Well, Garrett was very impressed by Videogames Live the other night. The seats were awesome (front row, middle of the balcony) and there were a lot of great performances through the night. I was very impressed by Martin Leung (the videogame pianist) and blown away by the flute skills of Laura Intravia (aka Flute Link).
I'd love it if the show came back to the area again next year. There is a lot of stuff that is the same but they do have enough new content to warrant repeated viewings. And it's just a great concert regardless.
Also, the winner of the costume contest was a guy dressed up as a Lego minifig. The costume was amazing.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Happy (Belated) Birthday, Grant!
I did send the guy a message but was out most of Friday, so in case he happens to stumble by here, happy birthday, little brother!
Now if only we could figure out why he keeps moving further and further away from the rest of his loving, caring family :)
Now if only we could figure out why he keeps moving further and further away from the rest of his loving, caring family :)
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
VGL
This should be interesting.
I'm taking Garrett with me to see Videogames Live tonight (Wed) in Kitchener. I'm very excited as it's a fantastic concert and I think he'll have a blast. I need to make sure he wears something videogamey!
I'm also interested to see how many tags I can get with my 3DS. So far I've found ONE person in the wild and that was at the Sarnia easter egg hunt. If I don't find very many other people with a 3DS tomorrow night, I won't find them anywhere!
I'm taking Garrett with me to see Videogames Live tonight (Wed) in Kitchener. I'm very excited as it's a fantastic concert and I think he'll have a blast. I need to make sure he wears something videogamey!
I'm also interested to see how many tags I can get with my 3DS. So far I've found ONE person in the wild and that was at the Sarnia easter egg hunt. If I don't find very many other people with a 3DS tomorrow night, I won't find them anywhere!
Happy 4th Birthday Kara
Kara turned 4 last week and I was so busy I forgot to post! I'll have to dig up some pictures from last week's string of birthday parties, but suffice it to say, she's very happy to be four now!
Monday, April 18, 2011
Happy Birthday Mom!
My mom is [REDACTED] years old today! Congratulations for making it through another trip around the sun, mom!
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Fun Is Work!
Speaking of work that is fun, I've been totally engrossed in this Portal 2 ARG (Alternate Reality Game) that has been going on since the beginning of the month. The reason it is so neat is because there's a chance that, due to a lot of geeks playing a lot of indie games, Portal 2 will be available at least a day earlier than planned! It is supposed to launch on Tuesday but because everyone has been playing a bunch of neat little games on Steam, we'll be able to play it by Monday night if all of the calculations are correct.
I'm sure that's gibberish for most of you, but it's really cool and one of the great things about being a gamer. What other medium will give you a chance to partake of their content early by watching/reading/listening to other movies/books/songs?
I'm sure that's gibberish for most of you, but it's really cool and one of the great things about being a gamer. What other medium will give you a chance to partake of their content early by watching/reading/listening to other movies/books/songs?
Work Is Hard
If you see a few more gray hairs on my head, I think it's because work is out to age me 20 years over the past few weeks. The last couple of days have been the first where I feel like I've got my feet back under me and it's so nice to have a day where I can just cook food and hang out with the guys instead of being buried in paperwork up to my eyeballs.
Not that I don't have paperwork, but the high priority stuff is definately wrangled for the moment. Phew!
Not that I don't have paperwork, but the high priority stuff is definately wrangled for the moment. Phew!
Monday, April 04, 2011
It's Still Easier Than Explaining It To My Grandparents
Please check out this epic flowchart detailing how to explain the internet to a 19th century street urchin. It is about 8 kinds of awesome.
And it's pretty funny too.
And it's pretty funny too.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
The Best Worst Thing You'll Hear All Day
If you've been exposed to the virulent strain of earworm that is Rebecca Black's 'Friday', do yourself a favour and watch this video.
At the very least, Colbert & Fallon have managed to wash the sound of the original version out of my brain.
Edit: I give up. Just go on Youtube and search for Friday and Colbert.
At the very least, Colbert & Fallon have managed to wash the sound of the original version out of my brain.
Edit: I give up. Just go on Youtube and search for Friday and Colbert.
Chicks Dig Scars
Garrett & I got to spend about 6 hours or so in the local ER waiting to see if he had any kind of internal damage after he had an unexpected meeting of his stomach and the bare metal end of his handlebars while riding around outside today.
We were a little concerned that the force of the blow and the fact that it took the skin off his stomach (and left it imprinted on the inside of the shirt!) so I drove him over to the hospital after work to have a professional give him a once-over. While we did have an almost 6 hour wait there, they took it seriously enough to do a urine test and ultrasound to ensure that there wasn't any internal injury. Thankfully, it looks like he'll just be tender on his tummy for a bit and have a very odd scar to show to his friends when he's older.
And I have to say, for a kid in some amount of pain and with not a lot to do, Garrett handled the long wait at the hospital like a trooper. He played his DS, my 3DS, my iPhone, read some magazines, flounced about a bit and ate a bunch of junk food from the vending machine with nary a complaint. I think he was more interested in all of the stuff going on through the glass doors into the ward and with all of the people around to realize how dull it was!
To add insult to injury to this whole evening, we got trapped in the parking lot for about 10 minutes when we were trying to leave. On the upside, we didn't have to pay the obscenely high cost for parking ($16 to park for 2 hours? SERIOUSLY?!?) but it was kind of annoying nonetheless.
We were a little concerned that the force of the blow and the fact that it took the skin off his stomach (and left it imprinted on the inside of the shirt!) so I drove him over to the hospital after work to have a professional give him a once-over. While we did have an almost 6 hour wait there, they took it seriously enough to do a urine test and ultrasound to ensure that there wasn't any internal injury. Thankfully, it looks like he'll just be tender on his tummy for a bit and have a very odd scar to show to his friends when he's older.
And I have to say, for a kid in some amount of pain and with not a lot to do, Garrett handled the long wait at the hospital like a trooper. He played his DS, my 3DS, my iPhone, read some magazines, flounced about a bit and ate a bunch of junk food from the vending machine with nary a complaint. I think he was more interested in all of the stuff going on through the glass doors into the ward and with all of the people around to realize how dull it was!
To add insult to injury to this whole evening, we got trapped in the parking lot for about 10 minutes when we were trying to leave. On the upside, we didn't have to pay the obscenely high cost for parking ($16 to park for 2 hours? SERIOUSLY?!?) but it was kind of annoying nonetheless.
Friday, April 01, 2011
On A Happier Note...
This has been a bear of a week for me, but tomorrow (today?) is my day off (yay) so I'm finally getting a bit of time to decompress. Despite the insanity of the previous post, the absolute emotional wringer of a day I had on Wednesday at work and the fact that it was year end at work on Thursday and the paperwork was flying furiously, there is a glimmer in the darkness!
Our church had a spectacular opening Sunday on the 27th. Our first service was about 75% capacity in the sanctuary, which holds about 700 people. For the second service, it was standing room only, not to mention all of the people spilling out into the foyer and the coffee shop. Altogether, we had something like 1200 people come to the church on Sunday with 200 kids in the children's area. Woo!
And in a fit of insanity, I had volunteered to help with parking. Here's a still shot of the parking lot from the far edge of the lot to show how many cars there were...
It was a bit packed. We had cars lined up all the way from the cul-de-sac at the end of 10th Line to the lights at Argentia at one point, but we managed to squeeze about 400 or so cars into a lot designed to hold about 300. It was nuts. 3.5 hours of nuts, to be precise, because that's how long I spent outside directing traffic that day! At least the weather was beautiful, though I got a pretty nasty sunburn for my troubles.
Hopefully the coming Sundays will be a little more... sane. We had a lot of visitors, special guests and curious people who likely won't be around on a regular basis, though it would be awesome to have this kind of turn out every week.
I'm just happy that we have a building to call home for the church now. It has been a long time coming and it's like the church is coming into its adolescence now (almost literally, what with the congregation being about 10 years old this coming September) so we have all sorts of new challenges and opportunities to look forward in this new phase of the church's life. Time to sit back and buckle in and enjoy the ride.
Our church had a spectacular opening Sunday on the 27th. Our first service was about 75% capacity in the sanctuary, which holds about 700 people. For the second service, it was standing room only, not to mention all of the people spilling out into the foyer and the coffee shop. Altogether, we had something like 1200 people come to the church on Sunday with 200 kids in the children's area. Woo!
And in a fit of insanity, I had volunteered to help with parking. Here's a still shot of the parking lot from the far edge of the lot to show how many cars there were...
It was a bit packed. We had cars lined up all the way from the cul-de-sac at the end of 10th Line to the lights at Argentia at one point, but we managed to squeeze about 400 or so cars into a lot designed to hold about 300. It was nuts. 3.5 hours of nuts, to be precise, because that's how long I spent outside directing traffic that day! At least the weather was beautiful, though I got a pretty nasty sunburn for my troubles.
Hopefully the coming Sundays will be a little more... sane. We had a lot of visitors, special guests and curious people who likely won't be around on a regular basis, though it would be awesome to have this kind of turn out every week.
I'm just happy that we have a building to call home for the church now. It has been a long time coming and it's like the church is coming into its adolescence now (almost literally, what with the congregation being about 10 years old this coming September) so we have all sorts of new challenges and opportunities to look forward in this new phase of the church's life. Time to sit back and buckle in and enjoy the ride.
Take That, Good Deed Doer!
How I wish this was an April Fool's joke. There is a very surreal thing going down around our neighbourhood and it just goes to show how small a town Acton is.
A week ago or so (during that crazy freak blizzard) one of the people living near us had their dog either stolen or lost from their yard. I'm not sure whether they're exaggerating or not and I honestly don't know why anyone would wait until the nastiest day of the year so far to bother to try to steal their puppy, but that's their story and they're sticking to it.
So they went to the cops, it didn't seem like much would happen but a few days later, it appears that they've retrieved their dog from a supposed breeder or some such. Hooray! Happy end of story.
Except now it seems that one of our friends that lives across town has learned that no good deed goes unpunished. They found a dog on one of the sideroads near Acton and called the local humane society and someone came to take the dog to the shelter. And yes, it was that missing puppy. So the cops have been paying a visit to our good friends and they're worried that they're going to be under the spotlight as suspected dognappers when they were just trying to do the right thing.
And to make things even more crazy, it turns out that the person who came from the shelter to take the dog away is a fake. The shelter has nobody like this on staff. So that's a whole other layer of insanity on this surreal pancake.
Hopefully everything will be fine for our friends and the real dognappers in this case will be caught and/or never stalk the Hills of Halton again, but it sucks that our friends are stuck in the middle for having tried to do the right thing.
Draaaama!
A week ago or so (during that crazy freak blizzard) one of the people living near us had their dog either stolen or lost from their yard. I'm not sure whether they're exaggerating or not and I honestly don't know why anyone would wait until the nastiest day of the year so far to bother to try to steal their puppy, but that's their story and they're sticking to it.
So they went to the cops, it didn't seem like much would happen but a few days later, it appears that they've retrieved their dog from a supposed breeder or some such. Hooray! Happy end of story.
Except now it seems that one of our friends that lives across town has learned that no good deed goes unpunished. They found a dog on one of the sideroads near Acton and called the local humane society and someone came to take the dog to the shelter. And yes, it was that missing puppy. So the cops have been paying a visit to our good friends and they're worried that they're going to be under the spotlight as suspected dognappers when they were just trying to do the right thing.
And to make things even more crazy, it turns out that the person who came from the shelter to take the dog away is a fake. The shelter has nobody like this on staff. So that's a whole other layer of insanity on this surreal pancake.
Hopefully everything will be fine for our friends and the real dognappers in this case will be caught and/or never stalk the Hills of Halton again, but it sucks that our friends are stuck in the middle for having tried to do the right thing.
Draaaama!
Saturday, March 26, 2011
One More Sleep!
Tomorrow is the launch date for the new Nintendo 3DS! I can't wait. I've had mine paid off for at least a month or two and am really excited to see this thing in action.
I'm only getting one game at launch (Pilotwings) but I'm really excited to play around with the Augmented Reality stuff. It looks really slick. And given that nary a day goes by where I don't play my DS, an enhanced version of my favourite game system of the past 5 years is more than welcome!
Garrett's pretty excited to see it too. We love 3D movies and such and it will be neat to see how this works without glasses.
I'm only getting one game at launch (Pilotwings) but I'm really excited to play around with the Augmented Reality stuff. It looks really slick. And given that nary a day goes by where I don't play my DS, an enhanced version of my favourite game system of the past 5 years is more than welcome!
Garrett's pretty excited to see it too. We love 3D movies and such and it will be neat to see how this works without glasses.
Buggered For Choice: Spring Election Edition
Well, it's election season and I don't think I've felt more blasé about picking a leader for our glorious country. I have been thinking about how none of the candidates inspire me in the least, except to perhaps retch into a corner.
I think that it is a necessary election to have because the Conservatives have basically been flounting the laws of the land AND the niceties of Parliament in such a blatant manner that they need to be held accountable. Even if the outcome of the election is identical to what it is now, at least the Opposition showed that it could actually get its head out of its butt long enough to do its job.
Locally, I like the guy who is running for the Conservative seat and he at least brought some decent bills to the table over the last while, but I don't really want to vote for the Conservatives. The Liberals... the less said about them the better and the NDP have done so many backflips on principle and policy issues that they should be in Cirque De Soleil. As for the Greens, well, I haven't heard a peep out of them in any capacity since the last election so I'd rather not toss my vote into that black hole.
So there's my quandary. Do I vote for the guy who I actually like who is in our local riding despite not wanting to vote for the party he is a member of OR do I play a game of political spin-the-bottle and essentially waste my vote? Not voting is out of the question, but it feels like I'm being forced to make a kind of bizzaro political version of Sophie's Choice.
I think that it is a necessary election to have because the Conservatives have basically been flounting the laws of the land AND the niceties of Parliament in such a blatant manner that they need to be held accountable. Even if the outcome of the election is identical to what it is now, at least the Opposition showed that it could actually get its head out of its butt long enough to do its job.
Locally, I like the guy who is running for the Conservative seat and he at least brought some decent bills to the table over the last while, but I don't really want to vote for the Conservatives. The Liberals... the less said about them the better and the NDP have done so many backflips on principle and policy issues that they should be in Cirque De Soleil. As for the Greens, well, I haven't heard a peep out of them in any capacity since the last election so I'd rather not toss my vote into that black hole.
So there's my quandary. Do I vote for the guy who I actually like who is in our local riding despite not wanting to vote for the party he is a member of OR do I play a game of political spin-the-bottle and essentially waste my vote? Not voting is out of the question, but it feels like I'm being forced to make a kind of bizzaro political version of Sophie's Choice.
Friday, March 11, 2011
Home. Sick.
Garrett woke up today with a fever of 102. Degrees. Celcius. Then he exploded.
Actually, it was Farenheit and he did puke a few times while at the sitter's. I was able to get home early (yay) and his fever seems to have broken, but he's now passed out on the couch after watching a bit of Pokémon. Hopefully the worst is over and he'll be all ready for an exciting week of March Break Fun[tm]!
This was kind of nice for me because I got a head start on my vacation. I don't go back until the 23rd!
Actually, it was Farenheit and he did puke a few times while at the sitter's. I was able to get home early (yay) and his fever seems to have broken, but he's now passed out on the couch after watching a bit of Pokémon. Hopefully the worst is over and he'll be all ready for an exciting week of March Break Fun[tm]!
This was kind of nice for me because I got a head start on my vacation. I don't go back until the 23rd!
Time to Share at the Timeshare!
Kara and I went up to Thornbury last week to hang out with my parents and just get away from the hustle and bustle of life in Acton. Seriously though, we had a great time up north, even with Kara being sick one of the days. We went swimming and snowshoeing and drank lots of delicious Ashanti coffee.
There's a great cheese shoppe in Thornbury that had a variety of amazing cheeses I've never tried before. Before I get to my top two, let me just say that they had a cheese that was the unholy, yet very tasty, offspring of a piece of gouda and parmesan. That being said, the best of the cheeses were a couple of cheddars. One was a Guinness cheddar that looks like something you scrape off of the bar at an Irish pub, yet tastes surprisingly mild. My personal favourite was an Irish Whiskey cheddar that was not sharp in the least and had a distinctly whiskey tang to it. Yum!
Anyway, here are a few pictures we took while we were up there. Enjoy!
There's a great cheese shoppe in Thornbury that had a variety of amazing cheeses I've never tried before. Before I get to my top two, let me just say that they had a cheese that was the unholy, yet very tasty, offspring of a piece of gouda and parmesan. That being said, the best of the cheeses were a couple of cheddars. One was a Guinness cheddar that looks like something you scrape off of the bar at an Irish pub, yet tastes surprisingly mild. My personal favourite was an Irish Whiskey cheddar that was not sharp in the least and had a distinctly whiskey tang to it. Yum!
Anyway, here are a few pictures we took while we were up there. Enjoy!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Local Wildman Spotted At Mall
Check out my dad! He's on the intarwebs!
Now if only I could get the crappy video codec to play in Firefox...
Now if only I could get the crappy video codec to play in Firefox...
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Ribs...
We went out for all-you-can-eat ribs at Montana's yesterday as the capper on our Family Day activities. I think I'm now 90% pork-back ribs and 10% human. Urg...
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