Don't Play This Game!

This game is evil and addictive. I should be working on the final act of Metal Gear Solid 4 but nooo... I'm trying to land a cute bear on a bus in the middle of rush hour.

My record so far is 53 cars with a score of 2320. I'm sure I could get higher than that, but then I'll be playing all night...

START THE CAR!

We went to Ikea today and got a few new things for the house. My favourite purchase was the Poang footstool which is a perfect compliment to the Poang chair that I sit in while gaming.

I also snagged a little stool for using when I play the drums on Rock Band. I think it was only $3.99 which is a much better price than the 'Rock Throne' drum stool I've seen at EB for $29.99!

We also got another Benno shelf so I can get some of the DVDs and games off the floor and other stacks. And, in what I hope will be the cure to the incessant mess that consumes our living room, we got this funky storage unit.



Hopefully this'll help.

Oh, and I made sure we came home with a stuffed pillbug. How could I resist?

The best part about the trip was that Garrett was finally able to play in the ball room. He couldn't when we went there before Kara was born but he got his fill today!

By the way, we would never have been able to get home with our stuff in the Kia. I love the new car.

Never Ask What Colour The Sky Is In His World

Garrett was outside looking at a grasshopper and informed us that it was, and I quote, "Indigo green."

Part of me is VERY curious about what that would look like. Hmm... according to dictionary.com, it's "a green derived from indigo".

Seperated At Birth

I knew I played too much Mega Man back in the day. It's spilling over, genetically.

Let's Dance...

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

So, Tim... I hope you have something similar for us after your trip around Europe!

Spoiled By The Rat

Garrett & I went to see Wall-E today. It is a good movie especially concidering that the first third of the movie is almost dialogue free. Unfortunately, I think I've been spoiled by Ratatouille. That movie was just so beyond awesome that no matter how good Wall-E was, it just fell short of the mark I've set in my head.

When Wall-E is good, it is VERY, VERY good. The love story part of the movie is absolutely phenomenal. Unfortunately, it falls a little flat when Wall-E leaves Earth and meets up with the remnants of humanity. It's not bad, but it's nowhere near as good as the robot love story part of the film.

That said, the animation is gorgeous (probably the nicest looking Pixar movie to date) and Wall-E and EVA are awesome characters. Unfortunately, there just aren't a lot of other characters in the movie that I cared about, though the crazy robot gang was funny.

The "Presto" short film that aired before Wall-E was probably my favourite Pixar short film to date. It was absolutely hilarious.

Oh, one other thing. There was a trailer for a movie called "Fly Me To The Moon" before the movie started. It's some CGI movie that's done in 3D. Here's a word of advice: If you have a computer animated movie that looks like something a 15 year old would cobble together on a Mac in his basement, it's probably not a great idea to show the trailer before a Pixar movie. Seriously, it looked like something made in 1998.

06-27-08: Never Forget

I cannot wait.





I want to see this movie 18 times.

Sleeping Like A Login

Ok... that's odd.

I just got a little "blorp" on my computer telling me that Julie had just logged into MSN Messenger.

Which is strange, since she's sleeping upstairs RIGHT NOW!

I think she's a victim of identity theft. I wonder what I have to call her now...

Spore: The Next Generation

On Friday I downloaded the Spore Creature Creator trial. Garrett and I tinkered around with it a bit on Saturday morning before his party and had a lot of fun with it.

Here's Sammy, our first creation.



Then we made this... thing... I call it the CrocoCrab, but I forget its true name.



Dave was over on Saturday and made this thing that I call the Reverse Elephant With Eyes On Its Butt.



And today, Garrett made a monster all by himself. He calls it Randall.



This is the thing I made today with the full version of the Creature Creator.

Happy 4th Birthday Garrett!

It's Garrett's 4th birthday today... yeesh... I can't believe he's already old enough to sign up for Kindergarten this fall.

We had a McDonald's birthday party this weekend for him. It was pretty fun and all that was missing was a visit from Ronald McDonald himself (I guess Ron was out choosing prime Scotsmen for the Angus burgers) but it was good nonetheless.



Garrett and his crew are rollin' into Playland, McHomie style.



The gang digs into the birthday feast.



Queen Kara enjoys the feast from her lavish throne.

Garrett got a pile of Hot Wheels tracks from everyone and he's been spending the last few days playing with them all. Good times.

Today's his actual birthday and his friend (who couldn't make it to the party on the weekend) is taking him to McDonald's for supper, so don't be surprised if the next picture I take of Garrett is of a giant chicken mcnugget wearing his clothes.

Is It A Car? A Van? A Can?

Come to Crazy Garrett's Used Car Emporium!



He'll take your old junker away!



And give you a BRAND NEW CAR!

Yes, after minutes of painstaking research, we decided to buy a Mazda 5 on Monday. Today was the day we got to say, "Sayonara!" to the Korean Monstrosity that was Julie's Kia Spectra and say, "Bonjour!" to the oh-so-delightful (and spacious) Mazda 5. We're still trying to come up with a name for it... As far as Garrett's concerned, it's the Car With No Name...

If nothing else, it's nice to have a vehicle that you can actually store and ship things in. The fact that it doesn't sound like it's about to rattle apart whenever you're idling is quite a bonus too.

I Am Proteus The Invincible!

With the recent release of Dungeons & Dragons: 4th Edition, I've had a real jonesing to find my dice and roll up a character or three. I've done my level best to not buy the DM Guide and Player's Handbook over the past week, but it's hard. Even though I know I won't be playing any games anytime soon and that I haven't really played a game of D&D in about, oh, 10 years, I can't stop picking up sourcebooks here and there and reading them for fun.

Of course, I did that back when I actually played D&D too, so I'm just skipping the awkward interpersonal stuff.

Now to wait for Garrett to get old enough that I can turn him into a social reject :)

Almost All Growed Up

Garrett has his Kindergarten orientation meeting tomorrow. I think that's the day when his victim, er, teacher gets to meet him and then spend the next few months curled up in a ball, dreading the first day of school :)

Buggy Like A Fox

So... there's a new version of Firefox out.

I"m using it right now and suffice it to say, it's going to need a teeeny bit of tweaking. Just trying to make this post (and embed links) means I have to go back to writing tags by hand. Blarg.

Hopefully everything will get ironed out over the next couple of days. If I have to resort to using Internet Explorer I'll shoot myself.

This Reminds Me Of Someone...

Happy Bothers Day

We were calling Father's Day Bothers Day at work today because it seemed like everyone was doing their best to bother everyone else :)

Garrett had some interesting one-liners lately. When I came home from work, I walked into the kitchen to see that he had all of his super hero toys arrayed in formation to fight his Mark 1 Iron Man toy. Of course, he wanted ME to be Mark 1.... I wonder if that means something.

Last night at bed time, we could hear Garrett's voice coming in from the backyard, which meant that he was standing on his bed and yelling out his window. I went up to give him a talk about the dangers of leaning against window screens and that he had to be careful otherwise he might fall out and hurt himself.

A thoughtful look passed across his face and he said, "But if I fall out, I can just flap my wings and fly."

As much as I like to encourage a healthy imagination and fantasy life in Garrett's noggin, I had to lay a bit of reality down on him this time as I don't really want him taking swan dives out of his second story window.

Garrett has also coined a term for what I hope is NOT his sport of choice. He was out in the back yard and we weren't sure whether he was saying that he is ready for biking or fighting... It turns out he was ready for both, as he was going 'fiking'.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Hungry...

I went to see The Incredible Hulk today with a couple guys from work. Fun times.

If you liked Iron Man, you'll probably enjoy the new Hulk movie. It's a vast improvement over the snooze-fest that was the Ang Lee version. Just the right amount of smashing, talking and running for me.

And they do you the favour of not forcing you to wait through the credits to see the funky secret footage.

Quick Hits

It's been a long week so here's rundown of what's been going on around here.

Sunday
Went fishing with Garrett and a few of his friends and their dads at the local conservation area in Rockwood. Pictures to come.

Monday
Worked far too long on not enough sleep.

Tuesday
Was still waaay too tired to think while at work and to top things off, it appeared as though the game selector that I use was on the fritz. What should have been a quick replacement job was like the search for the holy grail (and about as fruitful).

Wednesday
Got my oil changed and stayed home from work sick. I shouldn't have been as tired on Wednesday as I was on Monday. Thankfully, a few naps and a relaxing evening helped somewhat. Oh, and I beat Grand Theft Auto 4.

Today
Still feeling a bit under the weather. My TV is still showing the faint vertically scrolling band but it's barely noticable right now. I'm not sure what is causing this. It seems that every time I think I've fixed whatever the issue is with my TV/Selector/whatever, it ends up manifesting as something else shortly thereafter. I'm convinced it's gnomes.

I also took the kids down to Springridge Farm for my free coffee this morning before picking up Metal Gear Solid 4 and dropping them off at the babysitter. Nothing like a fresh (and awesome) game and a quiet house to help replenish my waning energy stocks :)

If I can get as good a night sleep tonight as I did last night, I should be right as rain. Tomorrow should be a fun day with the kids.

This One Is For Dave & Tony

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Ska-Boosh!

Garrett & I went to take in a matinee of Kung Fu Panda this afternoon (hooray for air conditioned theatres!) and you know what? It is a great movie!

I figured it would be a little silly and goofy but otherwise on par with something like Shrek 3. You know, ok, but nothing special.

I absolutely loved it. Garrett had a huge grin on his face for the whole movie and he actually sat still for most of it!

I don't want to get heretical and start to compare it to Ratatouille, but it's up there.

Of course, a lot of the charm of the movie is the fact that it takes itself seriously as a kung fu movie instead of trying to be some kind of witty pop culture satire piece. The animation also looks fantastic and the fight scenes are well choreographed and for the most part, very funny.

And yes, Jack Black is the main character but he's not nearly as annoying as usual (and when he is annoying, it's for a good reason and other animals in the movie call him on it).

So go see Kung Fu Panda if you like CGI movies, kung fu and need a good laugh!

I almost forgot to mention: I can't wait for Wall-E and the new Star Wars movie. This summer is shaping up to be a great one if you like either superhero movies or awesome animated stuff.

Dudley Do-Right - He's Our Man!

On Tuesday, we went out to see the RCMP Musical Ride in Fergus. We were lucky that it didn't rain while we were there and thankfully it had dried up enough by the time the show started that things weren't too damp.

The only complaint we had was that there was a frisbee dog pre-show that felt like it lasted a good hour compared to the Musical Ride. By the time the Mounties showed up to do their thing, the kids were getting pretty restless.

Anyway, on with the pictures!



If this guy doesn't fit the quintessential Mountie stereotype, nobody does.



Garrett (and Scowly McGee in the background) seem to like the horses.



The Musical Ride lines up.



The Newfie Firing Squad: Live In Fergus

Police Brutality To The XTREEEEME!

I can't believe things like this still happen in North America.

...Residents say that their confidence in the Liberty City police force—low in the best of times—has eroded almost completely.

"I was buying a hot dog from a street vendor in Hove Beach yesterday when I saw someone run a red light, barrel down the sidewalk, careen into a garbage truck, exit his vehicle, steal a nearby convertible, and drive away," one Broker resident reported. "A nearby police car didn't even react. But when the car behind him nicked his fender, the officer shot the driver through the windshield and walked away."

"That is not the kind of law enforcement we want for our community," he added.

That's just wrong...

Don't Click On That Link!

Don't click on this link. Don't say I didn't warn you!

It's waaaay too addictive.

By the way, I got 218 on my first attempt. A couple of stumpers, sadly.

Giant Bags Of Beans

I want one of these Sumo-Sacs so badly but they're not cheap. I'm also concerned that Kara would sit on it and be completely consumed by it.

Say WHA?!

I can't believe that I actually stopped watching the Spelling Bee Championship on the weekend before seeing this live.

Sigh.

What's In The Bowl?

Forgotten science experiment found in the back of the fridge or delicious marinade?