Thursday, December 29, 2011

Just a quick howdy

Lovely wife seemed to think that I needed to post something as it was Thursday. I remain unconvinced. At any rate Christmas was lovely in spite of the lack of snow. I am typing this up on the big Christmas gift - an iPad. It is truly brilliant. Kids made out like bandits and the rest of us did fine as well.

We had a good visit with lovely wife's dad and are now enjoying some quiet time until New Year's. I picked up a new card game Dwarf King and we've played it a couple times. It's a nice little trick taking game with a random scoring element for each hand.

Hope you all had a fine holiday, more as I can be bothered to talk to you lot.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Initiate internet silence protocol Delta Echo

Chances are I will have little to say over the next couple weeks. Mostly as I'll be spending time with family and enjoying Christmas and playing with whatever new toys/games/gadgets make their way to casa del 'd'. So let me wish you all a Happy Christmas here and now and hope that you have the chance to spend at least a little of it around family and also around kids. There's very little better than watching kids around presents on Christmas morning. Especially if it's like 5 AM. Oh yeah, Christmas starts early.

Lovely wife and I both read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs and liked it. I have heard rumors confirmed facts that there will indeed be a followup title so the open ending is less of a concern. There are some truly great photos spaced throughout the book that help tell the tale. We both knew very little about this book going in (it was recommended to me by a friend at the Library) and I think that was actually a plus. Although lovely wife gave me some idea of what was going on as she read it first. So, if you're in the mood for something a little off kilter that's funny and spooky and interesting, give this one a shot.

Because everything is better with Muppets, I present this without comment.

And, really, that's about all I've got. Again, have a great holiday filled with love, joy and laughter. Because that's the third greatest gift you know.


Thursday, December 15, 2011

Christmas time slip

I got nothin'.

Had a lovely conversation with K the other day. Although I forgot to direct her to the Doubleclicks in case she missed that post. It was good catching up. I still think you should stake out the vanquished squirrels as a deterrent.

Castle season 3 continues to trundle along. I've mostly given up following the plots and just enjoy the banter.

Uncharted 3 also continues. The spider/scarab/evil bug things continue to freak us all out. Speaking of creepy spiders, I recommend you all read I'm a Shark. Because it is awesome. Almost as awesome as the shark.

And really that's about all I can think of. I should really contemplate some sort of seasonal wrap up. We'll see. If nothing else I hope you're all having a wonderful December.

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Something about a goose getting fat?

The Christmas bug has arrived at Casa del 'd'. The kids seem to think there will be presents or something. I have no idea why they have that impression. They've been little hellions all year. I think we'll go the coal route next year. Certainly cheaper. Theoretically. Maybe we'll give them "get your own coal" IOUs attached to a pick or something. We're pretty close to the end of the foraging for bits and bobs. Honestly I think we're just down to lovely wife and I to shop for. Which has been more of a challenge than it should be.

We're currently wandering through season 3 of Castle. It's been fine so far. I hear it gets a little silly towards the end. Too many fake deaths. We shall see. I still enjoy the banter between Castle and Beckett though so that's good. And how adorable is his daughter? Seriously adorable.

Letter 'r' gave me the Leaders expansion for 7 Wonders so we'll see how that plays soon. Looking through it leads me to believe it will offer some pretty intriguing choices while playing. That's good. Have had the desire to play more boardgames lately, but not been able to accomplish it. Castle and Uncharted are the main obstacles...

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday season. Now if I can just get the kids to stop putting together all the lego advent figures. It is seriously my turn...

Thursday, December 01, 2011

December? Already? Who let this happen?

And so the week that was the letter d's vacation came to a close. Drucon was a rousing success with Fortune and Glory, Gang of Four, King of Tokyo,  and a couple plays of Elder Sign making up the day. We learned to never play Gang of Four against Kim. Ever. Under any circumstances. We managed to prevent one Elder God from arising only to be devoured by Cthulhu itself the next time. Some might say we barely eked out a victory that game, but I prefer to think that we were horribly destroyed. Fortune and Glory was indeed quite a bit of fun, if a touch long. It should speed up some next time provided we play again some time soon, so we can remember how things work. I like the push your luck aspect of the challenges even if I invariably failed somewhere along the way and lost all my glory. I did manage a stellar go at the zeppelin where I snuck aboard, fought the guard and made off with all six fortune markers. It was pretty brilliant.

I decided to take a wander through some of my childhood favorites and re-read The Phantom Tollbooth and The House with a Clock in its Walls over the break. They were still great. Glad to see that. M is currently making her way through Tollbooth and lovely wife braved the house with the ticking clock. If you've never read them, you really should.

This is mostly for the letter K, but the rest of you can feel free to check it out as well. The Doubleclicks are awesome. Two girls, one ukulele, one cello and some seriously catchy geeky music. Their Thing a Week album that you can try out for free is suitably spectacular. It made the trip to Arizona a lot more tolerable. (Seriously, what is up with that drive? People complain about Kansas being boring, but it's got nothing on that stretch from Kingman to Phoenix... Admittedly it probably smells better than western Kansas. Hmm.)

Speaking of the trip, we did indeed brave the "road" down to Arizona and spent Thanksgiving with family. There was a lot of good food, a family picture and the Muppets. Two out of three... I will now gush for a bit about The Muppets. It was great. I loved this movie. I worry that it's too squarely aimed at my age group and thus will not appeal to kids enough to ensure a resurgence of the show. Because when you leave, that's what you want - the Muppets back on the air doing what they've always done. The soundtrack is catchy and heartbreaking and hilarious. The jokes are fun and the cameos were well done. This movie has probably the second best cameo after Zombieland. The first part of the movie is a touch slow compared to the last section (where they're putting on the telethon) but it does contain some wonderful moments, so it's ok. (Seriously, that Pictures in my Head song... It still gets to me)

I managed to get a little Black Friday shopping done online. Snagged Harry Potter 7.2 for $7 thanks to Best Buy and my sister's iPad. I really enjoy not having to go to the stores.

G is engrossed in Skyward Sword and I've fallen down the Uncharted well. Both great games. Man this time of year. I want to try Skyrim too and Disney Universe and... Heh.

So a big thanks to family for helping celebrate my birthday. Littlest sis gets points for making the yummy Boston Cream Pie/cake. In spite of false starts and horrible directions it sure tasted good. And the turkey and everything else was great as well. Little sis will have to send K'''''' up here to do hair. That was seriously the funniest thing.

Now to prepare for Christmas...

Thursday, November 17, 2011

If you listen close, you can hear it

That would be the sound of Thanksgiving. Yeah, that holiday that stores pretend doesn't exist between Halloween decorations and Christmas decorations. It's my favorite. And that's only partially due to it's orbit around my birthday. At any rate it draws nigh.

Theoretically this weekend is Drucon. The weather and outside circumstances are doing their best to thwart that notion. Oh well, I've got the games and the t-shirts. That's right, t-shirts. And they are awesome.

You know what else is awesome? Watching the first eight Friday the 13th movies over the course of a week. Well, except for that last one. Manhattan? Really? Flooding the sewers with toxic waste every night at midnight? Whatever. And the psychic chick in the seventh one. What was that all about? But the rest were varying degrees of successful. Except maybe the third one. In spite of the 3D. And we wore the glasses. It was occasionally spectacular and mostly eye strain inducing. It was actually pretty interesting to watch them all like that. The first two are certainly the best, the third was a gimmick, the fourth-sixth were definite products of their time (80s slasher films), the seventh was the weird one until the eighth one came along, and the eighth was both weird and horrible. We've not seen the 9th one yet and Jason X is a silly guilty pleasure. There you go. The body counts reflected a nice bell curve peaking around  5 I think it was. There was also a strange continuity from 4-6 that started with Corey Feldman. Weird. And that possibly explains a lot.

Isle of Blood, the third Monstrumologist book by Rick Yancey, was decent. I think I liked it a touch more than the second one and am still interested in following the series. I'm still amazed at how gory these books can be (considering they're YA) but they are pretty fascinating. I like the characters quite a bit and there is a decent amount of humor and wit woven through.

G is very excited about the upcoming Zelda game. The demo for Disney Universe is also pretty cool. It's pretty similar to the Ratchet & Clank game (competitive co-op if that makes sense) just with a Disney skin. I suspect you only need one, just pick the one that appeals to you more. The Disney game has an added Little Big Planet vibe in that it looks like you're sort of a sackboy character wearing different Disney character outfits. Cute.

I've started reading 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami. It's interesting so far. Been a while since I've read him. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

At any rate, family get together soon. Shindigs. Possible Black Friday shopping. We managed to convince the kids to start throwing together wish lists so we'll probably toss some Christmas shopping in there too. Yup, it's the end of the year...

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Pop Pop

Lovely wife and I finished season 2 of Community. This show is worth watching for the paintball episodes alone. Although the first half was better than the second half. (Paintball eps, not season). I am slightly sad that I can't actually watch this when it's on, alas. At any rate, I appreciate the geek factor of the show and the humor.

G has re-visited King of Tokyo and declares it much better with fewer people. We've since played a couple more games and he had a pretty good time with it. It's more fun when you're not constantly waiting for your turn to roll around. If you're seven. I suspect we'll be introducing this one to family over the holidays and smacking each other around Tokyo.

Rick Riordan's second book in the Heroes of Olympus series, Son of Neptune was fine. By the end I was ready for the book to be over, but I mostly enjoyed it. I still find this series more engaging than his Egyptian books. I kind of wish they'd make more movies...

I recommend checking out the Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One demo for the PS3. It's a co-op R&C game and is pretty fun. G and I played part of the demo yesterday. Might have to snag this one. Uncharted 3 is currently on my dresser, mocking me as I wait for my birthday. Lovely wife's Dad was generous enough to get it for me. I really really want to start playing it... Need to check out Skyrim as well. Might hit the redbox for that one.

Other than that things are quiet for a bit. Drucon looms closer, lovely wife's Dad is with her sister for another day or so, we'll be around family for the holiday. So things are in the works, but for now we can take it easy. That's nice.

Thursday, November 03, 2011

And a good time was had by all

Goodness, it's been quite a week. Horror movies, Community season 2, Halloween, family in town, birthdays, games. I barely know where to start. The kids enjoyed themselves on Halloween. We had a tiger, a water fairy and a mummy. I leave it to you to sort out who was what. They got far too much candy and had far too much fun, but then, that's what Halloween is for, so I reckon we'll call it even. There was a trunk or treat with chili, haunted hallways and a trip around the block. I held down the fort and answered the door for the few brave souls we had. It was good we didn't have that many as we just about ran out of candy at the trunk or treat.

G is now 7 and had quite the birthday. A trip to Arbys (his choice) and some pretty good presents. A couple wooden Duncan yo-yos, a Hot Wheels Nitro Racer rc car (that insists on going in circles at high speeds, I suspect we'll try exchanging it since the steering alignment buttons don't seem to actually accomplish anything) and the board game King of Tokyo. We gave that one a try last night. His initial impression (with 6 players) is that it wasn't fun as it took too long between turns and he didn't have enough to do. He does want to try it again with just lovely wife and I. My take is that for a first game it went fine and he does have a bit of a point about that many players. If you don't keep the turns moving, it can drag a little. But the game itself is pretty fun. You play a giant monster (think Godzilla) intent on destroying Tokyo. It's pretty much a battle royale utilizing dice and some cards. Plus it only takes like 20 minutes if that. Nice little filler game.

Have had a good visit with lovely wife's Dad thus far. I believe he and lovely wife managed to get some gutter guards installed and have run around a touch.

I had heard of Kate Beaton's Hark! A Vagrant a while back but never got into the webcomic version. The Library recently got the book that collection and I gave it a go. It's hilarious. Beaton studied history and uses that knowledge to create strips based on real people/events with pretty amusing results (there are some not so historical people included as well - Spider Man, Nancy Drew etc.). And in case you are not a history major, Beaton includes helpful explanations which are often just as hilarious. I did not stop laughing. Just ask lovely wife or McK.

So yeah, Community season 2 is pretty hilarious.

I'm probably forgetting a bunch of stuff. But it's been a busy week, so there you go. Bring on November!


Thursday, October 27, 2011

The Horror!

Have consumed a fair amount of horror films lately. And still have quite a few to go. Let's see, watched Carpenter's version of The Thing, The Child's Eye (by the Pang Brothers), the bulk of the Resident Evil movies (2-4 as I'd seen the first one not too long ago), Thor. Wait. That one might not count. Or does it? Hmm.

Still have Trick 'r Treat, The Boogeyman and The Sentinel on tap plus some other stuff. I also finished off that second book in the Monstrumologist series, Curse of the Wendigo. So there's been a fair amount of horror filled goodies to fill out this October. I am pleased. Lovely wife might be a touch burned out (she opted to fore go The Child's Eye last night) but that's not gonna stop me. Horror will go on. Much like Jason or Freddy. Down, but never out for the count.

Most of it has been pretty decent. The Thing is still a classic and holds up. The Child's Eye (I guess it's theoretically the third film in the Eye series) was kinda odd (dog-headed kid). But the Resident Evil movies... Look, the first one is great. It's both a decent zombie flick and a nice tribute to the games. After that the series just gets weird. Psychic powers, clones, monsters... I don't believe most of those show up in the games (I've only played bits and pieces of a few of them and all the way through 4) so I have a hard time reconciling those differences (other than some character/creature names). And honestly after that first one, maybe the second, the zombies are just kind of there. It's more about the Umbrella Corp. Which I suppose is fine. I almost think they'd have been better served if they weren't RE movies...

Hard to believe October is just about done. We'll have some more family in town soon, plus some birthdays. And Drucon looms near. Time to start sorting out the Fortune and Glory rules. That one looks pretty exciting.

G and I have been making our way through the Scott Pilgrim video game lately. It's been pretty fun. We're up to exes 5 and 6 the Katayanagi twins. That should prove to be rather difficult. And I'm drooling over Uncharted 3. Can not wait to play it. Alas, I'm trying to hold off on purchasing it to see if it crops up in any Black Friday ads. Here's to hoping I can avoid spoilers. I hear there are some real twists and turns in this one.

M is recovering nicely from her tonsillectomy. She's even managed to start talking again. There was a lot of finger spelling at the beginning of the week. Which was pretty useless where I was concerned. No matter how many times she tried to do it, I still don't read sign language.

I have no idea what the kids are going as for Halloween. I have no idea what I'm going as. Maybe I'll throw the lab coat on, grab a potato battery and claim to be a scientist for Aperture Science. Speaking of, I really liked this. I think I'm going to have to grab that song off iTunes when I get home. Apparently it makes an appearance in the game in one of the Ratman's hideaways. It was absent from the soundtrack Valve was giving out. But it will be mine. Oh yes, it will be mine.

Hope you all have a perfectly horror filled Halloween.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Wandering through October

Had a nice visit with family while they were in town. Attempted to fight off one of the Great Old Ones in a game of Elder Sign, but didn't quite manage a whole game due to starting a little later than was wise. And lots of kids running around. That game can play in around an hour, but not easily when you have a larger group and when the rules are still new. Fun was had though, so that's the important thing. It's probably just as well we didn't finish - the dice really weren't with us that night. I suspect we'd have all been devoured. As it was my poor character was driven insane, but was replaced by someone probably more prone to handling the situation we found ourselves in.

Lovely wife and I finished watching season one of Supernatural. I really liked that first season. Lots of varying monsters and not too much focus on yellow eyed demons or Sam's burgeoning psychic abilities. I'm pretty sure that's what killed later seasons for me.

We also had a good time celebrating lovely wife's birthday. She managed to convince me to take a small hike up one of the local canyons in an effort to see some of the changing leaves. There really weren't that many that had changed (surprisingly for this late in the year) but enough to have made it worthwhile I guess.

M is currently suffering the loss of her tonsils, but in spite of that seems to be doing well. Not exactly how I'd want to spend my Fall break, but that's ok.

Well, we've officially started the slide through the holiday/birthday season. Hopefully we manage to make it through with our sanity. I have my doubts.


Thursday, October 13, 2011

Ready Player One

I finished Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, handed it to lovely wife and then watched her devour it over a couple days. Yeah, it's that good. It is indeed the book I've enjoyed reading the most so far this year. It concerns itself with a treasure hunt. World has gone to pot, everybody spends their time in OASIS - think WoW mixed with Facebook and a couple other things. Guy that created it kicks the bucket and leaves behind an easter egg somewhere in the virtual world. You need three keys to find the egg. Commence searching. Oh and the guy that hid it? Totally loved the 80s. So the search becomes a road trip through everything 80s nostalgia. So good. Now, if you didn't live through the 80s and more to the point aren't a geek to some extent, you will probably only like this book. He does a fine job of explaining most of the references (leaving a couple for the reader to suss out) so you're never completely lost, but if you fit those criteria you are in for a real treat.

Redbox now carries videogames. So as I was curious about Demon's Souls back when it came out and the spiritual (heh) successor Dark Souls is now out, I thought I'd give it a go. $2 is certainly a better try it out price than $60. It's an interesting game. They're both known for their difficulty - you can expect to die a lot. No really, a lot. No, more than that. Keep going. A little more, there you go, that's about right. You choose a fantasy based character type, start the game off dead and then proceed to become more dead. Except for those times when you manage to come back to life. But you'll die again, don't worry. Enemies are tricky and out to kill you. They succeed. So, why do people play this? It's an interesting question. I think some of it stems from the absolute rush you get when you manage to make it past them. Every so often you will find camp fires, they serve as checkpoints of a sort. If you rest at them, you regain your health and refill your flask that lets you heal while out and about, but it also resets all the enemies you killed. So it becomes a kind of tug of war - do you press on, knowing you might die, but hoping to get just that little bit further, or do you heal up, knowing you've got to fight your way through?

Honestly the most intriguing thing about the game is listening to people talk about it. For example, I was stuck in the middle of Undeadburg trying to fight my way to the next camp fire. I'd managed to learn how to make it to a tower. Climbed said tower, got super lucky when the guardian must have fallen off or something - I sure didn't kill him, and then was confronted by a dragon guarding a bridge with a stair case going down about halfway across the bridge. I was certainly in no shape to fight the beast. I got barbecued a bunch of times trying to make it to that stupid stair case. Not to mention the numerous times I still died just getting to the dragon. Curse those guys and their spears! But I'd done it. Made it to the stair case. Started poking around a bit and there it was. A camp fire. But wait, it looked sort of familiar. That's right, it was the same camp fire I'd been starting at, I'd just kicked a ladder down to it so I could access the bridge under the dragon. I'd gone in a huge circle. I didn't know whether to laugh, cry or punch a hole through the tv. I seriously thought about returning that disc to the redbox snapped in half. But those moments when it goes right... I might have to pick it up when it gets cheap. For those times I feel like wondering why I ever play games.

Little and littlest sis are in town along with the rest of the crew. We sort of attempted the corn maze the other night. Between the rain making the ground a little too spongy and a late start causing it to be too dark to really see, we made it about halfway through before deciding bed time was the better part of valor and re traced our steps. The pig races were as enjoyable as always. G managed to win himself a pig nose thanks to Faith Squeal I think it was. We will get together some tomorrow and possibly again over the weekend for lovely wife's birthday shenanigans.

We've also been making our way through that first season of Supernatural. It really was pretty great. I liked it back when they focused on the monster a week formula. We shall see if it continues.

Thursday, October 06, 2011

Fall arrives in force

It's been a pretty rainy couple of days, finally driving the temperatures down where they belong. If you were unsure where Fall was, you don't have to wonder any more. There are even rumors of snow. Winter is coming indeed.

Caught the remakes of Nightmare on Elm Street  and Friday the 13th. We'd seen the latter before. I'd actually forgotten how gruesome it is. I wonder if they're going to bother continuing it or not. As for the former, it was fine. Lovely wife didn't care for the new Freddy's voice, but after the initial shock I adjusted to it. I like Jackie Earle Haley and thought he did well. The story was a touch darker than the original, but mostly because they insisted on spelling a few things out. Freddy's ultimate plan for Nancy was certainly creepy.

I am this close to finishing Ready Player One. It is awesome. Probably the book I've enjoyed reading most all year. And that might well be including Wise Man's Fear. Admittedly part of it is due to the fact that the book is pretty much tailor made for me. Ok, a lot of it is. But it's still great. In honor of awesome 80s nostalgia, I present to you Zork. We called it a text adventure. You wacky kids today refer to it as interactive fiction. Either way, still awesome. And frustrating. Beware the grue.

Psst. There's free Portal 2 dlc available. More co-op levels and challenge mode for both single player and co-op. Oh and the entire soundtrack is available here.

I remember thinking when Steve Jobs left Apple that it would be interesting to see how they would fare without him. I thought he'd still be around for a few months. I was shocked yesterday to learn he had passed away. He will be missed.

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Are you ready

I could follow that up with "For Freddy?" but we'll get there.

September is rapidly drawing to a close. Letter 'r' gets to test out the waters of that last year in the 30s for a couple months before I take the plunge. I suspect it feels remarkably similar to things now.

Lovely wife and I watched Hanna last night. That was one intense little movie. I actually didn't know too much about it going in and I think that really made a difference in my enjoyment level. I knew she was raised as an assassin and that the Chemical Brothers did the soundtrack. Honestly part of the reason I watched it was to hear the soundtrack as there were people claiming it was as good or better than the Daft Punk Tron Legacy soundtrack. I'm not sure where I weigh in on that one. I did like it. I think Daft Punk gets the nod though. It would be interesting to hear the Hanna soundtrack divorced from the film. I think it might be odd... Anyway, if you haven't seen it, it's worth checking out.

If you have any love for the 80s, you need to read Ready Player One. I'm about halfway through it and loving it. It's awesome. Radical even. (Totally) It'll appeal a touch more to those with 80s geek cred, but I think anybody who lived through the 80s will find something to latch on to.

So, October approaches. I have several horror movies waiting for me on the hold shelf downstairs. At the moment I'm going with a remake theme. Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Let Me In all fall into that category. (The editions I snagged) I also have Monster Camp which is about LARPing and supposed to be good. We shall see. Will probably watch The Grudge when little sis is around. Still plan on Constantine and I may just snag the Paranormal Activity movies again. I've heard good things about the third one. Yay October.

McK and I managed a quick trial run of Elder Sign. It looks to be pretty good. Will go into more detail once I get a couple more games under my belt. I still need to mock up some bleach designs for t shirts. I want to make a couple horror themed shirts and maybe some game related ones as well.

So Amazon has announced their new tablet, the Kindle Fire. I am somewhat intrigued. I think I'm a little too tied to iTunes to really enjoy something that isn't an iPad but at $200 it might be worth looking into once I hear more about it. Especially as the Library is now loaning Kindle books. Speaking of, I played around with that and read Found the third Magic Thief book. It was good. I really enjoy that series. It also marks the first book I've actually been able to complete on a Kindle. I still don't find the reading experience that enjoyable on those things, but I see where they could be useful for traveling and so on. I will admit the whole checking a book out from the Library on the Kindle is pretty darn cool. I'm curious to see what happens once the checkout period is reached.

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Title, title, who's got the title?

Finished reading Jaws the other day. I read that book a long time ago and remember thinking it was different from the movie, but not much more than that. Reading it this time I mostly found it depressing. First, for a book about a shark, there's very little shark. Until the final Moby Dick-esque final act. It focuses mostly on the town and the people in it and they ways they cope with this threat to their town and livelihood. It's not really that pleasant reading about their lives and marriages falling apart. Although it does serve as a decent reminder that life is pretty fragile and all it takes to disrupt things is a giant man-eating fish.

Now I want fish tacos...

I've also made it through The Monstrumologist. I haven't decided what I think of it yet. It was much more gruesome than I was expecting. But good. Certainly a nice prelude to October and horror movie season.

Introduced the letter 'r' to Rivals for Catan over the weekend. He concurs that it is indeed a fine game. I'm really looking forward to some serious boardgaming in the next couple months. We got the shirts for Drucon all made up. They look pretty darn good I must say. I think I may have to start making some bleach shirts with patterns and what not on them. I really liked the way these turned out.

Mom's birthday was this past week. She is missed. And thoughts and prayers go out to little sis.
Also, lovely wife and I might test an old maxim about friendships in the next couple months.
We finished off the anime version of Supernatural. I suspect we're going to try watching the regular version now. Also we watched Season of the Witch an odd little movie starring Nic Cage and Ron Perlman. It was kind of silly, kind of fun. Oh yeah, The Mentalist starts back up tonight. That's grand.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Zombies and stuff

Deadline Mira Grant's sequel to Feed was another fun romp through the zombie apocalypse. No campaign trail this time. But still plenty of conspiracy and banter. I think I liked Feed a touch more, but this one is good too. Wasn't real crazy about the twist at the end, but we'll see what happens in the final book in the series. Whenever it's out...

So I heard rumblings about an anime version of Supernatural a while back. The Library got it in and so lovely wife and I have been watching it. It's decent. I suspect we might end up watching the actual show again. It's a mix of revamped episodes from the first couple seasons and some original content. They actually got the guy that plays Sam to do his own character's voice. Dean is different for the bulk of the episodes, but the actor shows up for the last couple I believe. The actors do an intro for each episode that is part interesting, part goofy.

I've been listening to The Dice Tower podcast to get my boardgaming news fix lately. They have made some rumblings about a Top 100 list. It sounds like they're going to take user content to build a list as well. List your top 10 favorite board games kind of a thing. I thought I'd contemplate what games from my collection would constitute a top 10. Let's see: 7 Wonders, Blue Moon City, Coloretto, Dominion, Forbidden Island, Galaxy Trucker, Mansions of Madness, Pitchcar, Rivals for Catan, Ticket to Ride are the titles that would most likely make up the list. Not entirely certain how I'd rate them as far as a numerical order. I suppose it would also depend on whether I was going for how I felt about them or how often they get played.

I managed to snag a copy of Elder Sign before they all vanished. Depending on how it goes that might alter the face of the previous top 10. I technically snagged it for the upcoming Drucon, but maybe I can coerce lovely wife to let me get it out when family shows up in a month. Got to work those kinks out you know?

Speaking of family a birthday shout out to littlest sis and Grandpa. Got to talk to both of them on their respective days of birth. Sounds like a decent time was had by all. So yay them.

G informed us the other day that he wanted a little brother. I forget the exact reasoning behind this declaration but remember thinking it was amusing. Lovely wife can remind me in the comments or something. We informed him he was out of luck.

Here's to hoping I can avoid whatever plague lovely wife and McK are trying to start in our house. Gotta love going back to school...

Thursday, September 08, 2011

Waiting for Fall

And we're a week into September. It needs to cool down now and commence Fall appropriate weather. I'd really like the grass to stop growing and so on. Maybe if we start eating Fall sorts of foods we can encourage nature to take the hint. I recommend some good soups and stews and so on. Mmm. Chili!

I also recommend planning out horror movies for October. It will be here before you know it and you don't want to get caught unprepared. I'm trying to decide what to watch this year. So feel free to send in suggestions. I think I'll watch Constantine again simply because I find it a fun sort of film. Not scary, but fun. I think The Woman in Black starring that Radcliffe kid of Harry Potter fame looks pretty good. Oh, and Apollo 18 looks fun as well.

We had a decent Labor Day. After a false start or two we managed to grill some burgers. McK decided she wanted to play Mansions of Madness so we took a few hours and did that as well. I once again managed to kill off the poor party of investigators (this was actually a pretty gruesome encounter as I think I managed to kill three of them before it was over) with a horde of zombies and a Mi-go. Had they been a little more united in their searching I probably wouldn't have managed a victory. As it was they almost held out long enough to force an everybody loses scenario.

We also played a few older games - Tsuro and some Catan Dice and so on. It was a good weekend for relaxing and taking it easy.

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Bleak outlooks

Feed (the Mira Grant book this time) was quite excellent. In fact I've got the sequel waiting for me at the moment. I wasn't sure a story about some bloggers following a potential presidential candidate on the campaign trail in a post zombie apocalypse world would be that interesting, but it really was. It's actually a pretty good page turner. I really enjoyed the banter between the main characters. It'll be interesting to see how the sequel compares. Take that as an ominous warning if you will. I was a touch annoyed with the driving force behind the main villain (not the zombies, we know what drives zombies) but I can't honestly say I'm surprised by it.

Lev Grossman's The Magician King is something of a quandary for me. I really enjoyed the book up until the ending. And that ending... This might well be one of the bleakest books I think I've read in a long time. When he originally wrote The Magicians it was with the idea of doing Harry Potter/Narnia for grown ups (yes this is a generalization). This time I think he's just out to make sure that nothing good ever happens to anybody. I'm not convinced he's trying to place realistic outcomes on fantasy tropes so much as seeing what would happen if everything that could go wrong does. Again, I really did enjoy reading the book, this one's a page turner as well, but if you don't like depressing endings, stay far far away.

I like John le Carre's espionage style stories. We've started watching the BBC version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'm hoping it picks up a little as the first episode was a little slow. I realize that's sort of par for the course when it comes to espionage (as opposed to spy thriller) but still, a little more plot a little less set up.

Oh and one more for the bleak files. This is both beautiful and heartbreaking. Haunting, really.

The baked good count is now at 1. (And there have been threats of more!) Just saying.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

No new tales to tell

Apparently, out here at any rate, the coverage of Earthquake '11 was handled by the MadTV crew. Lovely wife said it consisted of one sad chandelier swaying gently as if stirred by some otherworldly breeze. Her Dad managed to survive the ordeal, simply mourning the fact that he had to pick up a book that had fallen off the microwave. I suspect that was more fraught with danger than the earthquake. The letter 'r' did pass along a lovely commemorative photo.

13 Assassins is the best samurai period piece featuring a village of death and bulls on fire. And if that doesn't convince you to watch it then nothing I can say will.

So, school has started back up and the kids are now safely ensconced all day. I have not noticed an increase in either cats or baked goods, so lovely wife must still be awestruck by it all.

A local toy store was having a "store relocating at some point in the future" sale, so I took advantage of a nice 30% discount and picked up Rivals of Catan - a 2 player card game version of Settlers of Catan. It's actually really nice. I like the mechanics of the game and the way that the various resources are handled. There's a base version to introduce you to the way things work, three theme decks to add different types of play and a final no holds barred use everything you've got variant. So that's nice. It would be nice if more people could play it, but it is a really nice 2 player game. It captures the Catan feel quite nicely.

Not really much else to say. My sisters apparently think running is a bright idea and are training for a couple 5ks. On the one hand I wish them luck. On the other, they're nuts. But that's ok, someone in the family needs to be and I'm glad to be able to let them handle that. I have actually managed to exercise some lately, but not really in significant enough quantities to achieve anything other than a lack of sleep. Which is also partly why I've not been able to get a lot of exercise in. 5:00 AM arrives early enough as it is.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The short version

Ok, I have now had Blogger eat a post. There was a rather lengthy (for me) discussion of the far too many books I'm currently reading, a couple movies we've seen and M's birthday party. I am not up to typing it in again and I can't seem to find it in my history. Bad Blogger! Here are the highlights. Sorry.

Wireless - short story collection by Charles Stross. Features one story in the Laundry universe (Hi Bob) and other sci fi confections. I liked it.

Rule 34 - Stross's new novel. May not get finished. Like the big picture plot, not crazy about the details.

The Magician King - sequel to Lev Grossman's The Magicians. It's brilliant so far.

Feed (Mira Grant version this time!), Monstrumologist, White Devil, Ready Player One all waiting in the wings and chomping at the bit to be read. Too many books all at once. And this from the guy at the Library. Yes. Stereotype or Irony or whatever you prefer.

Insidious - from the guys that brought you Paranormal Activity. I liked it, lovely wife refused to watch it based on the trailer. She missed out. In spite of being three horror movies shoved into one, it worked.

True Grit - quite good. Nice acting/storytelling, breathtaking landscapes and cinematography.

M's birthday party - Letter 'd' does not pretend to understand the minds of several tween girls, but in spite of the karaoke on the PS3 they seemed to have a good time. Why would they do that to the poor PS3? Also, who let M turn 10? I do not approve of this.

And I think that catches me up to where I was. Sorry for the lack of detail.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Portal's Lament

So the lovely wife and I have Saved Science. Yes, the capitals are important. Which on the one hand is good - we completed the co-op campaign in Portal 2 and it was suitably brilliant. But on the other that means there are no more puzzles to do. And that is bad. I may have to play through it again to try and snag some of the trophies I missed and actually the commentary track was interesting, so I might do that too. I have heard that there should be some more content soon, so here's to hoping. Also, I need one of these. And I wouldn't mind a few Portal related bits of fun.

At the Library we send out notices to let people know they have overdue books. Quite a few of them come back undelivered as people have moved and so on. I got one in yesterday that had a large amount of handwriting on it informing us that the person was no longer there. And that we should try looking in Hell. They did express sorrow that we were cheated out of a book (most likely How to Live on the Streets and Steal from Other People). And then offered a couple suggestions on where else to look. It was quite amusing.

Also Dad has informed me that he tried his best to set himself on fire at work the other day. He is now distinctly lacking in body hair. I told him I did not recommend that course of action. Actually I think I said things more along the lines of "OHMIGOSH ARE YOU OK?" I suspect they get to reset their days without an accident counter... Fortunately he got away with a only couple first degree burns.

We had a lovely game day on Saturday. There was lots of yummy food and several games were played. I managed a rather stunning victory in Dominion as I tried out a chapel deck. It's an interesting strategy alright. Lovely wife proved to be quite the racer at Pitchcar and we managed to eke out a photo finish victory on Forbidden Island. (Honestly the movie version of that game would have been amazing - the heroes lifting off from the Island as the last bits of land sank into the ocean - truly epic.) I really enjoy game days. I think we're going to make some bleach shirts for DruCon this year.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

What passes for normal

I read MT Anderson's Feed by mistake. Sort of. I meant to read it some time ago, but this time I thought I was really picking up Mira Grant's Feed. It was not terrible as mistakes go. Anderson's book is a dystopic look at kids that are constantly hooked up to the internet via implant. It constantly talks to them, pushes products at them, plays entertainment in the background - that sort of thing. A group of friends starts off on a trip to the Moon (it sucks) and while there they get hacked and are unable to connect for a bit. It's fixed and their lives go mostly back to normal. The main character met a girl while there and the story follows the two of them as they get to know each other and things start to happen to her feed. It's a terribly depressing book for lots of reasons. While I was reading it I was under the mistaken impression that a sequel was due soon (that'd be Grant's book) and so I thought there was some hope for the ending. There isn't. (To my knowledge) So, it's certainly worth reading, but bear in mind that the ending is the end. Everything must go indeed.

I've also been going through Robert Asprin's Myth books again. Still hilarious. I'm actually at the point in the series where I'm reading new material. Yay.

If you listen closely you can hear the approaching school year. It's just under two weeks away. Lovely wife is trying to decide just what her days will be like. All the kids will now be in school all day. Such a milestone. Here's to hoping she doesn't go crazy and start filling the house with pies. Or cats. Well, cats might be ok...

Lovely wife and I have been making our way through the co-op Portal 2 missions. So much fun. So devious. We are actually pretty close to saving science. With portals. There needs to be more Portal. I have heard rumors that Glados' voice actress was recording more dialog. Let's hope new content arrives soon.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Zzzzz

I am too tired to string coherent thoughts together. Instead you should go here, for there are some truly awesome and amusing things happening there at the moment. In fact I may just set this blog up to redirect there as it would be far more enjoyable for all of you. Allegedly.

We watched Sucker Punch the other night. For a movie with no plot it was alright. Certainly pretty, but it's Snyder so that's pretty much the default setting. I can't really recommend it, but it wasn't the worst thing I've ever seen either.

I can recommend you go watch this though. Can not wait for that to come out. Day one.

I think that's about all I'm good for at the moment.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

More noise than signal

Kiss Me Deadly is a great example of film noir. Detective Mike Hammer gets roped into a case by a dame and then stumbles his way through a plot that ends with quite a bang. If you like old detective movies, this one fits the bill. Some truly wonderful moments in this one. Track it down.

Hatchet was a decent old school slasher. I'm beginning to like Adam Green. And it had some really funny lines. It would have fit right in with anything we watched in High School.

Jo Nesbo's The Snowman was an interesting Scandinavian thriller. It follows detective Harry Hole as he confronts Norway's first serial killer. Or at least first acknowledged one. I still haven't read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I can see why there's some appeal to foreign crime fiction. This one had a nicely escalating plot and some pretty dramatic moments. Worth reading.

I've been hearing the siren song of the Dungeon Crawl of late and so I've gotten back to Dungeon Hunter: Alliance - still lots of fun it is. Although I do not approve of giving the enemies bows. It's my job to stand back and pick them off, not the other way around. And those magic users!

My sisters have started the campaign to try and convince me to drive down to Arizona for my birthday this year early. I remain pretty steadfastly unconvinced of the merits of this campaign. Mass chaos and uncertain sleeping conditions are more bugs than features. Although, yes, it would be nice to see everyone. We should just meet in Moab and take over the Aarchway Inn again.

Fortunately it's a three day weekend. I'm feeling a strong need to sleep through it...

Thursday, July 14, 2011

From amusing to not so

I recently had the chance to read The Adventures of the Princess and Mr Whiffle: The Thing Under the Bed by Patrick Rothfuss. Yes, I've mentioned him before. I am very torn on what to say about the book. It's a picture book, that's obvious from the outside. It's also subversively brilliant. I think I'll leave it as that as you should all track down a copy and read it for yourselves. If you choose to read it to young, impressionable children types stop at ending the first. You have been warned. Otherwise enjoy it. And once you've read it go back through it again and really look at the pictures (no really looking at the pictures the first time!). It's truly a brilliant book and there's a lot packed in. I'm a little in awe actually.

So. The Fit decided it was done going about a week ago. Lovely wife managed to get it into the shop bright and early this morning. Where they promptly ignored it for several hours. Not impressed. They finally did get a look at it, realized some parts were bad and then informed us that they didn't actually have said parts, but they'd show up by tomorrow at 4... Impression now below sea level. Fortunately I've been able to drive our other car to work, but that's left lovely wife a little stranded the last couple days. And we actually had things that needed to be done today. Honda won't get all that amazing a review from us this time should we actually get a survey. On top of all that lovely wife has plans tomorrow that this is once again going to get in the way of. Oh well. The silver lining is that at least the parts themselves are still under warranty so that saves us about $700. We still have to pay the $200 for installation and adjustments though. There goes the lovely little bonus we got from work the other day...

The kids have decided to re-enact that Calvin and Hobbes story line where he finds the injured critter and tries to take care of it prior to dying like most injured critters tend to do. They are going the baby bird route. I believe we have sacrificed a wash cloth and some sugar water.

The recent animated film The Illusionist (not to be confused with the Ed Norton live action flick from a few years back) by the guy that did Triplets of Belleville is amazingly beautiful to look at (and features Scotland - there are some great scenes of Edinburgh as well as landmarks that I actually recognized) but something of a downer. The rabbit is pretty awesome though. It's worth watching, but do take note that it's not exactly a happy tale.

I managed to once again squash those puny investigators as we played Mansions of Madness over the weekend. It was a pretty good game. I liked the scenario we were playing and even have a few ideas about things I'd try differently if we were to do it again. Lovely wife then proved quite the rail baron and eked out a victory in Ticket to Ride: Marklin. Gotta watch her like a hawk. That game really plays better with four or more players.

Thursday, July 07, 2011

In which I succumb to Eliot

Well, this morning certainly started not with a bang but a whimper. From my car that is. I went to leave for work only to have my car express different intentions. It contemplated starting up before deciding to die once placed in reverse. It then started up again only to display the check engine light a couple blocks down the road. So I came back home and stole lovely wife's van. I attempted to explain this to her, but she was less than conscious at 6 AM. Oh well. She figured it out. And ran around a bit in an effort to fix my car. So hopefully it's running a little better now. I suspect a bad batch of gas was the culprit. Engine was running lean. Whatever that means...

I have finished the Portal 2 single player campaign. And it was awesome. The ending is great. Such a great game - I highly recommend it to everyone (and some of those last puzzles are fiendish!). Now to attempt the co-op puzzles. Mwa ha ha ha.

McK did indeed place 2nd in the Girls' Softball league. So congrats to her. The were doing ok in what might have been the penultimate game until that third inning and the other team managed to rack up more points than they could overcome. Alas.

I am ready for summer to be over. In spite of the fact that it hasn't been around that long. It's seriously messing with my sleep schedule. Stupid heat. I'm in the wrapped in cotton insomnia phase. Not quite the waterbeds for cats phase.

We had a decent 4th if I ignore the stomach bug that attacked Saturday evening. Got dragged over to the letter 'r's so we could enjoy the show from their balcony. It was a nice fireworks show. Still kept me up too late. Apparently we scored them a few points with their neighbors when we shot off our fireworks. We bought one of the fancy no longer illegal types. I like fireworks. I think it would be fascinating to learn to make them.

In slightly amusing G news, he decided to play Uncharted at the park the other day and run away from the yetis while traversing the various playground equipment. So funny that kid. We're not waiting for Uncharted 3, nope, not at all.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Back in the saddle

Books. Games. A week off. So many things. Where to start?

We had a great visit with Dad while he was out. They're always too short and too few. We only had a couple small projects for him this time. We installed a digital thermostat and replaced the light fixture that decided to throw itself to the floor when we replaced the roof. The rest of the time was spent visiting the park or hitting Liberty Land or the pool or the driving range. It was a pretty eventful trip. There was some relaxing in there as well. I also learned that Dad is pretty incapable of walking and looking while trying to play Portal 2. Oh well, nobody's perfect... G enjoyed the laser tag (and the pirate game - don't ask) as did the girls. Although our poor team didn't fare very well. I managed the top spot on our team and 11th overall ranking. Somehow.

While at Liberty Land we also had a lot of fun with a video game version of that scene from Entrapment - you go into this little room and hit the start button to make a bunch of lasers show up, you then have to make your way to the other side of the room, hit a button and then make your way back to hit the stop button. All while trying to do it as quickly as possible and without hitting the lasers. Good fun.

Mostly as I can't be bothered with in depth thoughts on the following here are some quick responses on the many things I've read recently:

Reality is Broken - save the world through gaming. Some interesting ideas, not convinced of her conclusions. worth reading and talking about though.

Demonglass - the second Hex Hall book. Silly good fun. And such a cliffhanger!

Robopocalypse - World War Z with robots. Some of the world building is a little lacking, but pretty fun. Read it.

Fullmetal Alchemist volumes something or other to 24 - good. Series is winding up. What's going to happen? Also a lot gorier than earlier installments.

That should cover the books. I've also been playing a fair amount of Portal 2. It was a Father's Day gift and it's brilliant. So funny. If you like puzzles at all and have a sense of humor you need to be playing this game. There is nothing better than making your way through a tricky room and then getting some hilarious dialog as a reward. The co-op is pretty good as well. Best new game I've played.

I've also been toying around with the Uncharted 3 multi player beta. Now that they've released an update it seems more stable. I can't wait for the actual game. The multi player is decent. I'm horrible at it, but it's fun.

McK has her final softball game of the season tonight (barring possible thunderstorms). Somehow her team managed to make it to the last game. So her team will most likely place second, but still anything is possible. Good luck McK!

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Camping, random places on the net

First, I'll just leave these here, shall I? Thing 1 and Thing 2. I should also point out that there's a lot of funny stuff if you hit the main page for Thing 2.

So. I ventured out into the wild and survived the Fathers and Sons camp out over the weekend. G was pleased. The camp site was actually pretty nice - we were in a group spot that had well manicured grass and some tables and a fire pit and so on. There was a nice little pavilion with restrooms and a man made reservoir sort of thing that you could theoretically swim or fish in. I got roped into telling a bear story for the evening get together. It was very last minute. The tent we were in was nice, it even had a little "porch" area that was screened in. Very cool. The air mattress we brought along could have used a little more air in it and I would have liked to have gotten some (any) sleep that night, but overall it was not the worst experience ever.

We picked up Hive for our anniversary. Well, lovely wife ended up giving it to me, but whatever. After a rather argumentative first game we've managed to get things sorted out a bit. It's actually pretty fun and is one of those games you can take anywhere. In fact we played it at JCWs the other night. It's a two player game in which you each have a set of pieces that represent various bugs. The bee piece is your important piece and the object is to surround your opponent's bee with pieces of your color. There are 4 different bugs (not counting the bee or the expansion pieces) that you can use in various ways to accomplish this (you have several of each type). The pieces are hexagonal, so you'll eventually need 6 of them to win the game. You take turns placing pieces or moving the existing ones around, so the "board" is built over the course of the game. It's a decent little strategy game. McK is actually pretty good at it and has managed some wins over lovely wife.

I finished off Evangelion. I suspect most people (and possibly myself in the future) can simply watch the first 24 episodes and call it good. 25 and 26 offer a navel-gaze-y alternate take to the ending. Or expansion of the ending. Death and Rebirth is mostly pointless if you have access to the TV series and End of EvangelionEnd of Evangelion does offer some relatively interesting plotting that happens where the TV series left off, but then also goes all navel gaze-y. I understand why those parts do have some meaning, especially in context of the show as a whole, but I prefer the straight story telling. So yeah, fun subversion of the giant robot genre, but not really for everyone. Especially the end bits. I like it. And the revamp the new movies are doing.

Vacation looms in my future. Dad should be out soon and that will be fun. I think I may try taking him to the driving range and hitting a bucket of balls. It will be nice to have a bit of a break. I could use one.

Thursday, June 09, 2011

Maybe something about fish tacos?

I really don't have anything worth passing along. I did make it to one of McK's softball games over the weekend. It was ... interesting. Granted they had maybe 3 practices at the beginning of the season and a few games/practices since then, but it was only occasionally softball being played. The other team was one member short and so if our team managed a decent hit, points tended to be scored. I've heard they've pulled together a little more since, but I suspect the winner is still determined by who plays less badly... ^_^

Lovely wife and I managed to find a restaurant to celebrate our anniversary in. A new place called the Blue Lemon. It's either a decent priced trendy place or a slightly high priced sit down place. Guess it depends on how you see your glass of cucumber water (which was strangely delicious). I had fish tacos (served fajita style) and lovely wife had some grilled chicken with sun dried tomatoes and artichoke. It was actually a pretty nice place and I'd eat there again. Food was good and the atmosphere was nice if a bit loud.

G and I have been playing some Little Big Planet courtesy of the Welcome Back package Sony offered after PSN came back. It's a cute little game. Better than I expected it to be. Would like to mess around with creating levels, but I'm sure it's a little more difficult than I expect it to be.

Speaking of G I am getting dragged to the Fathers and Sons camp out this weekend. He is excited, I am not. I'm mostly hoping to just make it through the event. Especially as I've done something horrific to my neck/shoulder and haven't been able to sit/sleep/do much of anything for the last few days. Alas.

Thursday, June 02, 2011

More thoughts on giant robots and grave robbing and evil plans

I have indeed started watching the TV series version of Evangelion again. I'm not certain I can pinpoint why this series is fascinating me at the moment, but it is. I suppose it might be the way it subverts the traditional giant robot genre (ok, not really) or it might be the philosophical  treatise it weaves on why we need each other (definitely not) it's probably just the dance dance giant robot sequence in one of the upcoming episodes...

I have finished Rotters by Daniel Kraus. Yes, it's a book about grave robbing. And yes it can be pretty disgusting at times, but boy is it awesome. Little sis needs to hit the local library and check this one out. Joey Crouch loses his Mom at the beginning of the book and, per her wishes, is sent to live with the Dad he barely knows exists. Once in the tiny town he calls home he discovers that the townsfolk are none too impressed with his Father and that overshadows a lot of his life at school. The beginning of the book sets up the pieces - Joey, his Dad, his Dad's profession, the kids at school, the teachers, etc. and then the rest of the book is a serious roller coaster of events that you just can't quite believe. Just when you think the story has topped out at the craziest thing that can happen something else comes along and demolishes it. Rotters builds to a crescendo of ... well that would be telling, but believe me, it's a crescendo. And it's one heck of a ride. So, if you can stomach the subject matter, definitely give this one a go.

The roof is finished. We managed to make use of the two sunny days we had and got it done. So yay for that. Also a happy birthday to lovely wife's Mom. Wish you were here, we'd have a party. Dad's birthday is coming up quick (and he'll be out soon so we can have something similar to a party) and in between is some sort of anniversary or something. I forget.

16 years.

Actually, there was an interesting bit in Reality is Broken (the current book I'm reading - save the world through gaming says Jane McGonigal) about how one of the emotions that gaming encourages and we need is "happy embarrassment". That teasing we do to those we trust. So apparently there is a purpose to all that trash talking. See dear? I'm doing it for your own good. Who knew?

Which leads to another funny story. Here, allow me to cut and paste from a nightmare McK had early this morning (while changing pronouns):

Apparently I told lovely wife that I had a big gift for her for our anniversary and when she asked what it was, I said a divorce and gave her the weekend to pack up and move out of the house, taking M and G with her and leaving Mck with me. Dream then jumps to thanksgiving where we get together as a family one last time and I announce I am getting remarried and McK hates my girlfriend.

Which, ok, bizarre nightmare spawned by one too many jokes at the dinner table or a friend going through it, or something she read, or one too many viewings of the Parent Trap or whatever. The funny bit was my reply to lovely wife where I told her that if I was really mean I'd use me secret dream knowledge for EVIL and get home tonight and at dinner announce I had a big gift for her for our anniversary. I can't decide if I'm that evil or not. But it still makes me chuckle a little bit to think about. So I'm at least a little evil. But we all knew that.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Giant robots, virtual worlds, it all ends in the grave

Last night lovely wife and I watched Summer Wars, an anime movie by the guy that did The Girl Who Leapt through Time. I liked this one quite a bit. It's got some great messages about family and life. Natsuki hires Kenji for a four day summer job (as her fiance he finds out a little too late). While meeting and dealing with her family (led by a most awesome 90 year old Great Grandmother) the virtual world OZ that runs pretty much the entire planet comes under attack. And Kenji seems to be at fault for that as well. There's a fair amount of humor and tension and Hanafuda cards. It really is worth seeing. Even if that description doesn't fill you with excitement (Hanafuda cards! Are you emotionally dead?!) Lovely wife recommends it as well, so there you go.

A while back (years) we watched Neon Genesis Evangelion, an anime series that turned the Giant Robot genre on its head. I found it pretty fascinating even though it got really strange towards the end. It didn't help that Gainax (the studio creating the show) ran out of money and lots of corners were cut and so on. There were a couple movies that attempted to summarize and retell the ending of the TV show, but those didn't really clear things up either. So they've once again decided to try their hand at telling this story. They're rebuilding Evangelion over the course of 4 movies. The first two are currently out on DVD. 1.11 - You Are (Not) Alone and 2.22 You Can (Not) Advance. The first movie follows the plot of the TV series pretty closely. The second starts to deviate in significant ways and ends on one heck of a cliffhanger. I've found them to be a lot of fun to watch. The second one was better in my opinion - it features a lot of humor and a lot of truly shocking/heart wrenching moments. The problem is, I think you almost have to have seen the TV show to really appreciate it. I'm really not sure what a complete new comer would make of it. Heck, I don't remember all the details and as I did a little digging on Wikipedia there are things that suddenly make a lot more sense as I look back at them. I may have to watch the original series again.

I'll save most of my thoughts for when I finish, but Rotters is awesome. It's a book about grave robbing. (Did I mention it's awesome?)

We need to replace our roof. Unfortunately this means tearing off the old roof and putting new shingles on. Normally this wouldn't be a problem. Except we're having the weirdest Spring we've had in years. A lot of rain and so on. So at the moment it's half done. We managed to get the lower roof torn down and re-shingled. Now we just need a good enough break in the weather we can do the last half... I am glad I'm not a roofer. I was extremely sore that next day. Honestly I'm impressed I made it up on the roof. Really don't like heights. I've narrowed it down a touch more to really not liking ladders.

Thoughts and prayers go out to little sis and family and letter 'r' and family. You could all use a break.

Apparently McK is enjoying softball. And has managed to score a couple points.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Scratch that, here comes the rain

So. We were supposed to start tearing off our old roof in preparation for the new roof today. It's raining. A lot. And has been for a few days now. This is making things difficult. Also, due to unfamiliarity with new basement layout due to new couch I decided to seriously stub my toes resulting in one partially ripped off toenail and a possible second toenail that may fall off. And last night G crawled into bed claiming fear of rain or something, took over most of my side of the bed causing me to sleep in some odd contortion that has left me with debilitating neck/back pain since this morning. Which 3 Motrin and 2 Aleve have done absolutely nothing to fix.

I am not a happy camper right now.

I could relay the True Tale of Postal Stupidity that occurred yesterday, but that would just push things over the edge. Rest assured that there is indeed a reason the USPS is going under right now. And I am privy to it.

We managed to give our talks last Sunday. It went fine. I had to chop mine roughly in half as there just wasn't a lot of time left. I was ok with that.

We are currently caught up on our DVD viewing from the Library. Weird. I have no idea what to do in the evenings now. Although tonight will involve the Mentalist season finale. Lovely wife seemed to think we could actually talk to each other. I may start referring to her as Silly wife if that keeps up. (Actually we talk all the time, I blame that for our upcoming anniversary. Hmm. Maybe I'll get her a lack of talking for an anniversary gift...)

Anyway, I absolutely can not focus any more due to the spike that is currently being driven into the back of my neck. So, go forth and internet.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Here comes the sun

I've actually been able to sit outside at lunch time and read. It's been quite nice. Although it means that once again the grass (and the dandelions, oh the dandelions) will start growing uncontrollably.

Christopher Farnsworth's The President's Vampire is the sequel to Blood Oath. About, well, the President's vampire. (Attack vampire! Attack!) It's a decent summer popcorn book. There are a lot more overt Lovecraftian nods in this one (my favorite was Connecticut Hulu or something along those lines) mostly to the Innsmouth bits. I will have you know that my Rock Band band name is Innsmouth Look. This did not color my judgement of this particular story however. Cade is back with Zach who is once again playing go between for him and the real world. Things are bad, world is in danger, etc. etc. Like I said typical summer popcorn book. Or beach read if you prefer. It succeeds at what it is. I enjoy the series well enough and will read more. If you like action-y books with slight horror overtones, pick this one up. Also Bin Laden is killed off at the beginning. I believe the book came out something like 4 days prior to the real world execution. I don't think Farnsworth minded the timing...

I finished Heavy Rain. I did not get the best ending although I didn't do too badly. It was quite a game. Very tense. Probably one of the most immersive games I've ever played. I suspect I'll play through it again to see what I can change in the story line. I've been pretty impressed with the PS3's library so far. Of the handful of games I own a lot of them are games that I would play through multiple times (or have). That doesn't happen a lot. I tend to play through and be done.

McK is now officially a teenager. And she has officially acquired her Kindle. After playing with the device some I have determined that they're not really for me. I keep wanting it to do other things. I suspect I'd be far more at home with an iPad. It can do the ebook thing and also surf the web and play games and handle video content and yadda yadda. I don't really feel the need to have a device that's just for books like an iPod is for music. It's cool that you can shove a bunch of them on there and I can see how it would be handy when traveling, but that's about it. Otherwise I'm fine with an actual book. (In fact I think I like them better) Although it is pretty cool to have all of Lovecraft's stuff on the device. Well most of it. Hey look, Innsmouth...

Lovely wife had a suitably lovely Mother's Day. I missed Mom some once again, but it was fun watching the kids try to spoil lovely wife. She even managed to get the girls to make a passable Chicken Divan.

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Neverending amusement

Let's talk about Haruhi Suzumiya for a second. Lovely wife and I just finished watching the second season of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. It's sort of an odd creature, much like Haruhi herself. It's an anime series that follows some high school students as they are drawn to and influenced by the titular Haruhi for varying reasons. She forms an afterschool club (the SOS Brigade) in order to solve mysteries and hunt down aliens, time travelers, espers, etc. Never cottoning on to the fact that 3/5 of said brigade is made up of just that. Haruhi has the ability to alter reality to suit her whims. Kyon, the male protagonist, is your relatively normal high school guy who just happens to be the one guy Haruhi secretly relies on. The rest of them are trying to keep an eye on her/keep her from destroying the universe. It's good wacky fun.

Season two of the show is infamous for one (well 8) specific reason(s). The Endless 8 arc is eight episodes where the characters are caught in a time loop reliving the same 2 weeks of summer over and over. And the eight episodes are virtually the same. To be fair, the first, second and final episodes do have some differences - the introduction of the arc, the cottoning on to being stuck in the loop and the resolution, but the other 5 are all variations on the theme. The outfits they wear to the various activities change, the lines are spoken slightly differently but that's about it. It really is the same episode eight times. And it's brilliant. Personally I found it to be a great rendition of the "stuck in a time loop" story. And it makes for a great joke. Mostly because they actually carried it on for eight episodes. If they'd gone fewer, it would have lessened the impact and more would have killed it. There are those that think that eight killed it. They're wrong. I hadn't actually intended to watch all eight episodes, but found myself intrigued by what little changes would occur and so went ahead and watched them all. The rest of the season involves a trip to the past to see the event that started everyone's interest in Haruhi and the making of the movie they show in season one. Also fun episodes.

So yeah, Haruhi is pretty great...

Uzumaki is a silly Japanese horror movie. The spirals are going to get you. There are a couple moments that are decent, but over all this one is a pass.

McK officially joins the ranks of teenager-dom in a few days. She's not as ready as she thinks she is. Although certainly more ready than I think she is too. Lovely wife's Dad decided she needed a Kindle to celebrate the occasion. I'm not as convinced, but it's already in the house, so I guess we'll see how that goes. Considering I don't really spend money on books now that I work in a Library, it may end up being the emptiest Kindle in existence. Feel free to contribute to the Kindle fund if you feel so inclined. Although the first thing I'm putting on there is a collection of Lovecraft. After that she can start to tailor it to her interests. Mwa ha ha ha ha. (While it's nominally hers, the rest of the family gets a chance to play with it too)

G once again decided to add character to his face by throwing himself off his bike. Managed some pretty good scrapes in addition to a black eye and some swelling. Little dude looked pretty pathetic that first night. Especially after lovely wife insisted on mummifying him in gauze and tape. He's doing better now, although there's definitely still some bruising.

I guess I should mention M, lest she suffer even more from middle child syndrome. She had a concert last night that ran far too late and neither of us made it to. (Although apparently we should have gone as we might have missed getting asked to speak in Church in a week...) So we are indeed doing our part to make sure she has Severe Parental Issues. Other than that she's fine. Girl is part weed - she lives outdoors and insists on growing no matter what you do.

Never play 7 Wonders with the letter 'r'. Unless you like losing. Badly. Good thing the game is fun to play, pretty much regardless of how it ends. I just like seeing my little civilization take shape.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Yeah, I got nothin'

I hate Spring. It plays absolute havoc with my sinuses and forces me to get out the lawn mower. Stupid Spring... Summer isn't much better.

We watched Harry Potter 7.1. It was horrible. This is mostly due to the fact that the first half of the seventh book is just about the most wretched thing in existence. I actually have some small hopes for the second half this summer. They are based on the fact that the end of the first half did start getting a touch better. It will be interesting to see if nothing else. I really don't know why they let Rowling get away with that travesty that was the first half. Oh yeah, she made a ton of money...

Lovely wife and I went to Rubio's the other day. Fish tacos are yummy. I had the blackened mahi mahi and it was great. I may have to learn to make fish tacos now. I wonder if I can pull that off on the grill... Hmm. How exactly do you grill fish? Don't you need a smaller grill surface? Do you put something down? I shall have to investigate.

20th Century Boys continues to be fun to read. I'm somewhere in the middle of the series, so I won't bore you with details.

I suppose I should have an opinion on the absolutely massive data theft Sony went through this past week. Especially since I'm one of the people affected by it. It doesn't look like credit card data was stolen, but just about everything else was. I'm certainly a touch annoyed, but mostly we're trying to keep an eye out to make sure our accounts are ok. Time to change some passwords as well I suspect. I can tell you that I'll pretty much stick to prepaid cards from this point on. I almost tried to figure out how to yank my credit card data out of there a while back as well... That'll teach me.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Bigger on the inside

I don't remember quite how old I was when I started watching Dr Who. Very few of my memories are tied to specific dates. Honestly very few of them are tied to specifics. I remember snatches of things and emotions attached to those bits of ephemera. But I remember watching it. Tom Baker was the current incarnation (he of the scarf and curly hair) and of the companions that orbited around him Sarah Jane was the one that stood out. I have fond memories of those times and, to me, Elisabeth Sladen was the epitome of the Doctor's companion. I loved her - she was funny and smart and cute and tough and you get the idea. Which is why I was terribly saddened earlier this week to learn that she had passed away. I'm not sure why it's hit me the way it has. Part of it is probably the little memories that people are sharing around the internet that match my own. Part of it is nostalgia I suspect. But regardless of why, she will be missed. It was great to see her again on the new series and from the sounds of things I need to give her spinoff a try. Rest in peace Elisabeth, you will be missed. Here's a lovely little song that Neil Gaiman tweeted right after the news broke.

In an obvious segue, the new season of Dr Who starts up this weekend. I'm sure we shall be gathered around the tv to watch. If for no other reason than to see what happens until Neil Gaiman's episode shows up to make little kids hide behind the couch and cry.

We wrapped up the second season of School Rumble. It was a different sort of experience from the first season. There was a very loose plot that wandered through the episodes (Tenma still pines for Karasuma and Harima still pines for Tenma and so on) but for the most part they focused on parodying various sources - Power Rangers, sports shows, I think there was even a Drifting Classroom reference. So if you knew what they were going for it could be pretty amusing. Other times it was just weird. And, of course, in typical romantic comedy fashion, they didn't really resolve any of the relationships. In fact I suspect things were actually a touch murkier than they started out. The manga is probably still ongoing and the anime may well be also. I liked it, lovely wife a bit less so, but I'd certainly be open to more. And if there was some progress, so would lovely wife.

Polished off Making Money by Terry Pratchett. It was typical Discworld fun. I don't know that I have that much more to say about it.

A Happy Easter in advance to all of you.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

I dunno . . . stuff

Honestly I don't know that there's really anything worth rambling on about. I'm getting some enjoyment out of the Tomb Raider Trilogy currently out. I'm playing through Anniversary at the moment as I wanted to see how they handled the remake of the original game. It's fun. And far easier to play in parts than the original was. Which isn't to say it's without fault. The camera in this game is downright swimmy. I actually can't play too much at a time or it just leaves me with a headache. It's too loose or something. Not entirely certain how to describe it. And there are still some needless deaths due to not being able to quite line up. That's one thing I like about Uncharted. For the most part it knows where you're jumping and just lets you do it. Occasionally you'll be a little off, but not nearly as badly as here. Look forward to the other games.

I picked up Dungeon Hunter: Alliance as I wanted a fun little hack and slash game. It's just now out on PSN. If there are any other dungeon crawling dudes out there that want to co-op through the game, let me know. (And the Might and Magic demo is pretty cool too...)

A Happy Birthday goes out to little sis. She claims to be getting old. I roll my eyes at her. And her comments about getting close to 40. Close. Ha. I'll show her what close is in November. And then start the slow march to the top of the hill.

The lawn seems to think it needs to grow. I'm unimpressed with this notion.

Rumor has it that a family picture is being taken this week. In order to make sure it is as interesting as possible, G decided to throw his chin at the concrete steps in front of our house. He is patched up now. And insists on being called Indiana Jones as he now has a scar on his chin. Well, at least, that's what lovely wife claims. I have yet to find any ancient artifacts or dead Nazis, so I'm a little skeptical.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Similarities noted, ends reached, paper folded

I have finished Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I'm not entirely certain what to say about it. There are things I was surprised by (the amount of time spent at the University) and things that were grand and things that were foreboding and things that were funny and... well, you get the idea. It's a great book. I'm not sure if it's better or worse than Name of the Wind, so I'll settle for equal. I certainly look forward to the last book and have some slight fears that things will Not End Well. I shall have to read it again.

We're currently watching season 2 of School Rumble. I've missed this show. It's still absolutely hilarious. The 2nd and 3rd episodes reminded me of the paintball episode of Community, except that instead of riffing on 28 Days Later, they were going for Battle Royale. Without the silly weapons. Although there was a silly outfit. It's great.

It is now the stupid weather phase here. I rather dislike April and May because the temperatures are all over the place. We're supposed to have some snow over the next couple days and it looks like it's thinking about it at the moment. Bring back late Fall... Of course now I have to start worrying about the lawn and getting the mower into some state of readiness. Bleh.

I have learned to make jumping frog and wing flapping crane origami. They are quite fun. I was hoping to make a time delayed frog as seen in the first episode of The Mentalist, but apparently there is no such thing. Clever TV trickery!

Thursday, March 31, 2011

In which I express frustration with technology

We finished watching season one of the British Being Human. I'm not entirely certain why people like this show. Or thought it needed a remake. The first 4 episodes (maybe 3 1/2) of 6 were not particularly enjoyable. George (the werewolf) is probably the standout character. Annie (the ghost) wasn't that great (barring her brief tenure as poltergeist) and mostly suffered from being far too predictable in her plotting. The killer was X? Gee, I didn't see that coming two seconds after she was introduced... Mitchell (the vampire) suffers from some predictable plotting as well. They do have good chemistry, but I'm in no hurry to see season 2.

So. For some time our receiver has been slowly dying. There's a short that causes the center channel to just stop working. Which makes hearing dialog difficult. Ran into a nice sale at Amazon and picked up a new one that has apparently just arrived. Which means I now get to pull the tv out, yank out the old receiver try to sort out what's plugged into where and then get everything plugged into the new receiver. And hope it all works. I am not expecting to enjoy this process.

However it will be a cakewalk compared to replacing our computer. It's also slowly dying and in need of an upgrade. I suspect we'll stick with Apple, but I'm really not looking forward to getting everything working again. Mostly as I need to transfer all the music and so on over to the new computer. I'm sure it will go well.

There needs to be a way that this just happens. That doesn't involve paying teenagers to come do it for you. I am looking forward to the fact that apparently the new receiver auto adjusts the speakers for you. That will be nice. Assuming I can figure out how to make it all work.

Finished up Emily Strange: Dark Times. It wasn't quite as good as the first one, but it wasn't horrible either. Some nice quirky humor.

M is currently performing in Mulan as a background singer. It's a little ridiculous the lengths they're going to for a grade school musical, but they do a good job. The costumes and set are all really nice and there are only a few things that remind you it's a grade school. Not convinced it's worth the money they've required for it (we had to pay so she could be in it and pay to go see it and make her costume and...) but she has had fun. I think it's starting to wear on her a little, but that's not surprising. So good job M!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Spoooooky

Finally got a chance to take in Paranormal Activity 2. I really liked it. I enjoy these movies quite a bit actually. I find movies that are more on the psychological side to be spookier than their slasher counterparts (although they can certainly be fun). Lovely wife continued to be freaked out by this series. So that's a plus as well. I found the way that the sequel intertwined with the first movie intriguing. And of course the next morning I left all the cabinet doors and drawers in the kitchen open as a nice wake me up for lovely wife. Alas, McK was the first one downstairs and ruined the joke. At least she called everyone down to see my handiwork. M seemed to think someone had broken in and rifled through the kitchen. I'm unsure why her brain is wired that way...

I'm getting very close to the end of Uncharted 2. It's definitely worth playing. This series could do with a touch less shooting and a touch more exploration, but other than that it's just about perfect. So fun.

Courtesy of a kind father in law, I now have my signed copies of Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear. I'm currently about half way through the latter and enjoying it immensely. I'm a little worried it's going to be sad, but it's an absolutely brilliant book.

Got in another game of Mansions of Madness. This time I managed to crush those poor investigators and left poor McK without a brain as my Mi-Go took it and left for outer space. Mwa ha ha ha ha. We played another scenario and it was interesting to see the differences in them. The first one was more like a chase sequence in which the monsters showed up early and harassed the investigators while they searched for clues. This time it was more of a slow burn as the investigators tried to unearth what was happening at a school before everything erupted in a sudden burst of monsters and gray matter. Good times. Also I highly recommend Plano tackle boxes as a storage solution for games with lots of bits. They're brilliant.

We've just started watching the BBC version of Being Human. It started off a little oddly, but we'll see where it goes.

I should probably talk a little more about Heavy Rain, but I think I'll save it for another time. Other than that things are just far too hectic at casa del 'd'. We've gotten a bit of a glimpse of the next few years as the girls get old enough to have after school activities and so on. It's not terribly pleasant. Far too much running around for lovely wife. That coupled with the various reasons that we're out of the house and I suspect we'll start to wonder who these people in the house with us are. If I start referring to lovely wife as lovely stranger send help.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Grim Pursuits

The Social Network was a pretty fascinating story. And continues to cement my desire to stay far far away from Facebook. Zuckerberg (as portrayed) seems pretty willing to sacrifice all in pursuit of his idea. (And given his standing on privacy rights - at least as far as Facebook is concerned - he will sacrifice plenty) Fincher is still one of my favorite directors and this movie didn't really alter that at all. May have to track down the book...

The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski is a collection of short stories loosely woven together. It's where the video game The Witcher got it's titular character from. I've heard about the game some and decided to track down the book. I liked it. It's a shade darker twist on classic fairy tales. The witcher is a troubled soul tasked with fighting monsters for people that either actively dislike him or, at best, tend to ignore him. There's a bit of an overarching frame story where's he's recovering from his last fight and some of the time is spent telling or remembering previous such tasks. It's fun to figure out which story is getting told this time (you'll spot Snow White and Beauty and the Beast among others). I think I'll track down the next book as well. I like the characters and the world.

Mansions of Madness did indeed get played over the weekend (and will get played again in a couple days). It's a pretty interesting game. It takes forever to set up and that's saying something. This is a Fantasy Flight game, so some set up time was inevitable, but this is borderline ridiculous. Because it's a story based game with various scenarios you get to set up the board in addition to all the bits that make up the meat of the scenarios. So, if you're the keeper, plan to spend time setting up the tiles and then wading through the myriad cards collecting the ones you need and then placing them in the right order and then placing those stacks in the right places and then mixing the proper decks and so on. Once all that's done, the game itself is pretty interesting. The investigators get a bit of a story to set the stage and then explore the mansion trying to find clues and prevent Ominous Things from happening. The keeper does his best to drive them insane or kill them while striving to achieve his own nefarious goals. I like the way attributes are checked and puzzles are solved and so on. Plus the critters are cool.

Lovely wife found it to be a better first impression than Arkham Horror and M was occasionally unsettled by the mood music (the soundtrack from 28 Weeks Later) and the story. So that's a win in my book. If you're looking for a game with theme and some unique interaction, this is it. Just know that the theme is dark and Lovecraftian...

Heavy Rain finally went Greatest Hits the other week pushing it into affordable game territory. So I snapped it up. I find the way it's played to be probably the most immersive I've encountered in a video game. And it's pretty gorgeous to look at as well. I really want to see where the story is going to go. Plus it wins the best distraction while the game is installing award (previously held by Metal Gear Solid 4). It teaches you to make the origami critter featured heavily throughout the game. Too cool. Don't be fooled by the opening moments of the game (as lovely wife was) - there are certainly grim things ahead. It's not all birthday parties and toy sword fights. I really like the way the opening moments teach you how the game is played by introducing innocuous versions of things you'll be doing later.

So, that's what has passed for entertainment in the land of 'd' lately. I suspect I'm going to have to give the dentist a holler tomorrow. I do not care for the jangle I get whenever I drink/eat something cold. Lovely wife is trying to convince herself that Spring Break will not be an exercise in annoyingchildrenicide and hopes to catch up on some lost sleep. I wish her luck. We'll all need it. I could use some sleep myself. Ah well...

Thursday, March 10, 2011

In which normalcy returns

We had nice visits with lovely wife's Mom and Dad over this past week. Her Mom, unfortunately, got to spend most of the time working on a costume for M for Mulan. But the costume was completed, so yay I guess? M certainly seems to think so. We also had a fun dinner at Teppanyaki during her stay. We got to see some new hibachi chef routines as well as a magic trick. Mostly due to the family we were seated with, but a show is a show.

G dragged Grandpa over to Cabelas and convinced him to let him play the shooting gallery game. I took advantage of the leftover tokens and had a go myself. It was fun. G needs to work on his aim. ^_^ Kids were glad to see family as were lovely wife and I and now we get to try and calm them down from all the excitement.

Also, congratulations go to nephew L on his Baptism.

We finished off season one of Community. It was great. The paintball episode was indeed amazing (a 28 Days Later reference in addition to some John Woo and a couple others). This may become the 2nd show that I actually bother to watch while it's broadcasting.

I have had my first tooth filled. It theoretically wasn't a cavity - just a small hole on the biting surface of my tooth. But once they drilled in they discovered it went all the way down my tooth. Still a very small hole, just very deep. It wasn't the most pleasant of experiences. I'm trying to decide if it's not completely better. I get a bit of an ache when I eat crunchy things like chips or cereal. Is that normal a week later?

Mansions of Madness is out. And I have my copy. I am very much looking forward to playing it. Puzzles, monsters, loss of sanity, stories full of dread and intrigue... what's not to love? I'm going to try and convince lovely wife and possibly McK to give it a go some time this weekend so we can get some of the rules down.

I'm ready for a bit of quiet. And a nap...