Thursday, June 27, 2013

Let's see...

Books to be mentioned/commented upon:

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. Gaiman's latest novel has a quiet, haunting quality to it. It focuses on events that happened during the childhood of the narrator and features Gaiman's usual blending of mythology and reality into an enchanting dream-like musing on the events that shape us and the choices we make in life. It's relatively short, but I think that just means it's easy to read again. Which I can see myself doing as I think there is indeed more depth to be found. Much like Lettie's titular pond/ocean.

5 Centimeters per Second by Makoto Shinkai. I first ran across Shinkai when he did the film, Voices of a Distant Star, which was both beautiful and heart breaking. This is a graphic novel version of his newest film. It is also beautiful and heart breaking. I really like Shinkai's work, but dude needs a donut. And a happy thought.

The Diaries of Adam and Eve, by Mark Twain was a lot of fun to read. Definitely worth tracking down. It's a wry look at the first couple and how they came to know and love each other.

Vader and Son was the first of this series I believe. It's more cute comics about Darth Vader, this time raising Luke. Worth flipping through.

Not books:

Mama was pretty good. I didn't find it to be very scary, but it's definitely got some creepy moments and was a really nicely told tale. I especially liked the montage during the title sequence where they illustrate the girls' first few years through a series of childish drawings.

The Imagine Dragons CD is downstairs waiting for me. I am looking forward to listening to it. I just might have to play Radioactive very loudly on my way home...

I really need to get Space Cadets back to the table...

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Formula D and Wallflowers

Got in a game of Formula D tonight. Let's see if I can get this link to work so you can see the pictures.

It was a pretty fun game. I managed a pretty steady lead thanks to some smart gear shifting and some decent rolls, but there was a lot of position jockeying for the rest of the spots.

In more depressing news, we watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower last night. Reminded me a lot of high school. Minus the abuse and institutionalization. Most of my friends my freshman year were juniors so I didn't have to deal with the bulk of people leaving, but a lot of those experiences were pretty similar. It was kind of rough to watch even if it was relatively happy at the end.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Enjoying the silence

The house has been pretty empty these last couple days. The girls are off at camp and G has been in and out with friends. Ah blessed silence. Lovely wife has managed to tidy up G's room to some extent. Who knew he had a floor in his room?!

We've watched a couple B grade action movies these last couple days. The Numbers Station with John Cusack and The Double with Richard Gere. They were serviceable action/thriller movies. Not great, but not horrible.

I finished reading You by Austin Grossman. It was a lot of fun. Similar in some ways to Ready Player One and different in others. It tends to cover the history of video games as opposed to the future, but they both deal with people that let their lives revolve around them or the industry. Pretty fascinating. I've read some negative reviews by people that had issues with the point of view changes and so on. I think they're idiots. It's not that confusing. Admittedly 2nd person does take a little getting used to if you've never read something like that before, but it makes perfect sense in this context as Grossman is discussing a medium that is all about player interaction.

Apparently G is scared by Betrayal at the House on the Hill. This could have had something to do with the fact that he ended up getting selected as the traitor, or it could be that he just finds the game spooky. Not sure. The girls still love it though.

Random things we've noticed recently: chocolate chips make pretty much all breakfast foods better, home made ice cream is still really good, grilling on a serious bbq grill is pretty awesome, serious bbq grills still have problems with odd hot and cold spots.

I should also mention that I rode a zip line.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Vroom Vroom

Formula D is pretty great. G and I played a quick game once we got back from the camp out just to give it a go. We then played a big game Sunday with Lovely Wife's Mom and the whole family. We had a pretty good time. Although G started to lose a little interest about 2/3 through the course. I think selecting gears and optimizing your lane selection might be a touch above him. Although not much. It's definitely a better game with more cars on the track as you really do get to jostle for position and fight for corners and so on. Definitely a fun game and I highly recommend you give it a go. (And there are more tracks you can pick up and beginner's rules and advanced rules and...)

Managed to survive another year of Fathers and Sons camping. The hike wasn't too bad (although the short way down in near dark was not the best of ideas). Breakfast was good. There was absolutely no sleep. I need either a cot or one of those self inflating/deflating pad things. Something...

If you're following E3 at all you're aware of the new consoles coming out and how Sony stomped all over Microsoft in their press conference when it came to privacy rights and consumer rights and a few other things. It'll be interesting to see how things play out once Fall comes and people actually buy the things. And if you haven't seen it, this is hilarious.

McK has started volunteering up at Timp Caves. That's a little fascinating to me. M has had Day Camp for Girl Scouts this week. And G has Day Camp for Cub Scouts this weekend. I think lovely wife thought that Summer would be less busy. She was wrong.

Father's Day this weekend. Too bad Dad is far away. Will have to get him to actually use his iPad and video chat. And maybe play some Ticket to Ride.

Thursday, June 06, 2013

Our love is like a golf course

If you substituted holes for years. Or something like that. (This is just a ridiculous way to say we hit 18 years this past week on our anniversary) In a lot of ways it doesn't seem that long, but then McK decided to go to the DMV and get her learner's permit (in spite of the DMV guy telling her she had to be at least 5 feet tall). And yeah, that and two other kids and other assorted parts of life chimed in and it's actually not that hard to realize that it has indeed been that long. But they have (for the most part) been great years and lovely wife is as lovely as ever, so there you go.

She even bought me a game for our anniversary. In spite of all the other games we've gotten recently. True love folks. I got Formula D the racing game and I can't wait to try it out. Little cars and lots of dice and fun race tracks and... Heh.

We've been having a pretty good visit with lovely wife's Mom while she's in town. So that's been fun. She had a birthday and my Dad had a birthday. It's kind of an event filled week.

Alas there is camping waiting at the end of it. I guess it goes to show that nothing is perfect.