Sunday, February 26, 2006

PSA

Run and grab episode 42 of Escape Pod. It's a reading of Practical Villainy and also features a musical number that is spectacular. Do yourself a favor and give it a listen.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

What's this?

Another post within the same week?! Actually you can blame the fact that I've had the worst work week imaginable combined with managing to get my evenings free. So I have a couple spare moments I can spend on you lot.

Things are ramping up for E3 - May draws nigh. Should be pretty exciting this year as we'll get lots of info about the Revolution. And I hear rumors that more copies of Phoenix Wright might be showing up. That would be nice as I really wanted to track down that game.

Still attempting to muddle my way through a Ludlum novel. Apparently it was released posthumously with the help of a ghost writer. It's sort of like the anti-Bourne. The Ambler Warning is the name if you're looking for that sort of thing. Sounds like Flight 3 will be out come June. The first two volumes have been pretty good. Not sure who's scheduled to be in this one.

I feel the need to rent some movies this weekend. Recommendations? Not sure what I'm in the mood for, just need some good solid entertainment. The letter 'r' is trying to schedule a showing for Land of the Dead. The new projector beckons...

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

Weekend recovery

First, this is amusing. If you're a Lost fan, a "Weird" Al fan or a Queen fan, give it a moment of your time.

Had a terribly nice long weekend: went up and visited some old friends. The kids had a grand time as they have a couple girls basically the same ages as our girls. Got to play a bit of Crimson Skies, introduced them to Qwitch and Tsuro. Lots of little games here and there and just general relaxing. Yup, nice weekend. Wasn't ready to come back. But then I hardly ever am.

I've managed to avoid most of the Olympics coverage. I don't remember ever being terribly excited by them and that hasn't really changed. Although some of the conversations about them at work are amusing. (Apparently Curling is strangely addictive if somewhat confusing. Sounds like just about anything related to Scotland to me. ^_^)

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Coming up for air

It's been a rather odd sort of week. On Sunday the girls decided they needed to call 911. So I got a call back from 911 dispatch trying to confirm whether or not we had an emergency (No, not at the moment, but if you want to wait a minute, I'm sure there will be some children needing medical attention...). And then five minutes later the cops showed up to make sure there wasn't an emergency. It made for a fun morning let me tell you. Of course, my father-in-law (who's a retired policeman) found the entire situtation hilarious. And by Monday it mostly was.

Valentine's Day came and went. We enjoyed dinner at Cafe Rio, where, oddly enough, I had eaten the previous day for our monthly lunch out at work. I'd never eaten there before and that made twice in two days. Fortunately the food is quite good.

Some form of banquet for Pack meeting tonight. I think they're bringing in sub sandwiches. Yum.

Haven't really had a chance to devour any more forms of media lately. It's hard enough to keep up with my TV schedule. House and Supernatural have been fun. Oh, and Bones too. Hoping to catch a movie or two this weekend, but we'll have to see. We're heading out of town for a bit. I don't believe there will be skeet shooting, but it's a possibility. I have picked up a recent Robert Ludlum novel, so we'll see how that is.

The library has been pretty consistently enjoyable. I don't particularly care for shelf reading, but there are certainly worse things. I think I put up with most of them at my current job.

As for things to check out, the TMBG podcast is always enjoyable. The Nintendo DS is getting a web browser courtesy of Opera. And a TV tuner. I'm actually pretty excited about the web browser thing. I wonder if it'll work very well. Revolution news is trickling out in very small bits. Go Nintendo and 4 color rebellion are pretty much my new favorite haunts. They both have enjoyable podcasts as well.

So there's a bit of an update and a few places to go check out. As a parting shot I will point out that Miranda got her stitches out the other day and her face is looking a lot better.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Dog bites girl

So Ein and Miranda had a bit of a run-in today. I don't have all of the details but there were chairs, jumping and an overexcited dog involved. It ended in a trip to the doctor and three stitches for Miranda's nose. Plus or minus a few scratches around her cheek/eye area. Fortunately beyond that she's fine. My wife was a bit freaked out about it though. (And understandably so as the whole thing happened upstairs while she was dealing with Graeme downstairs.)

And I've managed to stub the heck out of my toe...

Which reminds me of a quote by Groucho Marx involving open sewers, death and papercuts.

So, the update schedule is pretty pathetic. It makes me slightly sad, but the few moments of free time I have are quite dear to me now. So I'm not sure what I'll do. I'm not convinced it's worth it to maintain this thing on such a shoddy schedule, but I'm not quite prepared to give it up either. It was nice having a bit of a writing outlet. Guess we'll see. Of course, it hasn't helped that I've had nothing to say lately either.

Got Electroplankton as an early Valentine's Day gift. Mostly because the console table I got for my wife showed up early and we went ahead and set it up. Probably the first non-essential piece of furniture we've bought... It might be slightly scary that it took us eleven years to reach that point, but to be a little fair it's only been a real possibility since we've had the house.

Anyway, Electroplankton is quite relaxing. It's fun to noodle around and create little dabs of music. I may have to play around with trying to record some of it at some point in the future. Definitely game as art. Or art as game depending on which side of the window you're standing on.

Monday, February 06, 2006

Aquatic

Just watched The Life Aquatic. Enjoyed it. Even though Bill Murray has been playing basically the same part for his last few films, he plays it very well. We likes the Bill. This was the first Wes Anderson film I've seen. May have to track down a couple others. I still need to see Rushmore...

Enjoyed the Superbowl yesterday. Was glad the Steelers managed to settle down and actually play in the second half. And I seem to be the only person that enjoyed the commercials. Well, the only person at the office. C'mon! They were good. The Sprint commercials were quite amusing as were several of the Bud Light commercials.

Saturday, February 04, 2006

Poetry

This is a link to a site currently featuring some lovely poetry by Neil Gaiman. Both pieces are quite enjoyable. Go and read them, I'll wait. Don't expect anything terribly interesting upon your return.

Watched Resident Evil: Apocalypse. Such a silly movie. Jill Valentine's costume looks much better in the game than in real life. It was amusing to see Nemesis. Stars... About the only thing I can say in its defense is that I started it pretty late, but my wife stayed up and watched it anyway. Which actually says quite a lot. Strange really.

And the Target World Bazaar sale thing is just plain evil. A few really nice pieces, but such high prices. Grr...

Friday, February 03, 2006

In the background

The girls are all playing Mario Strikers so this is being typed to random crowd noise and Mario characters making either noises of pain or triumph depending on who is shoving who into the fence...

Was wandering around Barnes and Noble today in a vain attempt to find my wife a Valentine's Day gift. Happened to meander through the film section and browsed a couple of the "movies you have to see" books. Oldboy made one of them. I don't know that I'd call it a film you have to see, but it's definitely one that leaves an impression. The book was arranged roughly chronologically; I think the first thing I'd seen was Nosferatu. Although I'm not positive - the film listed in the book may have been an different version as it was in the silent film section and I'm not certain that's the one I saw. Those books always make me laugh. Everyone has their own mental "best of" lists, I'm not entirely certain why you'd pay money for one. As a list of influential cinema (or what have you) sure, but things you have to see/do? Eh, not so much.

Note: the background noise has now changed to Mario Power Tennis, I think Strikers was a little too difficult.

Further note: do not watch the girls (including my wife) attempt to do the painting mini-game. It's far too painful to watch...

They're releasing a couple of the Brain Training on the DS in a couple months. That makes me glad. Even better is that they're releasing them at a discounted price. The DS is really becoming the system to own for all kinds of gamers (including people that don't consider themselves such).

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Wandering

Over at The Spoilers they've got a podcast up for Serenity featuring the crew from The Signal podcast. Should be at least somewhat interesting. Will check it out and let you know.

Due to recent Resident Evil exposure I decided to watch the movie again. Borrowed both of them off a friend at work. The first one was good zombie fun. Never got around to seeing the second one, so we'll see how it is in a couple days.

At any rate, there's not much else worth passing along. I suspect it's due to slightly too much information crossing my path lately. Hard to focus in on any of it when it's all buzzing by so fast.

Wednesday, February 01, 2006

Quiet

Amazing how quiet the house becomes when you have a sick kid or two...

I wish I had more to report here, but my free time has dwindled significantly and so I find I have less to ramble on about. Which isn't to say that there aren't things of interest going on/out there, I just have less desire to document them.

Graeme has started the road to regular food which is nice. And often quite amusing. We've started giving him half a banana in the morning and he's decided that the best way to eat it is all at once. If you can ignore the obvious choking hazard, it makes for a rather amusing couple of minutes.

Picked up Tai Chi Morning: Snapshots of China while at the library last night. Some nice poetry and art in there. Still muddling through Good Omens. I think I'm less far in than the last time I tried to read it. It's so terribly odd. I really enjoy both Gaiman and Pratchett, but the combination (while certainly amusing) just isn't terribly compelling to me. Speaking of Neil, the new design of his website is up. Much brighter place to stop by, but I'm not convinced I like the font. Oh well.