Laundry and other sundries

We watched Date Night a couple days ago. (sexy robots) It was pretty amusing. Crude, but amusing. I suspect it falls into the same camp as Bill Cosby's book, Fatherhood in that it's funnier if you've experienced it. So if you've been married for years and have kids, there's a little more depth to this movie than you'd otherwise expect. I won't comment on how many of those conversations we've had, but they really do a good job of portraying marriage at it's familiar best. Tina Fey, Steve Carell and Mark Wahlberg are all excellent in it.

I read Bone: Tall Tales since it was more Bone. There are a couple funny bits and a couple good bits, but mostly it was just alright. If you like Bone there's certainly some joy to be had with it, but you might be better off just reading Bone again. Or Rose. Sounds like they're going to put out a new trilogy in an illustrated story format. I'm not sure how I feel about this...

Currently I'm reading The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross. It is most excellent. Take one part Cthulhu mythos, a couple shakes of LeCarre espionage, a hint of Kafka and mix it all together into one gooey, satisfying mess. I'll comment more when I'm finished, but for now know that this is the first book in the Laundry Files and I suspect I've found a new favorite series. That I might just have to pick up.

Ubongo has gotten some more play at casa del 'd'. It is still most excellent. Lovely wife taught the girls 10 Days in Europe. Sounds like that went mostly well. I think that now that they've played it future trips through Europe will be a little less stormy. I've got my eye on a couple games for DCon or upcoming holidays. Incursion is drawing my attention at the moment (partially due to this sale). As are Castle Ravenloft and Talisman. So many choices.

Some say fire, some say ice, I say zombies

Finished the audio book version of World War Z by Max Brooks. It was fun to listen too. It's a pretty well thought out book. Max has done some serious zombie research. Being as Fall is once again creeping into our lives, I may need to do some research of my own. Time for some horror movies. If you've not read World War Z it's your basic zombies show up, the world doesn't come to grips very well, but ultimately humans manage to eke out some semblance of survival type story. It's worth reading/listening to. The book has a little more material, but the audio book is very well done. Although parts of it are a touch hard to hear/understand in the car.

I finished up Jim Butcher's Fool Moon (Dresden Files book 2) as well. I'm not sure what to think about this series. Because it's such a noir genre piece the stories themselves are pretty formulaic. So either you like the details of the stories enough to keep reading or you move on. I'm not sure I can keep reading the same story over and over, no matter how fun the package. This one had werewolves. And shapeshifters. And a loup garou. (And hexenwolfen) So obviously Butcher's put in the effort and is playing around some. And it's fine I guess. I'm just not sure I'll stick with the series. Too bad the tv show is over...

Crown of Shadows, the third Locke and Key graphic novel continues to pick at the mysteries surrounding Key House and its occupants. It's grim and heart wrenching and lots of other fun things. That Joe Hill, he's definitely a story teller to keep an eye on.

Was reading a couple things about writing earlier. Writing is one of those things that occasionally fascinates me. I certainly don't have the temperament to be a writer, but I occasionally wish I had the drive to get a few creative things out there. I suppose that's why I tend to keep this silly thing going. While certainly not a bastion of critical or creative thought, it at least gives me a chance to get a few words strung together. And every once in a while I even appreciate them.

For the last couple years, Fall (and especially October/Halloween) has triggered the desire to try and set down my own zombie story. So, you may get pieces of that this next month if I can be bothered to actually attempt it. I've mentioned it before (and actually tried starting it once) and that obviously worked out so you're probably safe, but just in case consider yourselves warned.

Quick shout

Happy birthday to littlest sis. And congrats to little sis on getting sealed today.

In which there is no new thing under the sun

Apparently I'm in revisit old territory mode. I'm still making my way through House of Leaves (rather slowly - it's a pretty dense book, to say nothing of the ... twists and turns it takes, heh) and probably will be for some time. I'm also listening to the audiobook version of World War Z. I'd heard it was well done and wanted to give it a shot. It is well done (although the accents can be a little hard to follow on occasion). Too bad it's not the complete book. (Again, from what I've heard, I may or may not notice the missing bits.)

I did start up the second Dresden Files book, Fool Moon. It seems fine so far.

Got in a little gaming and some bbq during the holiday courtesy of letter 'r and family. That was fun. I managed a win at Ubongo while 'v' left us all in the dust in Dice Town. 'r' regained a little honor in a fun round of Say Anything. Although lovely wife had the best and most outrageous answer of the evening.

Other than that we're pretty content to just let Fall woo us with decent temperatures and quiet days. Not too shabby.

First, second, and last

The kids have triumphantly returned to school. Well, begrudgingly if nothing else. G had his first day in Kindergarten the other day. Lovely wife swears there weren't too many tears. I'm not convinced I believe her. Amusingly the teacher opted to read the same book to the class that lovely wife read to him the night before, The Night Before Kindergarten. He got to make the crown in class though. McK is getting used to Junior High. I'm still getting used to her being in Jr High. I suspect it will take a while.

We finished up the second season of Big Bang Theory. I think my favorite episode was the Christmas Saturnalia episode. The hug at the end was priceless. I am glad that Jim Parsons won the Emmy the other night. He is absolutely the best thing about that show. Sheldon FTW.

Mockingjay. Alright, let's talk Mockingjay. It's entirely possible there will be spoilers, so if you haven't read the book, you might just want to go find something else. (Yes that's more Twilight mocking in case you want to go and come back.) Overall, I liked it. I think it's absolutely a fitting end to the series. Considering the tone and level of realism the series strove for I think it ended about as well as it could have. I found the ending a touch abrupt - I would have liked a little more about the aftermath and what happened, but I suppose it might have distracted from the point of the book - the tolls of war and so on. With regards to the infamous vote at the end, I'm pretty firmly on the side that Katniss was setting up Coin. Her remark about seeing how well Haymitch understood her and her stated reason seem to point a little too neatly that way to just think the vote was at face value. Even from someone as broken as she was at that point. There are lots of nice little moments throughout the book and I recommend the series. I'm glad Collins was able to make something entirely her own rather than just Americanizing Battle Royale. (I'm sorry people who think The Hunger Games really wasn't just a revamp of Battle Royale. You're pretty much wrong. The series certainly isn't, but that particular book... Look the future SAT question will read _______:Battle Royale as A Fistful of Dollars:Yojimbo) And it is a pretty fascinating series. It does a good job of taking a look at what happens to a society that asks too much of its children and the perils of war in a society that is already hanging on by a thread.

RED by Warren Ellis is the comic book the upcoming Bruce Willis film is based on. The compilation I read just covers his character - the other three from the movie aren't in it. And the tone isn't nearly as humorous as the trailer makes the movie out to be. It was good (if a little graphic and squelchy) but this might be a case where the movie is something a little more fun. And annoying to the purists.

I saw Scott Pilgrim vs the World three times in the theaters. And it was great each and every time. The rest of you better have gone to see it. Although judging by the box office totals you didn't. Shame on you. This is why we can't have nice things.

I've been reading House of Leaves again. It's still a pretty fascinating story. With way too many footnotes... (that's only sort of a joke) I'd still like to see the movie described in the book. Mostly as I really enjoy haunted house stories and this is a pretty good one. I'd also play an RPG set there. Something in the Call of Cthulhu vein I think...

Crude, cruel and canny

Beat the Band by Don Calame is a decent example of teen boy humor. It's mostly crude (and funny) with moments of lucidity occasionally making their way through. This is a sequel to a book called Swim the Fly. I've not read that one, although I might have to go back and give it a go. I liked Beat the Band a fair amount. Well, I was a teenage boy at one point. Some would probably argue that I still am. They are mostly mistaken.

The first book (from a brief synopsis at the beginning of this one) dealt with three friends trying to see their first real naked girl. And something about the swim team. This go round they're trying to up the stakes a bit and score with the opposite sex. Well, that's the plan anyway. The actual story revolves around a forced Health Class project in which Coop (the ringleader of this band of misfits) is paired up with the one girl in his class he sees as kryptonite to his image and thus anathema to his goal. So he decides to enroll in the Battle of the Bands with his buds to save his image. And if you don't know where the rest of the story goes, then you're probably a teenager and reading this sort of story for the first time.

So, sure, the plot isn't striking any new ground, but it is funny and there's a reason this tale gets told over and over. Calame does a good job with it. (Which is why I may go back and give Swim the Fly a go.) If you can stomach putting yourself in the mind of a teenage boy for a couple hundred pages or so I say give it a shot.

Currently I'm reading Mockingjay. I'm about halfway through. So no spoiling the ending. Well, more than I've already spoiled it for myself. Heh. I've heard good things about this one, so I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Ubongo continues to be popular around Casa del 'd'. We've also tried a new one called Dice Town. Everybody has a set of 5 dice with cards for sides (representing 9 - Ace) which get rolled and set aside one at a time (unless you're willing to part with some of your limited cash supply) as they try to build a poker hand. Once one person has built a hand, everyone else has one roll to finish theirs off. And then you go around determining which player gets to take advantage of which parts of the town. Nines let you claim nuggets from the gold mine (points at the end), tens let you rob the bank and thus gain some money back, Jacks let you draw a card that may help later, Queens let you steal cards from another player, Kings let you become Sherriff (you can break ties and take bribes) and the best poker hand lets you claim property (also worth points), with Aces snagging you an extra card or two.

So you spend time seeing what your opponents are working towards and what you need to stay in the game. It's a fascinating little experiment in bluffing and group psychology. Oh and if you manage not to win anything with the dice you rolled you can visit Doc Badluck and take advantage of the opportunities he provides. We've played it with the kids and it sort of works, you really need to be able to recognize some basic poker hands - pairs, straights, full house and so on, but it is pretty fun with a group capable of working all the angles. I think the best part is that even if you're losing the overall battle, you still have little victories as you roll the sort of hand you want and steal cards from your friends or manage to sweep the property available and so on. Worth checking out.

Shutter Island was ... ok I guess. It's another one where the ending was pretty obvious. Some of the journey there was interesting and there are some truly nifty visual effects that help tell the story, but overall just kind of meh.

Big Bang Theory season 2 is pretty hilarious so far.

And on a final note the kids are back in school. Well, G starts next week. But that means it's just about the best season of all. Pretty soon no more mowing and the banishing of the heat and all things wonderful about this time of year. Yeah!

In which there are puzzles and rain

M received Ubongo from us for her birthday. It's like a competitive tetris/tangrams game. You each get 12 tetris type shapes and a puzzle board. A die is rolled that lets you know which three (or four) pieces you will use to assemble the shape depicted on the board. You then have a very brief window of time in which to assemble the puzzle. If you manage it, you can collect two gems from the score track. At the end (9 rounds, different board for each round) the person with the most gems of a single color is the winner. (You can move across the columns of the score track depending on how quickly you finish the puzzle thus helping you to get gems of the color you want). It's fast and also pretty fun. Some of the puzzles are fiendishly difficult. And others not so. It's also pretty easy to adjust the difficulty so that everyone has a chance. Make the grown ups solve the 4 piece puzzles while the kids do the 3 piece offerings. Remove the timer for younger players (an option I think I'll try with G next time) and so on. There are several versions of Ubongo as well in case you need more puzzles.

Other than that M had a lovely birthday and managed to mostly avoid the rain we've had on and off for several days. There was a traditional pool party and some mu shu pork and a whopper pie. An we were glad for an opportunity to spend the day together. Happy birthday M!

Lovely wife has managed to get the kids geared up for school (next week! woo hoo!). Other than that things have been almost quiet at casa del 'd'. I've even manged to not read a ton of books. I'm going to give Last Apprentice a bit of a break so that I don't wear myself out on the series. I suspect I'll get book four in the next couple of weeks though. I have instead opted to collect all 120 stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 which of course just opens the next 120. I think I will also take a break from that prior to hunting for them. I think I liked the first Mario Galaxy a touch more. Mostly because it forced you to progress through the "story" (such as it was) before going back for all the extra stuff. The second one let you do the extra stuff almost from the get go. And the completist in me wouldn't let me go ahead before I had it all. So aspects of it were more work than fun. It's not entirely the game's fault, but I liked that aspect of the initial game better. The second one certainly has some pretty amazing levels and fun game play, just like the first.

Scott Pilgrim!

The movie was awesome. I don't really have much more to say about it. I am contemplating going back and seeing it again. Truly great. Possibly more gushing later.

In which I wait for Saturday

Ok, technically Scott Pilgrim opens tomorrow. The letter 'r' and I will be going on Saturday. And I cannot wait. I did manage to read volume 6 (Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour) however. And it was good. It does a good job of tying up the series and I really enjoyed some of the little bits found in it. (Young Neil's moment and the updating of Wikipedia were two of them.) The art was really polished in this volume and it was a nice way to see the series out. So go read them all and then go see the movie. I'm sure it will be brilliant.

The Night of the Soul Stealer is the third Last Apprentice book. I enjoyed it more than the second one, so that's good. Not that the second one was bad, I just liked this one more. It's winter in the County and a necromancer is up to no good. So Tom and the Spook have their work cut out for them. I like this series, it's nice that there's a spooky series for the kids. (And their parents)

Got to see little sis and their family this week. I think their youngest (for the time being) looks like littlest sis. Which given the similarities between the two of them while growing up isn't really surprising. (Little sis and littlest sis that is) G had a grand time playing with his cousins and I got a chance to check out the iPad. Clever little device that is. It was good to see them.

The House of the Devil is a throwback to horror films from the 70s and 80s. It's a slow burn and I liked it. Lovely wife and little sis were not as impressed. I have a theory that the film is better if you're steeped in that sort of thing. Ti West did an amazing job of recreating the films of that period. It takes it's time building up with just the right amount of tension before descending into the frenzied final act. I think K needs to watch this and report her findings. I will admit that I found the ending to be a little off, but that's just because I wasn't really expecting that twist/nod.

We managed to have another boardgame weekend with friends last Saturday. We enjoyed some Forbidden Island (it sank just before we could claim victory), some 10 Days in Europe (I traveled the continent better than my peers), a little Incan Gold and some Galaxy Trucker (you should have seen the wasteland that was left at the end of the third round - all four of us were wiped out before reaching the end of the journey). It was a great time and we are in preparations for the next 'd'Con in November.

Scott Pilgrim

Go make yours...

If you don't know by now, you're new here

The Faceless Ones by Derek Landy is the third Skulduggery Pleasant book. This means that by default it is awesome. And it is. It's also a bit of a cliffhanger. Now, the fourth book is already out and the fifth book is about to come out. In Britain. For some bizarre reason they're not available here yet. Maybe they're stuck on the translation or something. At any rate, just know that if you've read the first two, of course you want to read this one and if you haven't go start with them. There are certainly some interesting questions raised (just what is going on with Valkyrie's reflection anyway?) this go round. They really better get those other two books over here pronto.

Girl Parts by John Cusick was slightly misleading. It looks like your typical boy gets girl robot, other boy bonds with girl robot, hijinks ensue sorta book. And there are certainly shades of that. I just expected more hijinks/hilarity. Instead this one focuses slightly more on having meaning. (Which isn't to say there isn't meaning in the other sort, it's just better camouflaged.) So it loses a couple points for that. And the ending was a little too abrupt. More points for that. I suppose it does say good things that I'd have liked more story, but with what you get it's really only a partial recommend.

20th Century Boys vol 9 continues the streak of awesomeness. Still really enjoying this series. That is all.

We watched the new Sherlock Holmes the other day. It was alright. Mostly it made me want to watch Young Sherlock Holmes again. I'm not entirely certain why. I really liked Jude Law as Watson, in some ways he seemed to outshine Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes. Which is a little impressive as I considered that pretty inspired casting. I'd watch another film with the two of them though, so that's alright then.

I believe I've mentioned Canabalt before. If not it's an addictive little flash game, that yeah, they made an app of. The team behind that has just updated Gravity Hook. Both are "just one more try" compulsive fun. And you can play them for free online. Or go buy the app if you're so inclined. Oh and Canabalt is available as a portable app for your thumb drive. Hopefully Gravity Hook shows up there as well.

We have had some lovely thunderstorms these last couple days. Even some hail. It has kept me from mowing the lawn (a mixed blessing if ever there was one) but otherwise has been quite nice. I miss thunderstorms.

And slowly the summer draws to a close. It's time to start gearing the kids up for school. Ah school season. My favorite season. Well, ok, really it's Fall, but you get the idea.

Just a few stray thoughts

In about two weeks Scott Pilgrim vs the World will be in theaters. This is grand news indeed. If you've not read the graphic novels you really should. All six are out now, so the story is complete. I've seen book 6, but have to wait my turn to read it. (Accursed hold list!) I'm hoping to get it before the movie comes out, but we shall see. I'm biding my time reading the first five over again. The story follows Scott as he starts dating Ramona Flowers only to find out that he has to defeat her seven evil exes in order to continue dating her. The movie is being directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) so it will, of course, be brilliant. If there's a guy more capable of grasping the source material than Wright, I'd like to meet him.

I've managed to finish off the second books in both the Skulduggery Pleasant and Last Apprentice series. They were also quite enjoyable. Playing with Fire (the second Skulduggery book) was once again hilarious and thrilling while The Curse of the Bane was still somewhat spooky and mysterious. I'm going to have to read more. This may present a problem...

The Courtyard is Alan Moore's take on Cthulhu. It's disturbing and gritty and not really for the faint of heart. Kind of like Cthulhu. (The best Cthulhu news I've heard? Guillermo Del Toro is going to make At the Mountains of Madness with James Cameron producing. This will be an absolutely awesome movie. Much like Wright's suitability for Scott Pilgrim, Del Toro is a match for Cthulhu.)

Lovely wife and I are currently watching the first season of The Mentalist. It's fun. Simon Baker is an absolute joy to watch as Patrick Jane, the ever observant consultant for the CBI. Where Psych goes almost strictly for comedy with serious moments, The Mentalist goes for drama with moments of humor. If you've not seen it, it's worth checking out.

And as a closing piece of advice, never give your spouse and kids a chance to practice at PitchCar. When it comes time to actually play, they will kill you.

Hey Look

Jellyfish,
originally uploaded by dkun.

More pictures up. Impressive...

Oregon and back...agon

Yaquina Lighthouse,
originally uploaded by dkun.

As you can see from the lovely picture accompanying the post here family del 'd' recently returned from a vacation. Celebrating lovely wife's Father's 70th birthday we went to Depoe Bay in Oregon with her side of the family. And it was wonderful. I'm pretty sure I could settle down in Oregon on the coast. We stayed at the Worldmark resort in Depoe Bay courtesy of lovely wife's sister and had a lovely 3rd floor room looking out over the ocean. I will attempt to get some more pictures up soon, but for now you can look at the Yaquina Lighthouse that was down in Newport.

We played on the beach, flew a kite, visited the lighthouse and an aquarium and enjoyed lots of other coastal town activities. We saw seals, starfish, crabs, anemones, and other assorted critters. The temperature was a lovely 60-ish degrees. It was great.

We went out on a boat in an attempt to see a whale, but ended up discovering that lovely wife and M are more prone to get seasick. McK, G and myself had a grand old time in spite of the waves and wind and I still think it would be great to learn to sail. I really need a sailboat... Alas the weather (some fog and lots of wind) prevented us from seeing a whale, but the boat ride was fun (if you weren't lovely wife or M).

We enjoyed lots of local cuisine (taffy! Tillamook ice cream! Crab Legs!) and just generally did our best to relax and unwind and enjoy some time together. If you're looking to get away for a bit I can certainly recommend the Oregon coast.

On the way back we stopped off at Crater Lake and marveled at the startlingly blue water. Not so much the return to typical summer temperatures, but the lake itself was quite pretty.

I've also read far too many books recently. I shall try to recap them here.

Revenge of the Witch (The Last Apprentice Book 1) by Joseph Delaney is pretty darn good. And also creepy. I look forward to reading more of this series. It follows Tom, the 7th son of a 7th son as he is apprenticed to the Spook - the guy responsible for dealing with all the supernatural problems the towns in the area face. Witches, boggarts and the like. It's a quick read that you don't want to put down that has some really nice atmosphere. McK claims to not have found it that creepy. I think she's putting on a brave face.

The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade recounts the 11 1/2 year history behind the popular webcomic. If you're a follower of the strip you'll recognize some of the stories, but there's plenty of material here that's worth revisiting. They cover everything from the strip itself to the creation of Child's Play, the charity and PAX, the premiere convention for the gaming public. Jerry and Mike are a couple of pretty amazing guys and it's fun to read about all the things that have happened. If you're not a fan, but someone you know is, the book will give you some insight into just what they find so fascinating.

The Ark, by Boyd Morrison was a decent summer popcorn book. And then I realized I was reading Clive Cussler. Two male action heroes with witty banter? Check. Beautiful woman tied to current mystery for predominant male hero to fall in love with? Check. Lots of vehicles? Check. Wacky vehicle chase scene? Check. Alternate take on historical artifact? Check. End of the world scenario that our heroes must stop with seconds to spare? Check. So yeah, it's really Clive Cussler in disguise, but it's still fun.

Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy is another series that I look forward to reading. We listened to the audiobook version of this and I can wholeheartedly recommend that. The story is an absolute riot and full of lots of action and suspense. Stephanie is 12 years old when her uncle passes away. At the funeral she meets Skulduggery, who she later discovers is a fire wielding, magic using skeleton. They then go on adventures to save the world. It's great. Go read it now. The entire family (with the possible exception of G who was probably a little to young for the whole audiobook spanning multiple cds thing) loved it.

So yeah, lots has happened since I last rambled on. But things should settle back to normal now. And I will settle for missing the ocean...

Cloning around

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro ends about as well as it can. I first heard about the book a few weeks back when a trailer for the movie showed up. I didn't watch the trailer (which was probably wise prior to reading the book) but decided it sounded a little interesting. I'd heard of the author before, but not read anything by him. So I picked it up. The book follows Ruth, Tommy and Kathy as they grow up, first in a boarding school type location and then as they venture into the world after school. Or as much of it as they're allowed to see. I won't go into specifics about the plot as some of the impact comes from following the story, but it is interesting. It's told from a reminiscing/memoir point of view and is mostly slice of life with a sci-fi edge to it. And a rather sharp one at that. It's not terribly surprising there' s a movie in the works and that the book is gaining some attention again considering the topics it tackles. It's definitely interesting and well written. (And a little depressing.)

Other than that, life continues in casa del 'd'. The weather has been wonderfully cool for July. I approve of this oddball summer we're having. It's certainly hot enough during the day, but the evenings have been actually pleasant.

I contemplated rambling a little bit about video games. Mostly as I was thinking about consoles and the sorts of games you tend to buy for them. Everybody needs a good racer and a fighting game and so on. But really, there's not a lot of topic there. At least that hasn't been covered better elsewhere. So no ramblings for you. Just go buy a racing game and a fighter and a platformer or two. Maybe a party game.

Oh hey, remember that last line thing? Here's one without any commentary: Guardian of Lies by Steve Martini, "They were now on Liquidia's short list, and the man known in Tijuana as the Mexecutioner had a very long memory." Ok, the only comment I have is Mexecutioner? Really? I suspect the author had one too many of his last name. You know what the best name for an assassin would be? Mexecutioner. Because he's from Mexico. And he executes people. I love you man! <sigh>

And so it goes

It seems like that's a line from Kurt Vonnegut. (The title that is) It seems to fit things in casa del 'd' at the moment. Hmm.

I've been reading The Name of the Wind again in the evenings. Such a good book. I was a little worried it wouldn't be as good the second time through (especially as I only read it a few months back), but nope, still excellent.

We picked up a couple little games in preparation for some family time. Qwirkle Cubes takes the gameplay from Qwirkle and mixes it up by turning the tiles into dice. So you're still trying to complete lines of 6 (either same color different shape or same shape different color) but at the beginning of your turn you can opt to roll any of the dice that are in your hand. It makes things a little more interesting. Also you can see what your opponents have at any time so there's a little more strategy to what you might place.

Forbidden Island is a co-operative game that has you trying to collect 4 treasures from a rapidly sinking island. Each player has an ability that lets them break the rules in a specific way as you work together to try and keep the island from sinking before you get the goods and get away. It's by the guy that created Pandemic which is a pretty well known co-op game. This one is a little simpler and meant for families. It's also much cheaper - priced around $15. It plays 2-4 people and lovely wife and I found it pretty fun.

We've still been having some fun throwing the frisbee around and taking some walks around the neighborhood. They built a pretty nice biking/walking path close by that we like. I've not been real good about exercising lately, so we try and get out for a walk in the evening to at least pretend.

And that's about it. The kids still live at the pool (when we let them) or terrorize the neighborhood. I guess we'll try to blow some stuff up this weekend and celebrate the holiday. Too bad we can't get any real fireworks...

Quick thoughts

I finished reading Fat Vampire by Adam Rex. Doug is 15 and overweight and now undead. Forever 15 and overweight and trying to sort out this whole undead thing. The initial parts of this book are hilarious. The rest moderately so. Lovely wife liked about the first 2/3s. I enjoyed it pretty much up until the end. The end is a little odd, it's true. But there was some decent humor. I suspect the biggest problem is the fact that the book kind of wanders. It is a coming of age tale of sorts, so I suppose that's somewhat understandable, but not really to the extent found in the book. I'd say it's worth reading for humor, but not necessarily the story. Although it's not bad. (Although the Google? Really?)

G and I have started playing Super Mario Galaxy 2 and it's quite good. If you liked the first one, you'll like this one. It's a touch more challenging, but there's a lot of fun to be had. If you haven't played the first one, I think I'd recommend starting with it. There are a couple things the new one does better (especially related to having a 2nd player) but you'll probably find the learning curve a little less steep.

And that's really all I feel like going on about right now. I will mention very briefly in passing that Cypher and Red Rock West were both pretty interesting little movies. One's a sci-fi espionage flick and the other is a noir-ish mistaken identity flick.

Dresden, Dice, Dads, dis and dat

Storm Front by Jim Butcher is the first Dresden Files book. And it's a fun little read. Fantasy noir is probably the best way to describe it. Think detective story by the way of Raymond Chandler and wizard by the way of ... hmm. Butcher I guess. Some of it is the noir aspects, but the wizards in Buther's book are definitely their own little breed. If you liked the series that ran on SciFi (back before it became Syfy) it's definitely worth looking into. Book and show are similar, yet different. Slight tweaks on characters and relationships and so on. The story itself serves mostly as an introduction to Harry's world, but contains a decent enough mystery at the heart of it as well. Someone is leaving corpses with their hearts burst out of their chests. The Chicago PD is a little at a loss and Harry gets called in. Plus he has an actual client. Of the dame in distress variety (see? Chandler all the way).

Cthulhu Dice was fun because of the die. That and it's a little fun to steal your buddy's sanity. Zombie Dice is fun because it's a little more of a game. It's basically Pass the Pigs as seen through the eyes of a zombie. You pick three dice at random and roll them. Brains are points, footsteps are fleeing victims and shotgun blasts hurt. Assuming you don't roll all three blasts, you can choose to pick up the footsteps, add more dice to total three, and roll again. If you get three blasts before you choose to quit you lose all the brains you rolled. First to 13 brains wins. It's fun.

Father's Day draws near. We just had a chance to see Dad, so that was good. I certainly appreciate all the help Dad gives us. It was also nice to just give him a chance to relax this last time with no projects waiting for him. Next time though...

E3 is just about wrapped up and Nintendo has once again managed to convince me it needs more of my money. There are some pretty cool games coming up (Kirby Epic Yarn, Metroid Other M, Epic Mickey, Zelda, the list goes on) but the really cool bit was the 3DS. Handheld 3D device that doesn't require glasses? I'm pretty sure we won't miss just one of the kids... So yeah, it's officially on the list of things the ol' letter 'd' needs.

In which I try to recap lots of things badly

So. I suppose a lot has happened since last I posted anything of any note. We have had several family members visit and depart, watched some shows, read some books, played some games, gone on a hike, eaten out at far too many restaurants - the list goes on. I'll try to keep this to the highlights.

We had a grand time with Dad while he was here. We managed to let him have some fun this time and didn't force him to fix anything or work on any projects. Instead we went on the aforementioned hike (very short) to a local waterfall and a few other places of interest. We checked out the new Dinosaur museum down by BYU as well. It was a little trippy heading back to the old stomping grounds. I haven't been there for a while and it was interesting to see how things had changed. The museum was nice for a small free place. They had some pretty neat completed skeletons.

We also tried our hand at frisbee golf. And promptly lost the driver frisbee on the 2nd hole. The course itself was not exactly the most amazing thing, unless you like lots of overgrown weeds and a bmx park in the middle... So very strange. I am still intrigued by this concept of frisbee golf though, we may have to see if we can find another course.

Prince of Persia the film was a pretty good time. I rather liked it. It had the same subtle humor from the video game series and some of the same stunts. Lovely wife would have liked some more acrobatics and I would have liked a castle with some saw blades in the walls and spike traps, but for the most part it was good summer fun.

Avatar was surprisingly not bad. I almost regret not seeing it in 3D. If only so I'd have something to compare all the lousy 3D that's out now to. The story certainly didn't tread any new ground (Pocahontas says hi), but the effects were pretty good and it's certainly a solid enough story regardless of originality.

Dad picked up 10 Days in Asia while he was out here. It's basically Racko with geography. Certainly interesting along with frustrating. We had fun playing that and introducing Dad to Pitchcar and a couple others. Didn't get a chance to show him Galaxy Trucker or Tobago this go round. Next time.

I picked up Cthulhu Dice mostly for the die. The game itself is pretty quick and alright as a filler, but the die is cool. I have insidious plans to create my own little game using the die. And possibly the counters. Mwa ha ha ha ha.

Lovely wife's cousin was in town and we had a fun visit with her as well. And I discovered that fried pickles from Texas Roadhouse are awesome. I don't care how awful they are for you I love them. I will have to find a recipe. (Speaking of recipes Dad made us a real nice spicy Eggplant Parmesan. So good.)

Books. Yikes. I suppose if nothing else I should mention that I finished off Rick Riordan's newest, The Red Pyramid. This time he's tackling Egyptian mythology instead of Greek. It's fun. Not quite up there with the Percy Jackson stuff, but fun. I think part of it is that I'm not sure I'm quite as interested in the overarching storyline in the Red Pyramid like I was in the Percy Jackson stuff. The minute to minute plot details are fun though. And it's really nice to see a lesser known mythology get the spotlight.

Other things have certainly happened. Kids are out of school causing mischief. The girls have had one Day Camp set of adventures already and some more are coming up. I'm pretty sure they plan on trying to live at the pool as well. McK decided that bikes are for crashing and got some pretty good road rash...

At any rate, better wind this up. Congrats go out to little sis on the news that it's a boy. Although her naming choices still leave a lot to be desired...

In which an achievement is unlocked

15 year Anniversary get!

That is all.

In which there are some words one after the other

I finished reading The Devil's Trill by Gerald Elias. It was a fun little mystery set in the classical music world.

I'm currently devouring The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan. It's his new series in which he tackles Egyptian mythology. It's pretty good as well. I really like his stuff.

Lovely wife and I have just about finished up season one of The Dresden Files. I remember watching it back when it was on tv. I'm about to start reading some of the books and decided to watch the one season they made of this all those years ago. It's a little better than I remembered. I suspect mostly because we're watching it on DVD. That seems to make tv so much better.

Lovely wife caught the series finale of Lost the other night. I watched some of it with her. We saw the first season on DVD with the letter 'r'. But then the two of them decided to just watch it as it was broadcast instead of continuing the lovely watch it on DVD tradition. So I didn't keep up. So from a completely not really following the series situation I found the ending ok. Parts of it made some sense and the rest was lost (heh) behind who is that and why does this matter. I didn't bother lovely wife with too many of those questions. Mostly I played Picross 3D and Etrian Odyssey II. They seemed far more entertaining. And possibly more rewarding. I do give them props for trying to tell an actual story across a few seasons though. That's a lesson I wish more tv shows would learn.

So. Vacation time awaits. I will have a lovely week off. Papa del 'd' will be arriving tres soon and we will probably get roped into far too much yard work. Personally I'm hoping for an afternoon watching Prince of Persia and some relaxing. I suspect I won't be so lucky. Alas. Try not to blow up the internet while I'm gone 'k? Thx. Bye.

Insert catchy title here

We finished up the 2 seasons of Survivors that exist. It really was The Walking Dead with no zombies. So very strange. Apparently the show got canned before season 3. I'm not sure if they knew in time or they really planned season 2 to end where it did, but the managed to mostly tie off quite a bit. No looming cliffhangers of any real concern. Well, maybe one, but not really. The characters were only occasionally stupid for the sake of the plot, so that's something. If you run across it, it's worth watching. I think the thing that I liked the best was that they seemed pretty good at showing both sides of a situation. You may not always like the people involved, but you're almost always allowed a chance to see how things are from their perspective.

G has finished preschool. And will probably be pretty bored in kindergarten provided he doesn't forget everything over the summer. They did a really great job teaching letters, sounds, numbers and so on. He was even doing some limited reading by the end of the year. He decided he wanted a copy of Pokemon Monopoly as a reward for finishing. And then promptly kicked lovely wife's butt at it. It was a little amusing.

We picked up a new mower as I was pretty fed up with the old one. It was getting harder and harder to start and I was tired of the lack of self propulsion. So we snagged a self propelled key start mower. It's pretty glorious. While I will never love mowing the lawn, I will now probably not hate it. That key start is an absolutely brilliant feature.

And that's about it. A pretty quiet week. Things will get fun soon though as we have family coming to visit and I will get a week off. Ahhh vacation!

Yes please

Mostly for 'K' and a couple others ('r' comes to mind as well).

In which I lose several hours

So the death of the local video store is pretty much upon us. Redbox and Netflix have just about done them in I suspect. The latest victim is Hollywood Video and the attached GameCrazy stores. They are no more. Which meant liquidation sales. You have to be a little careful with liquidation sales, the "deals" aren't always that. You need to know going in what certain things are worth and then what you're willing to spend. We managed to find a few deals (mostly on video games from the GameCrazy) and there was much rejoicing.

We now have a copy of Kororinpa on the Wii. It's a fun little dexterity sort of game similar to the Monkey Ball series where you tilt the world around a marble in an effort to get it through the level. Good fun. There are lots of little twists in level design and plenty of different marbles/balls to play with. They all react a little differently and depending on your skill and what you're trying to accomplish you'll want to mess around with which one you're using.

I also snagged a copy of Shiren the Wanderer for the Wii. That's right, the game that drove me crazy on the DS has a Wii version. I'm sure it will drive me just as crazy. My initial report is that honestly the game is better for portable systems. Mostly because I can then play it as much as I want without monopolizing the TV. The graphics are certainly prettier. And it's more Shiren. Mwa ha ha ha MORE!

Sorry.

I also managed a copy of Etrian Odyssey II for the DS. This is currently scratching the dungeon crawler itch that completing the initial quest in Shiren left open. It's a little bit fiendish. But compelling. Well, if you like dungeon crawlers. Which I do.

Lovely wife got a copy of Picross 3D for the DS for Mother's Day. Don't know what Picross is? Go knock yourself out. It's much better than Sudoku. It might be her gift, but we're waging quite the battle over who's going to finish what puzzle first. I actually like the 3D version a touch better than the old 2D game. Just a touch though. At least while the difficulty level is low. Heh. It's really hard to put down.

We picked up a couple movies as well, but whatever.

Currently we're watching Survivors a BBC drama from, I dunno, a couple years ago or something. They keep advertising it during the new season of Dr Who. I thought it looked interesting so we're giving it a go. It's not bad. Plague wipes out most of the population and you follow the survivors (see what they did there?) as they, well, try to survive. Honestly this show reminds me a lot of the zombie comic series The Walking Dead. Only without the zombies. I suppose it's because apocalyptic fiction follows some basic tenets, but there's definitely some deja vu there. It's interesting to watch. And there are some absolutely gorgeous scenery shots. I'm not quite sure what they're doing to the colors and so on, but it actually makes me want to visit Scotland again. I remember similar vistas to what you get to see in the show.

I suppose I should also point out that McK seems to think she's a year older now. We're one step away from a teenager. In other words we're doomed. She had a grand time skating around with her friends at the roller rink. And there were some presents or something.

It was also Mother's Day. Lovely wife was suitably pampered (although mostly by me, I'm not sure where the kids were, playing Kororinpa most likely). My sisters have very nice bits written up about our own Mom. I don't really have anything to add except she is indeed missed. She's been in my thoughts lately and there are things I would really have loved to have seen her be a part of. (I suspect she'd get a real kick out of Picross) Thanks Mom.

So there you go. A glimpse into the insanity of Casa del 'd' recently. Poor souls.

The post of the beast

Blogger tells me that this is my 666th post. In keeping with this nefarious theme I will regale you with tales of a dog movie. Dogs. Bleh. Evil creatures. Well, ok not really so much evil as dumb. Which if you believe Spaceballs actually makes them good, because Good is Dumb per Dark Helmet.

Anyway.

We recently watched Hachi: A Dog's Tale and it was quite good, if quite sad. It's a re-locating of a famous Japanese story about Hachiko, the faithful Akita dog. The quick version goes like this: professor has dog. Dog loves professor. Dog waits for professor to come home at train station every day. Professor dies of heart attack one day while at work. Dog proceeds to wait 10 years for professor to come home until it passes away due to old age. Town builds statue to memorialize dog and as symbol of love and loyalty.

The movie hits pretty much all of those points in a nice fashion. This is a quiet, simple movie and in some ways is all the more heart-breaking for it. And I'd really like to know how they trained the dogs to walk so pathetically at the end of the movie. There are a couple shots where you can just feel how old the dog is by that point. So if you need a good cry or like dogs or whatever I can recommend Hachi.

I also finished reading Haze by L.E. Modesitt, Jr. I don't really have much to say about it except that it's a relatively solid sci-fi piece. Not amazing, but not bad either.

And I think that will pretty much wrap things up. We have learned a valuable lesson when it comes to planting our garden. (Wait till after Mother's Day or you'll have to buy more plants and start again) And one of the kids seems to think there's a birthday coming up. Strange.

In which the Wind is Named and other things happen

I finished Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind and it's absolutely brilliant. Without a doubt one of the best books I've read in some time. It's a fantasy novel in which you learn the life story of Kvothe, also known as the Kingkiller. (That's the trilogy name - the Kingkiller Chronicles) This first volume relates his early years with his family, the tragedy that befalls them and the beginning of his schooling. I couldn't put it down and yet didn't want to finish at the same time. I wanted more time with Kvothe and his world. There's magic, music, adventure, humor, tragedy... I could go on. Really, really great. As I mentioned previously I plan on acquiring my own copy to keep.

The next book in the series, A Wise Man's Fear, was recently announced for a March 2011 publication. I can't wait. I certainly wish it was closer, but it sounds like it will be worth the wait.

We recently went through the Bourne trilogy of movies in order to enjoy them on the new TV. I really like the new TV. It makes movie viewing so much nicer. And I still really enjoy the Bourne films. They're great. I miss good action films. I can't really think of anything like them that's come out recently. The new Bond stuff hits that same spot, but it sounds like a new one is pretty distant.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii has finally been vanquished. Well, about as much as it's going to get vanquished. Completing the 8 main worlds opens up a 9th world, but to actually play any of the levels you have to have all the star coins from each of the levels in worlds 1-8. There are three of those bad boys in each level. And typically 10 or so levels per world. And while we've certainly gotten a good chunk of them while just playing through the game I'm not convinced it's worth it to get the remaining coins. We did manage to open the first level for world 9, but that's it.

This is actually an aspect of videogames that needs to go the way of the dodo in my opinion. If you're going to go to the trouble of creating the content, let people play it. I certainly understand rewarding someone for something they've accomplished but hiding and entire world's worth of content behind an extremely annoying collection quest is just brutal. Bad Nintendo! No cookie for you. Other than that the game was pretty brilliant. If you like yelling at each other a lot as you play. I will not count the number of times that I made G or lovely wife cry. But really it was their own fault. Do not stand between me and the power up and do NOT jump on my head plunging me to my death. I don't like it.

Here's to hoping that the snow doesn't kill off our garden. Fortunately we haven't planted some of the tender stuff, but it was a close thing. Apparently the old rule of thumb to wait until after Mother's Day is good advice.

Owly and some other stuff

I heard about Owly a year or so ago. And then forgot about it for a bit as I figured it would initially appeal to G and he wasn't quite ready for picture storybooks at the time. The other day I saw an ALA poster featuring the character and decided it was certainly time to check it out. And I'm glad I did.

Owly is (wait for it) an owl that lives in the forest and pretty much wants to be friends with everyone. Due to his owlish nature and the fact that most of the creatures he wants to befriend are lower on the food chain, this is usually a problem. But as is the case with most stories of this nature, perseverance and kindness pay off. The books are graphic novel in size and shape, but there are (almost) no words. When characters talk, you get the word bubbles, but the words are replaced with pictures. It's an ingenious way to tell a story for just about anyone. The art is great and the stories are often moving in spite of their simplistic nature. G and I both quickly devoured all five of the books I brought home. I haven't quizzed him on the contents yet to see just what he picked up, but he certainly seemed to enjoy reading through them. I recommend giving them a go regardless of how old you are, there's something here for everyone. Owly rocks.

Casa del 'd' is currently making its way through the old Nadia Secret of Blue Water anime series as well. It's not bad. And not really that dated either. It's an earlier series, but the art is still quite nice and the story holds up. Probably at least partially as it's based somewhat on Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Follow Nadia and Jean as they have adventures above and below the waves on their quest to discover the nature of the Blue Water - the gem Nadia wears.

And I must point out that I have managed to make it to the end of the initial quest in Shiren the Wanderer. Oh yes, I battled my way through all 30 levels ultimately freeing the Golden Condor. It was glorious. Of course, that just opens up the 100(?!) level dungeon that is your reward for taking on the initial task. I haven't ventured forth to see it yet. Shiren needs to rest up a bit from all those mindless deaths. It only took a Master Sword +16 and a decent shield and armband to do it too!

Other than that, life continues here at casa del 'd'. The weather is currently in that constant state of flux that marks the winter/spring border so it might be rain, it might be sunny, it might be snow. And we're about to start planting our squarefoot garden. Yay vegetables! Very excited. More beans, more peas, more tomatoes and peppers!

Your regularly scheduled post

First order of business: Mu Shu Pork and Bang Bang Shrimp were both cooked and consumed last week. And they were both good. The Mu Shu Pork was a little on the time intensive side to prepare, but was rather tasty. The shrimp was certainly easier to prepare but was slightly less tasty. Which is a little odd as I tend to like spicy things. Not that they were that spicy. We did manage to avoid one mishap when lovely wife accidentally picked up cooked shrimp instead of raw. I suspect it's not wise to fry already cooked shrimp. So yes, new recipes and mostly a success. Yay!

And now for a brief tangent. Working at a Library is a bit of a fascinating thing. Mostly as I am an avid reader and now I have a reading list that I will never ever ever finish. But working here has mostly sated my purchase new book urge. Partially due to advance reader copies and partially because pretty much anything I might want to read is readily available. I might have to wait some, but it will be available. So I don't go out of my way to purchase things unless it's an author I especially like or a book I really like.

I am currently reading such a book. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is quite simply one of the best books I've read in recent memory. And I've read a lot. I won't go into much detail as I've not yet finished it, but if you like fantasy books you really must track this one down. Absolutely brilliant. I don't want to finish reading this one because then it will be over. I suspect I'll have to track down my own copy of this one.

Oh and I must also plug Mouse Guard again. It really is quite good.

We've been catching random episodes of Castle lately. It's nice in a Nathan Fillion fix sort of way, but the show itself is a little silly. Of the handful of episodes I've seen they telegraphed the ending within the first few minutes twice. I don't consider myself that good a mystery sleuth so I'm guessing these plots are pretty see through. But it does have Nathan Fillion. And the lady from the third Librarian movie. So I guess that's something.

Now off with you, I've a book to finish.

Something something Favorite Niece something Happy Birthday

It has been pointed out that I forgot to point out that Favorite Niece has also survived a trip around the sun. So consider it pointed out. It's actually far more interesting to point out that said niece has also finished a book recently. She's taken to carrying around The Last Song as well apparently. So happy birthday favorite niece!

In which I very quickly wish little sis a Happy Birthday

No really, I think the subject line says it all.

Happy Birthday little sis!

Of Mice, Devils and Song (oh and something about a Moon)

So it was a bit of a long weekend last week and that was good. Ol' letter 'r' got hitched and lovely wife and I attended the wedding. It was a wedding very nice.

We managed to plow through the first half season (13 episodes) of Glee. Mostly because it's very funny and the music is quite good. Jane Lynch is an absolute riot (and that's how 'd' sees it) and the rest of the cast aren't slouches either. Which isn't to say the show doesn't have flaws, but that it is enjoyable. One of the things that irks me are a couple of the stereotypes that get further reinforcement. I actually like the relationship Kurt (the requisite gay kid for the Glee club) has with his Dad. The Dad isn't thrilled but he is supportive. There have been some truly nice moments between the two of them. Which is why it irks me that in order to have the evil parent or what have you, they turn the religious parents into the intolerant jerks who can't handle their daughter's pregnancy. I get they wanted drama, or it's Hollywood coloring the lens or whatever, it's just annoying. I'm also not a fan of Shoe's flirtation with Emma. I like Emma and I think they actually would make a cute couple, but for a guy that theoretically is in love with his wife for a good chunk of that first season, he certainly behaves badly. And he even says as much in one of the episodes before continuing said behavior. But it is a lot of fun to watch. There's plenty of great humor and the singing ain't bad either.

I finished Horns by Joe Hill. I've liked just about everything he's written. He is very obviously Stephen King's son, but his voice is his own and he tells some great tales. This one isn't quite as strong as Heart Shaped Box, but it is fascinating. Ig wakes up one morning in a drunken haze with horns growing out of his head. And a couple new abilities that cause people to tell him their secret horrible desires. And he can often cause them to act on those desires. Mostly he's interested in finding out who killed his old girlfriend, but things get in the way. The book certainly has some horrible moments related to Ig's newfound abilities, but the story actually spends a lot more time focusing on events that lead up to all the misery. So in some ways the book is a bit of a cheat - you want to see what's happening now, but you get what was happening then. It's all pretty interesting, but the mostly inevitable conclusion isn't completely satisfying. I still look forward to just about anything Joe Hill wants to write though.

There are currently two Mouse Guard collections available - Fall 1152 and Winter 1152 they are both quite good. David Petersen weaves quite the thrilling tail tale. As lovely wife put it, who knew mice led such exciting lives? There's political intrigue, derring do, heartbreak and so on and so forth. Think of it as that spiel from The Princess Bride but with mice. (There's no tongue in cheek humor in Mouse Guard though, it's pretty straightforward fantasy action.) And the books are quite beautiful too. So please do track this series down and give it a go. You won't be disappointed. I just might have to snag the RPG based on the series, I've heard very good things about it. And hey, who doesn't want to be a mouseketeer?

I've taken a bit of a break from killing Shiren off to play some Pokemon: Soul Silver. It's actually quite good. And I certainly don't have a gotta catch'em all attitude. Nope not at all. The Pokewalker is also pretty cool and has allowed G the chance to help level up my Pokemons. (Let me show you them!) He gets to run around with the little pokeball device and I get powered up pokemon and items. It's good to be the Dad. Now I just need to stop killing off Shiren... I'm going to have to spend some time building up a new sword I think.

Oh, I probably haven't talked about the fact that I actually saw New Moon have I? Well. (Really what do you people expect?) Honestly about the best thing that I can say about it is that Eclipse might actually have a chance of being good. New Moon certainly had a better budget than Twilight, but honestly I'm not convinced it was a better movie. Mostly it was boring. The first half is just horrible. Things got a little more interesting in the second half, but that's like saying the grass grew a little faster when I watered it. I honestly believe that Bella and Edward deserve each other - they're both horrible examples of humanity/undead monstrosities. And anybody that ever thought Jacob had a shot needs to have their head examined. Although he is about the best actor/character in this motorcycle wreck of a show.

And I think that will do. The kids have had the week off and so far it looks like lovely wife might actually survive. Made of pretty stern stuff that lovely wife. I'd have killed them all that first day. Buried them in the squarefoot garden. She did manage to get a little manual labor out of them so that's a plus. Stay tuned next week when you learn if we can make Bang Bang Shrimp and Mu Shu Pork. Mu shu!

Let's see if I can string together some coherent thoughts

We've watched a couple more movies. The Men Who Stare at Goats was pretty good. Clooney and McGregor do a nice job and you really wonder just how much of that happened. I think I'll give the book a go.

The Vampire's Assistant was fun. Pay no attention to little sis's comment on that last post. Wasn't horrible, wasn't great, but it was fun. I liked the art style of the credits too. It's another one that suffers a little from being the first in a series, but not horribly so.

I've not yet seen Twilight: the Twilightening, mostly as lovely wife watched it without me. Something about a mock free environment and a lousy day and other assorted nonsense. Her initial report is that it followed the book. That doesn't bode well. I hope to endure watch it later this week. I did find a couple more let's mock Twilight links, but that shtick is getting a little old (except for me) so I won't point you to them.

I've got several books waiting in the wings almost done and almost started, so more on them later.

I suppose the big news from Casa del 'd' is that we finally joined the TV revolution and picked up a nice 42" Insignia HDTV. It's very pretty. In spite of the fact that we have little to no actual HD content running through it. Movies and games look quite amazing on the hardware we do have and TV is, well, TV. Lovely wife is a little annoyed at the reverse letterboxing TV goes through (it's a 4:3 ratio dear) but otherwise things are grand. It took a little too long to extricate the old tv from the entertainment center, move the other bits, put together the new stand, relocate the bits and hook up the TV but nothing is perfect. (And can I just say Silent Hill on the Wii is amazing now? I can read some of the text that was pretty illegible before and the graphics really are pretty good. Yay!)

G got to give his first oral report in preschool today and apparently managed to instruct the class on crocodiles pretty well. 5 facts delivered all by himself.

And now I have a long weekend to look forward to. Although there is a wedding to attend tomorrow...

In which you get several reviews

So, we did a whole lotta movie watching at Casa del 'd' last week. Here are the reports.

Moon was indeed brilliant. It really should have gotten some Oscar attention. I don't think I'll say too much about this one other than it was really good. Sam Rockwell gives an amazing performance and Kevin Spacey was quite good as well. (In fact his role was one of the nice little twists of the film, I was expecting something quite different out of him.) So, if you've not seen Moon and you consider yourself a sci-fi fan, go watch it now or turn in that badge buddy.

GI Joe was a bit of a surprise. Mostly in that I thought it was pretty good. For a dumb action flick. Which it is (both good and a dumb action flick). I didn't have any real expectations for this one going in so that might have helped. Also, I don't think I've ever seen such an action packed movie. Good grief this thing one was set piece after another. It did suffer some from trying to cram every back story it possibly could into the film, but otherwise it's pretty decent.

Law Abiding Citizen was good until the ending. It's a fairly typical we want you to root for the bad guy until the ending when we're going to let the good guy win sort of movie. They really should have just gone with the bad guy. Gerard Butler was a lot more fun in this movie than Jamie Foxx. I suppose part of the problem is they had no idea how to end it and let the bad guy win, but really... So, watch it up until the end and then pretend Butler gets away with it.

We also took in the most recent Celtic Woman concert on DVD. All I really have to say about this is they still have great voices, but they're really not very Celtic any more and that's a shame. That was the bit I liked about them. And really, when it's in the name of your group, maybe you should focus on it some.

And this brings me to Blood Oath by Christopher Farnsworth. I think the first thing I should mention is that this was an advance readers copy. What caught my attention was the tag line for the book: The Ultimate Secret, The Ultimate Agent, The President's Vampire. (And really the book should have gone with The President's Vampire as the title, I get why he chose Blood Oath, but the other is a little more fun.) The next thing I should point out is that this is very much the first book in a series - while the main plot does wind up, there are a slew of loose plot/character threads. And while I suppose it's not really that big a deal, it is a little frustrating. But having said all that the book is a lot of fun. There are several sly references in the book (if you're a horror buff) to things like Night of the Living Dead and the Vampire/Werewolf feud so that's a plus. It's also quite readable, a nice page turner sort of book. And it certainly beats the glitter off Twilight. Even lovely wife enjoyed this one (in fact she read it before I did - saw it when I brought it home and practically ripped the thing out of my hands). It's a little silly, a little gross and a good read. Farnsworth even manages to mostly leave vampires alone. Most of the "changes" he makes get explained in terms of old vampire lore. I'll have to take his word for it. I remember most of the references, so it's probably pretty close.

I also finished off that third volume of Hellboy. And it was great. It's Hellboy, of course it's great.

And I think that's all the stories I have for now. Next up are viewings of The Vampire's Assistant and New Moon. Three guesses which is the better vampire flick...

In which I wax Parental and a few other things

I was listening to Radio Free Burrito the other day (Wil Wheaton's podcast) and he was relating a story about his son and those times when you recognize parts of yourself in your kids. And that got me to thinking a little bit about my own kids and some of the experiences we had this week and so, for a Very Special entry here on letter 'd', I thought I'd take a very brief moment to relate said experiences. And then add in some of my usual ramblings. Feel free to skip to the end.

Anybody who has spent any amount of time on this blog knows that I am a gamer. I have been for a long, long, long time. (Longer than that) And while my current habits trend relatively highly to board games I spent years fascinated with video games. (I enjoyed board games while younger but it was the flashing lights and chiptunes that really held sway in my soul.) I never owned any sort of gaming console while growing up, but I had friends that had them and I also grew up during the glory years of the local arcade. And we had a pretty nice one for a small town. I relay this mostly to say that there is some bit (or byte) of gaming in my genes. It probably distilled from the engineer in my Dad into a techie geeky gamery goodness in me. And I have managed to pass that along quite nicely to G.

It's a little amusing to me to see just how deeply gaming is ingrained into G. We occasionally tried to get the girls into gaming as a family with things like Mariokart and so on but it never really took. They are the epitome of casual gamer, but G is a gamer in his very soul. And I find myself in the odd position of trying to nip some of it in the bud. Mostly because he's still so young. I don't want him to spend all day playing Link or Smasher Brothers or Little Link. So we had to sit him down the other day and try to explain that really, one game a day was going to have to be enough. You could see the wheels turning in his head, "One game? How is it possible to play only one?" And then there was the chin quiver and little tears. Truly it was quite the sight to behold. The gamer in me rallied to his cry, but silently and as parents we held the line. 30 minutes a day kiddo - you can break it up into smaller pieces if you want to play a couple, but that's all you get. If you help around the house or do something extra nice you might earn a few more minutes, but that's it. And that includes playing New Super Mario Bros. with us.

Truly a sad day in his little gamer soul. But hopefully he will use some of his new found free time on things like books and cars and terrorizing the neighborhood. He seems pretty good at that too. And it was pretty nice to see that bit of me reflected in his eyes. One game?! Indeed.

McK is starting to weave her teenager cocoon. It won't be long now and we will be faced with this pod person that we thought we knew that looks like her in some respects, but acts nothing like her. Lovely wife got her first real glimpse the other morning while trying to get laundry ready and the kids out the door for school. McK decided that she really needed to wear the exact same shirt from the day before and lovely wife had to convince her otherwise. Apparently World War III will be started over an argument concerning a shirt from the day before. I don't think science fiction has accounted for this yet. Anyway there was a nuclear meltdown and words exchanged in a less than civil manner and ultimately lovely wife resorted to some shock therapy. And once she left the room McK decided to take matters out on poor M caught in the crossfire. Lovely wife reasserted with McK that this too was unacceptable and nuclear winter settled in. Now at this point in the story you're probably wondering why I'm bothering to tell it. Other people's kids are at most cute at the best of times and typically awful the rest of the time. No the point of the story occurred after school. McK came home and all on her own apologized to lovely wife. Apparently at some point during the school day the haze of chemicals starting to course through her brain cleared some and she realized that she had made a mistake.

And she owned up to it. Truly a moment to be latched on to in what will be years of head banging, eye rolling, mind numbing teenager. It's good to know that in there somewhere is a kid that knows better and will do the right thing. I blame lovely wife. I'm pretty sure I'm not to blame for her good behavior...

Alas, I don't really have a story about M. She's pretty good at blending into the background of our lives. A little chameleon she is. Devious. But at least always willing to try new things. She discovered asparagus this week as we had some for dinner. She and G (and lovely wife for that matter) found a new vegetable they liked. Mmm. Asparagus.

So. Enough of that. On to important things. I'm currently working through Volume 3 of the Library Edition of Hellboy. And it is delightful. I'd like to frame some of this stuff and put it on the wall. I'm almost through Blood Oath. Expect a report soon.

We watched Zombieland again last week and it was still brilliant. This week we'll watch Moon and a couple others. I'm very excited for Moon.

I should also point out that I managed to catch a glimpse of the last level of Shiren. And then I died. So back to the drawing board. I will get this sorted...

And I think that about wraps it up. Go check out The Sound Test. It's great.

A little of this, a little of that

I managed to finish another Dune audiobook over my commute. This time it was Children of Dune, the third book in the series. I believe I read somewhere that Frank Herbert conceived of these three books as one story. And there is certainly evidence of that. And hooks to the stories that are yet to come. I liked this one for the most part. It does contain the beginning of the transformation of young Leto II into a sandworm. And it is a little odd, but it's Dune, so really, I guess not that odd. This time around we focus on Ghanima (I believe is how her name is spelled, audiobook yo) and Leto II, Paul Atreides's children (the titular Kids O' Dune) as they try to stay alive long enough to rule the Universe. Alia, Paul's sister has become possessed by their old arch enemy Baron Harkonnen and their Grandmother has designs of her own. Well, the sisterhood's designs. So intrigue, clones, worms, Fremen. Pretty typical stuff for the series. I have reached the point at which I may or may not continue forward. I'm just not sure I'm ready for a Sandworm ruler and several Duncan Idaho clones and whatever else happens...

We've just about finished off season the first of X-Files. Still good. A couple missteps, but not too bad.

I'm not entirely certain which rule of the Universe it is, but it's the one that goes to the effect of: Your kids will be better at videogames than you are. Oh sure, there are certain games that you'll win, but when it comes to those visceral games that involve combat and so on, prepare to have your ego stomped on. Lovely wife picked up the Monster Hunter Tri demo from Gamestop for me. I didn't know much about the series other than it was sort of an MMO lite for consoles. You can get a party of 4 people together and then go fight giant dinosaurs. It's basically all boss battles combined with the opportunity to make your own gear from the poor creatures you've just eviscerated. Mmm, Dino armor. It sounded interesting and I wanted to give it a try. So far I have yet to beat the easy sample quest. I am... not good at this game. I knew it took some time to get used to the controls and how the weapons work and so on. In fact there's very little in the way of instruction. But I still have yet to have things click. I've gotten close (switching to the classic controller helped) but no dead Dino.

And then I gave the controller to G. He just about killed the critter on his first attempt. Even M seems to have some better luck than I do. I guess I'm over thinking things. Apparently I need to jump up and down and just wail away at the thing. Huh. Who knew...

Woke up in the Inn at the beginning of the trail again. I've lost count of how many times this has happened. But I decided this would be the last. It was time to get the big sword out of storage. And the good shield. I had spent time on their craftsmanship. They wouldn't rust (accursed Slime creatures) and they were very sturdy. And sharp. Mustn't forget sharp. I found my comrades wandering the wilderness like always. Oryu agreed to come along. This time we'd make it to the top of Table Mountain.

And things were going well, I had plenty of food and had acquired a few artifacts of power guaranteed to help me make it to the top. But then I stepped into the Monster House. Traps. Monsters. Treasure. I got greedy. And I knew that if I didn't pull my weight in the fight Oryu would wind up dead and some creature suddenly more powerful would find me. So I waded in, used a scroll to put the room to sleep and then promptly stepped on a sleep trap. There went half my time. Even the Blastwave scroll failed to fell all the monsters. And suddenly one of the chain heads that had fed off one of the other creatures in the room felled poor Oryu. And turned my way, impossibly stronger. Worse it was between me and the door. My Mastersword +9 cut into it's flesh, but to no avail. It was too strong. And I knew that stepping into this room had been a mistake.

I woke up in the Inn again. No money. No weapons. No food. At least I still had Koppa. Although he's starting to get this look.

As you can tell I've yet to reach the top of Table Mountain in Shiren. But I'll get there. Oh I'll get there...

Girls have almost delivered all their GS cookies. Soon the house will return to normal. Boxes no longer overshadowing the living room. And McK had her welcome to the Junior High night. She was only a little excited to go. She only dragged lovely wife out the door in about 3 seconds instead of 2.

In which I read some, watch an old TV series and die some more

I finished Black Rain by Graham Brown. It's one part Congo, one part The Lost City of Z and a few bits of other things thrown in for good measure. It was a fun read and I'd recommend it. There's just something about those lost civilization stories that I enjoy. The letter 'r' goes for the apocalypse (and really they're good too) but I like lost cities. Especially with creepy things thrown in. This one has it's own brand of monstrosity (not super creepy but effective) to deal with. The ending is a little silly (mostly a plug for the sequel) but mostly forgivable since the rest of the story was good.

I also finished volume 7 of 20th Century Boys. Which was frustrating. Mostly because a plot element I'm really interested in was just about to be talked about and then the book ended. And given the time jump nature of the series, I can't be sure the next volume will actually answer those questions. Gaahhh! But so so good. I really like this series.

Lovely wife and I have been watching season one of The X-Files. Oddly I don't know that I ever actually saw the first season. Some of the stories seem familiar and I probably have seen them, but there are just as many that I know are new. It's really good. Too bad the rest of the series didn't live up to the first season. I like the broad paranormal aspect that they pretty much left in favor of all the alien story lines. Oh well.

I've managed to make it a little further in Shiren the Wanderer, but then I died. I think I'm going to have to spend the next few trips out building up a decent sword and possibly a shield. And maybe find some armbands. I forget exactly which critter done me in last go round, but I'm sure it was tough. Now if I can just get rid of the fluffy bunnies... (What?! They're vicious. Mostly because they keep healing the monsters you're trying to kill. And then they teleport away. Evil things I tell you!)

And that's about all the news I've got. The kids keep trying to grow up. G has been registered for Kindergarten and McK has been registered for Junior High. I'm pretty sure that makes me old. Older than I'd care to admit at any rate.

On my many deaths

I did mean to mention that I have been playing Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on the DS pretty religiously. And I've died. A lot. And I've lost some pretty good loot. I have yet to make it to the top of Table Mountain, but I have reached said Mountain. Once. I was pretty close to adding a little widget over to the side chronicling my many horrid deaths, (Curse you Piggy! I want my sword back!) but I've died so many times the practicality of updating it is a little silly. Just know that I will get to the top of the Mountain. Oh yes I will. In spite of the Tanks and the Piggos and the Cursed Girls and the...

In which I've got nothing to say about very little

We have caught a couple films in the past week. Well, ok I've watched a couple, lovely wife only watched one. The one we saw together was Linda, Linda, Linda. It's a Japanese slice of life story about 4 girls that try to get a band together in 3 days. Three of the girls have played together before, but they need a new lead singer due to typical teenage girl angst - the bff's are on the outs at the moment. So they ask the Korean transfer student to fill in. Mostly because she's walking by and they can tweak the ex-singer's nose. So you follow the girls as they try to help the new girl come out of her shell a bit and get the band read for the culture festival.

Lovely wife will tell you that it was only ok and really slow. And while I can't argue the speed of the film (it is most certainly not fast paced. At all.) I did like it. Quite a bit actually. It helped that the song the girls were working on is pretty catchy, but I also found it a fun look at another culture. The movie does a good job of portraying life at that time for those girls. Yup. Good stuff.

The film I watched that lovely wife did not was Pandorum, a nice little sci fi horror flick. I actually think she would have liked it had she given it a shot, but I didn't know enough about it to sell her on it. Other than it was recommended by a friend. It actually was a lot of fun and I liked the ending quite a bit. You do have to pay some attention to it - the plot is a little on the confusing side - but the payoff is totally worth it. It concerns a couple of crew members on a space ship that wake up with little to no information about what's going on with the ship - they just know things Aren't Right. And they of course go downhill from there. Good fun.

There will be some book talk coming up, but I've not really finished anything worth talking about recently.

The letter 'r' and his fiance were over last night and a few games were played. She's relatively new to board games so we played a round of Pitchcar, some Bang! and a little Shipwrecked. It's actually been a little interesting going back through our collection looking for things to help ease a newcomer into the world of hobby gaming. I think maybe we'll try Loot and Bull in a China Shop at some point. Possibly Carcassonne as well. Or we could just jump into Arkham Horror. Heh.

In which I go Rogue...like

This week on a very special episode of Brought to you by the letter 'd' we will be discussing Roguelikes. Mostly because I'm playing Mystery Dungeon: Shiren the Wanderer on the DS and it is awesome. If you can locate a copy (it took us a few stores) you can pick it up for around $15 and I recommend you do so. Unless you hate fun. But there are a few things you should know first so you don't come crawling back to ol' letter 'd' complaining about how this isn't fun. (In which case I will tell you that you are wrong and then go back to playing.)

Roguelikes are a genre of video game based upon the game Rogue. For they are Rogue like. You see? Simple. Typically they are a dungeon crawl in which you, the poor wandering fool, are attempting to reach a goal so many levels into said dungeon. You will encounter treasure and random dungeon layouts and monsters. Occasionally in that order. In the Shiren games they are turn based so that for every move you make, the monsters in that level of the dungeon also get to make a move. Oh and if you happen to get killed (you will) you are sent back to the beginning minus your levels and items. You get to start over. Armed only with the knowledge you acquired and a pithy statement about how you died at the hands of a Rice Boss.

Additionally the Shiren games let you make small adjustments to the world over time. You will encounter people that may become allies. You occasionally find storehouses where you can leave things for your future self to take and so on. But yeah, you'll get terribly familiar with the first few areas as you learn how things work and so on. Good fun. There are several roguelikes available for trying out. Nethack is one of the more famous ones, although I've heard it can be pretty difficult to dive into without some knowledge about how it works. Angband is another one with a Tolkein bent. This here column talks about roguelikes in some detail. Also Episode 9 of Active Time Babble talks about them at length.

In other news a decent three day weekend was had as casa del 'd' visited friends way up North. We watched the Percy Jackson flick (it was good if wildly different from the book) and played some games. Tobago is indeed better with 3-4 players. But that will most likely get its own post once I get some pictures. Really not good at the taking and posting pictures.

In which I talk about the few things that I remember

We've seen a few movies and I've read a few books since the last time I had anything to say. But I can't remember what they were. So here are the highlights.

Paranormal Activity is awesome. I would actually love to have a conversation with K about this movie. It's sort of similar to one of the Exorcist movies we watched when we were younger and we had a conversation about how she didn't like scary movies that could happen. Now I know that this wasn't a true story, but I suspect there are people that have weird things happen to them. They did a really nice job of ratcheting up the tension in this movie. It was far better than the Blair Witch Project, that's for sure. So watch this one. In the dark. With the sound up. At night. Heh.

Malice is mostly book, part graphic novel. It follows a couple kids who discover that the world written about in a comic book is real. And not a nice place. And one of their friends has been killed there. So one of them decides to check it out and see what he can do to stop it. I enjoyed reading it and look forward to seeing what happens next. It's mostly on the fluff end of YA fiction, but it was fun to read, so that's worth something.

Memories of Murder is a movie about one of the first serial killers (if not the first) in South Korea. It was directed by the guy that did The Host which was a nice little monster movie a few years ago. This one deals with how the police force was completely unprepared for dealing with a serial killer. It's at turns sad, funny and horrifying. It was definitely interesting to watch.

Ping Pong was an amusing little Japanese film based on a manga series. It wasn't quite as funny as I'd hoped it would be and there wasn't quite as much Ping Pong as I'd hoped there'd be. Still it was funny and there is Ping Pong. Worth watching on a lazy Saturday when you want to kill some time.

I finished the audiobook version of Dune Messiah. Mostly because I always meant to read more of the series and decided to let my commute contribute to that effort. It was interesting. It's one of those, "let's take the hero from the first installment and turn everything on its head this time around" type stories. Paul Atreides isn't exactly a bad guy, but he's not really the all powerful force he was in the first one. Well, that's only sort of true too. Really this time around it shows him trapped by the powers that he came into in the first book. I'm not certain I'll finish the series, but anything is possible. I think I will give the next book a try. Although I hear that one of the characters actually turns into a sandworm at some point in the series. And that sounds a little silly to me...

We picked up Tobago the other day. I've heard rumors that it will be one of the games in the running for this year's SdJ award. It's part race game and part reverse deduction game. You set up an island at the beginning (the board is made up of 3 double sided pieces that lock together and a few pieces that you can set in various places according to a couple simple rules) and then play cards to help narrow down the location of up to 4 treasures. Things like in the biggest jungle, not in sight of a palm tree and so on. Once the treasure is narrowed down to one location it's a race to see who can get to it first. The people that contributed to locating the treasure all get a share of the loot with the person claiming it getting one extra bit. There's a slight press your luck element in the claiming as each player gets to look at part of the treasure with one extra card thrown in to keep things interesting. And occasionally the treasure is cursed causing you to lose treasure. It's really not too complicated and is a lot of fun. It's not bad with 2 people, but I bet things are a lot more interesting with 3 or 4.

I suppose there are other things that have happened, but at this point I can't be bothered to remember what they were. So off with you lot, go find something interesting to do.