Stealthy crochet ninja is stealthy

stealthy crochet ninja,
originally uploaded by dkun.

So, ran across the book Creepy, Cute Crochet while at the Library a few weeks ago. Had to check it out for the crochet Cthulhu. As the crocheted Elder God was a step up in difficulty that my talented wife wasn't quite ready to tackle (and she didn't want to lose her sanity by offending said Elder God with a less than perfect rendition) she opted to start with the adorable little fellow hiding in the foliage here. Just don't let him hear you call him adorable. Ninja dude. He'll mess you up. He's got a throwing star and everything.

So, of course, everyone in the family wanted one. The soon to be Crochet Dojo of Death now has two students, but there will be more. Oh yes, there will be more. Mwa ha ha ha ha. Run for your lives puny mortals, for after the ninja, there will be zombies. And then Cthulhu himself will rise from the abyss and devour your souls with his cute, yet nefarious plots. And photos.

New Look

We'll see how this goes. Site under new management, not responsible for old content, pardon our dust, nothing to see here, move along. Hey Look! Godzilla!

Whither the Weekend

Watched Nightwatch last night. Russian film from a few years ago. Parts horror, fantasy (of the urban sort), sci-fi. There's a lot of promise there, but it's a little on the "you must pay Attention" side of things for late on a Friday night. It also doesn't help when the copy you have is scratched six ways to Sunday and you suddenly have to switch languages halfway through so you can actually finish watching it (the Russian was on one side and the English the other). I can see why the director seems to be taking off (I believe he did the just recently released Wanted). He has some flair and some new things to bring to film. May try to track down Daywatch and see where things went.

Looks like younger sister has started a blog. Some neat photos and Kaijsa stories. This is good. I used to threaten to tell Kaijsa stories, looks like her mother will take care of it for me. Nice little template they're using too. I might have to go peek around at the newer blogger templates... We'll see.

Got the kids Pokémon toys from BK last night. There was much rejoicing from the younger set. It prints money I tell ya.

Sounds like the new Twilight book release is almost on par with Harry Potter. Not quite the same level, but close. I believe that series has sucked in a good portion of my family. Mostly the younger, female portion. I saw her new book Host at the Library a few weeks ago, but it didn't sound quite interesting enough to pick up. I'd probably almost prefer the vampires to the aliens, but the romance heavy plot would probably make me too dizzy from all the eye rolling. I will admit to liking the fact that some of her fans prefer to be called Twihards. Hee hee...

Quest for fire

BBQ grill has been set up which means honeymoon phase for grilling. So far we've done brats and burgers, up tonight are chicken shish-kabobs. I really, really love grilling. My Dad was in town over the 4th, which was great. We had a good visit and actually managed to get the baseboards put up and finally finish the new floors we got, umm, well ok, like a year ago. But he brought out a rather nice Weber grilling book with lots of tips and recipes. He also provided the new grill so, big thanks Dad. It was a tough call between gas and charcoal. We eventually settled on gas simply because it was a little more likely to get used. The learning curve on charcoal was a little daunting.

At any rate, so many things to experiment with: shrimp, steaks, more burgers, more brats, ok must go get grill warmed up... heh heh.

Saw Wall-E with Dad and the family over the weekend. Pixar has to have made some sort of deal with the Devil, their films are far too amazing for any other explanation. Possibly a pact with Cthulhu, that's rather likely as well. Basic point: Wall-E good. Go see.

Spiderwick Chronicles was also good. Although a little unsettling for our younger viewers. Lovely wife had some issues with the deviations from the book. Me not so much. Pretty good time for fantasy film fans. There are far too many movies to see and books to read and games and food and... must go rock in the corner for a moment while I contemplate overwhelming forces, err dinner. Yes. Dinner. Must go cook dinner. Fire. Meat. -insert Tim Allen/Home Improvement grunting-

Mornings

Well, it was a quiet Saturday morning until about 5 minutes ago. First G woke up and then it wasn't long before the others joined him. I'm sure the lovely H is still in bed. I'm pretty sure she'd sleep through a nuclear holocaust. Especially once the mutant cannibalistic humanoids showed up. After all, if she can sleep through the kids, what makes you think a mutant cannibalistic humanoid has a shot?

Watched Dead Alive the other night. One of Peter Jackson's earlier films (if not his first, I can never remember). Gloopy, campy zombie movie. It was pretty fun. Pre-zombie priest was my favorite character.

And in case you actually catch this early enough, it's Free RPG day! Go grab some free RPG stuff. And some polyhedral dice. Everyone needs their own d20. Or maybe a d10, I like those a lot as well. And if you have kids (and a DS) apparently there's another free Pokemon that can be picked up over at Gamestop. I have a sneaking suspicion that we'll be heading over so McK can add another Pokemon to her roster.

Read Scott Pilgrim volume 2 and Y the Last Man volume 5. Both excellent in vastly different ways. 2nd volume of Scott Pilgrim wasn't quite as funny as the first, but spent a little more time filling in some of the characters. The fight with the second evil ex-boyfriend certainly had some moments though. I like all the little video game and music references that get placed in the story. Some obvious, some not so. Y the Last Man continues to ratchet up the tension. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes. If you read only one apocalyptic last man on Earth story this year... heh heh.

Dr Who season 4 is still pretty good. Last night's episode was the first of a two parter, so, cliff hanger-y. I'm still waiting for an episode as good as Blink from last season. It's a pity I really didn't like season three as I'd almost pick it up just to get that episode. If I run across it on sale, it'll probably happen. I suppose I could try to grab it off iTunes or something, but that would take a little too much voodoo to play on the TV easily.

Well off to check out Feed the Animals' Girl Talk and Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere.

More random thoughts (now with a third less calories)

Working at the library has certainly made it easier (in some ways) to catch up on my reading. I saw an interesting article on the possibility that Google is making us stupid. Or at least unable to read long articles/novels. It dealt with how the internet is changing our brains and the way we're processing information. It was interesting, but I only skimmed it. And of course can't recall the magazine it was in. I'd hit google, oh wait...

I also suspect Google/Yahoo are poking fun at Microsoft by updating their spam filter to send anything from hotmail into said spam filter.

At any rate. Reading. Yes. Lots of graphic novels of late. Some Hikaru no Go, some Y the Last Man, did I mention Scott Pilgrim? Currently reading A Simple Plan by Scott Smith (of The Ruins most recently). Finished off Little Brother. So many books to enjoy. ^_^ Little Brother was pretty good. Rather scary in a couple places. I've not been a big fan of the way privacy rights have been heading in this country. If you wanted a look at it, this book will definitely spook you a little.

Not had a whole lot of time for gaming of late. Ticket to Ride: the Card Game is pretty interesting. It's got a nice little mechanic and yet still has some definite similarities to the board game. Metal Gear Solid 4 has come out to tie up the Solid Snake story line, but I've not got a PS3, so I'll have to wonder. For that matter I never managed to play through the 3rd one, so I actually have a fair amount of catching up to do.

Father's Day was nice. Kids got me a card and some chocolate (the above mentioned Metal Gear Solid 3 is apparently shockingly difficult to come by at the moment. Who knew?). I'm ready for summer to be over. Oh wait... Hmm.

Learned a bit about wikis today. They are rather nifty. I always wanted to learn about them, but never really had the time/opportunity. It will be cool if we can get the library wiki to take off. Could be a good knowledge base.

Well, I'd best go contemplate downloading Firefox 3...

Round up

Picked up Wii Fit. Considering exercise is a pretty foreign concept to me, it's a decent workout. Hopefully I can keep myself motivated enough to use it. It does have a few "gamer" hooks - unlock new exercises (which is somewhat frustrating as you can't really build an exercise routine until you see what all is offered), competition (with yourself and others) and so on. It's a nice little package. That I'm sure will be improved immensely in version 2.0. (And I can't believe some of the ebay prices for this thing...)

Boom Blox by Spielberg and EA is a pretty fun little game as well. And Graeme is surprisingly good at it. Admittedly when it involves knocking things down or blowing things up, it's hard to beat a 3 year old boy. The girls get a kick out of it as well. Amazing thing this Wii. ^_^

Goose Girl by Shannon Hale is a wonderful little story. I'm not horribly familiar with the original fairy tale so in a lot of ways this was pretty fresh, but it's a good story either way. Give it a go if you like fairy tales or books with good stories.

There's a lot more I should ramble on about: Scott Pilgrim, Hellboy Volume 1 (the amazing library edition), Altered Carbon, the list goes on, but I think I'll leave it at those. Which isn't to say you got the top three or so, just the ones that were topmost in my consciousness.

It's still been an interesting couple of months. The new job is sort of settling in on me. It's still very different and I'm going to have to play with things to make it actually work as something that will support the family, but there are certainly some really nice aspects to it. Still lots of family drama. And still lots of adjusting to all the changes we've been through. But we're getting there.

I've been on a salsa making kick lately. I think I'll probably stop buying store bought salsa and just make my own for a while. It's a little time consuming but the results are so worth it. Next up is home made tortilla chips and home made ramen.

Have I mentioned Upgrade Your Life, the new book by the Lifehacker editor? I picked it up and there are some nice little tricks in there. It's been rather helpful with the new job as well. I need to be a lot more organized there than I'm used to. Heh.

It's-a Friday

Not that I can really tell anymore. Tomorrow night is the Video Games Live concert. Pretty excited about that, it should be lots of fun. Utah Symphony, video game music, set pieces, what's not to love? A big thanks to the letter 'r' for the tickets.

Waiting on word from the library. I hate waiting.

As tired as I am of the stress we've got going on, I am at least thankful that we don't have the added health problems my sister's family is going through. Our stress may be at a nice 8 or 9, but she's managed to dial things all the way to 11.

Brawl has left the house, but not the minds of the kids. All four of us. It's a good game. Can see why it's so popular.

We've borrowed a rather large bean bag for movie night tonight. It is actually quite large, not just rather large.

Seems as if there was a story that needed to be recorded here for whatever purpose, but of course I have completely forgotten it. Oh well. The perils of getting old I guess.

Happy Easter

Easter is once again here. Kids had a relatively grand morning. We managed to keep the sugar consumption fairly low so we had a grand morning as well. We did the annual Easter Egg Hunt yesterday, I suspect for the last time. The event has really outgrown the way it's been done. They get enough kids there now that they either need to resegment the age groups or they need to run it a few times. You wait for it to start for 15 minutes and then it's over in 30 seconds and if you have nice/timid kids they're lucky if they managed to grab an egg... Oh well.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl (or Brother Smashers if you're our kids) has taken over. It's grown on me quite a bit. I was horrible at the Gamecube version. I seem to have figured a few things out with this one. It's just a rental at the moment, but if the kids have any say, it'll find its way here somehow.

Caught Beowulf the other night. It was alright. Nothing to write home about, but certainly ok.

Well, must go entertain the natives. Happy Easter.

Words, words, words

Watched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead last night. Still quite the enjoyable show. Proof that Hamlet is still quite the piece of work and that Tom Stoppard is pretty spiffy himself. Friends from way back will most likely remember drawing up rules to the game Questions after viewing that sequence a time or two too many.

Speaking of games, picked up Alhambra, it looks to be lots of fun. Will let you know once it's out of the box and been taken for a spin or two. (Did I mention that San Juan is pretty good? Nice set of training wheels for Puerto Rico while still being quite enjoyable on its own.)

Mostly treading water waiting for Wednesday. Family gets into town on Tuesday, so that will provide all of 12 hours or so of distraction. But that will most likely involve a plumbing project so it might be quite the distraction. Heh.

Lovely wife and the girls are out in the snow selling Girl Scout cookies. Am terribly glad it's them and not me. True dedication. Or something else equally cliché.

Graeme has taken to calling the girls "my girls". Are my girls back from school yet? I want to play a game with my girls. I need to get a Graeme's Girls poster made using Charlie's Angels as the template. So wrong it's right I tell ya.

And a one and a two

Yes, two posts (ah ah ah).

I think I need to track down a copy of Alhambra. Went out to dinner the other evening with some friends (steak is yummy) and said game came up in conversation. Just after I was looking at it in the store with puppy dog eyes. A sign it is.

It's rather amazing how many little things can take up your day. I've always had respect for my better half for this sort of thing. It's gone up a fair amount these last few weeks.

I was watching the remake of Dawn of the Dead earlier. Partially because, hey zombie movie, and partially because the Reel Horror podcast covered the recent Day of the Dead remake. Vegan zombie indeed. You should track down that review if for no other reason than to hear the Stephen Hawking zombie. Really.

There are very strange cartoons on the Cartoon Network. That is all.

I believe I have succeeded in convincing Graeme that he is a dinosaur. That is also all. (While that might not be quite the feat that was turning Miranda into a zombie, this is a much more persistent change, so I think it gains a few more points.)

News (not really)

Well, it's been a while again. And a lot has happened in that time.

I think I'll avoid all the messy details. Mostly I wanted to get a few words up on the ol' blog again.

Daylight Savings Time is once again playing havoc with our home life. I'm not sure why this thing is still around. It hates us it does. And we hates it. Oh yes, we hates it with the passion of a thousand burning suns.

Games have been played, movies watched, trips taken, people seen. Some of those things were good. Some not so good. But even the not so good things had their moments. We got to see lots of family over the last little while and that was pretty good.

Due to circumstances (the aforementioned and then avoided messy details) I'm currently taking a long look at things and trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up and so on. The front runner is a librarian. We'll see if that pans out. I'd really like to get out of the tech sector but I have secret fears that it's not going to let me go. We shall see.

Gee, it's hard to do this when you're out of practice. And you have no desire to dissect your personal life in front of you lot. Heh. I suppose a lot of it comes down to the realization that some of the things I used to blether on about really don't compare to the things taking up so much of my time these days. But those things aren't something I feel like putting on display at the moment. So we shall wait for time to pass and then I can get back to musing on trivialities.

We shall see.

So I suppose I should pass you along to some other sector of the internet where you can find something of interest. Try here. It should be good for a few moments worth of diversion. If not, well, this is the internet. Sink or swim.

Take a breath

Well.

Yes.

Lost Cities is brief gaming brilliance. It's a two player card game that plays quickly and yet involves some decent strategy. Can you get those last few cards played before your opponent exhausts the draw pile? Do you feel lucky punk? Well do you? Surprising amount of tension in a deceptively simple mechanic. Snag a copy.

Penny Dreadful was just that. Dreadful. That movie should have ended when the trunk was closed the second time.

Read all the Jesse Stone novels as well as the Dexter novels. All recommended. Dexter in particular.

The kids are gearing up for Halloween and then it's a dinosaur birthday for wee Graeme. Looking forward to that.

Managed a game of Arkham Horror the other day. Lost and the world was devoured. Poor world.

Well hello there

This quarter's update brought to you by the number 3. As in yeah, three months. Huh. Who'da thunk?

So, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Great book. Nice ending to the series and all that. I'm sad to see it end, but what a way to go. There were some niggly bits, sure, but over all quite the ride. I'll not say too much here as it is still pretty new, but the wife and I both enjoyed it.

Ran through The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan as well. Nice little story. Makes you want to go read Greek Mythology. Speaking of which, I've managed to aquire a nice copy of Bulfinch's Mythology courtesy of some friends of ours in Colorado. Yay.

Saw the fifth HP movie. It did a good job of hitting the highlights from the book. Some good moments, some ok moments. Luna was an inspired casting choice. Absolutely perfect.

Have I mentioned that Hey! That's My Fish is a rather fun little game? Well it is. I'm looking at possibly snagging a copy of Runebound at the moment. I have a bit of a fantasy itch that I'm hoping that will scratch. Speaking at least indirectly of boardgames, Pulp Gamer is a pretty good podcast for those interested in games of the table top variety.

The latest episode of Escape Pod, Conversations With and About My Electric Toothbrush was quite amusing. One of the better stories in a while.

Gee, so many random things to cover, so little that actually matters. We had a lovely trip to Texas to see the folks. Got to shoot off lots of exciting fireworks. Saw the Star Wars exhibit at the Science Museum. That was pretty nifty. So many fun models and a hover chair/car thing to ride. Nice.

Now to go track down a copy of Behind the Mask.

Hey

Wow, it's been a while.

Saw Hot Fuzz and it was indeed enjoyable. I've no idea what else I've seen and read in the interim. Rest assured that it was great. Or it wasn't.

It's been so long I'm terribly rusty at this. Serves me right I suppose. I've run across a few new podcasts, most dealing with games of the board/card variety. Pulp Gamer and Have Games Will Travel are the notable ones. I rather enjoy Pulp Gamer.

Picked up Planet Puzzle League for the wife. She won't put it down which is a pretty good sign. And when she does I do my best to sneak off with it myself. I now see blocks that I have to shift around whenever I close my eyes. Yeah, it's a little maddening.

Anyway, must wander off. Shall attempt to update for real at some point in the not too distant future.

Friday

Managed to finish off Fragile Things. An enjoyable collection of short stories indeed. I really liked the American Gods novella, Monarch of the Glen and the poem, Instructions. Which, now that I think about it, I've probably mentioned far too many times.

It'll be on to World War Z next.

Tomorrow I'm planning on catching Hot Fuzz and I'm very excited about that. I loved Shaun of the Dead and figure this will be a fun take on the action genre.

The wife and I have become quite enamored of Ninja Warrior on G4. It's a weakness. But what can you do? Go Nagano!!!

On a slightly ninja related note, Mur Lafferty has the cover story over at The Escapist this week. Well, ok for another couple days at any rate. This might be a permanent link to the story. Go Cthuloids! And I shed a tear for the poor ninjas. They deserve their moment in the sun. Or shadows rather.

Picked up Super Paper Mario the other day. But I'm trying to be good and finish Zelda prior to starting it. Well in earnest at any rate. The initial level was quite good.

I really did have something else to mention here. Oh well. I think I'll go play some Gang of Four online. I'm dkun if you play.

Night Owl

I have no idea why I'm writing this. Other than it gives me something to do. That and I feel like I should be writing more. Got out of the habit there for quite a while.

I started thumbing through I'm Just Here for the Food 2.0. It's a fun and interesting book. It makes me want to spend money on cooking implements and then try (badly) to make interesting dishes. I like food. I even like making food (although I don't do it very often). The Food Network (and Alton Brown in particular) is rapidly becoming an overwhelming force in my life.

I managed to find a copy of Gang of Four. What a fun game. The in-laws were here recently and several nights were spent playing it. Fortunately it plays well with three people also as we rarely have four. The online version is nice as well. If nothing else I may be able to pick up some strategy there.

Well, I believe this is enough words to soothe the writing monkey on my back at the moment. While there's nothing profound here, it at least exists. And at the moment that's all that matters.

Couple reviews

Gil's All Fright Diner is good. The Departed isn't. What you want something a little more in depth? Ingrates.

Gil's All Fright Diner is a nice horror/comedy book. Take a little Lovecraft and mix in, well, not quite Pratchett, but almost someone along those lines and there you go. It's a blast to read and I found myself laughing out loud at several points.

The Departed just left a lot to be desired. Jack Nicholson was great, but that's about it. Well and Mark Wahlberg (have I mentioned that Shooter was good?). I will admit that a good deal of my "less than impressed" comes from having seen Infernal Affairs. So a lot of the tension was missing due to knowledge of the plot, but I don't think Scorsese did all that great a job of ratcheting it up in the first place. I could go on about a few other dislikes, but I don't really feel like giving this movie that much attention.

I do want to see Infernal Affairs 2 and 3 though...

This Film is Not Yet Rated was interesting, but I only sort of agreed with it.

I suspect World War Z is up to bat next, although I really need to finish Fragile Things.

And I'm sad that Gunslinger Girl seems to have wrapped up its run on IFC.

So that should tide you lot over for a bit. I suspect there's plenty to cover coming up. Who knows. There might even be cute kid stories. I'm working on Graeme's zombie and Godzilla impressions.

Crichton

So, I made myself finish Next by Michael Crichton. I'm not sure why I did that to myself. I used to like Crichton, his books could be counted on for some fun reading that blurred the lines between fiction and non-fiction. These days, you can still see some of the compelling writing style, but it's bogged down in far too much politics and agenda pushing. The best thing I can say about Next is that I really liked Gerard, the transgenic parrot. And honestly that's about it. I really didn't like most of the characters (and Crichton must not have either given half their fates) and there really wasn't a plot. The book was almost a series of essays. Which was certainly one of the biggest problems - far too many characters. Oh well. I'm not going to spend any more time talking about this book. It doesn't deserve it.

We picked up some Motorola phones for the house on clearance. They're very cool. That is all. (They have been named Odin and Loki for no good reason at all...)

At any rate, I may go watch Casino Royale as I snagged a copy this afternoon. I really wanted the cool poker chip Circuit City was offering but settled for the Aston Martin car Best Buy was doling out. Mostly because Best Buy was closer and I didn't know if Circuit City still had any left.

And I need to track down a copy of Gang of Four.

Squeak Squeak AAAAaaaa

This is awesome.

500

So, somehow this is post 500. And to celebrate I'm going to do absolutely nothing. But possibly waste some words. I should be out of town right now, possibly shooting some clay pigeons and other assorted acts of random and possibly not so violence.

Alas, the office had other plans. Gotta love deadlines and high priority projects.

Anyway. I would be more bitter, but that would take a little too much effort. So I shall instead look for a silver lining and enjoy the fact that at the moment the house is terribly quiet. Well except for the sounds of me fumbling around on the keyboard. So yes. Quiet. It's a rather nice quiet at the moment. An all too rare quiet. But it will morph later into that depressing, hey where is everybody quiet. Why no, I don't miss the wife and kids at all. Why do you ask? But they left the dog. Meanies.

At any rate, I can catch up on some reading, play through some more Prince of Persia and create some Mii friends. Or something. If luck is with me I may still end up out of town, but at the moment I'm not holding my breath.

So happy 500.

Everybody Votes

I've decided that Nintendo's online strategy has nothing to do with games. And you know what? I think they might be on to something. Every couple times that I turn the Wii on it has nothing to do with playing games. It has to do with checking the weather channel (OK, it's a couple hours old usually and more specific to SLC, but it's a guideline) or checking the headlines. I've kept up with the news more since the News Channel showed up than pretty much ever else in my life. And now we have the Everybody Votes channel. Sure it's quirky, but that's the point. It's fun. And people will vote. And vote on how they think the voting will go. And so on. Nintendo is building a sense of online community. And despite the friend code hurdles, it works.

I can send my sister photos. Especially photos that have been drawn on. I can trade trash talk with my friend over Zelda times. And I do. And that's not even getting into the whole Mii concept...

At any rate, the more time I spend with the Wii, the more impressed I become. Nintendo really does have a plan for this system and it's more than just games. And that's cool.

Alton Brown

So we got DirecTV about a month ago. Since then AMC is my new friend and the Food Network has pretty much taken up permanent residence as the channel du jour. And the main reason for that is Alton Brown. I find his shows (particularly Good Eats) to be fascinating and funny and several other words that feature fs. I suspect I'm going to have to hunt down a few of his books. If they're anything like his shows, then they'll be interesting to read in addition to full of yummy things. He's joined my list of people that I'd love to have dinner with some time.

Daughter number one has become enamored of Iron Chef America. Partially due to the aforementioned Alton, but mostly because of the concept of the show - making foods featuring some ingredient. I remember iteration one of the show (featuring William Shatner). Glad to see it's back in a rather improved manner.

I've been reading through Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. Always fun to read things by him. This collection (so far) doesn't disappoint. I really need a poster of the piece Instructions (which I thought I had bookmarked somewhere, but I can't seem to locate, so you'll have to track it down on your own (actually it's probably lost in the archives of this blog somewhere - poor thing)).

So many movies that I want to see, so few that I'll probably get around to seeing. I am terribly saddened that Norbit was number one at the box office this weekend. Words really fail to describe. For shame America. Seriously.

And you've probably seen it (it's made its way around the internet and back a few times by now) but I've finally become enamored of xkcd. I won't pretend to understand it all the time - math and I rarely get along - but I have enough nerd cred (geek cred will only get you so far with this comic) that the rest of the time it's hilarious. So check it out. And make sure you pay attention to the image rollover text, otherwise you're missing half the fun.

At any rate, the kids are now in bed and my wife is inexplicably watching a dog show. This situation must not remain unchecked...

Pranking through the internet

Pay no attention, not a real post. Mostly an attempt to help Neil Gaiman prank Penn Jillette.

Wii!

I don't think I've really spoken about Nintendo's new console yet. Other than to mention that the girls wandered over the house to look for it on Christmas. It's quite the little system. I've had fun making Miis of The Doctor from the new Dr. Who as well as assorted family members. Zelda is Zelda, so there's not much to say there. I think the big surprise at the moment is just how fun sports games can be. You've probably heard about Wii Sports, the pack-in game. And it's true that it's a lot of fun. We enjoy us some baseball and some bowling around here. But the big winner for me is Super Swing Golf. I've always enjoyed golf games, but they get a little old (and a little frustrating) at a certain point. Super Swing Golf has managed to hold onto the fun specifically because of the Wii. Using the controller as a golf club is brilliant. I could literally play this game all day.

The kids like Rayman Raving Rabbids which is a collection of mini games that utilize the wii-mote in various ways. Some of them are indeed pretty fun, but there are certainly some frustrating bits thrown in as well.

Just about wrapped up the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It's been fun. Looking forward to World War Z next. Ah the joys of the zombie...

virtual break

Have I rambled on about Ticket to Ride: Marklin yet? If not, I regret the oversight. It was the boardgame we picked up for the family this Christmas. And a rather enjoyable game it is. Apparently Days of Wonder has a design philosophy that entails simple instructions, set up and game play. Note that that does not mean simplistic - there's quite a bit of strategy involved. I will mention that the rules can be a little fuzzy, but the forums over at Days of Wonder help clarify any questions you might have.

Basically, you're claiming train routes in Germany in order to connect destinations that you've drawn. You can also send passengers over the routes you've set up. There's quite a bit of tension as every player cannot connect the same routes and as you try to link cities you may find yourself having to go the long way around. The game itself is rather pretty and the pieces are all high quality. (Although the point tokens that get placed on the cities could stand to be a bit bigger.) My wife and I have enjoyed several games against each other and it's been received pretty well by those we've introduced it to. If you like strategy board games (think Settlers of Catan and so on) then this one is a no brainer.

My wife would like me to point out that total chaos is going on in the background (which is why I chose the title I did - I was attempting to tune it out to no avail). I've no idea what we've been feeding the little monsters lately, but apparently we need to switch to moldy bread and stagnant water...

new year new clutter

So we're trying out a new ISP. Things seem to be working so far. Although I really hate updating e-mail addresses. And we also acquired DirecTV. Channels... <insert Homer drooling sound here>

Anyway, consider this a test post of sorts. It took me long enough to be able to move things around.

And a one, and a two

So, here we are, whole new year and all of that. We had a thoroughly enjoyable Christmas in Casa del D. The kids were sent on a scavenger hunt by Santa that culminated in the Nintendo Wii. They got quite the kick out of that. It's every bit as fun as you've heard, and I was pretty sore for those first couple days as my muscles got quite the workout from baseball and bowling and boxing and so on.

Night at the Museum was a lot of fun. The kids also got a kick out of that. We spent the hours leading up to the New Year last night watching Sci Fi channel's The Lost Room. Also an enjoyable show. Although the ending was a little weak.

Been reading some Anne Perry lately. Quite good. Reminds me a bit of Scotland.

Anyway, here's to a grand new year. Hope this finds you and yours well.

Snnrrrk

That's pretty much the sound that I make every five minutes due to the lovely sinus infection I'm sporting at the moment. And now that you have that lovely visual my work is done.

Okay, I'll stick around a bit longer. We caught Casino Royale the other day. Excellent movie. Best Bond movie in a long time and Daniel Craig rocked as much as I expected him to. Seriously. I had high expectations for this movie and it actually delivered. Nicely done Mr. Bond. Nicely done indeed.

Pirates 2: Dead Man's Chest was also enjoyable. And not nearly as cliffhanger-ish as everyone said. Have they not seen Empire Strikes Back or any other middle movie of a trilogy?

I think I've read a few things lately, but I've no idea what. I'm sneakily reading the Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks as it's technically a Christmas present. But who am I to let a little thing like that stop me? I'm also getting World War Z and that should be enjoyable as well. Fun stuff.

I'm pretty excited about Christmas this year. The kids are getting some fun things (the wooden train we got Graeme tops the list of things I'm excited to see them enjoy) and we managed to snag a Nintendo Wii. Camped out over night for that baby when it launched, but told my wife I'd save it for Christmas. It's killing me slowly, taunting me with its presence in the house. I really want to play some Wii Sports and some Zelda and... heh heh. Sorry about that.

Got Arkham Horror for my birthday. It's fun even though we have yet to actually finish a game. We came close once, but it grew too late. It is a pretty long game and rather difficult to win. It's been interesting playing a cooperative game though. And the Lovecraft overtones are nice. Good ol' Lovecraft. I need to snag a few books by him as well.

I managed to get John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise free from iTunes the other day. Great book. Terribly funny. And it features Jonathan Coulton, so big plus there as well. I've no idea if it's still free, but you should grab it if it is. (I'm looking at you Kit)

Well, I'm sure there's more to cover, it's been over a month after all, but I'm officially on Christmas break and hopped up on sinus meds, so no more random words for you.

*GASP*

Alright so this is technically *GASP* version two as the widget I'd been using seems to enjoy eating my posts as opposed to actually, you know, putting them online for you lot.

Normally I enjoy this time of year quite a bit. I manage to work shorter weeks due to accrued time off and I spend the time relaxing and enjoying the fall/winter. Not so much this year. We have a bear of a project going on at work and some family dramas that are interfering with my fall zen. Oh well, hopefully within a week or so at least some of that stress will no longer be a factor.

I've been reading David Sedaris and listening to essays by Mur Lafferty. Heck for that matter I've been listening to the This American Life podcast. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the essay form and this has pretty much cemented my love for it. If November has its cruel way I may even find myself popping a few homebrewed essays up here.

We seem to have been under some form of curse lately as we've attempted to see The Prestige ever since it came out. Hopefully tomorrow will remedy that problem. I've been looking forward to it for some time.

I submitted that Trout Lodge firework photo to a wallpaper site, so we'll see if it shows up over the next couple weeks.

Well, that should be enough of a breather to get me through the next few days/weeks. We'll see.

AAaaarrrgghh!

Post eaten. Widget trashed. Will attempt to re-create later. <sigh>

random noise

The Grudge 2 is an enjoyable flick. There's not much new there (if you've seen the original), but it still does a good job of presenting a creepy story in a disjointed fashion. That's probably the most interesting aspect - trying to figure out what's happening when and to whom. There are a couple pretty good eerie scenes, so all was worthwhile. Plus it had a trailer for The Messengers which looks incredible. Good ol' Pang Brothers.

I finished House of Leaves. Truly interesting book. Some genuine freakout moments and a narrative that is pretty unique. I certainly don't claim to understand all of it. Or probably even most of it. But it was fun to read and that counts for a lot.

Did I mention that I finally finished 1776 as well? Also a good read. It's a wonder we ever won the Revolutionary War...

Anyway, that'll do for some random bits from a life with far too much stress in it at the moment.

Just so you know

Not quite dead, but not posting either. Currently House of Leaves by Danielewski is taking up much of my time. Strange, strange book. But pretty interesting as well. And Clint Eastwood is probably my current favorite actor/director type guy. I've been watching some of his older stuff and it's brilliant. So there.

The Descent

This is just a quick post to say that The Descent is indeed a great, tense horror flick. Even my wife enjoyed this one. It plays out in not quite three acts each focusing on slightly different aspects. You have the initial character setup (with some really nice shock and mood building segments), the initial cave sequence that is quite tense in its own right, and the final everything's gone to hell arc. And for those of us on this side of the pond, YouTube has the original British ending of the film. I'm not certain which I like better, they're both powerful in their own ways.

At any rate, go give it a gander.

Thoughts on podcasts

So, Pseudopod has launched. Relatively decent first story. I've noticed that a lot of the podcasts I listen to tend to be rather focused: a couple short story podcasts, some roundtable type stuff on gaming/tech themes and so on. Which brings me to Geek Fu Action Grip. Geek Fu incorporates some of those things - Mur is currently wrapping up part one of her story Heaven, but it's a much more conversational podcast. It reminds me a bit of some of the tapes my friends and I used to send back and forth while I was in Scotland for a couple years.

It's rather different from the rest of the things I listen to. But in a nice change of pace sort of way. In a lot of ways it reminds me more of an audio blog than a typical podcast. But that's probably splitting hairs...

Picked up Castle Keep the other day. Fun little game. Nice amounts of strategy in a game that can be played fairly quickly. And once you get the basics they include some advanced rules that make sense and there are about 4 or so different game variations (including a solitaire option) that sound pretty good. And it was only $10. Really good value (and the pieces are very nice).

Odds and ends

Ju-on, the original Japanese film The Grudge was based on was fun to watch. Still a creepy story although it was robbed of some of the chills due to knowing the plot. There were a couple twists that didn't make it into the remake that I thought should have.

Insomnia was interesting but rather different from what I expected. It ended about as well as could be expected. Didn't realize that this was also a remake.

Caught the end of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly the other night. I love Clint Eastwood Westerns. High Plains Drifter is probably my favorite, but they're all good...

Snagged Michael Palin's Sahara from the library today on CD. We'll see how that is. I suspect it'll be interesting. I remember thinking Palin has a rather nice narrative voice. He apparently has a whole series of travel related books/shows.

Quick catch up

Seems like there are a few movies that we've seen recently that I should comment on.

Caché was interesting until they decided to run the closing credits without bothering to finish the movie. I suppose I should probably mark this as spoiler-ish, but when you have to watch the interview with the director for the movie to make sense, that's a bad thing. I don't mind movies that make you think. I don't mind movies that are open ended. But Caché simply didn't have an ending. It was a mess. Which is a shame as I really liked aspects of it. This film does an excellent job of ratcheting tension. At almost the exact moment when you start to get frustrated with the way things are going, the movie delivers an absolutely shocking sequence. Truly well done and it gets you right back into the thick of things. Unfortunately it's squandered.

The Greatest Game Ever Played wants to be Searching for Bobby Fischer only for golf. It mostly succeeds. It's a nice movie and you feel good by the end and there are some nice camera shots.

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days was recommended by a friend and was pretty good. I was lured in by the love fern and that was admittedly my favorite bit. Matthew McConaughey is becoming a favorite actor and Kate Hudson is growing on me quite a bit as well. And boy is she starting to look like her Mom...

Which leaves us with Infernal Affairs. The more I think about this movie the more I like it. Excellent, excellent crime drama. They're remaking it here in the states as The Departed and I'm not sure why. The link takes you to the trailer and it makes me cry a little inside, which is strange. When I first heard Damon and DiCaprio I was pretty skeptical. I like Damon and figured he'd do a good job, but they didn't cast him in the part I thought they would and I still don't see DiCaprio in the undercover cop role. The rest of the cast is pretty amazing (Nicholson is an inspired choice) but it seems Scorsese just couldn't keep from monkeying with a story that worked. Infernal Affairs is a taut, tension building crime drama, also featuring an excellent cast. There are a few mistakes (mostly revolving around the female cast and their underuse or not really needing to be there in the first place) but overall a great show. Scorsese seems to think we need more characters, more plot and more sex... Stupid, stupid, stupid.

I don't suppose I have a problem with remakes in general, but I don't really think they're necessary. The only really positive thing they do is draw attention to something you might otherwise miss. Fortunately it's becoming easier to track down some of the original films. I have a sneaking suspicion that The Departed won't nearly match up to Infernal Affairs.

And finally, I have no idea what to make of this.

I was a . . .

Ok, so here's one of the little quirks of married life. Every so often the dreaming world decides to take a day trip to the waking world and wreak a little havoc. Initially you have odd dreams involving your new spouse and your new relationship and some facet thereof (typically fidelity or lack thereof, or some aspect of personality that was only discovered upon actually living together) and you find yourself waking up mad as all get out at him or her. It happens. At first you might take it out on them for a bit till the whole it was a dream thing kicks in and then you feel silly and have a story for later.

You don't ever completely grow out of this, but sometimes, after you've been together for a while, it gets stranger. Take last night for example. This afternoon my wife informs me that she had the oddest dream about me last night. First a little background: For those not in the know, I've been playing through Resident Evil 4 of late. I do my best to keep it away from the kids, but they occasionally get curious and I occasionally play it before they go to bed. Last night they decided to "play" RE 4 at bedtime. This mostly involved one of them saying something like, "Leon help!" and the other pretending to rescue them. When Miranda tired of the game she came downstairs and informed us that McKenna wouldn't get out of her bed. She then launched into a fairly accurate retelling of the bit of RE 4 that I'd played through that afternoon. In spite of the fact that she and her sister had been warned several times not to come downstairs. I tried to keep from laughing while my wife gave me The Look (admittedly on one of it's weaker settings).

Ok so I suspect that was at least partially responsible for the dream she had. That or watching Clerks but I'm pretty sure it was the first thing. Anyway, in this dream my friend the letter 'r' and I were playing RE 4. And oddly we had a gun controller that we used to do the shooting in the game (which was kept under the bed so as to keep it away from the kids). The letter 'r' made some comment about the fact that I was actually a pretty good shot. I then made a joke about the recent target shooting we'd done at Trout Lodge. Then we both "laughed knowingly". You know, that fake little laughter like we have a secret. At this point my wife decided to head for bed and leave us to our carnage.

Once she arrived upstairs she noticed a gun under the bed. A rifle or "AK-47" or something (she was very specific about this when telling me her dream). But this was confusing, after all weren't we already downstairs playing the game with the controller? Closer inspection revealed that the gun under the bed was a real rifle. This caused a "Confrontation". I believe at this point that the letter 'r' was no longer in the dreamscape. Instead my wife confronted me about the real gun in the house. There was a slap and some tearful exclamations about kids and loaded guns and so on. And then painful understanding. She looked at me and said (with all seriousness), "Why didn't you tell me you were a zombie hitman?!" At this point, my secret out in the open, there was more yelling and tears. "People call you up and you go and kill zombies!", "What do you mean you don't really wear glasses?!", "Your day job is just a cover!" and so on. I tried my best to console her, but she would have none of it.

It was at this moment that something woke my wife, the end of the dream, some random noise, who knows. Fortunately we've been in this territory enough that she managed to calm down before throttling me in bed for living a secret life bringing the undead back to their maker. Although she did almost wake me then to share the joke. I must admit we had a pretty good laugh about it. Of course, I'll now have to kill her in her sleep tonight for knowing too much, but sometimes that's the price you pay...

Random thoughts from a tired mind

There was a really nice rain/thunder storm earlier. Although I'm not entirely convinced that one or two claps of thunder quite qualify it as a thunderstorm. But still rain = good. And a nice break from the heat we've had the past few days. Look at me all talking about the weather. Aren't I all grown up and irrelevant... Don't answer that.

Ran across another couple trailers for movies that seem quite intriguing. I believe the first was called 13 Tzameti while the other was for The Woods (featuring Bruce Campbell in a rare dramatic role!). On a completely unrelated note (except for the Bruce Campbell tie in) Brisco County Jr. and Jack of All Trades both came out on DVD today I believe. Groovy.

I'm about to wrap up the China Mieville short story collection Looking for Jake. It was quite good. Highly recommended. Now if I can just finish 1776...

Weekend Begins

Go. Watch. Become excited. Curse the fact that it's not Fall yet.

Seriously though, The Prestige is looking quite good. I'm also rooting for Danny Boyle's new flick Sunshine. And the new Pang Brothers' movie and... heh heh, well you get the idea.

I'm glad it's Friday. I'm also glad that tonight will involve a BBQ and some bratwurst. Mmmmm bratwurst. I also picked up The Matador for some weekend movie fun. Couple that with some zombie shooting and you have yourselves a Good Time.

The relatively recent Escape Pod (episode 61) was rather amusing. Mostly for incidental reasons that involved a minor plot point of the story (Ranma 1/2). The story is a bit adult in nature, but amusing nonetheless. The episode also referenced a couple other podcasts that I now feel compelled to check out. More on them as necessary.

Well at this point I'm rambling, but I felt the need to get some new text up on the page. Although I still really like that firework shot.

Not With a Bang

Firework
Originally uploaded by dkun.

And we're back. This was the best firework photo I managed to snap while on vacation. There are a few others over at my Flickr site, plus a couple of the lake. It was a good trip. I must admit better than I expected it to be. I got the chance to do some sailing - they had little single person sail boats that you could take out on the lake. I think I managed at least one outing a day while I was there. I've always wanted to learn to sail and this just cemented that desire. There's something great about being out on the water letting the wind push you around. (Well ok, technically you're supposed to be using the wind to go somewhere, but work with me here. Besides, since I had next to no idea what I was doing, the first description is a little more accurate.) I may have to look into getting a boat.

Trout Lodge had quite the range of activities - there was almost always something to do or somewhere to go. We did a little archery, a little .22 target shooting, some lounging around the water, hayrack ride, and so on. And the cabins were pretty nice so that was a plus.

Got to show off the great-grandkids to my grandparents. They got a kick out of that. I'm just glad we got the chance to let them see them. Not sure if we'll get another chance to do that. Plus I got to catch up with my Uncle Paul, it's been far too long since we've gotten together. Here's the Colbert D&D video as a nod to the fact that he introduced me to the game.

At any rate it's now back to the grind... Must find a way to make a living just sailing around.

In and out

Managed to finish Zelda: Wind Waker. Fun game. The girls were suitably impressed. McKenna wanted to know when I was going to play it again. I said not for a while. I now understand why Zelda games are popular. It took me a bit to get into this one, but by the end I was a little sad to see it go. I might have to pick up the new one for the Wii.

Seems like I've seen some movies since I last posted, but I've no idea what they might have been. My wife and I did watch Clash of the Titans the other night. That movie actually holds up pretty well. I remember my Mom walking out of it with the girls, and Dad and I staying when we saw it in the theater.

Have I mentioned that Vivaldi's Four Seasons (especially the Winter section) is a truly amazing piece of music? If not, consider it mentioned. If so, consider it seconded.

I suppose I should put a photo of something cute up to distract you all for a while. But I have no cute photos so do a google image search for "cute" or something. I take absolutely no responsibility for whatever comes up from that.

At any rate, my eyes feel like they've been sanded down with large grit sandpaper so I think I'll be off.

Pulse and other odds and ends

Caught the original Japanese version of Pulse. I suspect this may be one of the few instances where the remake is better. The original was interesting and had a few good horror moments, but the pacing and length killed it. I don't mind slow movies (in fact several of my favorites tend to fall into that category), but the tension that this film tried to build was destroyed by the movie's glacial pace. Which is a shame, because as mentioned, it was actually pretty interesting. The set piece of the film with the plane was definitely worth it though. Amazing shot... Reminded me a bit of The Eye.

Wedding Crashers was also too long. I suspect Hollywood needs to be reminded that there's a time and place for the 1 1/2 hour movie. And the romantic comedy is certainly the place. Vince Vaughn was quite good though, as was Owen Wilson.

So, the bachelor days draw to a close. I suspect I got enough movie watching in...

Heard about The Horror Blog the other day. Haven't really had a chance to check it out, but it looks promising. I suspect I should give up all pretenses and turn this blog into horror movie reviews and game ramblings, but then you'd miss out on the cute kid stories. That and I'd have to convince my wife to start sitting through a lot more horror movies. Hmm...

Actually I've been meaning to post some random thoughts on horror movies again dealing with the current trend towards gore (not a good one in my opinion, in fact I'd classify gore flicks as a separate genre (or at least sub-genre) from horror movies) and the use of classical music in horror movie soundtracks (and why it works so well). But you'll have to wait for that. Maybe you can come up with your own thesis on the above topics and save me the job.

Oh, and I hate my lawn mower. It's out to get me I swear. Stupid gas leak...

<Unintelligible moan>

So the Zombie Weekend O' Fun is over. All I can say is Romero is cool. Dawn of the Dead and Land of the Dead are actually pretty good films. I'm glad we tracked down the Romero version of Dawn - totally worth it. And of course, Shaun of the Dead is still terribly funny and spooky and all of that. And I managed to catch a couple more jokes this go round as I've seen some of the Romero movies now. "We're coming to get you Barbara!" Hee hee...

Geist is an intriguing little game on the Gamecube. Borrowed it from a coworker and have been enjoying it.

I've snagged Pulse and Wedding Crashers, so we'll see what they're like...

Anyway, I suspect that's enough for this quick burst of blogging goodness.

Weekend o' Zombies

Well, my better half is out of town with the kids for a wedding. So what better way to spend the time than zombie movies and video games? None I say.

Tonight will most likely be Dawn of the Dead (The Romero version) and tomorrow will contain Shaun of the Dead and Land of the Dead.

I caught The Tailor of Panama and Brotherhood of the Wolf over the last couple nights. The former is one of those movies that you hope never happens, but you suspect might, while the latter is an interesting flight of fancy. I really enjoyed the story in Brotherhood.

At any rate, I would apologize for not updating with any sort of regularity, but that would imply that I felt bad about it (well maybe a little) and wouldn't really put you through it again (of course I will). So I won't.

I'm not dead yet

Although I felt pretty close. The stomach flu marched through the family last week and my turn was around Wednesday. And then the house building project down the street cut through the internet cable so we had no internet from about Thursday through today. That was fun.

The girls are getting into The Legend of Zelda, the Wind Waker. I find it rather amusing personally. The game certainly picked up there for a little bit. Although I suspect vast stretches of what do I do next coming up...

Well, you'd think I'd have something to ramble on about but such isn't really the case. Picked up Vivaldi's The Four Seasons on cd the other day as well as some Yo-Yo Ma. I like the cello. And The Four Seasons ranks up there with my favorite pieces of classical music. Especially the Winter section.

Giddiness sets in

So the company party was today. They held it at Wheeler Farm, so the kids got to milk a cow and take a tractor ride and so on. We had a bit of rain at the beginning, but then things settled down. I must admit, the rain didn't seem to bother me too much as I managed to win a 30GB iPod video. squee!

ahem

Ok, I'm better now. But yeah, totally awesome. Mom was having flashbacks to one of the old company parties we had growing up when my Dad worked at Manville. Back then it was a mini arcade cabinet style Pac Man video game. I will admit that there were probably similarities in the grins I had at either occasion...

At any rate, it was a good day.

Incoming transmission

Ok, so it's been a while, but then again, I've been pretty busy. Dad had to leave early, so we're down to just one house guest. Then it's a week off and then the wife and kids take off for a week. Such a busy time of year.

Had a pretty good weekend although my house is not equipped to handle 17 visitors at once. If it weren't a family event I would have found some way to take off from that mass of people yearning to breathe free... Especially considering the fact that it's starting to get hot out here.

Did a few more chores around the house. Got rid of an accordion door in preparation for putting in hard floors next year. Swapped out the old flat cable from the TV antenna to the TV in favor of coax. Other odds and ends.

Anyway, nothing of real import to pass along. Had dinner at Tepanyaki last night. Had the filet mignon and shrimp. It was like meat butter. So tasty. You'd think I'd have some kid stories to pass along or something but that's not really the case.

Of course, I could start venting about Gibbs quitting NCIS last night, but then I'd get all riled up again.

E3

Well, E3 is in full swing again. The big three (Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo this go around) have had their press conferences. Sounds like it's a toss up between Nintendo and Microsoft as to who had the best conference. I come down on Nintendo's side as the offerings Microsoft had out really don't interest me much. Don't care about Halo 3 or a new GTA game. I am terribly excited to get my hands on the Wii though. Here's a link to some more video footage of some of the games and people playing them.

In other news, we've managed to get the flower beds cleaned up and blooming. And we now own a rather pretty fuschia plant courtesy of the in-laws. An early Father's Day gift I believe. I may try to pass a picture of it along.

And tomorrow is my Friday. Woo hoo!

The folly humor of youth

You can tell your kids are a little excited to see the grandparents when they get up shortly after 6 AM to accomplish said fact. My wife managed to get them to go back to their room for a bit and told them they couldn't come out until 7. A few minutes later they peeked out of their room and asked, "What time is it in your room?" Apparently while it was still before 7 in theirs, ours must lie on the other side of some time zone that would allow them to escape...

Long days

Well, the arrival of family is imminent. My wife's folks this evening and then mine next week. McKenna had her party today. Took some friends to lunch and then went and saw Hoot. Cute show. Won't win any awards, but it was fun. McKenna liked the owls. One of the girls at the party liked the boy. I'll take her interest in the owls thanks...

It's been a long week. Cinco de Mayo yesterday. I got to spend most of it at work. Some higher-up decided that we needed to do an extra run of the main journals database we produce. And as my compatriot was out of town, that meant I had the joyous task of going in late to QA it. Was a truly wonderful experience let me tell you.

Today was free comic book day. The comic book shop down the road apparently closed down sometime this past year. So no free comic books for us. McKenna was rather sad about that. We picked her up a copy of Pikmin 2 for her birthday. It's a pretty fun game. I remember reading somewhere that the guy that created it was inspired by watching his garden. After playing the game a bit I can see the resemblance. It's a pretty interesting game. Cute on the surface, red in tooth and claw a couple layers down. Good ol' Mother Nature. McKenna has enjoyed ordering the Pikmin around.

Anyway, I'm sure there are other things I should go on about, but I can't think of them. So have a great weekend.

Final Fantasy

So Final Fantasy VII Advent Children came out last week. This was pretty much the movie that everyone wanted Spirits Within to be. Not a lot of plot, but a lot of pretty cool fight scenes. The animation technology has improved since then as well. Definitely a pretty movie and certainly some fun bits.

As I came late to the whole console scene, I will have to admit to Final Fantasy VII as probably my first real console RPG. So there is a bit of a special place in my heart for it. McKenna watched most of the movie with us and insisted that I play the game the next day so she could see where the movie came from. That was rather amusing. My wife just rolled her eyes a lot and made sure that I knew that playing VII wasn't allowed to take over playing Tales. Gee, two different family members interested in two RPGs. I'm not entirely certain that some sort of pod person invasion hasn't taken place. That or I've walked into a Talking Heads song...

Finished off The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Great book. I believe I've become a Le Carré fan. After The Tailor of Panama I'll let you know for sure. It's just refreshing to read spy novels that don't revolve around supermen that never make mistakes.

Family coming into town over the next couple weeks. My wife's family this weekend and my folks the weekend after. It's going to be pretty busy around here.

Anyone want to come and mow my lawn for me this summer? Anyone?

Nintendo news

So the big news of the day is that Nintendo announced the official name of their new console. The code name was Revolution. The official name is Wii (pronounced we). You can hit the site for a brief video and description behind the name. I rather like the logo. The name will take a bit of getting used to. My wife's first thought was that it was stupid. The internet is buzzing with comments in a similar vein. But then the internet isn't really known for its kindness... It'll live.

Seems like there was something else I meant to mention here. I, of course, have no idea what it was. My memory certainly hasn't been all that spectacular lately.

PF Chang's has some sort of spicy wonton on their menu at the moment. It's quite nice. We had dinner there last night with my sister and her husband and some of his family. Good food. Good company.

Awards and intrigue

Community service award
Originally uploaded by dkun.

So, here's some photographic proof of the bit of news I mentioned the other day. Last night at the City Council meeting the mayor presented me with a community service award for the hours I've put in at the library for the last several weeks. Or is it months now? I honestly can't remember.

I got a call from the library director the other day asking my family and I to come to the meeting for the presentation. I was a bit shocked actually. My wife was amused and thought it was pretty neat. The girls of course were terribly impressed. Heh...

At any rate, the moment is gone and I can go back to relative anonymity now.

As for intrigue, we watched The Constant Gardener the other day. I found it quite compelling. My wife and the letter 'r' weren't as impressed, but I suspect that had more to do with a slight bit of misrepresentation. They were expecting James Bond/Jason Bourne spy movie and couldn't make the jump to political intrigue movie. There are a lot of nice little touches throughout the movie that reward careful attention though. As mentioned I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it readily.

I find it interesting that Le Carré was actually in the British Foreign Service for a while. I'm currently reading The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. I may have found a new author to enjoy.

Silent Horror

I posted, probably over a year ago, on the topic of horror. I covered a few movies, a few games, maybe a book or two. I've certainly mentioned it in the intervening time. Horror is a topic that I rarely grow tired of talking or thinking about. So I was pretty excited to go see the Silent Hill movie. I doubt too many of you will be terribly interested in the movie, but if you haven't seen it and you want to, I'll label this post as more than likely full of spoilers. So there you go, consider yourselves warned.

In the video game world there are really only a couple of camps when it comes to the horror genre (or survival horror for you purists). The Resident Evil side and the Silent Hill side. RE is famous for zombies, tense jump moments, lots of back-tracking, odd puzzles and a sense of tension often created by limited inventory just as much as creepy environs. If memory serves, RE pretty much fathered the genre. Most people appreciated the first one, cheesy dialogue and all. The subsequent sequels tended to find less and less favor until the RE 4 which is credited with breathing new life into the franchise much like Batman Begins saved the dark knight.

While Resident Evil was on the wane, a new franchise was born: Silent Hill. It featured a normal guy looking for his daughter in a town covered in fog. A town that was not safe. A town that every so often, after warning given by an air raid siren, turned into something darker. Deadlier. If RE was about visceral chills, Silent Hill went for a cerebral scare. Which isn't to say that it ignored jump moments or gore, it certainly featured both, but it focused on a sense of suspense and creating an air of "what the hell is happening here?"

Creatures born of nightmare (and possibly a Giger painting) roamed these worlds. Seemingly innocent places would turn sinister in the blink of an eye. Just the demo of the first game was enough to give me nightmares. Which cemented its place in my heart. Here was a game that I could enjoy - a game that would scare me. I've since played the first two and would really love to play three and four. Honestly the second is a much better game, but I have a little more nostalgia for the first one.

Which brings us to the movie. I honestly have a hard time deciding if I liked it or not. There was certainly potential to make an amazing horror film - a town that seems to draw cursed souls to it and dispense its own sense of justice. A town that is never quite the same for anyone that visits. A town that is home to pure evil. What's not to like? I think the movie would have fared better had it not tried to mirror the games so closely. It basically retells the first game, while allowing bits of the second to creep in. A good way to allow fans of the games to get some enjoyment as they see bits from the games made "real", but not a good way to draw in casual viewers.

And there were some really odd pacing choices. The first three quarters of the movie really only contain enough story for about the first act (if that) of a normal film. The time is instead spent walking viewers through sequences of the game. All the high points are hit - the school, the church, the hotel (2nd game), the hospital. It isn't until the end that the film actually starts explaning things and giving the viewer a sense of what's actually going on. Now to be fair there is some of that in the game as well, but in a game you're participating. Story telling tends to take a back seat to the experience. Film doesn't work that way.

So what to make of Silent Hill the film? First it looks amazing. The transition sequences as the town changes are inspired. Definitely the high point. The plot (such as it was) is a little on the lacking side. Which is at least partly due to the fact that it's following the first game. The second game had a much stronger plot and the world of Silent Hill really started to make sense. The first game was more an exercise in setting things up and creating something unique. The music was great if you played the games as most of it came from there. I've always liked the music in the games so that was a nice touch. The acting was fine. Nothing outstanding, but I've certainly seen worse. It gets quite gory at the end and actually starts to channel Hellraiser a little more than Silent Hill. There are some disturbing acts and images. Which certainly keeps with some of the themes of the game, but they made a couple odd character and plot choices that are jarring if you're a fan of the game. I suspect regular viewers were just plain shocked as opposed to shocked and confused. The ending was nicely done. The proper amount of head scratching and ambiguity. I'm glad they didn't Hollywood-ize it.

So, some good potential that wasn't completely realized, but wasn't completely wasted either. If you've played the games, you're going to get more out of the film. That much is a given. If you haven't you'll probably spend more time wondering why this was made and who plays this kind of stuff. Which is actually pretty normal, so that's not all that big a surprise. Admittedly, we gamers are a rather strange bunch on occasion. I guess the best thing that can be said is this is definitely not the worst video game adaptation out there. Unfortunately it's also not the video game movie we've all been waiting for either. The sequel (if there is one) could be though. If they are willing to spend the time creating something new for the world of Silent Hill. I'm certainly more than willing to visit again.

Mental exercise

Picked up Brain Age for the DS. Not so much a game as a set of mental exercises, Brain Age calculates your mental age and then helps you train up those flabby mental muscles through a series of timed, graded puzzles. My wife and I find it rather compelling. The cartridge allows you to store up to 4 user profiles and the game will let you know how you're doing against the other people stored there.

Just got a rather strange phone call that will probably result in a rather amusing photo for next week. You'll just have to wonder.

My wife is watching Smallville in the background and the only thing I can say is that someone has watched Saw a few too many times. Eeesh.

Well, here's to hoping I can get to Silent Hill tomorrow, work is doing its best to get in the way.

Catch up

Let's see, King Kong was far too long. I can appreciate that it was well done, and there were some good bits, but that movie needed to be cut in half. Three hours indeed...

Narnia is still excellent and McKenna was just a little excited that it was waiting by the Easter baskets on Sunday. I think the screams of glee were our first indication that the gift was appreciated.

Shut the Box is a fun little game based around numbers and chance. I picked it up to help McKenna some with her math and it turns out that my wife's family had a copy while she was growing up. Serendipitous...

There's an entire saga growing around our attempts to purchase a new stove, but I don't quite have the energy to go into that. Suffice to say, the stove has been purchased, after much frustration it should be showing up tomorrow and there were discounts truly earned. RC Willey lost some customer points from us this time around.

Hmm, I know there were other things I meant to mention here, but I seriously don't know what they were. Silent Hill comes out this weekend, and I don't care how bad it is, it will be great. I can't wait to go see that one. It's been an immensely long week already. This makes me truly sad. Oh well...

Oh, I know what the other things I meant to mention were. Oddly enough I've managed to get some reading in. Y The Last Man is a comic book series that started back in 2002. It comes out monthly I believe and is slated to run about 60 issues. They collect every five or so and release them as graphic novels. Our local library had the first three. It's an interesting take on the last man on Earth scenario. I've enjoyed it so far and would like to see more. Will have to track them down.

And I'm currently reading a collection of essays by Sarah Vowell. Pretty enjoyable. She's a good writer. Also recommended.

Burn baby burn

So. I broke down and threw together a cd of Graeme. I leave it to my wife to send off or not. While it's certainly an amusing little movie, I'm not certain I have any real desire to see Graeme on national TV. It's more fun to leave it a pipe dream.

Anyway, the week is half over. This weekend will involve some serious shopping. I think it's finally time we get ourselves a new stove. I've pretty much had it with the one we've got. One burner only works when it's in the mood and a couple of the other burners are obviously thinking of following suit. It's pretty frustrating.

It's-a Monday

So, first things first, I totally rocked my way through Hard mode in Guitar Hero. Bark at the Moon? Oh yeah. And by rocked, I mean scraped through by the skin of my teeth. Let's just say that power bar you can build up comes in handy. I have managed to make it through the first ten songs on Expert though, so my shattered ego was placated a little.

Rumor has it that Coinstar machines are going to start spitting out e-credits for the iTunes music store. Loose change is no longer safe... Perfect Situations by Weezer and 99 Red Balloons by Goldfinger will be mine. I don't care how many couches I need to raid...

And the lawn mowing is imminent. I broke down and changed the oil this afternoon in that treacherous beast that is my lawn mower. I proceeded to start it up on the first pull. An ominous sign. It's taunting me. I can tell. The back yard at least looks presentable again. Fortunately the front really didn't need to be mowed.

Apparently America's Funniest Videos does take digital files. I still have the movie of Graeme dancing around on the desktop. I may have to burn it to cd and send it in.

And in fluff related news, I scored an Exceeds Expectations on the level 1 W.O.M.B.A.T.s over at Rowling's Harry Potter site. Ha! Err, I mean, not that I care or anything.

Dancin' Fool

Graeme loves music. And loves to dance to it. We managed to get some video footage of him dancing around and it is quite awesome. If I had a way of posting it for you guys to see, I'd contemplate trying. Instead you'll just have to live with the partial knowledge that he's quite the dancer.

Which offers a bit of a segue into how nice iMovie is. I think the whole process of getting a few movie clips with the camera and then getting them onto the computer and turning it into a short movie with a couple titles took all of 10 minutes. Maybe. I love the Mac...

My wife is off torturing the kids by taking them to see the Easter Bunny. I expect shots of Graeme crying and the girls standing there looking bored. But I could be wrong.

Anyway, have a great weekend.

Oh, Guitar Hero update. I only have Bark at the Moon left on Hard. Some day I'll make it through!

Technology

So we're going to join this technological age of ours by using the computer to take care of a few things. Such fun.

The weather can't make up its mind as to whether it should be raining or snowing. So it's (of course) doing both. Such lovely weather. And on top of that it's playing hell with my sinuses. Stupid rapid temperature changes.

The letter 'r' is off to see the cherry blossoms in D.C. That would be fun. Hopefully there will be some nice pictures at the end. I told him to try some Sakura Mochi. We'll see if he's brave enough.

Is it the weekend yet?

Long day

Carpooling can be quite nice, but when your carpool partner has to stick around for a while, it can be pretty maddening as well. Managed to snag the fancy 2 disc Narnia set. It's a little disturbing that stores are starting to charge a bit more for those sets that initial week. Used to be you could pick them up pretty cheap. Maybe a touch more than the plain vanilla release (assuming one came out at the same time) but not as bad as about twice that price. Of course, I'm a sucker for the special edition so there wasn't really a question around whether I'd pick it up or not.

I forget where I left off yesterday. I think I was rambling about Montaigne and essays and blogs and English classes. Honestly I'm probably better off letting that particular train of thought derail. It is a bit interesting to muse on though.

Borrowed a copy of the Mac OS X Missing Manual by David Pogue. It looks to be a pretty good reference book. Will probably have to snag a copy for myself. I know I need to grab one for the iLife suite. I have no idea how you're supposed to puzzle through the workings of Garage Band. I don't remember too much difficulty with iMovie or iDVD, but it would be nice to get a bit more out of them.

At any rate, I'm home for the evening, there's some TV to be watched and some Tales of Symphonia to be played.

Beginning of the week

So the devil arrived in the form of Daylight Savings Time. There are occasions I wish it would go away. Any time during the summer in which we try o put a child to bed and it's still very bright out for instance.

Currently playing beat the clock against software update, so if this post seems oddly disjointed, I blame the update.

It was a pretty quiet weekend actually. Which is nice on occasion. Found out today that one of my favorite teachers from High School is getting ready to retire. That's a little crazy. I'll have to drop her a line and thank her for being a good influence. Or at least inspiring me to go for an English degree. Of course, the flip side to that is the complete impracticality of the English degree that doesn't lead to a teaching position, but we'll ignore that.

I wonder how blogging will impact English classes in the future. A guy I worked with for a while was going to use them (or at least make reference to them) in some of the English classes he was responsible for. They remind me (blogs that is) of the essay form. Montaigne was always a favorite of mine. Not that much of his influence makes itself known here. I should go back through some of his work again...

Coulton

Jonathan Coulton is rapidly becoming my favorite new musical artist. Last week's free mp3, RE: Your Brains was brilliant and this week's sounds like it might be pretty good as well. And I pushed Skullcrusher Mountain a couple weeks ago. At any rate, if you haven't listened to his stuff yet (I'm looking at you Kit) you really should. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Testing part 2

So the Google Blogger widget is freaking out on me. Trying out a new one. We'll see...

Quick Miranda story

Miranda has been under the weather pretty much the whole week. Sore throat, mild fever, pretty worn out. Doctor Amazing at first thought strep (tests came back negative) and then mono (again negative - and where would a 4 year old get mono anyway?) and is now considering other possibilities I suppose. Anyway, the story part follows - my wife was keeping an eye on her today while she was resting on the couch. At one point she looked up and said, "I've rested a lot this week, I need to do some exercises." So she got up and touched her toes 3 times or so. Then she looked up and said, "Ok, that's enough, I'm tired." And she proceeded to lay back down. Sounds about right to me...

Gamecube Easter Egg

Ran across the alternate startup sounds for the Gamecube. Apparently if you hold the Z button on either 1 or 4 controllers, you get an alternate sound sequence. That wacky Nintendo...

My wife and I have started trekking through Tales of Symphonia again. Sadly we started it back in 2004. I suspect we'll get through it by 2010... I only wish I were kidding.

Watched Mirrormask and Flightplan over the weekend. Mirrormask was pretty good. I was worried that Dave McKean's art would be a little too strange, but it was better than I expected. I'm not a huge fan of his, but in the context of the movie it worked surprisingly well. It's certainly different, but different can be good. It's very much an art film, but there's an alright little story at the core of it. It doesn't always make a ton of sense, but then what dreams do?

Flightplan, however, was horrid. Admittedly, I wasn't expecting much from it and it delivered. Gaping plot holes, a story that for the most part crept along and just general mind-numbing-ness. Keep walking past this one.

To give Jodie Foster some credit, her new one - Inside Man looks good...

A couple quick links

Fun with juggling.

And fun with reflexes.

Seems like I meant to put something else in here this afternoon, but alas, it has escaped my poor work week frazzled mind. Not that it was difficult mind you.

At any rate, have a great weekend.

GDC

So, the Game Developer's Conference is going on at the moment and today was Nintendo's keynote. Not much in the way of shiny new information, but some things of interest. Head over to Go Nintendo or Game|Life for details. They do have some bits about the new Brain Age game mental workout coming out in April and how Nintendo plans on applying that sort of theory to the Revolution and the DS. It should broaden their appeal quite a bit. I'm planning on picking up a copy for my wife. (Ok and myself as well...)

Other than that, I'm not sure there's much of interest going on.

Barbarian bits

So we watched Conan the Barbarian the other night. And while I have reasons why, none of them are that spectacular. A rather silly movie. My wife thought it should have been called Conan Gets Lucky... I supposed there is a little truth to that. It's funny what movies get made.

The Girl Scout Cookie hullaballoo is just about over. All the boxes are delivered and McKenna has just one more shift in front of the WalMart. She had more fun selling them than delivering them, but that comes as no surprise.

Resident Evil 4 is making a slight comeback. That game is just hard. Guitar Hero continues to dominate my play time though. We played a bit of Loot with my Mother-in-Law while she was here. That game gets pretty fun when you throw more people into the mix.

The letter 'r' would like to start up a podcast. I'd like to cover various board and card games. We certainly have enough to run through. And we could always throw in a video game or two every once in a while. We'll see if that materializes.

V is for Very Good

Go see V for Vendetta. Right now is fine. Powerful film. I'll not say more at the moment, but I liked it quite a bit. It's a little hard to say I enjoyed it (although there are certainly moments to enjoy) but I certainly appreciated it. The cast does an incredible job, especially Hugo Weaving - whose face is not seen the entire time. He uses his voice to great effect.

And with that have a great weekend.

More cowbell

err, guitar. Guitar Hero is far too addictive. And it gets really frustrating fun on the later levels. Adding in the other frets and a lot more notes to strum really increases the sensation of playing. I'd like to see Perfect Situations by Weezer in a sequel and some '80s hair band rock. And some... heh heh, well you get the idea.

The one thing this widget lacks is some html functionality. I'd like to see a link button and a few other tags. I'm not sure if you can code html into the text box or if it will convert it into text... This post will actually test that just a bit.

So, V for Vendetta comes out tomorrow. Despite Moore's disavowal, I'm going to go see it anyway. Hopefully it will be interesting. I'm hoping the Wachowski's didn't just re-hash bits of the Matrix movies with Moore's work...

So you wanna be a hero

First, I really like this blogger widget...

Anyway, I made the mistake the other day of trying out Guitar Hero while I was picking up DVDs at Best Buy. I had put off doing this because I am a sucker for music games. Especially when they involve special controllers - DDR, Donkey Konga the list goes on. But the demo unit was sitting there all alone and I felt the need to pick it up and see what it was like. Pure music Nirvana is a pretty close description. This game does an amazing job of helping you feel like you're rocking out. Anyone that has ever played an air guitar will fall in love. The guitar controller has a nice feel to it and the game does a good job of making you feel like you're actually contributing to the music.

If you make a mistake you'll hear a missed note, if you get in the groove the song sounds complete and you completely feel like you're on stage rocking. Especially on the higher difficulty levels. This may be one of the first music games where I never see some of the higher levels. The learning curve starts off easy enough but it ramps up and by the time you try out Hard, there are some serious strains on your rhythm skills.

I have to warn you, the game doesn't come cheap - the game/controller bundle runs around $80. But if you like music games at all, it's totally worth it. And as a touch of proof to this statement, I'll point out that my wife, who is normally pretty rhythmically challenged when it comes to video games, actually does pretty well on the Easy setting. It's actually a lot of fun watching her jam with the band. So if you fancy yourself a bit of a rocker, check Guitar Hero out.

We have contact

Ok, that's cool. You might be in luck and see a few more posts. At least short ones. I miss the link button for passing things along, but for quick thoughts this should do.

Expect a mini-review of a game in the next few days.

Blogging attempt 1 from Tiger

So I've finally managed to upgrade the computer to Tiger. Seems pretty slick so far. And I grabbed this blogger widget in a vague attempt to make posting a little more frequent. Or something. I realize this thing has been lagging lately and I apologize (a little) but life has been rather hectic of late.

We had an enjoyable weekend with the in-laws this past week. Some shopping, some game playing, lots of spoiling of the kids, but that's to be expected.

At any rate, let's submit this baby and see how it works...

Game update

Card games this time. Loot and In a Pickle are recent acquisitions. Loot is an interesting Pirate themed game that actually involves a bit of strategy. Your hand consists of Merchant ships with a point value, Pirate ships with an attack value, and possibly a Pirate captain or the Admiral. The pirate ships come in four colors. Once you attack a merchant ship with a specific color, your opponents have to use the remaining colors. You try to one-up your opponents in order to win the Merchant. At the end, the player with the most points wins. Clever and fun. Plus the artwork on the cards is rather fun.

In a Pickle is a game to play when you're in the mood for a good fight. In theory you play a card that is either smaller than the card at the top of the chain or bigger than the card at the bottom. At any time there are four chains to choose from and once one of the stacks reaches four cards each player then has to try and play a bigger thing at the bottom. In reality you spend most of the time arguing whether China is bigger than Spring or whether a skeleton in a jungle could fit in an Encyclopedia. If you can't handle a (hopefully) good natured argument on such things, stay away from this game. I kind of get a kick out of it...

The Cave was rather silly. And the ending was just best forgotten. It really should have ended with the escape, but they had to throw one last little twist in. Oh well.

The Brothers Grimm however was rather enjoyable. I'm sad I didn't go to the theater to watch it. Not just to see it on the big screen (which I'm sure was probably quite impressive) but to actually throw some monetary support its way. I think they did a pretty poor job of marketing this one. It's not really the comedy they made it out to be, although there is humor in it. In a lot of ways it's very reminiscent of the Grimm fairy tales themselves. An interesting story with touches of horror, humor and morality. Plus it's got Gilliam's fingerprints all over it, which is always nice. Reminded me a touch of The Fisher King. (Although that was better...)

March on

The year continues to speed by oblivious to any objections I might have. It is a little hard to believe it's already March. I'm not sure where the time is going, but I suspect I ought to visit there...

So, depending on your interests there's plenty of news out there. Gaming news is full of amusing anecdotes (track down the Penny Arcade/SOE donut war) and controversy (Chris Kohler over at Wired is suffering the fanboy onslaught over the graphical "capabilities" of the new Elder Scrolls game). In the political arena it looks like they're extending the Patriot Act again. In other news I'm sure there's a cute animal involved or possibly a kid.

Things around here are pretty much par for the course. The girls are either in trouble or causing it. But I suspect that's because I have to play parent now. It's amazing how much fun that sucks out of things. Well, at least from their perspective. The dog is probably developing some form of dementia. That or she's being possessed. I think I might have to root for possession. Finally managed to finish the first season of Lost but I'm not sure I can bring myself to care. Which is odd as it was an enjoyable show, but it just took us too long to get through. I'm most certainly ready to move on.

But hey, Bruce Campbell is working on They Call Me Bruce. Think Galaxy Quest meets Army of Darkness/Evil Dead. Pure comedy gold.