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.

Winter is here

Not so much due to snow as the sudden drop in temperature. I suspect we're now officially in the chillier temperature mode of the season. Which is fine. I don't mind the cold too much. As long as there's a blanket somewhere...

Not really anything else to say about Roadside Picnic. It was good. I'm now going through a geeky, improve your life sort of book as well as Breed which is a sort of reverse Rosemary's Baby kinda thing from the sounds of it. And nothing says Merry Christmas like a reverse Rosemary's Baby sorta thing.

Got to go to J & K's wedding reception last night. That was nice. Got to see a couple of old Ovid co-workers as well. And that was fun too. Lovely wife managed to represent for us at the wedding itself. I was too busy fighting with a printer to get away.

We watched Lake Mungo over the weekend and it was kind of amazing. It starts out as what you think will be a sort of run of the mill ghost story done as documentary sort of film but there are some pretty nifty surprises waiting for you in the film. I recommend this one. Except that while we were watching it, some of the should be spooky ghost scenes were too dark to see what was supposed to be going on. Not sure if this was the fault of the film or our tv settings. I think it was the version of the film we were watching. Little sis should give this one a go on Netflix. K might appreciate it too.

We're finally starting to make our way through Castle season 4 (I believe). The first few episodes were pretty good. I still like the banter.

Glad that Dad will be in town next week. Will be good to see him again and have him around through Christmas. Hard to believe that's as close as it is. Still have a touch of Christmas shopping to do, but we're pretty close to being done.

Oh and I'm no longer sort of addicted to Haggis on the iPad. It's full blown now. Such a fun little game.

Brief thoughts

Not much remains of Dad's visit, but it has been a good one. I suspect retirement will suit him well. I suspect retirement will suit me well, but alas that won't happen for quite some time, milestone birthdays or no.

Brave was quite good and certainly worth seeing. It was enjoyed by all. There were varying levels of enjoyment for Chronicle and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I liked both of them well enough, but I'm more suited to them, so that's no real surprise.

Summoner Wars and Haggis are both theoretically available in the iOS app store. I've been trying to download the former since yesterday, but there seems to be some sort of issue with its availability. Curses.

Other than that, I don't really have the energy to write up all the happenings. New computer. Trips to Planet Play and the pool. J Dawgs. (I think that's how that's spelled) Homemade ice cream. All the things that make for a successful summer and an enjoyable visit with family. We'll all be sad to see Dad go. Especially as he's leaving at some unholy hour in the morning and needs a ride to the airport...

We also got to watch the fireworks over at letter 'r's last night. The wind played havoc with the display a little and it was strange to see the fireworks juxtaposed with the forest fire on the mountain, but they were certainly pretty.

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!

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.

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.

End of Line

Well, that's a little over dramatic I suppose, but this is the last day of the year and we did just see Tron Legacy, so there you go.

It's been quite the week here at casa del 'd'. We had lovely wife's Mom here through Christmas and my Dad is here to ring in the New Year with us.

Shockingly we actually had to wake the kids up on Christmas morning. I'm not sure what pod people they were replaced with, but it was a little ridiculous. They all had fun opening presents and being around family. G got some Hexbug Nanos that are pretty cool. We can't stop playing with them and rearranging the track. McK has been taking pictures of everything she can with her new camera and M has been reading books and solving mysteries in Guilty Party on the Wii.

We've seen a few shows over the holiday. Tangled was brilliant, Sorcerer's Apprentice was fun, Tron Legacy was pretty good (and the soundtrack by Daftpunk is pretty great too) and we liked Toy Story 3 as well.

So, have a great end of year, and here's to a good new year.