Today I made the mistake of leaving the house. It wasn't leaving the house that was my mistake; it was deciding to go shopping that was my mistake. I don't know why I thought that many people would be staying home given that today is the day after Christmas, but the more I think about it the more I realize that today is almost like a second Black Friday in a way. There are plenty of end-of-year sales going on and, well, personally I had never been out shopping the day after Christmas until now and let's just say it's a rude awakening and I wouldn't advise it. 

Retail stores that sold phones were also busy, presumably with tech support issues and wanting to activate Christmas gifts aplenty, I'm sure. But I decided to make my rounds while I was already out and just wanted to do some window shopping. As I found myself tinkering with several phones at a couple of stores (Sprint and Verizon, as it were) I realized I wouldn't need to hang around for long. I've already seen these phones tons of times. I don't even know why I went to the stores, because it's the end of the year. There's nothing that great that's out right now that I haven't already seen. Between now and the beginning of January is where we play the waiting game. 

Did I ever mention that I was impatient? I am. I am very impatient. 

As many of you know, CES 2014 is right around the corner. The event that's being hosted in Las Vegas starts on January 7th, and lasts until the 11. CES, short for Consumer Electronics Show, is the event that gives us a preview of a whole plethora of new products that we'll be seeing throughout the year. Although CES includes more than just phones, for us here at PhoneDog the mobile aspect of the event is certainly what we'll be keeping our eye on the most.

I am so ready for this event to happen.

I'm not quite sure what my expectations are at this point for 2014 - I'm excited for a lot of things. I'm really excited to see how HTC follows up with the One, because so far they've been pretty hit or miss on whether they have a good product or not. Their first sets of Android devices were hits, the fluff between that and the EVO line were a miss, the EVO itself was a hit, the extensive line of phones that came out in 2012 was a miss, the One was a hit this year. So theoretically, if we're following a pattern, HTC is due for a miss this year. I sincerely hope that's not the case, so I think that's why I'm so intrigued to see what they do.

I'm also intrigued by both Samsung and Motorola. Motorola has done some pretty sweet things this year, especially on the lower end of the spectrum with the low-cost Moto G. I've expressed my enthusiasm for Motorola's other big project, Project Ara, which is supposed to be an eco-friendly solution to some of the issues that smartphones cause on the environmental side of things. I don't know if we'll see a finished Project Ara this year, but the sooner the better, so hopefully that's something we'll get to see. As for Samsung, the Galaxy S 4 was a nice upgrade from the Galaxy S III, but I am hoping to see the next iteration of the popular Galaxy S line really wow me this year (and hopefully fix some of the issues that the S 4 had, as well as maybe an attitude adjustment regarding the way they handled one of their situations). But I do have to admit that Samsung's products do interest me to some degree, and being as popular as they are right now I imagine they're going to try their hardest to put their best foot forward.

LG is another company that I haven't really taken much into consideration in the past, but I realize now that they're probably the next biggest threat in Android at the moment. They're doing some pretty incredible things as well when it comes to smartphones, so I will be keeping a closer eye on LG this year, and not just during CES either. 

Of course, there are plenty of other companies that I'm looking forward to seeing as well over the course of the year. I am just ready for 2014. I'm at that point where looking over the same phones over and over again just gets kinda boring. I think we all are. Well, maybe not everybody, but for me it's at that point. 

I'm needy and I need new shinies to play with.

What about you, readers? Are you ready for what 2014 has to bring us? What are you looking forward to most? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!