Back in the saddle

So, new year. Seems much like the old one. Guess we'll see how it turns out.

Over the break I read the first two "Richard Castle" books, Heat Wave and Naked Heat. I'm on the hold list for the third. They're fun. If you like watching the show, you'll get a kick out of the books. Similar jokes/conversations, etc. I find it terribly amusing that they've got Fillion on the jacket and appropriate dedications, etc.

G has been lost in the world of Skylanders, it's apparently pretty good. I enjoyed the little bit that I got to play with him. It's fun to swap the characters around and explore the little bits of the world. Not a fan of the tether they use if you play multi player and one person wants to go one way and the other another. (Disney Universe suffers from this as well.

Uncharted 3 continues to be pretty amazing. Some of the level design is just astounding. The pirate level...

Lovely wife and I watched Limitless and it was pretty good. I stumbled across it as part of an under-appreciated sci fi list (Source Code and The Adjustment Bureau rounded it out) and as it was the one I hadn't seen we gave it a go. It's good, you should check it out.

We held a mini game night on New Year's Eve and played Dwarf King, Skip Bo and Zombie Dice. Oh and King of Tokyo. Strangely, Zombie Dice was the one that everyone got the biggest kick out of. Well, ok, Zombie Dice is pretty awesome. After all it's got zombies and dice (and I really need to snag the expansion dice...) King of Tokyo ended appropriately in the death of all monsters save one, so that was good.

Oh, and the iPad continues to be awesome. So far I highly recommend Flipbook if you have one. Absolutely brilliant way to manage your internet feeds like Google Reader, twitter, etc. I just need to see if there's a way to add google+ to it... I use Crackle while exercising (I can manage to get through an episode of Samurai X each morning) and that's pretty great. And then of course there's all the random games and so forth. I recommend trying out Vid Rhythm by Harmonix. It lets you make your own music video and if you get a kick out of messing with photo booth, this is right up your alley. I'm not sure lovely wife has been so amused. Except possibly by photo booth. Skitch lets you draw all over your photos and that's pretty fun too.

So 2011 ended well and we look forward to 2012 in some fashion or other. Well, ok, I could do without the upcoming election, but that's neither here nor there.

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...

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.

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.

Insert witty Castle joke here

Season 2 of Castle has been pretty decent thus far. The mystery plots are pretty secondary to the banter and I'm fine with that. It's certainly worth watching on DVD.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson was a fun fantasy book. It features a pretty unique magic system and some fun characters. Lots of little twists and turns before wrapping things up. I suspect I'll read more of his work now. I've heard his Mistborn series is worth checking out as well. It's nice to find some more fantasy again.

Death of a Scriptwriter is a Hamish Macbeth story by M.C. Beaton. If you've been here a while, you might recall me mentioning that we enjoyed the TV series. The books are fun too. Nice little mystery story. Makes me want to watch the show again...

In other news G has been practicing his writing by writing down little stories. Thus far we have had The Fish and the Turtle, The Shark, the Fish and the Dolphin and The Dragon's Gold. One of the stories featured a human on fire and one featured a lovely dinner for a hungry aquatic animal. Hmm. He may be ready for shark week now.

In other other news I got to tell a couple at the Library that it wasn't really the appropriate place to be making out.

I managed to finish off the first Uncharted. It was a lot of fun. I've started the second one and it had one of the best beginnings to a video game I've seen in a long time. Really enjoying this series. And Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is a frustratingly good time. My driving skill are not that spectacular. But it's a lot of fun to try. Donkey Kong Country Returns is pretty good as well. The collector in me is going to hate this game as some of the levels are fiendishly difficult. I may never finish the bonus temple levels. In spite of G telling me to try at every other moment.

The girls explored mummification for their science projects. At least there were no coat hangers involved. I'm sleeping with one eye open just to be safe.