Tuesday, July 31, 2007

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.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

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.

Friday, July 27, 2007

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...
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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

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

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.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

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.

Monday, July 23, 2007

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.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

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.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

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 ...

Thursday, July 19, 2007

Big Chair, Big Chair, Whatcha' Gonna Do?


Man, she's getting big.

That is all.

Our Trip To The Cottage!

From Cottage 2007
Garrett liked to say that he was stuck in Spiderman's web whenever he sat in the hammocks. They were soooo comfy.
From Cottage 2007
Maybe this is a foreshadowing of her life of crime, but Kara didn't enjoy the webbing, er, hammocks as much as Garrett.
From Cottage 2007
The sad thing is that I fished for two days and got this runty little thing on my second to last cast. Then I caught another fish about the same size on my next cast. I think it was the same stupid fish.
From Cottage 2007
Garrett tried his hand at fishing and seems to be getting a lot better at both the casting and the reeling. One of these days I'll get him using a real hook and worm.

One more sleep!

And it's Harry Potter time, my friends!

I just called the shop to change my pre-order (since March) to the adult cover of the book. I tried and tried to resist the urge to switch covers but I just got sicker and sicker every time I saw that stupid cover on the children's version of the book. Not to mention, the adult cover just looks sharp...

I'm going to the shop at 10pm tomorrow as they're shutting down the main street in Georgetown in front of the shop for a big Harry Potter party. I'm going to take Garrett if he's a good boy :)

Of course, I need to get lots of sleep so I can stay up for the next two days and plow through the books. If you don't see me anywhere, I'll be upstairs, sequestered in my room, reading the Potter...

Sunday, July 15, 2007

At Least One Of Them Is Happy

Garrett seems to really enjoy holding Kara. Kara? She doesn't seem to be such a fan of the holding. You be the judge.

From The Kids

Fractal Kids

From The Kids

What scares me is that if we had another, even smaller kid next to Kara, he/she would probably strike the same pose, and on and on to infinity...

For Sale: 2 Kids, Slightly INSANE

Starting bid is $2.

From The Kids

Saturday, July 14, 2007

I Shall Call Him SINGULARITY BOY!

I think Garrett has a black hole in his stomach today.

He packed in more food today than I've seen him eat in the last week. He just kept eating and eating and eating... Usually we're lucky if he eats very much of his breakfast, any of his lunch and sometimes he'll pick at supper.

He had two servings of breakfast, we went to Smitty's at lunch and he ate his whole plate, all of my toast and most of Julie's sausages and then tonight he just kept asking for more food.

I'm afraid of what we'll find in the morning. I think we'll go into his room and he'll be 8 feet tall.

The only upside of this being a possible growth spurt is that maybe, JUST MAYBE, he'll sleep in a bit and be a little tired.

But I won't hold my breath.

Friday, July 13, 2007

*Insert Lame Transformers Quote Here*

I went to see Transformers yesterday.

Holy shnikeys, it's a great movie. It's about as deep as a mud puddle but it's a fantastic action movie with some surprisingly decent character development. I highly recommend everyone who's even remotely interested in it to see it in theatres.

The theatre I saw it in seems to consistently have issues with their movies though. Between being out of focus, having the bottom of the screen on the top and the top of the screen on the bottom (FOR THE FIRST 5 MINUTES OF THE MOVIE!) and the print being very degraded (it was quite grainy and had the green lines and gunk on the screens) this is one of the movies that, while awesome on the big screen, will look much nicer on DVD.

I need to see it in a digital theatre...

Technology Secrets REVEALED!

Ever wonder how your mouse cursor works? Wonder no more.

BEHOLD!

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Hot, Shmot

Of course, I know I'm jinxing myself by posting this, but what happened to the cauldrons of hell that were supposed to roast us alive today? Every weather report I've read over the last couple of days has proclaimed this as being the hottest day of the summer, with temperatures soaring over the 40 degree mark with the humidex.

Yet here I sit, looking at my internal/external thermometer and it's actually warmer inside than out. It's only 20.8 degrees outside and it's 25 degrees inside. Heck, I just opened the windows to let the cool breeze in.

I think that the fact that it's been rainy since about 11am has helped. There's a great breeze out right now and aside from the dark and stormy clouds, it's quite pleasant outside.

I'm just happy it didn't turn into a scorcher today. I hate stupidly hot days like today was supposed to be. They make me generally unpleasant to be around...

7/7/07 Does Not Equal Luck...

Well July 7th has come and gone and it's now another year until the next Chilifest.

Since almost everyone bailed on my wonderful trip to Collingwood to sample Ontario's tastiest chili (yes, I mean YOU!), Julie and the kids came along to keep me company. All was well until we got to Shelbourne.

As we were about to turn up the 124 to Collingwood, we heard a splashing sound from the back seat. Then another coughing/splashing sound... and another.

Yes, folks. Garrett had just puked up not once, not twice, but three times. Thankfully we were able to pull into a parking lot and get him quickly cleaned off and sponge up most of the vomit before things got even grosser than they already were, but man...

Shelbourne is basically the point of no return on the trip to Collingwood. It's as close to home as it is to the Chilifest. Of course, I'm standing there on the side of the road, mopping up puke and thinking, "Well, I guess I'm not going to Chilifest," but Garrett seemed rather chipper after expelling the contents of his stomach all over himself and the back seat, so we were able to continue on to the Chilifest with only a brief stop at Giant Tiger to buy him a new outfit and some cleaning supplies.

Garrett was pretty low-key the rest of the day, though he did seem to have plenty of energy to run around the splash pad until he fell and cut his knee.

As for the chili itself, it was great. There were about 23 different booths set up and the flavours ranged from the overpoweringly hot to mild yet flavourful. There was a great chicken chili, a chili that had some kind of apple in it and one that used organic bison.

Doug showed up at the fest and we cruised around the venue, comparing our favourites and determining who we would vote for. The shenanigans that the booth operators were up to was half of the fun. One booth was going around slapping stickers on everyone who walked by (or was sitting, in Julie's case). Another booth was writing their booth number on the sticker from the previous booth. One booth was giving their samples away for free instead of collecting the ticket that was needed to get a sample.

I voted for the Disco Stew chili and Doug voted for my second choice, the chili made by some old ladies. They haven't updated the website to say who won, but I think that either of those chili booths should win.

Was it worth the 2 hour drive, the puking, the skinned knees and broken friendships? Sure was! I think that next year we'll have to get a gang together to actually compete in the chili cookoff. That would be even better!

Now to find out when the Fergus chili cookoff starts...

Wednesday, July 04, 2007

A Tale Of Two Movies

I took Garrett to see Ratatouille yesterday. Phenomenal movie. I love everything that Brad Bird has done (Iron Giant being one of my favourite movies of all time) and he didn't disappoint this time around.

It's hard to say exactly why Ratatouille is such a good movie, given that it's about an intelligent rat who spends most of the movie in an upscale kitchen cooking things, but it works. It doesn't fall back to the usual clichés that most animated movies have. No car chases, explosions or the like. Well, there are some 'action' scenes, but not like you'd expect.

The best part was last night at bath time when Garrett kept pretending to make soup like the rat.

Tonight, Julie wanted to watch Transamerica. She rented it the other day, expecting a nice movie about a mother and her kid as they travel across America on a road trip. I asked her before it started if she knew what it was about and she didn't. Hee hee...

Suffice it to say, she was a bit shocked when she found out what the movie was really about :)

That said, it's not a bad flick. The subject matter is very unique, but the core of the story isn't that bad and the acting is pretty impressive.

Monday, July 02, 2007

All Aboard The Gutbuster Express.

Last call for the Chilifest up in Thornbury this weekend!

I'm trying to figure out who is going up so we can coordinate rides. Let me know via MSN, Gtalk or e-mail if you want to come and we'll sort things out.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Sesquicentennial -10

Sorry for the lack of updates. Work kept me stupidly busy this week.

Happy Canada Day everyone! We're off to see the fireworks later tonight at the park here in Acton. They're almost better than Sarnia's fireworks (and they were much better than Sarnia's fireworks used to be).

Garrett's already practicing putting his fingers in his ears :)
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What I'm Reading: A Feast For Crows
What I'm Playing: Overlord (360), The Darkness (360), Etrian Odyssey (DS), Carcassone (XBLA)
What I'm Watching: The Last Starfighter, Canada Day Fireworks over in the park

Hey good lookin', why the frown? It always looks better when it's upside down.