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.