New Timesink

Being perfectly honest with myself, I have to admit that I have more PS2 and PS One games than I am likely to finish in the next year, given my normal lifestyle and schedule. Some are RPGs with definitive goals; haven't played any of them to completion yet. Some of them are platform games or other arcade style games, where you just play until you get good or get tired of them. I haven't done either on any of them.

So naturally, having another long weekend coming up, and money in my pocket from Christmas, I ran down to Fry's and bought another game. But this one was special. It is Final Fantasy X, the first Final Fantasy game made especially for the PS2. I went downstairs to just play the opening animations, around 5:30 pm, and just now came up, 2-1/2 hours later. This is one beautiful game. It remains to be seen how interesting it is, since I'm in the early stages where a lot of backstory is being pumped out.

Anyway, as this weekend is exceptional, I expect I'll get six or eight hours into it and then stall for lack of time and energy. In the meantime, it's a lot of fun.

Downtown Torpedoes

I've had this in my 'to watch' pile since Anime Expo 2001 this summer. This review details the particulars of the movie's cast, locations and plot, better than I can. In any case, I popped it in Christmas night, as everyone was worn out but I had some energy left.

I have to say that much as I enjoy Hong Kong movies, and the goofy high energy they oftentimes exhibit, this one was mediocre at best. So often they shot for 'cool' and came up 'luke-warm'. A car chase that looked more like a caravan (they shake the chasers by pulling their spy truck, conveniently disguised as a bottled water truck, into a bottled water plant). A couple of double-crosses telegraphed across the length of the movie. Computer hacking that would be laughable even if you didn't know something about computers as I do.

Overall, while some of the actors were personable, I thought they were wooden and underutilized throughout the movie. So while I'd let a friend watch this movie, I'd have to give it a 'B-' as my recommendation.

Successful Christmas

I won't bore you with the full laundry list of who got what. Suffice to say that Kelly enjoyed herself and hasn't yet exhausted the store of new toys to play with. I got Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and disappeared for an hour or so playing with my Game Boy Advance.

We went down to Mentor to feed the ducks, a family tradition which we whimsically pretend will bring us luck in the following year. I had time to do strength training, and spent a goodly part of the day breaking down boxes and picking up trash.

One thing which worked well this year is that I used an Amazon Wish List to express some of the things I wanted. Jean bought from that, so she didn't need to give me cash this year (something I've always said I preferred before, since I usually know better what I want than anyone else, but don't always have a list handy).

The remainder of the day will be spent lazing about. If I'm feeling exceptionally motivated in the next several days, I'll try to upload a few Christmas images, though I didn't take very many this year. Just feeling lazy.

Ghost Squirrel

Jean wrote up a conversation we had with Kelly while driving to swim class a couple of weeks ago. Since Jean is the humor columnist for a local paper, she embellished it somewhat, but the general shape of the conversation and the ideas therein are actually pretty close to what was actually said.

I don't actually talk the way she writes me (do I?), but the bit with the crutches is mine. Missing is my more evil and insane commentary (and he had a hook!). Just click on the link at the bottom of this article to get to Jean's actual article...

These 10-minute drives can drive you crazy

by Jean Wakefield

We're heading down Tualatin-Sherwood Road to the YMCA for Kelly's swimming class.

Kelly: "Mom, how do you spell sprite?"

Me: "S-p-r-i-t-e. If you mean the pop, then you capitalize it because it's a name. Why?"

Kelly: "It's from Scrooge. You know, the Sprite of Christmas Past."

Me: "I think you mean spirit. Were you watching it in the basement? The acoustics down there are terrible. Bryant Gumble sounds like Bob Dylan."

My husband: "There's no Sprite in the basement. Only Mr. Pibb, and I drank it."

Kelly: "Not in the basement. In the hallway. There's such a thing as spirits, you know. I saw them last night going past my room."

My husband: "Those are boxelder bugs."

Kelly: "No, ghosts. But only children can see them. Did you ever see a ghost a hundred years ago when you were little, Mom?"

Me: "I know someone who saw a ghost when she was a kid. But if there is such a thing as a ghost, I think it's just a spot like the hallway playing the memory of a person over and over like a tape recording. A ghost isn't a person who's out to get you. That's spelled l-a-w-y-e-r."

Kelly: "Well, I saw a young ghost. A 15-year-old. She didn't die regular. It was a car accident. Yup, what a pity. Can I have a Cremesaver?"

Me: "Her parents must've been devastated."

Kelly: "Her mother caught cancer and her father died of the dog flu. That's a bad kind of flu. Her brother got the chicken pox, a very serious kind, and he died."

My husband: "Sign that family up for the Good Health Plan."

Kelly: "Then her pet squirrel died from polio. But he didn't die right away. It took him a while."

My husband: "What a sad sight, that poor squirrel dragging himself around the neighborhood with a tin cup."

Kelly: "It was only in his toe. His toe didn't work because of polio."

Me: "Ah. So he had toe-lio."

My husband: "They rubbed it with oleo to see if it would grow-lio."

Kelly: "Did not. They had to amputate it."

My husband: "It must have been hard for him to scamper up trees with a bum toe."

Kelly: "He didn't go up trees. He was a ground squirrel."

Me: "At least we can take comfort knowing that he now has a rich spirit life surrounded by nuts."

Kelly: "And he used crutches."

My husband; "Now that he's dead, do you hear his ghost clambering around on the roof?"

Me: "Scamper-scamper clunk. Scamper-scamper clunk. Hey, I'm allergic to ghosts. We should call in an exorcist."

Kelly: "You could ask at the YMCA. They've got exercisists there."

Me: "Okay. I'll sign you up for a swimming class and an exorcism."

My husband: "Hey! If you pass this session, maybe you'll be moved up to ground squirrel."

Kelly: "Dad. Don't be silly. Squirrels can't swim!"

My husband: "But you better work hard. If you flunk you get dropped down to drowned squirrel."

Kelly: "Can we just have quiet in this car? You're giving me a headache."

Me: "I'd like to point out that this whole conversation could've been avoided if our country would initiate a comprehensive rodent vaccination program. Please give generously. Thank you."

Christmas Eve Reveries

Kelly is wired. She reminds me every few minutes that tomorrow is Christmas. I tried telling her that due to a labor shortage, Christmas had to be postponed until the weekend. She was rather cross with me over that.

Then I tried a different tack:

Me: Did you remember to pay the Christmas tax?

Kelly: Yep!

Me: Did you remember to apply for your Christmas Visitation License?

Kelly: Yes. It's hanging on the wall in the living room where Santa Claus can see it.

Jean (from the kitchen): Don't forget we have to put out the milk and cookies too!

Me: I've heard that Santa is trying to lose some weight. He's asked people to offer him a glass of red wine and a bowl of grapes now instead.

Kelly: Da-ad! No he doesn't!

Me: But I still think he'd appreciate something else. Maybe an apple or some cheese?

Kelly: Uh huh. We could put some cheese on the plate for him, sliced flat. One half of the plate would be cookies, the other half would be cheese.

Things just kept getting sillier from there, but you get the idea. Earlier Jean asked me if 6am would be okay for getting up, or should we make Kelly wait until 6:30? I commented that given the choice between 11 lashes with a whip and 12, I'd still complain about receiving 11. I'm going to try finding excuses to wake Kelly up a few times before midnight. She doesn't like this idea, as she thinks Santa won't come, but I told her "He knows when you are sleeping, remember?" Somehow that creeped her out, and she yelled at me. Oh well. I don't think I'll be able to force myself to bed early enough to compensate, so I've got dibs on a nap tomorrow.

A Russet By Any Other Name

Is it just me, or are pierogies and knishes just exercises in different scale? I've never had a knish, to the best of my knowledge, but the descriptions I find online sound like large pierogies. And I do like pierogies a lot. Anyone know?

Blocked or Lazy?

Last Thursday we lost power, as I've mentioned. What I've neglected to mention is that the wireless router we use, the Airport Base Station, failed after this event. A power surge just before the outage may be responsible, but there is a known flaw in early models where two capacitors on the circuit board fail. Because of this, I was able to get Apple Customer Relations to agree to send me a replacement.

But it isn't here yet, so I've been remiss in posting. Finally I couldn't stand it, and I'm posting here at work. Other things will have to wait though, such as a humorous essay written by Jean, relating an only slightly fictionalized conversation between Jean, Kelly and I in the car last Saturday. I'll post it as soon as I can, but suffice to say it has to do with ghosts, squirrels, polio and other odd subjects.

As for why I've not posted the pictures from our trip to the coast yet, well, that was all just getting used to the iMac, and as soon as the router is working I'll try to get a few up, at least changing the banner above. Yeah, that's the ticket. Just you wait...