Archive for December, 2007

Bird Watching - Pine Siskin

Published by Scott on December 31, 2007 in Nature. 0 Comments

Dashiell and Ray came in from outside this morning very excited to have discovered a tiny brown and white bird with some yellow on its back. It was picking out seeds from the trumpet vine seed pods that hang over the roof of our old tin shed. The shed itself is directly behind our deck, maybe ten feet away, so we had front row seats for the show. The little fellow paid us no mind as it gorged for a good twenty minutes.

I grabbed a couple of trusty field guides and we figured out it was a pine siskin. They’re apparently very common up north but only wander this way in the winter. It wasn’t anything flashy to look at but none of us had ever seen one before so we were impressed. These were the best shots I came up with:

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Hazel’s customized Hello Kitty sewing machine-

Published by Helen on December 27, 2007 in Crafts. 3 Comments

Whenever we asked Hazel what she wanted for xmas she’d say, “I want a little sewing machine so I can sit by mommy and make things.” (Awwwww, how cute!) At first she wanted a yellow one, but after she saw these Hello Kitty sewing machines she changed her mind. I wasn’t about to get her one, they cost more than mine (an old but solid kenmore from ebay) and I knew it would just be frustrating and probably dangerous for her.

At Target I found this sewing machine on sale for $10 and bought two $1 packages of Hello Kitty stickers to customize it - I had enough stickers to make the sewing machine picture on the box and the owners manual follow the theme also.

Tonight she decided she wanted to use it - she didn’t have a project in mind, she just wanted to use the sewing machine so I set her up with some fabric and helped her make two little bags - she is thrilled with herself and I think my fabric stash may be in danger!

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Hazel’s first bag
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The second bag in progress.

(This is in the dining room - the stove behind her is not connected to any power source, just decoration.)

The antidote-

Published by Helen on December 26, 2007 in Crafts. 0 Comments

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That’s what I’m calling this blanket. I started it last week after I was done with all of my running around, finishing things up, sending things off, buying one last thing. . .

I’m using all the solid color (as opposed to variegated) blues and colors derived from blue from my stash. Leftovers from other projects, hand-me -downs, and yarns that came sealed in bags with other stuff from Goodwill. I saw the pattern here a while ago and really liked the looks of it. It is basically the same pattern as the ripple and the babette blankets I made - lots of double crochet - but this one is even simpler since it is *only* double crochet and it is worked in the space of the previous row, not in the top of the stitch.

Basically this blanket requires no thought, no purchases, and I’m on no deadline to finish it. It will probably end up in the boys’ room, but for now it is by the couch - it’s too big to be a carry-along project. I’ve cleared out a bunch of yarn ends that were too small for much else and I’m using colors that I would never otherwise choose. I relax just looking at it!

Santa’s Bag o’ Video Games Part 3: Xbox and Gamecube

Published by Scott on December 25, 2007 in Holidays and Video Games. 0 Comments

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Okay, here’s the last post of this year’s surfeit of video games for Christmas. I scored a bunch of these at Blockbuster of all places. I must have stumbled upon some sort of clearance sale of former rentals because usually the store I go to doesn’t have a very good selection.

Xbox

Sega GT 2000 / Jet Set Radio Future
Two bucks for two games? Count me in! I love racing games and Sega GT 2000 is supposed to be decent. That was a throw-in though because I was really after Jet Set Radio Future, which is an urban adventure that has something to do with graffiti tagging. Sounds promising.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance
Dashiell and Ray love to play co-op games so I know they’re going to be into this. It’s a beat ‘em up featuring the full stable of Marvel heroes. It got great reviews.

Psychonauts
I’ve read that some of the content on this one is inappropriate for the younger set so it’ll be for me. From what I understand it’s a platformer of sorts with clever writing and a cult following.

Need For Speed Underground 2
Another racer, this time of the illegal street variety. I’ve never played any from the Need For Speed series but for two bucks I couldn’t pass it up.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
I cannot wait to play this game! It’s a role-playing action adventure set in the Star Wars universe. I’m actually just as excited about this one as I am about finally playing my Dreamcast.

Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu
Another co-op superhero beat ‘em up. The lads are going to dig it.

Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter
Still more co-op play, this time a Star Wars space shooter that’s supposed to be less difficult than Rogue Squadron.

Gamecube

Viewtiful Joe
A classic Gamecube title that I’ve been interested in for awhile but never got around to buying. It’s a 2D beat ‘em up with a time shifting element.

Kirby Airride
Avatar: The Last Airbender
We already gave these to the boys for their birthdays. They played Kirby at a friend’s a few weeks ago and had been talking about it ever since. They’ve been having a blast with it for the past few days. Even Hazel plays. It doesn’t really appeal to me but whatever. They’re into it. They haven’t given Avatar much more than a few minutes but they’ll get to it eventually. We’re all huge fans of the show.

Reminder- NORAD Santa Tracker

Published by Scott on December 24, 2007 in Holidays. 0 Comments

santai.jpgLast year I wrote about the NORAD Santa Tracker. Well, it’s that time again. Looks like they updated it to work in conjunction with Google Earth. Pretty cool! Check out the 2007 tracker here and spy on Santa as he makes his way around the world.

Santa’s Bag o’ Video Games Part 2: Dreamcast

Published by Scott on December 24, 2007 in Shopping and Video Games. 5 Comments

I’m really excited to officially break out the Dreamcast tomorrow. I already had a sizable stash of games to go with it but I’ve picked up a few more since then. One title I really wanted to get was Sonic Adventure. I got it but what an ordeal! I took a chance at half.com and bought it from the person that had it listed cheapest. This seller only had feedback from four people, but all were positive. Turns out he is selling bootleg copies of games and trying to pawn them off as discs sent to reviewers.

The Sega Dreamcast can play cd-r’s but all of their games were released on the unconventional gd-rom format, which can hold up to 1.2 GB of information. The disc I got from this shady dealer was most definitely a cd-r. It says so right on the transparent ring in the middle! I know from poking around an underground game sharing network that Sonic Adventure is too large to fit on a regular cd-r. I could have downloaded the same free copy this person did, with deleted cut scenes, music downsampled from stereo to mono, and who knows what else hacked out. That’s not what I wanted and I certainly wasn’t going to pay for it. I didn’t call the guy on his bullshit but did tell him I thought I was buying the official release and requested a refund. He gave me my money back without argument and I soon found a “Buy It Now” deal for the real thing on eBay for about the same price.

I read about a similar scenario on the racketboy forums, did some sleuthing, and discovered they were talking about the same fellow. He’s got lots of rare Dreamcast games listed for cheap on both half.com and Amazon. So buyer beware! Here’s a comparison of the copy (left) and the official Sega release:

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I had a much happier experience purchasing a lot of Dreamcast sports games on eBay. I was looking to buy one of the 2K hockey games, which go for next to nothing by themselves. For twenty bucks (including shipping) I found not only that game, but seven more titles plus two VMU memory packs. That was an excellent deal, especially considering that the VMU packs normally sell for around $6-8 each plus shipping. The games came with their instruction manuals and jewel case inserts too. Score!

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I also bought a VGA cable from the racketboy store so I can plug the Dreamcast directly into a computer monitor. I haven’t tested it out yet but it’s supposed to offer a clear, crisp picture. And finally, I found a third party light gun for a couple of bucks from Goodwill so I can blast some zombies in House of the Dead 2.

Santa’s Bag o’ Video Games Part 1: SNES and N64

Published by Scott on December 23, 2007 in Shopping and Video Games. 0 Comments

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I’ve been stockpiling games for about three months now and have to admit the Christmas haul is ridiculously large. We’ll have enough “new” retro titles to occupy us for a long, long time. Here are the Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games that will be under the tree and some brief thoughts about each:

SNES

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Yoshi’s Island
We have both of these fantastic games for the Gameboy Advance. It will be fun to play them on the big screen.

Super Mario All-Stars - I talked about this one in a recent post.

Super Star Wars
Spider-man & Venom: Maximum Carnage
These are both supposed to be difficult but very good.

Street Fighter II: Turbo
Mortal Kombat II
Final Fight
I have been a Street Fighter II: The World Warrior junkie for the past couple of weeks. I’d never been a fan of fighting games before but all of a sudden I’ve developed an appreciation for the genre.

Shadowrun - A highly regard role playing adventure.

Donkey Kong Country - Platformer with everyone’s favorite oversized video game gorilla.

Starfox - I’m curious to see how this series began. I know they put in an extra chip for this game to push the graphics of the SNES to the limit.

Uniracers
Stunt Race FX
These arcade trick/racing games look fun. There’s a good review for Uniracer at racketboy.

Mega Man X - I have never played any of the Mega Man titles so I’m looking forward to checking one out.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles In Time - From what I’ve read this is a good co-op beat ‘em up. Ray especially likes those kinds of games.

Super Game Boy - Not a game but an adapter cartridge that allows you to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on TV through the Super Nintendo. We only have a few of those games but I thought it’d be worth checking out.

N64

Starfox 64 - I was really excited to find this at Goodwill. I was seriously considering buying it online before it magically turned up last Saturday. It’s an on-the-rails flying space shooter, just like the best parts of the two Starfox games we have for the Gamecube. Unlike in those games though, he stays in his ship the whole time.

Pokemon Stadium - We have Pokemon Colosseum for Gamecube and I expect this is probably pretty similar. It wasn’t well received during its release but I couldn’t pass it up. We love Pokemon!

Diddy Kong Racing - Gamespot describes it as “a cross between Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64.” They don’t score it very well but it sounds promising. I’m sure it’s at least three dollars worth of entertainment.

Star Wars Episode I: Racer - The pod racing sequence was kind of lame in the movie but I’ll bet it’s fun as a game.

Birthday - part two

Published by Helen on December 21, 2007 in Chatter. 0 Comments

Ray’s birthday today - he chose to go to out to a local Greek Pizza (?? I know!) place. Yesterday he said he didn’t want a cake (after two pieces of Dashiell’s) but today he thought he could handle the Boston Cream Pie that he originally requested.

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The boys spent some time riding their bikes and even rode with Scott as he ran (two miles in the neighborhood behind our house.)

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Of course, there were more presents:
Protective gear to go with the skateboards that Nana gave them-

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And a couple more video games and lots of other fun (and practical - like socks!) stuff.

Happy Birthday Ray!

Best Birthday In History-

Published by Helen on December 20, 2007 in Chatter. 5 Comments

Today is Dashiell’s birthday - he was born at 11:57 PM on the 20th and his twin brother Ray was born at 12:15 AM on the 21st. So yes, twins with different birthdays. Since this is not the most ideal week to have a birthday we always have a 1/2 birthday in the summer for all of their friends, and just have family (the 5 of us) celebrations for each of their birthdays. As you can probably imagine there are a lot of matching gifts for both boys, so they decided that they would like to both open half of their gifts on each day. I get the (kinda stressful) job of deciding what gets opened when (have to keep it fair and exciting on both days . . . )

Anyway. Dashiell decided that he wanted to go out to our favorite Mexican restaurant for lunch, and he wanted to make his own cake from a mix - he chose chocolate cake and strawberry frosting and at the last minute he was inspired to put green sprinkles on top.

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They opened presents when we got home from lunch.

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Cool t-shirts and stuffed pokemon from Auntie Kerri-

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Cool shirts from Nana-

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Mario party video games from Auntie Wendy-

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And I set up a scavenger hunt where they had to follow a series of hidden clues out to our shed where they found the new bikes we got them.

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They were pretty thrilled and kept saying that this was the best birthday in history.

Happy Birthday Dashiell!

Leftovers-

Published by Helen on December 18, 2007 in Crafts and Holidays. 2 Comments

Yesterday I helped the kids and the neighbors make stained glass cookies - sugar cookies that have holes cut in them and you put crushed jolly rancher candy in the spaces and it melts and looks like glass.

The kids stuck around for the first round of cutting and filling, and Hazel helped me out for a couple more rounds, but before too long I was left with a pile of dough, 5 bowls of crushed candy, and not a lot of motivation. (I personally think these cookies are kind of gross, but I let each of the kids choose a cookie to make this year and this was what D wanted to make.)

I realized that I should try to make something that used up as much dough and candy as possible and came up with this:

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I balanced it on a window ledge this morning and now I really like it.

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