Doug And Jenn - Don't Read This Post!

I was out getting comics from the last couple weeks and noticed that the mystery store beside the Dragon was finally open. It had been empty for the better part of a year and then they started doing construction behind covered windows for the last couple months.

Well, it seems that what has gone into the empty store is a very nifty artisan cheese and bread store called Ouderkirk & Taylor. I'd link to their website but it seems to be down right now.

They have all sorts of awesome cheese made from raw milk and other crazy ingredients. They also have some baguettes. I got a baguette and some cheese today... for $26.

The baguette only cost $3. Do the math.

We are having people over tomorrow so I have to resist the urge to eat the creamy, creamy, oh-so-very creamy raw milk brie and the double cloth wrapped cheddar... mmmm....

This is a very special treat kind of place. I can kind of justify spending what I spent today because it's New Year's Eve...

Of course, if the baguette is delicious, I'll probably grab one when I'm getting my comics.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone has a safe New Year's Eve and rings in 2008 without wrapping their car around a pole somewhere.

We're not doing much around Casa Del Wager tonight. Julie's probably going to go to bed around 10 and I'll stay up late filling out my EI benefits form and reading comics. Woo!

I'm hoping to snag a copy of Rock Band from the Movie Gallery tonight so that I'll have something to play when some friends come over tomorrow. We'll see though.

On a much more sombre note, it seems as though tragedy has struck in Acton today.

You heard it here first... I have the same head cold and sore throat that Julie & the kids suffered with for the majority of the last week. I expect that a fundraiser will be started to help me deal with the sore throat and runny nose that I'm experiencing during this most happy of seasons.

I take cash and paypal...

Home Sweet Home

Yay! We're home!

*kisses floor*

Ew... I need to vacuum/disinfect/call a HazMat team.. I'm just happy to see that eveyrthing seems to be in proper working order and that the house isn't a pile of ash.

Now to attempt to unpack!

I'll Probably Skip This One

Found an awesome site today. The Will Ferrell Movie Generator!

Will Ferrell plays Streeter Morris, an egotistical, obnoxious wedding crasher at the top of his profession. He and his sidekick, played by Jack Black, seem invincible until their dominance is threatened by a new rival. Streeter Morris's excessive pride causes him to spiral downward to comical lows. When he is at the depths of despair, he removes his shirt and bellows,

"Your Buick is salty, like Thor's sparkling corn-cob pipe!"

After a wacky training process featuring a surprise cameo by Paul Rudd and a marginally-developed romantic subplot, he enters into a climactic showdown with his rival and emerges victorious - but not without learning a thing or two about friendship.

Estimated Opening Weekend Box Office Returns: $47.1 million

Go Bunnio, Go!

This is alternately the most awesome video I've seen in a while and the cruelest. I started off laughing at the guy and by the end I was rooting him on.

The person who designed that course needs to be slapped and then hugged.

McCain's Pizza Is Evil

See the thread title.

I have come to quite enjoy McCain's International pizzas, especially the Canadian and the Parisian ones but dear Lord in Heaven, the regular pepperoni ones are the devil's handiwork. I probably haven't had one since I was in university because of the cardboard crust and nasty sauce but tonight, through no fault of my own, I got the chance to have another piece. I was hoping that they'd fixed the many faults of the pizza but nope.

It still tasted like cardboard and the sauce, if possible, tasted even worse! It was like the McCain's manufacturing plant had received an extra tonne or two of oregano and dumped the majority of it on our particular pizza.

Blechety blech blech blech.

To top things off, I think I burnt my mouth :(

Yup, it's time to call the Waaaahmbulance.

Where Was This A Couple Days Ago?

Merry Christmas Everyone!

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. I don't even know what happened to the last two days. It's a blur of turkey, wrapping paper and Zelda on the DS, with some Apples To Apples and some cranky kids thrown in for good measure.

I think it's Thursday... right?

Humilations Galore

Want to know the true meaning of defeat and humiliation? Try playing some Guitar Hero 3 against a 13 year old girl.

Ye gods. I was watching Julie's cousins play GH3 tonight while we were over there and I thought, "Psh. They're going DOWN."

Then I went up against Melissa and got demolished. Same when I tried going against Bruce. Blah. I usually feel like such a rock star when I play against people who come by my place but I have to realize that these kids play all day long.

It was really discouraging to see Melissa actually finish Through The Fire And The Flames on Expert. That's when I just handed the guitar controller back to the kids and slunk back upstairs to hang out with the adults...

Christmas Cards From Game Developers

This is kind of cool. Gamasutra has compiled a list of all of the Christmas cards from the various game developers and publishers. Some of them are pretty funny (I love Bioware's Mass Effect meets Santa one).

Have A Virtual Reality Christmas!

This is an awesome vid that really shows how GOOD virtual reality for gaming and other applications is not very far off.

Crazy stuff!

Still Alive For Christmas

Oh, good ol' Aperture Science. This is an awesome little site, especially if you log in as CJohnson with a tier3 password...

Note: If you haven't played Portal, this site won't be anywhere near as awesome.

I'll Let The Holidays Be Happy This Time

I love this animation. It's just so nice to look at.

I'm Sure I've Seen These Around

I was debating about putting a big rant up about the "God Hates The World" song by the loathsome Westboro Baptist 'church', but instead I found an awesome site filled with loads of passive aggressive notes that are actually funny instead of bile-inducing.

Rockin Out At The CBC

Gotta love it when a game that isn't Halo 3 actually gets a news story on CBC. I waited until too late to start trying to preorder Rock Band and now it looks like I'll have to wait until a far-flung later date (and a significant lottery win) to get a copy of it.

Best Punchline Ever

I had to chuckle at yet another Wondermark comic.

Enjoy.

Even Earlier Christmas In Acton

Uncle Dan & Garrett rocked out to Guitar Hero 3 for a bit on Saturday. Well, it was more like Keytar Hero for Garrett.

If only I had a copy of Rock Band... Sigh...



Garrett loved the set of Toddler Mutant Ninja Turtles that he got from Uncle Dan, Aunt Faith & Baby Silas. He now has giant rumbles with the Turtles vs. the combined might of the Marvel Universe.



Kara got a funky new hat.



And a ride in the laundry basket with her brother.

Early Christmas In Acton

Between the early Grace family Christmas last weekend and my not wanting to haul quite as much crap back and forth to Sarnia this week, Garrett has been able to get his hands on a few Christmas presents a bit earlier than usual.

I saw this at Zellers yesterday and Garrett couldn't stop drooling over it (and it was on sale) so we picked it up. Little did I know until we got home with it that it had something like 450 pieces to it.

From Christmas 2007

Garrett spent the hour or so that it took me to put together the small (!) part of the secret base disassembling all of the figures that came with the set. I was very tempted to create some kind of horrible hybrid of Sandman, Venom and Mr. Policeman... so tempted.

From Christmas 2007

Here's the finished product. It's actually a pretty cool little base with a rail system for distributing the, and I quote, "Pumpkin Bums" (not bombs, bums), to the launcher. If you look closely, you'll see that the center screen on the monitors on the second level is displaying the Blue Screen Of Death. Looks like Windows is unreliable even in Harry Osborne's secret lab.

It's Not My Annual Videogame Expenditures, But It's Close

Of the many and varied reasons to be happy that I'm Canadian, this ranks right up there.

Hit F5 a few times to let the point sink in...

Wondermark FTW!

I've started reading a new webcomic called Wondermark and couldn't resist sharing this strip. There's a reason I try to stay out of malls and such during November/December.

Take That, Shorty!

23

It's Like Real Life Dig-Dug

I just spent the past hour and a half shoveling my walkway, the path in front of the house and a large part of the driveway, along with helping a bunch of other people in our parking lot get unstuck coming and going.

I wish, oh how I wish, that I didn't have to go to work today... but I do have to. Sigh. At least it's my LAST SHIFT EVAR!!! Or until April, which, right now, is close enough.

The sucky part is that I couldn't make it to church this morning for the big Celtic Christmas celebrations that we do every year. I like going because it gives me a chance to see the old worship leader who took all of the good music with him when he left :)

I couldn't justify possibly dying on the roads in order to drive to Mississauga though. Oh well.

Look! It's A Girly Looking Hero In A Final Fantasy Game That's Actual A Girl!

Man. These videos for the upcoming FFXIII games are really, really nice... I need to stop watching things like this to keep myself from trying to figure out which of my kids I could sell in order to afford a PS3.

WWRD? (What Would Rincewind Do?)

Arg! It seems as though my favouritest author in the whole wide world, Mr. Terry Pratchett, has early onset Alzheimer's. ARG!

Granted, it's not like he's suffered from a lack of books. Discworld is now, what, 30 some-odd titles long and he has a slew of other books to boot.

Gotta love his spunk though.

"Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful," he continued, saying it was "too soon to tell" if the condition was immediately life-threatening.

"I will, of course, be dead at some future point, as will everybody else. For me, this maybe further off than you think.

"I know it's a very human thing to say 'Is there anything I can do?' but in this case I would only entertain offers from very high-end experts in brain chemistry."

Up All Night...

So I'm sitting here, Mass Effect is finished and the episode of X-Play on TV has already been on 3 times tonight...

Now, answer me, dear Kara. WHY WON'T YOU GO TO SLEEP?! I have to work the overnight shift tomorrow, so feel free to cry into the phone to keep me up then, but for tonight, I'd really like to get some shut-eye!

Edit@4:49am: She was wide awake and crawling all over the place until about 4 or so. Then she fell over, bonked her head and started crying until Julie came down to see what was going on.

Of course, I'm wide awake now. Grr. I got some stuff finished up for the weekend so I'm going to go hit the hay. At least I've got some practice for tomorrow night.

Massively Effective

After a couple weeks of staying up late and waking up on the couch at 4am, I've finally finished Mass Effect. Awesome game. I haven't been that enthralled by a big RPG in ages.

First run through clocked in at around 42 hours or so, but that was with finishing pretty much every sidequest aside from the survey quest.

Now to play through it again as a Renegade. Mwahaha... I was nice the first time, galaxy... Now I can be a jerk!

4 More Days

I only have 4 days of work left and I STILL have to do the overnight shift, even though I was sure I'd be done doing them after last week's!

Sigh.

I can't wait for 11pm on Sunday... I don't go back to work until April!

Ninja ATTACK!

Who says Halton Hills is a sleepy place where nothing interesting happens?

It's A Girl!

Some of you might not know that Dave & Kate were expecting (since I don't think they've updated their blog for a good year or two) but they had a baby girl on Thursday!

Congrats, Dave & Kate!

They named her Buffy Sundin Wager.

I Heart Value Village

I went out to Value Village in Guelph with one of the guys from work the other day to get some winter clothes. It's been a while since I was there and I ended up with a couple good finds.

1) A pair of Reebok sneakers (black) for $7. I had almost bought a pair of sneakers a couple days before at SportChek for some obscene amount of money but thankfully resisted the urge to have a nice pair of Reeboks. I go to Value Village and find a pair of sneakers that are pretty much the epitome of what I concider a perfect shoe. I loved the old Reebok Hexalite shoes but they haven't made them in ages. I don't think that the shoes that I found were Hexalites but they're pretty close.

2) The coolest toy ever:



Now, it's missing most of the extra pieces but it's still awesome. Garrett is having a blast playing with it and I just like opening and closing it.

The scary thing is that I only paid $4 for it and after looking up some specs on the toy, I'm finding that several collector sites are selling it for anywhere between $88-175 US. EEP!

I'll Take Your Season's Greetings And Shove Them Up Your Happy Holidays

Talk about synchronicity. I'm not a huge fan of almost anything to do with Focus On The Family or Mr. James Dobson, but this video came to my attention today just before I was about to make a big post about Happy Holidays/Season's Greetings driving me nuts. This guy says it much better than I could.

The whole 'Holiday/Seasons Greetings' thing has really gotten under my skin this year, if only because it seems that NOBODY says Christmas this year, at least on the radio or TV. The thing that gets me is that many of the people I know that celebrate Christmas do it for the secular side of the holiday (getting gifts, having family over for a big meal), not because of the fact it's Jesus' birthday. Sigh.

I won't tell you how hard it was to get a photo Christmas card that actually said Merry Christmas...

I Beseech Thee, Oh Great Shoelace Gods!

I have had the worst luck with shoelaces over the past few months. It's driving me absolutely bonkers. No matter what I spend on shoes and replacement shoelaces, they keep untying themselves on a constant basis.

I could be standing in one spot, not moving a muscle and the shoelaces will STILL come untied. I've tried a few different types of shoelaces and no matter what I do, bam... they're undone.

I need to find a good cloth shoelace with zero nylon content. I don't like double-knotting the shoelaces as it's a pain to get them undone later, but it's almost worth doing to keep my sanity in check.

It's Only Free Speech If They're Saying What You Want To Hear

This news story makes me so... annoyed.

Muslim Students File Rights Complaint Over Maclean's Article.

I read that article and while I won't fawn over Mark Steyn's use of the english language, it wasn't particularly negative. It wasn't particularly positive either, but it was basically outlining what he saw as an inevitable shift in the predominance of Western Christianity and governments/cultures based on that foundation to a culture founded on the tenets of Islam.

The article discusses the high birth rate among Muslims and speculates that Islamic people could become the majority population in Europe. It also says some Muslims are violent radicals...
"To say that we share the same basic goals as terrorists … if you look at the theme of the article in the context, it is putting that label on all of us and I felt personally victimized," he said.

Maybe it's just me, I wouldn't feel personally victimized if someone wrote an article on radical Christianity and people who do crazy things in the name of faith.

At least a few people have their heads bolted on straight in this whole affair.

But Sohail Raza, a representative of the Muslim Canadian Congress, said Maclean's had the right to publish the article.

"This is Canada, not Sudan, Egypt or Pakistan, where the press is stifled," he said. "There is absolute freedom of expression and people have an opportunity to voice their opinion."

Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said the organization is concerned about the human rights complaints process.

It's too easy to claim an article may subject a group to hate or contempt under commission rules, Borovoy said.

"Even truthful articles describing some of the awful situations in this world could run afoul of this law, it is so broad and such a potential threat to freedom of speech," he said.

One More Trip Around The Sun

It's my Dad's birthday today! The lucky guy had the church choir sing him Happy Birthday. It's hard to top that... but this one's for you, Dad.

My list...

On the Things I Hate And Want To Slap With A Large Fish list of one Mister Brock J.P. Wager:

1) The city of Kitchener
2) The city of Waterloo
3) People who live in either Kitchener or Waterloo and feel the need to correct you if you say the wrong city when explaining where they live.
4) Whatever drunken monkey it was who designed the streets in Hamilton.
5) The song, "Go Tell It On The Mountain".
6) The penultimate assassinations in Assassin's Creed.
7) HD cable providers who drop Discovery HD from my bundle and stick A&E HD in there instead.

I Want My Discovery HD

What is it with me and customer service this week. First I get the crappiest meal ever served at Swiss Chalet, now I have stuff go on with my HD cable!

A day or two ago, we started getting a message when we tried watching Discovery HD that said something along the lines of "This channel not available. Press info for more..."

Of course, pressing Info didn't tell us anything so tonight I called Cogeco to see if it was just some weird thing going on with the cable. Turns out that Cogeco had a glitch in their system FOR THE LAST YEAR that had Discovery HD (and HDNet, which is some channel I have never even glanced at) lumped in with the standard HD cable bundle. So now I get A&E HD (woop de doo) but in order to watch Discovery HD, I have to pay an extra $6/month. I can't get it any other way.

Grr...

On the one hand, I probably spend more on coffee in a week than that and we could easily afford it. On the other, it's really annoying that one of the, if not THE, best HD channel is now something I have to pay extra for after a year of getting it lumped in with the standard HD stuff.

Sigh. At least I get 2 months of it for free before I have to decide if it's worth dropping the extra $6/month on it or not.

(Not So) Finger Lickin' Good

We went out to Swiss Chalet for some evangelical chicken after church today with Ralph & Louise. Boy howdy, did we ever make a mistake going to the one in Milton. I have had sub-par meals before, especially at Swiss Chalet, but this one had me firing off a very nasty message (via their customer survey).

Here's what I wrote in the "Tell us about your experience" box.

This was one of the most disappointing meals I have had at your restaurant.

Aside from the greeter at the door, none of the other servers seemed to acknowledge our existence once we were seated. Our server was very slow, had to be reminded constantly (when he'd show up) about missing utensils, drink refills, desserts (with the kids meal), etc. To top this all off, our food was cold and undercooked (aside from the vegetables which were cold and OVERcooked).

And this was at 11:30am on a Sunday morning when there were 2 or 3 other tables with customers in the restaurant. This kind of experience may have been excusable during a busy dinner rush but the servers were all standing around the bar chatting for a large part of our meal, so busyness was not a valid excuse for the poor service and food temperature.

Even the finger bowls at the end of the meal were frigid instead of warm.

If it weren't for the fact that I quite enjoy Swiss Chalet chicken and the yummy dipping sauce, I'd be sorely tempted to never go back again. That said, I will not be going there for some time and will definately tell my friends and family about my lackluster dining experience today.

Frackin' Toasters

I'm not sure how many of the 4 of you who read my blog are Battlestar Galactica fans, but if you are, the prequel movie, Razor, is on tonight at 9pm on Space.

Now the question is whether to watch it in not-HD on the TV whenever I get a chance OR if I should just watch the HD version I'm downloading either on my PC or the PSP.

Santa Has A Crystal Ball

We told Garrett that Santa can see him from the North Pole so he'd better be a good boy, to which he responded, "No he can't!"

This morning, he'd changed his tune. Odd...

Anyway, here is Garrett's letter to Santa as dictated to me.

Win Free Stuff!

There's a cool contest over at Dell where you can win all sorts of cool stuff... if you're luckier than me.

CLICKY!

I almost won a camera, an Xbox 360 and a new TV/Monitor (I love the fact that you can now use those terms interchangably) but missed it by ONE stupid icon.

Grr...

EDIT: It would have really helped if I'd PUT THE LINK IN THERE... Stupid stupid stupid...

Look Out Maggie!

Our newest snowsuit model has arrived.



When she's not braving the tundra, Kara's busy wrangling cattle (and her big brother).

G&D Comics Presents:

Garrett & I spent part of the afternoon making a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic. Julie says I missed my calling... I think it was more of a wrong number :)

From Comics By Gar...

Call Her Miss Chompers

Kara cut her first tooth today while I was at work.

To celebrate her coming of age, I'm going to get her this fancy outfit and put her to work :)

HA HA HA! MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Oh my lord. You know people are just a wee bit touched in the head when they start doing things like this and think that it's perfectly fine. Stupid political correctness. I thought we'd already moved past that insanity and regained a bit of perspective and common sense. At least it's happening in Australia and not Canada, but you know it could easily happen here.

----
SYDNEY (AFP) - Santas in Australia's largest city have been told not to use Father Christmas's traditional "ho ho ho" greeting because it may be offensive to women, it was reported Thursday.

Sydney's Santa Clauses have instead been instructed to say "ha ha ha" instead, the Daily Telegraph reported.

One disgruntled Santa told the newspaper a recruitment firm warned him not to use "ho ho ho" because it could frighten children and was too close to "ho", a US slang term for prostitute.

"Gimme a break," said Julie Gale, who runs the campaign against sexualising children called Kids Free 2B Kids.

"We are talking about little kids who do not understand that "ho, ho, ho" has any other connotation and nor should they," she told the Telegraph.

"Leave Santa alone."

A local spokesman for the US-based Westaff recruitment firm said it was "misleading" to say the company had banned Santa's traditional greeting and it was being left up to the discretion of the individual Santa himself.

Why Call Of Duty 4 Is Awesome

Three little words: Death From Above

Easily my favourite mission in the game so far. You play as an operator on an AC-130 'Spooky' gunship and it is played out entirely in black and white thermal vision.

It's hard to explain, but it's just awesome. Heck, here's the video.

I think it's also the fact that you're playing as a weapons operator on a plane WITH A 105mm HOWITZER STRAPPED ON THE SIDE. Whoever thought that configuration up must have been trying to compensate for something!

I mean... it's a plane with 40mm cannons and a couple of 25mm machine guns and you stick a howitzer on it? Yeesh.

The game also has one of the most addictive multiplayer components I've ever played, so it's just that much more goodness added onto the great singleplayer campaign.

Burn That Money!

Over the last couple of weeks, I've gotten hooked on Dragon's Den on CBC. Now, I've got the business savvy of a sea cucumber (and that's an insult to the sea cucumber) and I tend to loathe reality TV in general, but this show has its claws into me.

I think it's a combination of the crazy inventions/businesses that are pitched on the show and the fact that it's like watching a contest judged by a panel consisting solely of Simon Cowells that has me loving the show. There are some genuinely good ideas being pitched and some that are absolutely batty... I loved the guy tonight who was trying to get investors into his gold mine... that happened to be under a lake that he couldn't drain or do anything else to.

It's also interesting to get a glimpse into the minds of these high rollers in the business world and to see what they're looking for in a company and try to figure out whether something that I think is a good idea is one that they'll go for.

Anyone else digging this show?

Lest We Forget

It's Remembrance Day.

Maclean's has a fantastic article in their issue from last week where they published the last letters home from several of the fallen Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan. It really brings the cost of the war home when you read them.

We have to remember that November 11th isn't just about the men & women who died in WWII. It's about those still serving and dying today too.

A Tale Of Two Fishies

Well, the poll is closed. In the end, it turned out that one Tiger Barb died, but that was due to... well, I'm not sure. We just found it sucked up against the side of the intake for the filter, so I guess he just didn't have the will to live.

Thankfully I was able to take it back to the store and get a new one. I tried to trade it in at EB but they wouldn't take it. Sigh.

Speaking of death, Garrett was asking me about my poppy yesterday. I explained that it was to remember the soldiers who died so that we could be free. Then he got worried that I was dead. Then I ate his brains.

I mean, I explained to him that I wasn't dead and he gave me a hug and it was cool.

Speaking of zombies, Kara's voice is still pretty raspy. She still sounds like a drowned kitten but otherwise she's doing fairly well. Julie took her in for a check-up yesterday and it seems like it's mostly a head cold. Hopefully the fevers will go away and if everything goes well, she should be better by the end of the weekend.

24: The Unaired Pilot

24 was recently put on the shelf pending the resolution of the Writer's Guild Strike. I'm not really crying too hard because of the strike as it's freeing up a lot of my time that I'd used to spend watching TV (and given the deluge of big games out this month, that's a good thing).

Anyway, the unaired 1994 pilot episode of 24 was recently uncovered. Check it out. It's pretty good, though I'm glad the show didn't end up getting produced until 2001.

So Awesome It's Sad

Sick Kids

So it's the kids' time to get sick around here. Garrett has been a little hoarse for the last couple days and Kara sounds like a sick puppy when she cries. It's just such a pathetic little whimper, my heart just breaks when she cries these days.

Of course, she's super happy most of the time. Whatever she has just seems to be bugging her throat and she is up a bit more than usual at night but otherwise, she's just coughing up some phlegm. She's off to the doctor tomorrow anyway, so we'll see how things are.

Garrett's been going to bed fine this week (yay) but he has also been in our bed when I get out of the shower at 6:30 in the morning before work. Sigh.

I just hope he stays asleep till at least 7 tomorrow morning. I'm doing the overnight tomorrow so I wouldn't mind getting a bit of extra sleep in the morning so I can make it through the night!

Game Reviews By Brock!

Just wanted to put a few blurbs up about some of the games I've played recently or am looking forward to.

The Simpsons Game: I just finished this tonight and it is a fantastic game. The cutscenes are hilarious and the game is pretty funny from start to finish. It's not terribly difficult but it is rather fun and as a gamer, it's loaded with stuff that had me chuckling at almost every turn. For a non-gamer, it might not be quite so droll, but it's pretty sweet all in all.

Call of Duty 4: I just grabbed this today and haven't put a lot of time into it but it's phenomenal. The singleplayer campaign is pretty good so far (though my aim stinks) and the multiplayer component is almost like an RPG in the way you earn points and level up after each match depending on your performance. It's a much deeper game than Halo 3's multiplayer component.

Final Fantasy Tactics - War Of The Lions: This is a fantastic PSP port of the original Final Fantasy Tactics game for the PS1! The cutscenes have been done up in a kind of anime style which is gorgeous to look at and the translation actually makes sense now. The Job System is still there in all its glory, which makes me very happy. I'm hoping that I'll be able to actually finish the game this time around... I've only been trying to do so for the last 10 years... sigh.

Phoenix Wright - Trials & Tribulations: I just finished this last night and it was a great finale to the Phoenix Wright trilogy of lawyer adventure games. Great cases, great characters and twists and turns abounding. Now to eagerly await the 4th installment of the Ace Attorney series whenever it hits North America next year.

Guitar Hero 3: Wireless guitar? Check. Online co-op and battle modes? Check. Great song list? Check. 'Nuff said.

Zack & Wiki: An awesome point & click adventure title on the Wii with great use of the motion sensitive controls to solve puzzles. And it's about pirates. What more can you ask for? I love this game but I'm stuck. Sigh.

Upcoming games:

Silent Hill Origins: This should be in tomorrow or Thursday and my copy is paid off, so I'll be able to post some impressions when it hits. All I know is that it's portable, it's Silent Hill and it's a prequel to the series. When the only real complaints I've read are that it's not breaking the mold (a la Silent Hill 4) and that the combat sucks (which is almost a prerequisite for a Silent Hill game) then I'm pretty stoked for the game.

Assassin's Creed: Prince of Persia-style acrobatics in a wide open city set in medieval Jerusalem with some kind of science fiction twist? Sign me up. I've had my copy paid off for months and this will be my penultimate game for the year when it hits next week.

Mass Effect: My final game on my preorder list and paid off in full is this hum-dinger of a sci-fi RPG. If nothing else, this should keep me quite busy during the winter months when the kids are sleeping during the day. HA! I'm actually pretty interested in this game as I read the prequel novel that came out earlier this year and the universe they've created is pretty interesting. Add to that the fact that it's an RPG that doesn't involve me fighting dragons or japanese girly men and I'm intrigued.

And that's about it. Super Mario Galaxy is out next week but I'm just going to be renting it, along with a stack of other games that I'd like to try but just can't afford as it's coming up on Christmas and my parental leave starts soon.

Did I mention that I hate October and November? It's like the game publishers can't sell any games outside of those two months. Yeesh.

What's The Buzz?

I took Garrett to see Bee Movie today while Julie was watching Dan In Real Life with her mom class.

Long story short: Wait for it to come out on DVD and give it a rent. It was a perfectly fine movie but it just rang really hollow. The scenes where the bees are flying out and about in New York City are quite impressive but everything else just seems off... Sort of like Shark Tale. The dialogue was written so that it was pretty funny for me but I can't see how any kid is really going to enjoy most of the plot and/or dialogue. Add to that the fact that there just isn't enough action going on to really grab the kids and it adds up to a very uneven film as to who its audience is.

I mean, a large portion of the film takes place in a courtroom and revolves around a lawsuit. That doesn't tend to make for riveting children's entertainment.

On the flipside, we also picked up Ratatouille on DVD today. Now THAT is a great movie. Easily my favourite film from the summer, hands down. We were going to get it for Garrett for Christmas but he saw it while we were picking it out of the display at Wal-Mart and that was the end of that plan. I just hope they wait until I get home from work tomorrow to start watching it.

If you haven't seen Ratatouille, go rent it ASAP, whether you have kids or not. It's just a rock solid film.

Must Control Fist Of Rage

From the Hillbilly Neighbour Files - Case #5892:

At around 7pm (bedtime) last night, we started to hear horrible squealing sounds coming through the wall accompanied by some nasty hammering. My neighbours have a penchant for engaging in late-night weekend renovations but this was just ridiculous.

It was only 7pm, so I decided to give them until 9pm to stop unless it got crazy.

The noise levels were rather low until about 8:30pm or so. At this point the squealing of the concrete drill and hammering started again. I was watching a movie at this point and was going to give them until about 9:30 but I couldn't take it anymore by about 9:20.

I stomped over to the neighbour's door, politely rap on their door and wait for them to answer the door.

When they do, I say, in as calm and pleasant a voice as I can muster, "Hi there. I just wanted to know if you were going to be finished hammering anytime soon."

Now at this point the average human with a modicum of neighbourly feelings would say something along the lines of, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize we were being so loud. We'll just finish up in a few minutes and you won't hear a peep out of us until tomorrow."

Of course, these neighbours of mine give sea urchins a run for their money in the social skills category. And that's a bit of a slight towards the sea urchins.

What is the first thing to come out of my hillbilly neighbour's mouth?

"It's not 11 yet." (11pm being the noise bylaw cutoff time in our complex.)

It took all of my reserve not to just pop him in the nose right there. I somehow kept my cool and politely reminded him that we had kids trying to sleep and thankfully they did keep the drilling and hammering to a dull roar, but man...

Something Fishy This Way Comes

There's a new poll up over yonder. I picked up 5 tiger barb fish for the aquarium (Kara loves looking at the fishies swimming around at night) and from the instant I put them into the tank, they started chasing my poor Neons around.

Come and vote on who/what you think the results will be at the end of a week. I hope it's peaceful cohabitation... I just need to remember to feed the fish daily.

Spooooky Pics

Julie made these for the potluck snackathon at the Early Years Center yesterday.


Here's Donatello!


Kara was on deck to hand out candy and get ideas for costumes for next year.

Hallowe'en Strikes Back

Garrett finally got to go trick or treating with his Donatello costume (pictures coming soon) and we raked in 3 bags of candy.

It took us about an hour and a half to 2 hours. Ah, the joys of living in the part of town with all of the townhouses. You can do in an hour what most people take 4 to do...

Basic Instructions

I found a new webcomic the other day and absolutely love it.

It's called Basic Instructions... and is hilarious in a very dry kind of way.

I found a couple of them that I figured worked quite well.

#1 - This must be what Julie feels like when I get arguementative.



#2 - This conversation looms large in Dave's future. I guarantee it.

Our Amazing Outing

We headed out to Strom's Farm last week to check out the corn maze and pick up a pumpkin. It wasn't a bad day for it and it was a fun time for Garrett as we scrambled around the maze.

From October 2007

Someone's a little camera-shy.



Garrett's out standing in his field.



Sadly, this is the best picture of the giant pumpkin pictures.

It's Like Facebook For Books

Goodreads is a very cool site. You basically sign up and you can link to books you've read and rank them or put up little reviews. As Borat would say, "Very nice."

Do You Need Pearls Or Something?

From the Strange Things Found While Searching Through The Cupboards file:

What the heck is fancy molasses? I understand what normal molasses is, but what makes it fancy?

Floats Around Like Butterflies

New wireless guitar controller + Even Flow (original recording) + high definition gaming = AWESOME

That is all.

Telemarketers Are Invading My House

Is it just me, or has there been a marked increase in the amount of pestering being done by telemarketers of late? I'm used to the occasional call here and there but it seems as though we can barely get through a day without getting at least 5-6 telemarketing calls. I don't have caller ID... yet... but I'm getting pretty darn close to getting it.

As for them invading my house, I had a knock at the door this evening and I thought it might be some kid selling chocolate bars or something. Nope. Some guy trying to get me to 'donate' $20 to the spinal cord research foundation or somesuch charity and in return I will get a bunch of coupons to places in Georgetown that I don't ever go to.

I listened to his spiel and politely turned him down by mentioning a) that I don't patronize any of those establishments and b) don't have $20.

Instead of taking a hint, growing a clue or whatever he should have done, he then said, "That's ok. Just go get a cheque, make it out to such and such a foundation, post-date it and you'll be set."

I just gave him my most "You've-got-to-be-kidding" look and then rather emphatically told him,

"I

AM

NOT

INTERESTED."

And then I started to close the door on him. You'd think I had killed his puppy with the look he gave me, but bugger him. Invade my free time, will you!

Stupid telemarketers...

Home Free

Ah, it's so... quiet here.

Julie took the kids to Sarnia for the weekend and it's almost creepy how silent the house is.

Ah well. I guess I should shatter the silence with some videogames or movies while I have the chance. It's too bad I have to work this weekend, but I'll survive :)

Ketchup Required

Today we whipped up a pot of the (in)famous Bean And Bacon Soup, a Wager family recipe that has been handed down through the generations. I have to say, it was pretty darn close to my mom's soup, though it wasn't quite there. I'm not sure what's missing...

It was the perfect supper for a gray and cloudy day like today and Garrett has declared it to be, and I quote, "The Most Good Soup Ever!"

The, um, side effects were also quite amusing in the bathtub later this evening. He kept himself entertained by just lying on the bottom of the tub and farting for 20 minutes :)

Death Of A Kite

Yesterday was such a beautiful (and windy) day that Garrett and I couldn't resist the urge to hit the park with our kite.

So off we went. We walked over to Prospect Park in Acton as it has the best field to fly kites in. All went well as we got the kite up instantly and it was a fight to keep it from flying away.

Garrett wanted to try his hand at flying it so I handed the string and spool over to him. He was almost dragged off the ground from the sheer force of the wind but had a blast running back and forth around the park.

I had walked a little way down the field to be ready for the eventual crash when Garrett came running up holding the spool... and no kite string. I looked up and there was the kite, floating away down the field towards the huge trees at the end of the park.

Garrett & I took off running after the kite. By this time the end of the string was a good 30 feet off the ground so I was just hoping it would snag on a tree and we could figure out how to get it down from there.

We weren't fast enough and I lost it as it floated off towards Main street and beyond. Garrett & I began the quest for the lost kite. I'm still surprised it didn't get tangled in a power line or a tree. Heck, I was sure it was going to come down on Main Street and cause an accident.

Thankfully it ended up blowing all the way over to the school parking lot a good 2 blocks away. The plastic was a little torn but I figured it would still fly again... until Garrett picked it up and we found that the arm was broken.

Into the garbage it went. Oh well. It was only a $2 kite from the dollar store and it lasted us a good year or so, so no complaints. At least it died doing what it loved... flying recklessly over an urban area :)

On The Night Shift...

Ah, the joys of filling in on the overnight shift after working all morning. Sigh. At least I'll have the rest of the week off until I go back to work on Thursday.

Woo.

It would have been nice to be able to have a nap tonight though, but I tried and nothin'. Sigh.

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

It seems as though the rumours of the death of my Xbox 360 were greatly exaggerated. Ever since Sunday, when I got the third red light on the machine and called Microsoft to arrange repairs, the thing has been working just dandy.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's working better than ever. I think I know why too.

It was scared.

Seriously though, I think it came down to the fact that the power cord was coming loose from the power supply brick on the machine and that meant that there were some issues with regards to consistent power which culminated in all of the wacky errors I was seeing last weekend. After I had unplugged everything last Sunday I noticed that the cord had come loose from the brick so I plugged it back in nice and snug and since then, no false boots and no red lights.

To celebrate, I picked up a copy of Beautiful Katamari, as I had suspected that I wouldn't be able to get it until my machine came back in mid-November. Now I can play Katamari Damacy in high-definition! WOO!

The Great Escape

Looks like Kara has figured out how to get out of her swing when nobody is looking.

All Hail The Barf Bucket!

Garrett spent most of this morning puking on every available surface in the house. I have no idea what he had, but he couldn't even keep down apple juice and crackers.

Thankfully he conked out around noon and was definitely on the mend come the afternoon/evening. I stayed home from work to help Julie out anyway, but thankfully most of the barf had ended shortly after noon.

Ah well.

He was acting strange and out of sorts yesterday morning so that was probably the precursor to whatever today's mystery bug was.

Some Thanksgiving Pictures!

I finally got around to uploading the pictures I took in Sarnia over the Thanksgiving Weekend. Even though it was hotter than the devil's bunghole, it was nice weather for pictures!

From October 2007

I'm getting a real Fantasy Island vibe from this picture. "Da boat, Boss! Da boat!"

From October 2007

A better one of Mason & Garrett. I can never tell how tall Garrett is until I see him next to someone older than him. Sigh.

From October 2007

A couple of lovely ladies out for a stroll in the park.

From October 2007

Mason, Eve & Garrett astride the local cannon.

Pulling The Plug

See that picture? That was the beach at Canatara Park in Sarnia over the Thanksgiving long weekend. Usually the water is up past those breakwalls. Now there is 5 feet or so of beach past the end of them.

I did read an article in Maclean's the other day about how dredging of the St. Clair River has effectively pulled the plug on Lake Huron & Superior. I wonder if that is a valid explanation for the drop in water levels...

Anyone Want A Present?

I've got a gift copy of Half-Life 2 and HL2: Episode 1 sitting on my steam account. I offered them to Tony as I know he's got a computer that can run them easily, but he doesn't want them (freak). Anyone else want a copy of two of the best First Person Shooters to grace a computer in years?

All you need to do is sign up for a Steam account and let me know that you want them and I'll send them your way.

The Brutal Sting

Roxanne must live in my 360, because someone keeps putting the red light on. I got the same red light (now with error message #E74!) when I powered the 360 up today. Sigh.

I picked up a memory card so I could back up my save games... only to find out after speaking with the nice lady at Xbox Tech Support that they just want the console, not the hard drive. I guess I could have saved the money that I spent on the memory card, but it is nice to have the backup just in case the hard drive eventually pooches.

So I have a couple of days before the box arrives to send it back, so I will nurse the 360 along until I am forced to go without. At least it should come back all shiny and new (I kind of wish they'd just send one of the new 360's with the better heat sinks and a quieter drive)...

Must Think Happy Thoughts

Well, I went to turn on my 360 earlier today and while I didn't get the dreaded Red Ring of Death, I did get one red light in the lower right-hand quadrant of the power button. According to the Xbox website, this means that it's some kind of hardware failure.

The thing is, the 360 seems to be working fine otherwise. I just turn it off and then turn it back on and it boots up fine and plays games just dandy. I'm just leery that this first red light is a precursor to the other two showing up and my having to send my 360 in to Microsoft to get repaired.

Oh well. I'll be keeping an eye on it tomorrow and if it gives me a red light again, I'll be on the horn to MS to see what to do. It looks like Luke got his back (woo) so the process can't be THAT painful.

I just hoped that my 360 would be one of the few and the proud that wouldn't die before its time. I guess I should be glad it lasted this long. It's not like I don't have about 5 other systems begging for gameplay if the 360 is out of commission for a few weeks though, esp. now that I have Final Fantasy Tactics on the PSP to work through. That'll eat up about 90 hours of gameplay.

Milk: Now Edible In Soup Form!

After spending the last week staring at the October recipe for the Milk Calendar whenever I went to the bathroom, we decided to try it out. Oh man, is it ever good.

It's Hearty Beef Barley Soup. Soooo yummy. I'm definately making it at work when I go back.

Walking Wounded

Garrett & I were out picking up our Blue Box and yard waste bucket today when I turned around to see Garrett flopped on the concrete, crying his head off. I have NO idea how he tripped, but somehow he did. No biggie, just a little scrape on his hand.

Or so I thought.

Once we got him inside, he was bleeding a bunch from the scrape. We got him washed off and after pulling the flap of skin back, noticed that there was something in his hand.

Turned out it was a chunk of glass! Thankfully it wasn't a very big piece and once I got it out his hand stopped bleeding rather quickly. We got him doused in Hydrogen Peroxide and then slapped a band-aid on it. All better now.

Sigh. Of all the garbage pads in all the world, Garrett had to trip on that one.

ANARCHY IN THE ACTON-K.

It doesn't matter who you vote for. Just go out and do it. Otherwise I won't give you the time of day when whoever wins starts screwing things up and you start whining about it.

And check out my fancy poll. I like this new content wizard for Blogger. It's fuuuun.

Is R'lyeh In My Riding?

This image sums up how I feel about the current election campaign.

I don't hate anyone enough to vote against them but I don't find any of the parties to be compelling enough to want to vote for. Sigh.

I Am The Lawgiver!

Funniest WoW-related commercial, ever.

This is the new Leeroy Jenkins.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Punster

I'm busy working on the third Ace Attorney game and the writing is top-notch, as always.

For an import game that is 95% text, the translation is awesome. Supposedly they're going to be touching up the localization for the North American release later this month, but I can't see what they would need to do. I'd heard complaints about there being a lot of typos and such in the import copy but I've only seen 2 so far and I'm on the tail end of the 3rd case. For those keeping score, that is hundreds of screens of text to only have two typos.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this little comic gem.

Maya: "SuPer-Admin Restricted Desktop Access password protected? What!? This is madness!"

Phoenix: "No, Maya, that is SPARDA!"

Hee hee. Granted, it's not nearly as funny if you haven't seen 300...

It's Getting Hot Out There

I'm really, REALLY starting to hate this schizophrenic weather we're having this year. Just when you think it's starting to cool down, BAM! Heat wave... IN OCTOBER.

I don't mind a nice mild day in October but this is bordering on July heat wave territory. I feel bad for Julie because this kind of heat makes me extra snarky. Hopefully it'll cool down soon and I can go back to normal levels of snarkiness.

Sigh.

Oooh, Shiny!

My Bet Is On Colin

I just was informed that neither Julie or I had put any congratulations over on Luke & Anne's blog at the recent birth of their son. Well, I stand corrected.

Congrats guys!

Now I don't have to worry about hearing the latest in icky gynecological techniques on a daily basis :)

I still say Luke will name him Colin.

Don't Tell Julie

I wonder if the recipe here is the same as the one for Julie's famous chocolate chip squares. If it is, that is just too awesome. I married her to ensure a steady supply of these things :)

I POOPED!

Garrett had a pretty busy and exciting day.

He went for a crazy long hike, got interviewed on the radio, made some arts and crafts and took part in a precision dance performance.

But the big news is that he went upstairs, got on the toilet and pooped all by himself today. Didn't even bother to turn on the light to do it. Real men poop in the dark.

Woo! Maybe this is the breakthrough we've been looking for. Toilet training has been coming along decently but this is probably the first time that I can recall him actually initiating a trip to the washroom and doing it all by himself.

Hooray!

Oh, I'll write some stuff up about the other things he did today, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow after I've had a chance to rest my tender tootsies and get some sleep.

GET OFF OF ME!

AAARG!

I did my physical this morning. Seems like everything is as ship-shape as it can be in this train-wreck of a body of mine.

The only problem is that I have an electrode from the EKG that WON'T COME OFF.

It's not that I'm a wuss. Julie even tried giving it a yank and couldn't get it to come out of the tangle of chest hair that it's stuck in. And she had a kind of malicious smile on her face while trying to yank it off.

If it will withstand Julie's callous disregard for my comfort, I have no idea what will get it off aside from some scissors, industrial solvent or time. I'm going to leave it on for the day and see if it gets a little looser later in the day.

Now I need to go eat something. I'm soooo hungry.

So Famished!

I'm hungry. Normally, I'd snack on a cracker, some raisins, chips... A GLASS OF WATER!

But I can't have a snack tonight. I'm fasting. Stupid fasts. I have to go for my annual physical... for the first time in about 12 years or so.

And part of that involves fasting for the cholesterol test. Sigh. Ah well. It's almost bed time, so I'll just go upstairs and listen to my tummy grumble.

Too Close To Home

Today's Real Life comic is pretty funny... Remind you of anyone?

What Does UMD Stand For, Anyway?

Ok. I've spent a bit of today playing around with the PSP and it's a nice system. Lumines 2 is addictive, as all things Luminesy should be. Daxter is a blast, though I haven't spent a lot of time. It does show off what the system can do though.

The system seller, the killer app... The game that really shows what the PSP can do. Just take a look at these shots!




And the anime cutscenes look gorgeous too.



Now to see go play some Jeanne while Julie watches House.

Deathrace 2000

We took Julie's Kia into the shop today to get things looked at. For the last few weeks, it's done this weird thing where it kind of lurches when you brake. Not a horrible thing, I guess, but I had visions of braking at an intersection and the car stopping, then suddenly zooming off into the middle of traffic.

Soooo... we took it in and drove my car back home.

A few hours later, I get a call from the shop. They figured that there was something wrong with a throttle control sensor or something and were going to fix that... but they also wanted to have a look at the brakes, which were already getting low about, oh, 6 months ago :P

About an hour later I get a call from the guy. This time, instead of the jovial voice that was in play an hour previous, the guy had a tone of voice that conveyed wonder and horror that we were able to actually drive around without killing everyone. It turns out that almost everything that could be wrong with our brakes was wrong with them. Heck, the rear driver's side brake wasn't even working, it had seized up and stopped engaging... Sigh.

We aren't getting the car back until tomorrow. We won't have to sell the house to pay for the repairs, but to put things in perspective, they're going to cost us a lot more than a PS3 would :)

Insanity

You want to know what's nuts?

I traded in 21 games today and you can't even tell that any are missing.

21!

My DVD/Game collection just seals itself like a hull breach on the Enterprise.

On the upside, I now am the proud owner of a PSP Slim. Yes, I've railed against the PSP in the past but that's because there weren't any games worth getting the system for. Sure, there were a few worth playing if you had the system, but nothing I'd consider a system seller.

Now there is Jeanne D'Arc, a turn-based strategy RPG by Level 5, one of my favourite developers of all time... a game my very picky friend is calling his game of the year.

So the new game, coupled with the fact that they did a redesign on the system that speeds up UMD read times, extends the battery life to something actually useful and cuts down on the weight of the beast AND the fact that it comes bundled with Daxter, one of the better games for the system, really got the bug in my brain.

It took some digging through my library and some sacrifices of games that I wouldn't have minded holding onto, but everything I traded in was either beaten or had been gathering dust for far too long to justify keeping if I could snag a decent trade-in on the thing. The upside is that I had enough to get the bundle and Jeanne D'Arc and only paid $20 out of my pocket. Gotta love that.

I haven't had a chance to do much more than do a system update and fiddle with some of the settings on the system, but it looks like a pretty nice unit. Will it supplant the DS as my favourite console EVER? Unlikely, but it will complement it well.

Last One Standing

This short film by the Discovery Channel is just cool.

I guess it's some kind of clip from a show they're doing about future tech and Halo, but it's still pretty spiffy.

Do You Like Me Now?

So, I've unlocked the mysteries of the comments and added a few other tweaks to the site.

What do you fine folk think of the new site? I'm sure it'll drive Julie nuts, what with it being the same colour as Evil Avatar (her most hated site on the internet!)

Great New Look, Same Crappy Content

I updated the site (finally) so it doesn't look like a 5th grader's first webpage circa 1995.

Now it just looks like a 5th grader's webpage circa 1998. Sigh.

I'll be tweaking it over the weekend. Given that half of my links were dead anyway and much in need of a rehash, I figure it's about time I gave the site an overhaul.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to reconfigure Haloscan's comment system yet, so it might be a day or two before I get that working again. No worries.

Ohm..... Ohm...

Wow. Take a look at the video on this site. If you can find the brand of battery that they used, you can save yourself a LOT of money.

Carpe Diem Isn't The Fish Of The Day

I picked up a new shirt yesterday because most of my current wardrobe o' T's are getting a little old and ratty.

Julie says that nobody will get it. I beg to differ.

It says, "Blogito, ergo sum".

Please tell me people get it...

Believe

I'm no Halo junkie. I've tried multiple times to play the first one and so far, I haven't made it very far. I haven't even turned on my copy of the second one. The impending release of the third Halo game isn't even much of a blip on my radar (I've got Eternal Sonata to keep me busy instead).

That said, the Believe commercial and this absolutely amazing diorama is just awesome to behold. I shudder to think about how long it took to make that thing.

What Not To Code

Just a quick question.

Are people having trouble viewing the site lately? I know it's coming up, but is it coming up with a weird blue/black text on a white background OR is it the usual black and red template with white text?

Julie's had some wierdness happen lately, as have I. I haven't changed anything with the style sheets or anything, but I might need to see if something is borked in the code.

My Horrible Local Paper

I've finally got the scanner/printer thingy set up here at Casa Del Wager, so I'm going to try to scan some of the pictures and headlines from our local paper and post them just to illustrate how horrible the layout department is for that rag.

I like the paper, as it is a wealth of local news. That said, having a headline that screams "WOMAN KILLS LOCAL MAN - VICTIM KNOWN TO POLICE" right above a picture of a smiling man in a suit standing with his daughters that happens to have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE STORY IN THE HEADLINE is just bad press. In the latest issue, aside from the not so dead dapper gentleman, there is also a picture that makes it look like a local drunk ran over Terry Fox and that an old granny is a perfect candidate for the HPV vaccine.

Trust me, you'll see what I mean after I scan and post these things...

All Better Now (mostly)

Ah, thank you, makers of Tylenol Cold & Sinus and Neo-Citran.

After much chugging of pharmaceuticals and a LOT of sleep, I am feeling at least 75% better. I woke up this morning with my head not ready to erupt and my eyes feeling like they actually belonged in my head. A nice hot shower quickly washed away what was left of my headache and while my energy levels have been not quite up to snuff, I felt a LOT better than I did yesterday.

We did a bunch of walking this morning too, which helped me feel both better and a lot more worn out than I was just hanging around the house. We checked on Julie's fair entries and she won a first place, a couple seconds and a couple thirds. I think it tallies up to about $19 in winnings, which isn't bad. Garrett's entries didn't win any prizes but he did get some fancy participation ribbons. I think he should have won something for his 'What Looks Good On A Bagel' entry though. Both the first and second place prizes were just peanut butter and banana slices. The third place winner was two halves of a bagel with cream cheese and a raisin happy face on each one.

Garrett's masterpiece, on the other hand, was a veritable cacophony of flavour. He had a cream cheese base, gummi bears, chocolate chips, raisins and probably some of his snot as he had a bit of a runny nose that day.

The contest was, "What LOOKS Good On A Bagel", not "What TASTES Good On A Bagel". If I'd known he could have just slapped some peanut butter and a banana on the bagel, we'd have won the show. Ah well.

I was a lot grumpier the last two days than usual though. I hate it when I'm sick, especially when I can't sleep and my head is sore. I think Julie was glad I went to work today so I wasn't snarky all night like I was last night.

Typhoid Brocky

Well, stay away from our house until at least tomorrow. Garrett (aka the walking petri dish) started having the sniffles a few days ago and now both Julie & I have it. I've been chugging Advil Sinus and Neocitran all day... and my headache is worse than ever.

Julie seems to be a little more over it than I am, but it's still incredibly crappy when we both come down with a nasty bug the same day.

I'm going to bed...

I AM IRON MAN!

Woohoo! The Iron Man trailer is now live. They showed this during ComiCon, but it was kind of hard to see. That said, it also looked 8 kinds of awesome, so it's nice to be able to actually see the Mark 1 suit and Robert Downey Jr. chewing the scenery. I really hope this movie lives up to the trailer!

Still No Rush To Get A PSTriple

Wow. If you have a PS3 and were looking for a shiny new game to play on it, avoid Lair at all costs.

"Whatever you want from this game, it will proudly and haughtily give you the opposite. It's almost as if the game has some kind of deep-seated hatred for gamers and its opportunity to wreak unholy vengeance on all of us has finally arrived...The vendetta against gamers is also carried out in Lair's tragic design which seems as though it was crafted in crazy land." - Gamespy

"If flying in to invisible walls over and over again is your idea of fun, then Lair may be your game of the year...You're stuck doing trial-and-error flybys that will inevitably find you concocting new curse words because you're burnt out on the F-word." - Game Almighty

Internet People

I know this has probably been going around the net for the last couple of days, but here it is for the last few of you who haven't seen it.

Internet People!

I think your level of nerdiness/lack of social life is directly proportional to how many of those people in the video you actually know of without having to look them up.

Sigh...

I Thought I Was A Movie Geek

61%The Movie Quiz

FilmCritic.com - Movie Reviews

It's Worth The Drive To Red Lodge.

I survived yet another trip to Manitoulin with work. Woo!

It was pretty rainy this year. It did clear up yesterday and today, so the week ended on a high note but it was pretty miserable the rest of the week. That said, we still had a great week.

I even ate a salad, but that was because the alternative was Cream Of Broccoli soup and there was no way I was eating that slop. Thankfully the rest of food was amazing as usual... I tried to get the recipe for the homemade potato soup but they wouldn't give it to me. Sigh.

Anyway, I'm pooped. I wonder where Julie & the kids are. Somewhere between Acton and Kitchener, I guess.

I got Garrett a little hide and birch bark drum. I wonder how long that will last...

Going Au Naturel

I hate my lawn. Every year we go get more seed and fertilizer, work it all in and water it until the drought hits and every year the lawn looks more and more dead. I went out today to cut it and it just made me sad.

For next year, we're either going to have to till the entire lawn under and reseed it that way or just toss a bunch of clover seed and flowers on it. The most infuriating thing is that I have grass growing in my flower gardens, on my backyard path and everywhere else EXCEPT on the lawn. Sigh.

Oops!

Happy belated birthday, Dave! I barely remembered it was September 1 yesterday as it was and the one time I remembered that I needed to call my brother to wish him a happy birthday, I wasn't home to get his number.

Sigh.

The scary thing is that my little brother is now almost 30... Eek!

What?!

This lady has got to be either the dumbest person on the planet OR headed for a great career in politics and/or advertising.

On A Photo Related Note...

Lock Up Your Sons! Kara's Too Cute!

Kara just turned 4 months last week so here she is in all her cutesy glory.

You Still Need To Obey The Sign

Don't let those doe-eyes fool you. Read the sign and you'll be safe.

Family Picture Time!

Here's the best family photo we've been able to get taken of us recently.
Sigh.

Someone In Marketing Dropped The Ball

I tell ya, this product has got to have the WORST name ever.

And They Say Games Are Bad For You

Garrett just learned a new word today.

"Colossus."

Mwahaha.

From Parkas To Speedos In 60 Seconds

What the fudge is up with the weather this week? I go from freezing my soggy behind off at the pool party in Guelph on Sunday to feeling like I'm swimming through the fetid air of a sauna this evening at 11pm when I leave work.

I mean, come on.

I was just thinking the other day that I could take my air conditioner out of the window but nooo... Shouldn't it have gotten less humid with all of the rain we've had instead of more humid?

Matt?

This is weird. Matt Brouwer actually has a 360. I now have 3 friends on my friends list that I actually know in real life. Creepy.

You guys need to download Space Giraffe and then I can try to make sure that Garrett & I keep the score at the top of the leaderboards.

An Oldie But A Goodie

This is funny, yet strikes sadly close to home.

WAAAY too close to home.

It's Bioshock Day!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy!

I haven't been this excited in a long time. Seriously, it felt like last night was Christmas Eve and today I get to go and get my great big present. WOO!

The only downside is that I have to wait until around 11pm tonight when I finish work to seriously spend any time with Bioshock. Why didn't I book off THIS week instead of next week? Sigh.

But tonight I shall bask in the glory of Rapture...

4 Months Of Girliness!

So my little jellybean queen, Kara, is 4 months old today. She's already rolling at a 5 month-old's level, so she's destined to be in advanced classes when she goes to school.

Yeah...

I guess Julie is celebrating Kara's monthaversary by going to get her teeth cleaned and leaving me alone with the two little monsters, er, kids. I can handle Garrett just fine. I'm still getting used to the whole "How To Console A Screaming Infant" routine again. At least Kara's in a good mood this morning and... oh look... she just nodded off to sleep.

Hooray!

Our Dearly Deported

Grr. Don't you hate it when you have a great title for a post but no real content to go with it? I do.

Tuesday Can't Come Fast Enough

I'll never be able to listen to "Beyond The Sea" the same way again.

I haven't been this excited for a game in a LONG time. It's a shame I can't come down with Bioshock Flu on Wednesday :P

Shun The Unbeliever

Funniest thing I've seen in a LOOONG time.

I Have Seen The Future And It Is Scary

I tell ya, this is Garrett at age 12-13. It's scary.

Now THIS Is Summer

I tell ya, this is what a perfect summer day should be. It's nice outside but you won't evaporate into a puddle if you step into a sunbeam. There's a gorgeous breeze out, birds are singing, the cicada are buzzing...

Suffice it to say, this is the kind of summer I could get behind. I usually grump about summer but this is just too nice a day to not enjoy. Top it off with the fact that I had the day off (yay) and spent the afternoon with Garrett in the local wading pool and all is well.

Now for an evening of gaming goodness (after a yummy barbeque supper) with some friends (not to mention finally trying out the Bioshock demo) and you have a perfect day.

Oh, and the Perseids are still shooting around, so even the nighttime will be nice.

Garrett's Bedtime Routine

It's funny because it's true.

Don't Pirate Games Or The Midget Gets It

Don't Poke My Tummy!

We went to a wedding yesterday that really set the bar for all weddings to come... in many different ways.

It was for the daughter of friends of ours from church. We went to the ceremony in the afternoon and it was a nice and short service. The only thing was, the pastor forgot to tell people to please be seated after the bride walked down the aisle so everyone just stood for the whole 20 minute ceremony :) Ah, we're such sheep.

We had a nice little visit with the parents of our pastor in the interim between the service and the reception. It's always nice to hear about how bad your pastor was as a teenager.

The we had the reception. It was a nice intimate affair... only 450 people were there... plus the wedding party of, oh, 28 people! Honestly, they had 15 bridesmaids and 13 groomsmen. Yarg.

As for the food, well, that was the best part. Started with buns and appetizers, then soup, then a fantastic salmon with spicy rice and Greek salad, followed by stuffed chicken breasts and rack of lamb and finished with a delicious cannoli dessert.

And, of course, there were the two nicest words in the English language: Open Bar. And what an open bar... If you could imagine it, they had it. Well, no Cristal Champagne, but otherwise...

We left before the seafood buffet and chocolate fountain started, but that was probably for the best. I was already stuffed to the breaking point and it wouldn't have been pretty if I'd been let loose on that.

Speaking of not pretty, the photographer and videographer were a textbook case of how NOT to film/shoot a wedding. Honestly, I've never seen someone more intrusive than the videographer. During the ceremony, he was standing there in front of the bride and groom while they exchanged rings with his camera right in the middle of them. All we could see was his skinny butt. And the guy wasn't even dressed nicely. He was wearing jeans and a blue t-shirt. His partner on the still camera wasn't dressed much better. She was in white slacks and a bright blue tank top.

We were joking by the end of the night that the videographer was probably dancing with the bride during her first dance just so he could get a better shot. Yeesh.

His Editor Needs A Machete

So after months and months and MONTHS of trying to slog through it, I finally finished Book 4 in George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series last night. Yes, A Feast For Crows is finally ready to be returned to the pile of read books next to my bed.

I love this series but this particular book really tried my patience. It was just so dreadfully slow and, well, BORING that it took me since at least March or so of this year to finally read it. The sad thing is that the last 300-400 pages of the book are absolutely fantastic and right up there with the rest of the series. Unfortunately, you have to read 600 pages of the most mind-numbing plod through fantasy land to get to them.

It definately didn't help that during those first 600 pages only one of the characters was actually doing anything interesting. The fact that this particular book focused almost exclusively on the uninteresting characters, locations and events of the series didn't speed things along either.

I mean, Martin was somehow able to make Jaime and Cersei Lannister BORING! How do you do that?! Yeesh.

Ah well. The upside of taking so long to finish this book is that the next book, A Dance With Dragons, should be out soon (I hope). It has all of the characters and nifty places that I can't wait to read, so it should be worth the wait.

Now to go read some Edge Chronicles and the latest Artemis Fowl book to cleanse my palate.

Can He Swing From A Web? No, He Can't. He's A Pig.

Garrett and I went to see The Simpsons Movie today. Awesome show. On the one hand, it was a lot like an hour and a half long episode of the show BUT it was like 90 minutes of awesome stuff from the golden age of the show (1994-1997).

Garrett loved Spider Pig. The fact that they actually do a big orchestral version of the Spider Pig theme song a few times had him singing along, much to the chuckles of the people nearby.

Definately go see it if you're a fan of the show in the slightest. And make sure you stay for the whole of the credits.

I AM IRON MAN!

Behold the awesome footage of the new Iron Man film. I was mildly interested in this but, much like the gradual unveiling of Transformers, this has me very excited for how good a movie this could be.

Downey is a perfect fit for the role of Tony Stark, I must say. Hopefully they don't mess this movie up.

Rainy Afternoon Activities

So we were trying to think of something to do this afternoon to kill time before supper and Garrett and I ended up having a big of a gaming day. Amazingly enough, gaming is something that Garrett and I don't really do together very often. I got him playing some Boom Boom Rocket, Pac-Man: CE and this particular game (bonus points for people who can guess what he's playing).

From Garrett - 2007

And yes. I fully realized the fact that I need about 8 more shelves to put away all the games and movies and crap stacked everywhere...
---
What I'm Reading: A Feast For Crows
What I'm Playing: DiRT, Marvel:Ultimate Alliance, WoW, some DS games
What I'm Watching: Children of Men

Harry's Got Tourettes

I just want to say that unlike my esteemed colleague, Jenn, I think that the few instances of salty language (really only one actual swear and a couple instances of Ron saying, "Effing") fit the events in the final Harry Potter book fine.

And I'll stand by my other claims that at best the last couple Harry Potter books are not kids books. They're young adult books that are bordering on being 'real' fantasy. Only the first three books can really be concidered traditional children's books.

Of all of the characters in the books, the Weasleys seem the most earthy of the wizards. They're really the rednecks of the Harry Potter universe and it didn't strike me as being out of character to hear the few instances of salty language being uttered by them.

That's just my thoughts on the matter. I almost cheered out loud during the scene when Mrs. Weasley utters the only actual swear in the book. Sure, it might make kids cry but it fit the circumstances perfectly.

Spoiler Theatre Redux!

Yay! I finally finished Harry Potter. I loved the book, especially the last chapter where I was just riveted to the page like almost nothing I've read before.

I'm actually surprised the death toll wasn't as high as I expected it to be and about who has died and who hasn't. I really want to say more but I'll be nice.

Suffice it to say, it's a great finale to the series and supposedly Rowling is doing an encyclopedia or book of short stories to fill in some of the gaps in the series so that should be interesting, but it's nice to see everything finally wrapped up.

Oh, and the guy at work is a liar. [Blank] doesn't die! He had me fretting for two days about what would happen to him/her.

Spoiler Theatre!

Sigh. I don't know why I share any of my interests with the people at work.

I got to work yesterday afternoon and within about 5 minute of me being there, one of the guys came up to me to tell me, "Hey Brock! My mom said that [BLANK] dies in the new Harry Potter book!"

I kicked him out of the office and wouldn't talk to him for a while :)

I've got about 150 pages to go. I need to stop getting distracted with other things and just finish the book so I can stop worrying about spoilers.

Crack Crack Crack The Egg Into The Bowl

This is pretty sweet. Sony has actually done something right. They've released the PaRappa The Rappa soundtrack for the awesome price of FREE!

Go get it and thank me later.

200 Pages In...

Well, I'm about 200 pages into the new Harry Potter book. Chapter 10ish or so.

It's great so far. I was hoping to really plow through most of the book last night but I ended up passing out on the bed and then, when I woke up at 4am, my reading light was burnt out. Sigh.

A little aside: You know how I was grumbling about how stupid the cover art was for this book and how I called to switch the book to the adult version?

Well, as I was watching the people in front of me getting THEIR kids covers, I started to think I'd made a mistake in switching. Then they handed me my book and it ended up being the kid's cover anyway. It still has the worst cover art of the lot (I much prefer the US cover this time around) but it does look much nicer in real life than online.

At least I don't have to replace my entire collection now.

He's Got The Touch

Ok. This Skittles commercial is hilarious.

"He'll never see his family again."

Hee hee.

You Don't Want To Know How Long It Took Me To Figure Out Diagon Alley...

Garrett & I went over to Main Street in Georgetown tonight for the release party for the last Harry Potter book. It was nuts! Thankfully the store had been able to close down a large chunk of the street and set up stations so that it wasn't nearly the madhouse that it was during the release of The Half-Blood Prince.

Garrett had a blast. I duded him up in a little wizard costume and he spent most of the evening running up and down the street, zapping people with his magic wand. The best part is that he had several compliments on his magic wand, which is just a stick we found at the cottage, bark and all :)

From Harry Potter ...

Here's Garrett being interviewed with Albus Dumbledore (who won the prize for second best costume in my books) by Rita Skeeter from the Daily Prophet (who gets 3rd place).

Who won first place? This kid did.

From Harry Potter ...

It was the only costume I saw that actually ended up suffering from structural failure by the end of the night.

I took a few other pictures of the street to show how packed it was but my camera sucks so they're just blurry blobs. I did get a cool action shot of Garrett the Wizard in action though. Look out, Voldemort!

From Harry Potter ...

Big Chair, Big Chair, Whatcha' Gonna Do?

Man, she's getting big.

That is all.