Josh as Spiderman

One busy Halloween.  I spent most of the previous night up  uploading photos and trying to get my Adobe Premiere Elements software to recognize my camcorder (“Y’all better recognize!”), which hasn’t worked in a long while.  Still not luck today, even with a fresh install of Windows 7.  What the heck is going on?

I took Josh to another birthday party — the 2nd party this week, and there’s one more coming up Sunday. Since it was Halloween, it was a Halloween-themed party. Josh had a 2nd costume that we broke out for him — Spiderman. Kids these days — two costumes for Halloween?!?

What I liked about today’s birthday was the simplicity.  All of the birthday parties these days feel like large events, like renting a gym.  When I was younger, we just hung out at the basement, and we ate White Castle. This party was at a VFW hall, and the kids played games like musical chairs, Pin the Parts on the Mummy”, Hot Potato (or “Hot Gourd”), etc.  Traditional, and I liked it. Kids don’t always need all that fancy stuff. It felt refreshing.

My BIL is a scarecrow

After a short break at home, we made the trip to see my sister down south.  My BIL and sister were taking the kids trick or treating, and we would…. uh, hang out. Not much to comment on, except folks down there are really into Halloween.  House after house was decorated to the 9′s, and lots of trick or treating kiddies and teenagers. Kinda reminded me of my old neighborhood.

Nothing too fancy.  We watched Young Frankenstein while they went trick or treating.  After they came back, my sister cooked an excellent dinner, as well as baked cookies.  When did she start cooking so well? I think we got out of there after 10:30pm, got home uneventfully, and dropped the kids into bed.

I think we should do something more for Halloween next year. I’ve forgotten how fun it can be.

Heavenly Sword (2007)

Cue the headline news music. This week, I beat Heavenly Sword, a game for the PS3. Please return to your regularly scheduled programming.

The game came out about two years ago, and my brother-in-law Robbie borrowed it from a friend, and then lent it to me about two weeks ago.  I’d seen the title a few months ago, but I didn’t pay much attention to it.  I saw the large sword, and dismissed as one of those myriad Japanese and their large sword fetish games. However, free game to borrow? Why not.

The game is a martial arts game with a hack and slash quality to it — you know, “button mashing.” Wonderfully rendered, good story, and nice music. I did like the game a lot, and I thought it had some unique elements. The story starts out with about to begin a 1 vs a 100,000-man army final battle.  You are Nariko, a tough-as-nails woman in feudal Japan. However, one minute into it, your sacred sword that will slowly drain your life finally kills you.  As your out-of-body experience shows you going up to the sky, you end up in some strange purgatory. 

You begin talking about the legend of the Heavenly Sword, and how the major recent events began five days ago.  The game then truly begins at five days ago. The rest of the chapters in the game continue chronologically (four day ago, three, etc) until you reach the final battle you were in the beginning, in a chapter aptly named “Full Circle.”  The story continues, but I won’t spoil it. It was certainly unique.

I did like it, but the game was awfully short.  I thought the game was good, but….. I’d probably be annoyed if I spent $60 on a six hour game.  Also, while I like all the numerous martial arts moves, you have to be pretty good at hitting all the buttons (square, triangle, square, square) in the right sequence and timing to get the combos. Doable, but at some point, you just regress into just mashing all the buttons, and hoping for the best. Good voice acting too.  Anna Torv [Fringe] voiced Nariko, and Andy Serkis [LoTR, King Kong] voiced the evil King Bohan, as well as Dramatic Director.

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Too bad there won’t be a sequel.  The developer Ninja Theory has cancelled the plans for a sequel, as from a “follow the money” point-of-view, they’ll make more money on multi-platform games (XBox, PS3, etc.)  I guess they can’t convert all their PS3 game code to be compatible with both the PS3 and the XBox 360. Ah well.  I really liked the Nariko character.

Josh at the Halloween Parade

I worked from home Friday, as we were expecting multiple critical packages in the mail today, as well as the kids’ annual Halloween Parade. You send the kids’ costumes in the morning to the daycare center, and the kids dress up and do a little parade outside (by class) for all the parents. So many parents show up with cameras and camcorders to capture the big moment, then each class has a party. Of course, you did your part by signing up for Munchkins, juices, cupcakes, etc.

Every month or so, the kids’ daycare hosts a “Friday Nite Out” event.  The kids get to hang out at school in the pajamas (the novelty excites them immensely), have dinner, and play from 7pm to 11pm.  Meanwhile, the parents get a well-deserved break to be a couple again. After an unusually long hiatus, they had another event, on the same day. Weird coincidence.  After the party ended, we took the kids home around 4:45pm, then they hung out at home, before we got them into their pajamas, and dropped them off to school around 7pm.

Sushi? Yes. Forehead? No.

My wife and I were in the mood for Japanese cuisine, so we made reservations at a new place called Sunny Garden in Princeton. One of the reasons we selected this particular establishment, is that I signed up for the Hilton HHonors Dining program. Now as a Hilton HHonors member, if you sign up (for free) and register specific credit cards, every time you dine at a participating restaurant, you earn 5 bonus HHonors points for every dollar you spend.  Recently, they have been running a promotion where, if you sign up and eat at one of those restaurants, you earn bonus 1,000 HHonors points, in addition the regular 5 points per dollar you earn.

What I like about the program is that I don’t have to remember to put in a code, provide my HHonors membership number, or submit any documentation.  I registered one or more cards, so whenever I use them at a participating restaurant, I automatically will get the points.  We made sure we at a HHonors Dining restaurant Friday night, as we wanted the promotion bonus points as well.

Win win, I think. You know who didn’t win? The fish who died to make my sushi. Sucker. The food was excellent. They offer Chinese, Japanese, and Thai cuisine.  Even more interesting was the fact they also offer free Wi-Fi. I come for the excellent food, but I stay for the free broadband.

The new camera arrived, just in the nick of time.

Our new Fuji arrived

The camera case that has a reason to exist now

It’s pretty decent for a little over a $100. The shutter lag is probably going to annoying over time, but for now, this is good enough. What’s even better? My wife bought me a camera case to keep the old Canon safe last Christmas, but the camera was too bulky to fit. The camera case has been sitting here all this time. This camera fits the camera case, so booyah.

Can you imagine?  11 months later, we finally have a use for this camera case. My wife can now stop being mad at me for trashing the receipt back in January (without trying to fit the camera), and thereby preventing us from exchanging it.

Stories of dumb criminals warm my heart.

Did you hear that Stu Rasmussen is running for Mayor of Silverton? I happened to have been browsing this evening, and completely and utterly stumbled onto his…. uh….. her website. Check out his Reality Check page.

Stu Rasmussen is running for mayor of Silverton, Oregon!

I just watch this news video about the pretty cool countermeasures being added to merchant ships to combat modern day piracy.

If you are really down on your luck in Hong Kong, you can live in a “cage” for dirt cheap rent.  $150 USD for a bottom bunk, and $100 USD for a top bunk. Crazy. People are living like this?  Did you see that bathroom?

Canon Powershot S80

Ah, our beloved Canon Powershot S80.  We knew ye well.  Yes, it is dead.  And now, for a little background history. Many moons ago, we used to own a a Sony Powershot camera, and it was our first digital camera.  Over four years, I beat the crap out of it, and dropped it numerous times — all accidentally, of course.

In 2006, we finally saved up for a new camera, with our sights on the Canon S80.  Lots of great features, and we took very good care of it.  About three weeks ago at a Diwali party, I accidentally dropped it for the first (and last time) on the hardwood floor, and right on the lens.  The motor was broken, giving the famous Canon E18 error. If you get the E18 erron on your Canon digital camera, see ya later.

Fujifilm Finepix J38

We checked with two Best Buy stores and an independent camera shop, but they all stated it wasn’t worth repairing.  The camera shop stated it would cost starting at $150 and higher.  Best Buy quoted me a price around $600 or so, for a camera that cost us about $400 three years ago!

Although we were in desperate need of a camera (can’t keeping missing those big moments in life), we didn’t want to invest in an expensive new camera right away.  Heck, regardless of whether it is $ or $$$$, you drop it, you’re done. We just ordered the Fujifilm Finepix J38, a decent little point-and-shoot camera that hopefully will be a good workhorse camera.  Ordered it via Amazon with one-day shipping, so I hope to see it on Friday, and in time for Holloween!

This week, I rented Green Lantern: First Flight, a 2009 direct-to-DVD animated movie about DC Comics Green Lantern superhero. Basically, an origin story for the Hal Jordan version of Earth’s Green Latern. Good cast: Christopher Meloni, Tricia Helfer, Michael Madsen, John Larroquette, the always cool Kurtwood Smith, and even a brief cameo by Olivia d’Abo.

I wish I could say this movie was great, but it wasn’t.  It was your run-of-the-mill animated movie that could have just been broadcast on TV. The story was underwhelming, and you will say “Eh.” at the end.  I know I did.  I’ve been introducing Josh to all the superheroes (Marvel and DC), and all things sci-fi.  I thought he’d enjoy this movie, but it’s actually PG-13.  I watched the entire first to evaluate it, but it wasn’t age appropriate.  I did let him watch the last 5-10 minutes of the finale, as that was safer for his young eyes and ears.

Man, I just looked back into the website archives, and I was looking forward to this movie way back in July.  That’s a long time to wait to watch an underwhelming movie.

Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)