Snow Day

We weren't really affected by the 5-6 inches of snow, really. I got to work fine, did come home early because work thought it would be better if we went home, but otherwise we've just been having fun with the snow. The kids enjoy eating it, smushing it, and just doing anything with it. We did head out to do some more shopping today, and even though the roads were iced over and slippery, people were still out about, doing their thing.

Well, Rock Band on the brain and I'm not concentrating anyway. Later.

Frosty Friday

Despite only having to work 2 hours today and getting paid for 4, and also waking up at 7am instead of the dreaded 4:30am, I'm still a little funky and tired.

While I'm typing this on the laptop in the living room, the kids are playing Duck Duck Goose. The both of them.

Anyway, I just wanted to get this incident down on the blog, because it's not everyday we face this kind of crisis.

We were putting groceries away after grocery shopping, when my wife and I heard a weird hiss. The dishwasher was running, but it was coming from the opposite direction. My wife suddenly got panicky.

"What's that sound? Where is that coming from?"

She starts getting wide-eyed and backs out of the kitchen.

"Why is it doing that? What's making that sound?"

I found out that she had put a box on top of the non-stick cooking spray, and it was spraying my orange creme ice cream with a healthy coat of oil as it pooled at the bottom. Oh, she got teased about that. That I knew she didn't like my Orange Creme but that was certainly not nice of her to douse it in synthetic aerosol grease.

The Post Before Dinner

The kids are playing Little Big Planet which is fine and dandy, except they would accidently select "Play Online" and some unwittingly guy would want to play with the kids, expecting some skill on my kids part. The kids do okay, but they couldn't complete a level or do more complex stuff. So I take pity on the online pairings, although I had to mute the other guy first.

"Home" became open beta today, but the servers are so swarmed and I couldn't even get on there. After a few days of feeling special, the closed beta is now open for the entire PS3 community. Oh well.

I'll have to go into work tomorrow for a couple hours to finish up a big order, which I don't mind much since I can start 3 and a half hours later than usual, which is 8am. So I can actually stay up a little and be a normal human being. Probably do a little more Call of Duty and then watch a movie or something. I started watching "Volver" a little, so maybe I'll finish that, or watch something else. I put "The Dark Knight" on my Blockbuster queue, and would really love to watch that. Like now. But I'll wait.

Woke up late this morning, slapped on a cap, and made it to work in 15 mins. So now as I sit at home, my hair looking atrocious and I'm dying for a shower. Today wasn't too bad, managed to stay busy one way or another through real work or work created by myself.

Thinking of doing a short film during my impromtu vacation. I've thunked up a story idea, just got to flesh it out to be a longer short. It would a comedy with a female lead, who is given 15 minutes after her death to visit whoever because she was taken 15 minutes by the reaper before her time. So, yeah. It's an idea.

Well, time to cook dinner for the kids.

Checked my email and got psyched that I got the code for the Home Beta for the PS3. Basically, it's a limited beta that I've been wishing to get into, it's like Second Life without a little more control and probably less weirdness. I'm fairly impressed by it, it's usable enough to not be too off putting, and there's enough customization to keep one interested. I'll probably talk more about it on next week's Pizza Bento.

Alex was bugging me to get a toy "for Christmas."

"No. We're done for Christmas."

"What about next Christmas?" he inquires.

"Ask me next year," I say, and he says ok, thinking he's struck up a pretty good deal for himself.

Christmas isn't hurting quite as much this year, probably because I had this nice overtime check from way back in November. There's a couple more odds and ends to take care of, but we're keeping stuff in check for a little until my next paycheck. Then we should be all done.

This afternoon Alex had a sealed christmas bag that he was carrying, and he said, "watch this..."

He dropped the bag on the ground and some growling and mutterings came from within. They were his Hulk fists.

"Be careful, you're going to make him angry," I advised.

Alex bounced the bag on the floor again.

"You're making me angry! You wouldn't like me when I'm angry!" said Hulk hands, as if on cue.
That was awesome.

---

Just finished "Grave of the Fireflies", an anime from 1988. I've had it for a while but Filmspotting mentioned it and got me interested. What a tragic tale told so artfully and without punches pulled. Man. The film is so haunting that I'm still thinking about it. Highly recommend it, although be warned that its a tragedy, albeit a touching one.

There's been a bunch of stuff happening lately but due to general sloth-like behavior and just plain busy-ness, I've been putting it off. But you know, better late than never I suppose.

We had some meeting at work and without hashing out the whole scenerio, I basically won fifty bucks that day which caused a bit of passive aggressive envy at work, since everyone had the opportunity to win it but I got it first. And later on, I figured with all the Christmas and New Years days off, if I took 4 PTO days off in between Christmas and New Years, I would essentially have almost two weeks off. So I asked and it was approved. I don't have any plans for my unplanned vacation, but maybe that's a good thing. I'm quite pleased with myself with all those days off. But when I got home, I found out that my traffic ticket was deferred, but my fine was still a buck fifty. Merry Christmas to me.

Yesterday we were at Costco for Diet Coke and Batteries (for our coke-soaked batteries on our tougue habits) and we reached a fever pitch frenzy HDTV lust. We were actually pretty damn close to getting one, probably what stopped us were car seats and the inkling of common sense that my wife had I had left. The more we thought about it though, the more problems came up. Can we afford it? Even if we could get hd programming, how does it affect the other two analog TVs in our home? What do we do with the 34 inch we already have? Do I move my PS3 to the living room? Can we afford the HDMI cables, the entertainment center and the assortment switchers? How can I find a job that lets me what TV the whole day? Honestly, the best thing to do is just to wait another year, and we will inevitably get more bang for the buck. You can get a 47 inch for about a grand, but next year it could easily be the 60 inch for the same price. Maybe.

Oh yeah, I received and installed my new 320 gig hard drive in my PS3 and it is sweetness. No longer do I have to worry about demos sucking up too much space, and I actually have all my home videos on the ps3 now. They are of a low ipod quality, but it serves its purpose just fine. I'm currently downloading more HD content and sticking it on the PS3. Dork utopia.

Well, there should be some kid related news now but I can't think of any. I'll post when some comes to mind. Middle of Target in the toy aisle right now and my sensory nodes are smoking.

Post Turkey Assessment

The dust has almost settled from the turkey consuming, Rock Band playing, and online shopping. I decided to skip the crowds this year, mostly because it was a hassle but also to avoid the frenzy of capitalism. What with store employees being trampled to death at Walmart, I think shopping at home is a pretty damn good alternative.

So I popped online and got a few things off Amazon, including a 320 Gig hard drive for the PS3. About 70 bucks with free shipping, which is pretty good. Then I won't have to be shy about placing media on the PS3. I have the extra stuff on an external HD, but I hardly switch that on. Besides, most of the stuff isn't media, but save files, games, and what have yous.

Well, at Target now and got myself more stuff, but at a very good price. Lego Batman for my PSP and Guitar Hero 3, both for 20 each. Nice. But also got 2 leapster games for 15 each, which is also good. Target is actually quite busy for the day after Black Friday.

So Thanksgiving day itself was pretty good, lots of hours of Rock Band and the kids cycled through Mario Brawl and Mario Kart and just acting generally wacko. Alex had a major meltdown toward the end of the night regarding apple pie, especially after he dropped a single slice of apple on the ground. Boy was so tired.

Yesterday though, Alex had a curious streak when he asked what plastic looks like. Then he asked if Zoe was made of plastic. I told Alex I was made of rubber which he found amusing, but when I told him that he was made out of butterflies, you could literally see the joke travel from his ears to his brain to his funny bone. He just busted out laughing. Then dinner was useless after that because he just wanted to goof off more.

But anyway, having a four day weekend is kinda nice, probably will be the longest stretch of vay-cay i'll get this holiday season, though I won't put it past me to pad my christmas holiday a little with a bit of the PTO.

Well, still got three hours of driving to go. So I better get to it.

My Kids Rock!

Dead Space is epic.

I'm not a huge fan of Horror Survival games, let alone horror movies. But after 5 chapters of Dead Space, I'll have to place it up there next to Resident Evil 4, and one of my favs of all times. I played it for two nights for hours at end, with the volume slightly lower than normal, and some pop music playing in the background for levity. There are just so many things that are done with such detail and care, with the right amount of creepy moments that'll just make you just stare at the screen and go, "Did that just happen?"

Spoiler alert, but there's like a couple of times when these necromorphs will run past the door, or head into a vent in front of you, but when you go look for them, they're gone. You never encounter that specific one. Also, there are moments whereby members of the ravaged crew will show up, but they ain't quite right in a big way, and the least graphic instance is when a crew member is just crying over an empty sickbed, hysterical and obilvious to you being there. The other big thing about the game is the FPS aspect. The weapons, which are mining tools, are just plain awesome.

So with Black Friday coming up, the idea has come up that maybe a HDTV might be in our oversized stocking. With 42inch LCDs coming down to about 800 bucks, it's been a little more negotiable, as far as expensive ass TV sets go. But the pros of having a nice LCD (nice picture quality) vs. the cons (extra costs in HDMI cables, new entertainment center, HD programming, Blu-Ray, getting rid of our 34 inch regular TV), it's hard to justify. Plus, I've gotten kinda fond of having the PS3 in the other room, so when I play Dead Space in one room, my wife isn't stuck without having a TV to go to when I'm on the PS3. It keeps them separated.

Spongebob and Patrick were just walking around all wobbly asking, "I don't know what do you want to do today?" back and forth, and it just cracked me up. It's like me and my wife. Complete with wobbles.

Jimmy Macs for lunch today. Yeah, boyeee.

The blog has been a little silent lately mostly because I've just been exhausted and scattered. My week has been a little different but I think a part of me is wanting the same, while the other part of me wants to find a different profession altogether. How come there's no job that just pays you to be you?

So on Monday, I received an email that said that I was to be part of a Kaizen event, in a nutshell, it is a team consisting of one engineer, a production worker from each affected section, coming together to implement a new system of moving product from one location to another. Its sold to us as a team effort, but really its 95 percent engineer, and us grunt who know the stuff to build and implement it.

So the first two days I was being a slight lump in the testicle, challenging his ideas and questioning the quality of data collected. I was keep throwing wrenches in his presentation because I was truly curious and wanted to understand why it is that way. But after the second day, I scaled it back a bit. Anyway, after 4 eight hour days we finally finished it, and on the last day I did a process diagram on Microsoft Visio, something I've never done before, and also make a video showing the entire process. I got all weird and director-y on them, blocking the action and being meticulous. Because we had a time limit, I explained that we had to shoot in sequence without cuts, and then insert the voiceovers after the presentation, and then noticed that my coworkers eyes were glazed and a small residue of drool had formed at the corners of their mouths.

Anyway, it was a good experience except it brought up the feeling of dissatisfaction about my place in the world, that I wasn't quite good enough to work on the important company changing stuff, but I was really too valuable to be shipping. I hate that feeling because I'm all about practicality, and I feel like the 52 inch HDTV and I'm showing Standard Def infommercials. Sigh. Or like people who buy 120 gig iPods and they have 5 albums on it playing through some cheap Walgreen's 20 dollar speakers.

But shooting the video yesterday did make me realize how much I miss doing shit like that, even though it was with people who don't act, and about an activity that's work-centric. Perhaps I should get back into shorts. To keep sanity at bay. Like I told a co-worker at work, I don't have to be a working filmmaker, just a active one. It just keeps the mind from going to dark places.

The other drawback about being in a week long event was that I wasn't listening to any podcasts all week, which actually messed me up a little more than I anticipated. Not getting my podcasts was akin to living in some sort of a cave, devoid of any information and being a little left behind. So in a big way, I'm looking forward to going back to my regular gig, even if it's a gig that doesn't pay so well and requires very little of me mentally, but drains me physically.

We came back from the doctors and the good news is that he doesn't have any Auditory Processing Disorder, nor does the doctor think he has any clear indication of ADD or ADHD. What she does see is that he's got a big gob of anxiety, some expressive obstacles, and does have problems remembering things unless it is hinted at heavily. So the next step is for us to try to get him into some occupational therapy, which sounds like something I might be interested in myself. I need therapy for my occupation.

Finally returned Far Cry 2 to the store and rented out Dead Space. Far Cry is pretty good but it's such a long ass game that it would be worth buying. I thought that maybe I'd just give it up for now and just buy it when it gets cheaper. About a year from now. So going in, I had the option to rent Bioshock 2, Dead Space, Fallout 3, and COD: World at War. It was a very tough choice. I'm not a big horror survival fan, but Dead Space looks awesome. Heard nothing but raves about Dead Space.

Well, next week is a short week, plus we get Thanksgiving lunch on Wednesday. Always a bonus.