Going In The Banned Song List

So due to some SNAFU regarding packaging laws and such, I ended up with a goodly amount of store credit at EB after having canceled my Persona PSP preorder (I picked up the US version instead rather than wait an extra who-knows-how-long).

What did I do with this credit? I put it towards Beatles: Rock Band. The kids have been loving it, though I'm really, REEEEEEAALLLY getting tired of Yellow Submarine. I should never have shown it to them because all they want to do is sing it over and over and over and over... you get the picture. It's a shame, because it has some of the cooler background animations going on during the song.

No Rest For The Wicked

How did I somehow manage to put in an overnight shift and 4+ hours yesterday afternoon when this is supposed to be my weekend off? I'd take a day off this week to make up for it except that there just isn't any day this week where I can do that!

Sigh.

The Great Decastination!

Today was the day! Kara was a trooper and sat through the buzzing of the Stryker saw with nary a flinch. She's having some issues standing on her leg and it's a little tender, but she'll probably be on her feet and running around in a day or two. Amazingly, she didn't have anything nasty jammed down the cast but boy, was it ever hairy.

Now to give her a bath. I bet the water will turn black when she sits in it!

BEFORE



AFTER

TIGER ROAR!

Don't ask...

Beware The Barktopus

Garrett is now convinced that there are Barktopuses (Barktopi?) roving the shorelines of Manitoulin Island. I'm evil...

Kind Of Off This Week

Hey, what's this? After a solid month or more of being run off my feet, coming home at least a half hour or more late and generally adding liberally to my collection of gray hairs, I'm getting something slightly resembling a break from work this week. I'm off today and tomorrow anyway and Wednesday is Decastination Day (we hope). Then I'm heading off to the balmy climes of... Guelph... for a two-day conference.

That means I'm not going to have to be at work until, well, Saturday, but that's just for a couple hours and can almost be concidered fun. Yay!

Now, what should I read to relax?

Choice #1: Arkham Asylum: A Serious Place On A Serious Earth by the great Grant Morrison and Dave McKean

OR

Choice #2: The Operation Of Small Drinking-Water Systems correspondence course guidebook by the always entertaining Ministry Of The Environment? Decisions, decisions.

Dr. Horrible Kills TV!

I didn't watch the Emmys, but knowing that Dr. Horrible was going to be on them made it mighty tempting. Stupid TV. Die already!

Manitoulin Madness!

I told you I'd get you pictures from Manitoulin. The falls were the Bridal Veil Falls in Kagawong, the overlook pictures are from 10-Mile Point on Highway 6 and also from the Gore Bay overlook. We went riding at Kicking Mule Ranch and saw the Mississagi Lighthouse out near Meldrum Bay.

I think that's about it. The tepee is also near the 10-Mile Lookout and I took the night shot the final evening we were there. Good times, good times...

All Hail The Rooster Hat!

Remember that Scribblenauts game I was talking about the other day? Well, I got the promo item the other day that came with the game and have had quite a difficult time getting Garrett to stop wearing it. He wore it all day today while we were out running errands. I'm trying to convince him that it's a thinking cap that he needs to wear when we play the game before bed :)

Signs Signs Signs!

I was perusing the latest Dark Roasted Blend photo gallery today and came across this sign. I had to do a double-take because I used to attend St. Giles Presbyterian church, but in Sarnia, not Ottawa.

Clever sign though :)

Scribblenauts aka Spelling Is Fun!

I managed to get my hands on a copy of Scribblenauts today (a day early) and Garrett and I sat down before I went out to donate blood to try it out.

If nothing else gets Garrett learning to spell, THIS game will. In a nutshell, it's a puzzle game on the DS that has you trying to solve little problems and puzzles using objects that you conjure out of thin air by spelling them out. There are something like 22000 different words in the game, so if you can think of something, there's a better than average chance that it's in the game.

For example, in the first puzzle, you have a policeman, fireman, chef and doctor. The puzzle wants you to put two objects that they might use into their hands. So the cop got a gun and the chef got a pot. Solved!

Well, you can go back and try to solve it 3 more times to truly master it. This is where it gets fun. We tried all sorts of different objects and things were going well until Garrett asked me to give the doctor a zombie.

The zombie went nuts and turned everyone else into a zombie. From this point on, Garrett's go-to solution for every puzzle was to drop a zombie in. Or a shark. Or a zombie shark (which, sadly, is NOT in the game). According to Julie, while I was off donating blood, Garrett was grilling her on the how-to methods of turning people into zombies.

That translates into another nomination for me for Father Of The Year, I suspect.

I've been having a lot of fun with the game so far and the fact that you can mess around with it and just drop all sorts of different things into the screen to see what they'll do is a hoot. I had God fight Cthulhu and God won. Then I had a polar bear fight the Egyptian sun god Ra and amazingly, the polar bear won. I'm planning on having a battle royale and pitting that polar bear against every deity I can think of until one of them takes him down.

Then the game will REALLY get interesting :)

Misplaced Priorities

I came across this tidbit of information via one of my friends' twitter posts and it made me livid. If I read it correctly, all of the libraries (or at least, the free libraries, which I just figured was a redundant term when talking about public book repositories) in Philidelphia are going to be closing as of October 1 of this year. That's not only insane, it's downright criminal.

I can put up with a lot of atrocities and heartache in the world and won't bat an eye if many businesses and industries go belly up but so help the poor bugger who tries to shut down MY local library. If that nonsense migrates up here, I'll... I'll have to start buying more books again!

Back To Civilization!

I'm back from my Manitoulin trip! Yay! I actually arrived last night, but between the 75 or so Gmail messages, updates on the boards, another 70+ or so 'real' e-mails, saying hi to the family and dishing out souvenirs, I haven't really had much time to have 'fun' on the computer yet.

By the way, Garrett needs to learn what a souvenir is. I made the mistake of bringing him home a Star Wars Happy Meal toy last year so once I'd finished giving him the plush snow owl and the Manitoulin hoodie I picked up this time around, he started looking around and asking where the souvenirs were. Sigh.

It's always scary to come home to the kids after a week away. Garrett seems about a foot taller each time and Kara... Kara's turned into a Stalin-esque dictator of the living room with a vocabulary that is at least 3 times larger than it was when I left. I just need to give her a riding crop and a giant mustache and she'll be marshaling the troops before we know it.

Well, I'll put my pics from the trip up tomorrow. I just gave blood tonight and am a little oogy still and don't want to break the internet with my photos.

Manitoulin HO!

Well, my ride to work should be here momentarily, so if you don't hear from me for the next week, that's probably a good thing as the place we're going has no net access, aside from the fishing kind!

Have a great week, everyone! I'll try not to have too much fun on the way too and from the island. I'm just happy that the lighthouse at Meldrum Bay is open this year.

Earning Their Keep

I put the kids to work making supper this morning. Garrett is becoming a dab hand with a blade and Kara is in training for middle management as we speak.

Kara: The Leggening

We've got more pictures of Kara's leg after she stood still too long in a bad neighbourhood and let the gangs tag her cast. She's also got a blindingly bright new pink shell on her leg and received a Kara Package (thanks mom!) from her Grandma Wager yesterday. Woo!

Check out the slideshow!

On The Subject Of Broken Bones

At least this didn't happen to Kara!

Happy Birthday Dave!

My widdle bwutha is 31 today! Go get your birthday kicks in now before it's too late!