life: Opposing Force
• Half-Life: Blue Shift

… some famous Half-Life mods/add-ons:

• Team Fortress Classic
• Counter-Strike
• Deathmatch Classic
• Ricochet

… some games built on the Half-Life engine which started as independent mods:

• Day of Defeat
• Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

… some rebuilds of above games, ported to Valve’s more modern “Source” game engine (with mixed results):

• Half-Life: Source
• Counter-Strike: Source
• Day of Defeat: Source
• Half-Life Deathmatch: Source

… Half-Life 2 and its expansions:

• Half-Life 2
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
• Half-Life 2: Episode Two
• Half-Life 2: Deathmatch

… two more excellent games based on the Source engine:

• Portal
• Team Fortress 2

… a “lite” version of one very popular puzzle game (why not?):

• Peggle Extreme

… and one survival horror shooter that has some good buzz and pre-release reviews:

• Left 4 Dead

Arguing against my knee-jerk lust reaction:

• I barely play the dozens of games I already own, owing to family obligations (including my wife begrudging me the excessive “alone time” my gaming can lead to), work, TANcast, and an addiction to several amazingly, seriously, extremely, awesomely great television shows.
• I own a copy of Half-Life and have played most of the classic mods, so owning another copy of that (or of its Source-based revamp) doesn’t appeal to me as much as it might.  Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed them all even if I did constantly get my ass handed to me by casual players (I’ve never been a hardcore gamer).
• Valve’s “The Orange Box” package includes Half-Life 2 and its expansions, Portal, Team Fortress 2, and Peggle Extreme for just $29.99.  Adding Counter-Strike: Source, Day of Defeat: Source, and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch would cost only another $34.97, so it would really take Left 4 Dead (at $49.99) to push the value of what I’m really lusting after over the $99.99 mark.
• Eventually I’ll get a PlayStation 3 and/or an Xbox 360, and The Orange Box is available on both (and my TV is huge).
• Seriously, when will I have the time?  I ought to be watching less TV and reading less random crap as it is so I can spend more time working on TANcast, learning Java and PHP (and maybe Python and Ruby), writing, and playing with Andy Jr., not necessarily in that order.

Let me tell you, that time thing really is the killer.  If there were 30 hours in a day I’d be all over this thing. I need to win the lottery or something so I can replace all this working with additional laziness and leisure…