Sorry for not having Weekend posts this month. Things have been in turmoil.

First things first, if you didn’t watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World in the last two weeks, you’re off my Christmas card list. It’s simply one of the best films ever made.

It also has been tanking at the box office. Nerds do run things, but the sad state of things is, they probably also stole this movie. Which is uncool, because if we want more movies like Scott Pilgrim we have to speak the language of commerce, which, as you know, is money. If an artist makes something of value, you buy it, not only because you should reward entertaining people for entertaining you, but also because you want the people who funded them to know that you appreciated their contribution, and you would like to see more in this vein. If you don’t pay for straight-up nerd films, you only get movies that come close, but stick with mainstream appeal because it pays. Money talks.

So, money. Great way to start out an entry.

The boy got his Tenderfoot rank in scouts and also his First Aid badge. That was like, the coolest thing I’ve ever been able to post on this blog. He really enjoys scouts, which is good because I really enjoyed it and if he didn’t I’d feel bad.

Had some good BBQ over the last couple of weeks, but if we don’t start cooking something healthy soon I’m going to have to stop BBQ altogether. I’m talking about Salmon.

Played lots of Hand and Foot, the one game I can win on a semi-consistent basis. I actually sometimes rock at it. I even one a team game! Wait, there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team’ …

Played the best game of Zombies!!! ever, played Bang! (with new expansion) … Died … a couple of times …

Oh, and then there’s the Playstation Move.

It had such promise to be better than the Wii. Video game historians will remember that Sony and Nintendo at one time collaborated on a system, but then Nintendo went their own way and the Nintendo 64 console was the result. Sony developed the Playstation back when you could call it ‘Playstation’ and not ‘PSone’ and it tanked for a few years before titles like Resident Evil 2 and Final Fantasy VII put it on the map – meaning you had to have one to play these exclusive games. Playstation carved itself out as a hardcore system and years later here we are:

Nintendo’s Wii was a shock to the world of console gaming, and it got people to play games who couldn’t before. Just wave this stick and cool stuff happens. Yes, the tech actually turns out to be primitive, but the results are phenomenal: your grandma can play games with you.

Well, I see the Playstation Move as an attack on the Wii: it’s meant to surpass the technology used in the Wii, and it does, being able to track the origin and angle of the controller is a distinct technological advantage over the Wii, but I am afraid that is where the advantage stops. Somehow it is near-fun but not fun. Calibrating your controller to maximize your experience gets very tedious and very old. Yes, it’s a few seconds. But you don’t have to do it with the Wii.

The games that Sony sent over aren’t blockbusters either, of them only Sports Champions, Shoot, and Tumbler are worth the screen-time (the last one, Tumbler, really showcases how much better the tech is and doesn’t seem to fall apart as easily as Sports Champions, Shoot is a good enough shooting game but doesn’t fully leverage the technology – doesn’t really need to though, does it?)

All in all, I didn’t get the sense that many people were overwhelmingly impressed with it, and many times throughout the day the Move wasn’t used, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (the game) was played instead.

I’d say I’m a core gamer, but I’ve played and loved a number of Wii titles that used motion controls. I just got the sense that the Playstation tries to put you and your Move in to a little box inside your living room and wasn’t as friendly to groups as the Wii is.

I know, maybe it’s all coming across that I’m a Nintendo fan boy – but Nintendo has let me down in a few areas as well: no real Hi-def, not enough game demos available. A *very* large chunk of the money I’ve spent on video games in the last 6 months (since I’ve had a PS3) has been on PS3 games.

In the end, I really wanted to fall in love with the Move, but I was vastly underwhelmed by it. I don’t find myself waking up in the middle of the night with a need to play it. It does not live up to the hype.

Finally, Pepper news. She’s getting so big, she definitely is getting stronger every day. She’s very expressive, with smiling and wanting to interact with people. Sukie says she’s reaching for things now, but I don’t believe it. Saturday when we had so many people over she was definitely not wanting to nap much, but was chill enough to sit in laps and hang out. I really dig that about my baby.

- Had an awesome ‘non-traditional’ baby shower. Was up very late making rice. Well, Sukie made the rice. I was just around.
- Powered by RockStar Cola, unloaded a truck of Striker’s belongings, he now lives in Draper in a nice apartment by IKEA.
- His lovesac is huge.
- crashed for the rest of the day, played games.
- Oh, recently finished Assassin’s Creed (the first in the series.) What a trippy ending to an otherwise completely boring game. The few times the story moves forward are ok (if not as repetitive as the first 95% of the game), but I was ok with that. It sucks there were no trophies, but I was really just playing the first one so I could get to the second game in the series, which I’ve played a bit of.
- Playing Uncharted after finishing Assassin’s Creed makes Uncharted a much better game. Story wise Uncharted is at a much faster pace but the gameplay isn’t as awesome as … say … Resident Evil 5. Post-Assassin-Uncharted is great: you have guns and don’t have to worry about being silent. The pace at which I learned to assault bad guys in Assassin’s Creed really helped out though (the game’s battles go slow if you aren’t always jamming a button: you can win if you are patient, but you can win faster if you are impatient.)
- Played a game of Ticket to Ride: Europe, but lost horribly.
- Played Hand and Foot, did okay. Played on a team with Sukie, and did pretty good.
- Pepper’s eye swelled up pretty bad yesterday, though it wasn’t the weekend it was probably weekend related. Here’s a pic of her at the babyshower with her aunt Shy.

Yes, it’s horrible.

- Bomberman 94 is awesome.
- Zombies were not present in 1847 … or were they?
- I won in a kick-war against Frik in Bomberman World Cup.
- That sweet save-n-kick against the Boy.
- Bomberman Ultra (PS3) is not as cool as the Bombermen of yore.
- Fireworks are cool, but I wouldn’t want to have them every weekend.
- Carebear’s Apple Pie is like buttery delicious, with a perfect crust and delicious fruit on the inside. It exceeded the hype.
- 6 sparklers at a time is like trying to tame white hot fire.
- Near completing Assassin’s Creed I. Pretty sure Al Mualim’s voice is Splinter, the rat from Ninja Turtles, so after each sentence he utters, insert a turtle’s name.
- Completed Resident Evil 5: Desperate Escape. So far neither of the extra missions have lived up to the original game, but I guess that’s just not doable?
- BBQ’d New York Strip steaks, quite delicious.
- Pepper is eating more, getting super cute!
- Settlers of Catan is best when everyone starts out in an almost equally bad position. (Sheep production was off the charts!)

Basically what I learned yesterday is that I live in a good neighborhood with good citizens. It’s true they are older people, but they did, in effect, build this city. I even went to school with many of their kids. Sukie and I were the younger ones in the bunch and I really (naively) thought we’d go, find out that we were going to have to move, and then we’d hear about the project, and leave.

No, this meeting wasn’t called by UDOT, it was demanded by the residents of our neighborhood. I’d wager over half the neighborhood showed up! They had to add chairs!

Everyone was really raring to get a piece of this guy, but in the end it turns out nobody looses their property, the intersection actually moves fast moving traffic further away from my house, shortens the commute for some assholes elsewhere, and my neighborhood, even those not close to the freeway or busy street, just don’t want to see people leave.

So, West Valley, and people of my neighborhood, I am here for quite a few years longer.

I even heard a guy say to his friend ‘This is what happens when you give one party control of the state!’ – and I was like, ‘DUDE!’

I guess my neighborhood really rocks more than I thought it did.

	Madness – Our House
	Found at skreemr.org

When we came home last night we had an invite to a meeting at city hall about a change to the busy intersection near our house … on Monday. Well it will probably mean that the government will take our land (hopefully all of it, we have a large garage that would definitely go but it would drop the price of the property significantly if it were gone.)

It was a big shock to get late at night, and it’s not certain. But I guess the true measure of living a principled life is whether or not you’d make a choice in a given scenario if it you were the one affected. Ultimately, as long as the benefit is clear and lasting, I would not mind … well, I’d try hard not to. I’m not completely sold on the benefit versus cost. I like this place, it’s my home, and it’ll really upset my worldview to have it taken away. For a long time after we moved in I’d just look around at my property and be overwhelmed at how far I’ve come … how far my family had come in about 7 years.

Well I’ve been here for 4 years now and it’s sad if we have to leave but I guess there was a negative to having Bangerter Highway as your back-fence: UDOT may decide that fossil fuels are here to stay and drop a chunk of the state’s money (which the state does not have) on a big project that will take away enjoyable years so some asshole driving an SUV shaves 3-5 minutes off his commute.

So yeah, mixed bag of emotions.

On the other hand, assuming the government buys our property at fair market value, I’ll be able to buy a house in a buyer’s market (which I did not have the benefit of 4 years ago) without having to wait until my house is sold.

So, technically it is a win win, but I think, overall, I’d rather not move.

I have to apologize from breaking from my Weekend format: it was a brutal weekend.

My weekend started last Thursday, so my Thursday night was all about the baby, and this led to me being sleepy all day Friday. I actually did nap for about an hour or two with the baby, as well as dozing off while trying to care for the children. I was running well in the red but Shinobi, Guildilocks, and Shinobi’s father were working on some posh new floor for the living room and dining area. Since I’ve been on the receiving end of people helping me out with stuff at my house on so many occasions, the occasion called for some old fashioned karmic payback.

Wow though, that first night I was just useless mostly. I guess I helped some but at one point I was falling asleep on the bit of floor we’d already put down. As extreme fatigue set in it was hard to stand up from a sitting position and I left around 2:30 am, we’d made it half-way through the living room. That’s the lesson here: wide planks go down fast – and skinny planks go down slow. Technically they go down at the same speed, but you have to do more when they are skinny. The laminate used in this install is a nice thick laminate with the foam sub-floor on the bottom of the board already.

Well, home and talking with Sukie (she talked to me on the drive home and I’d worked myself up a bit so I wouldn’t fall asleep on the drive home – but it was a pretty scary prospect of falling asleep so I was ready to just get a power-nap in the car) and I was asleep around 3:30 or so (? though I remember feeding the baby so maybe It was like 4:30), and slept til about 9:30 or 10am on Saturday. I was freaking out that the floor just wouldn’t get done and Sukie drove me over there (her dad had come over to watch the baby) and it was a very long day but I was better rested and able to work on the floor a lot more. We finished up the living room (more or less), traveled to home depot to check on quarter-inch round (to cover the gap between the floor and the wall), we had to go through the landing area. Word to the wise, kids; when you have to cut EVERY piece of flooring just to put it down, it is a painful process. We had to recut one peice four times, then, when we were knocking it in to place, I noticed some chipping on the top part of the laminate, so we had to cut a whole new piece. That piece alone was probably like an hour of the day. Well, the good news is the quarter-round worked, so we bought that, made it through the landing, and split up and cut molding and worked on the floor at the same time. That was probably a really good idea, the molding when fast and we didn’t have to re-cut many pieces at all. Did I mention the weather was really nice that day? Sunny, but with a nice chill to the air that made working that day go much nicer than it would have if we had typical July weather.

With a floor you get all kinds of nice areas that you don’t normally think about – strange corners and transitions and stair pieces: you don’t notice it til you have to figure out a way to make it look pretty. Well, we did a great job, with some of the finest work I’ve turned in on a home improvement project. I finally went home at 4:00am. I was dead tired, and it was 99.9% complete.

On Sunday we went and bought a lot of fireworks. It is the first time I’ve let Sukie buy as many as she wants. I partially blame the fatigue. We also marvelled at the bulk foods section at WinCo.

We went to my sister’s house for a BBQ – my niece has turned 1 year old.

We went home and fed the baby, and then headed over to Guildy and Shinobi’s – we debated on bringing our fireworks but it is a good thing we did because their other friend did not bring his fireworks and that would have completely ruined the Fourth of July.

So the next day I was completely determined to do absolutely nothing and enjoy my last day of the weekend that had 4 days, but Amy’s friend came over to work on Amy’s dad’s car, so I helped out with that and it burned up a large chunk of the day.

A lot of long hours this weekend, but that’s just how it goes sometimes.

Highlights from this weekend:
- Oral Surgery went well, Wisdom teeth gone, no crazy bleeding / zombie like-ness. I still have moments of poor coordination but I think that’s mostly because I haven’t eaten really good solid food in a while now.
- Jamba Juice is still good when you eat it with a spoon.
- Peanut Butter and Banana shakes from Arctic Circle are awesome. So awesome, that when I picked up the cup to empty it I spilled a lot on my shirt.
- BBQ: cleaned up Sukie’s Grill. It’s a lot fancier than my grill, being both Stainless Steel and Propane.
- BBQ: picked up a Coal ‘Caddy’ which I swear you could just use a garbage can for this. It’s just a plastic bin for your coals. However, after 6 years of grilling I can tell you that I think coals go stale when exposed to air. And it’ll be cool to have a place to put my coals.
- BBQ: Now that we have two grills, it heightens the need for an outdoor eating / lounging area. Time to start planning and sketching.
- Leftover from last week: A highlight I forgot to mention, Striker’s proposal of ‘Mega-Yard’ should he rent the house next door. It was hilarious.
- PS3: Finished Modern Warfare 2. The ending was insane. I actually finished it on Thursday but played many levels over again during the weekend looking for Enemy Intel items scattered throughout the game. Strange though, but I don’t know if you actually get any kind of bonus stuff for collecting them, and after finishing the game, it is also strange there’s no cutscene replay option. It’s actually pretty disappointing. Now that the two heads of that studio have been fired, I can’t imagine you can expect much from the series.
- Sleeping: slept from about 7am til 1pm on Sunday. I have no idea what happened but they tell me it’s exhaustion. But I did get up with Pepper from like 3:30am til 7:00am.

It’s strange when nobody comes over all weekend and your parents are out of town. It was like I was on an island.

Ok, so I’m not sure I like the style. I guess maybe after Street Fighter IV they dropped the disproportionate bodies, but I don’t like the toned down less muscular look of the fighters. I like the attempt at a better-than-cel-shading style, but the lighting is off, it looks like there’s somebody on your side of the screen, shining a flashlight on the fighters. I like the ultra-combos though, especially Chris’ at the end, but I guess when I hear ‘Marvel versus Capcom’ I expect my eye balls to melt and for seizures to begin.

Oh, I also got a new 24″ monitor. I just haven’t got a really good PC to match it, lol.

So I am going to try to start a fairly regular update weekly about how the weekend goes. I’ll list my favorite moments and things that went down, but without resorting to getting too in to the writing about it, unless I feel like it.

This weekend:
- Got really sleepy
- Helped Shinobi get a bedframe. Learned the importance of having a crescent wrench handy.
- Sugarhouse area has awesome old homes
- Old homes door handles defeat tech-types (me, in specific)
- Exhaustion probably looks like inebriation, sorry friends.
- GRILL’D: Couldn’t find pre-mixed grilling powder. Mixed up abt 3 tbs in a desert dish and spread on burgers with teaspoon, not all of them evenly done, but pretty pleased with grilling, entire grill was abt same temperature thanks to combo of lump hardwood and competition briquettes. You know, if those are briquettes … where’s the briques … I should be grilling with briques.
- After grilling, took a shower but was still exhausted. Entire cadre of friends present (at the house, not in the shower), but wife cracked the whip and told me to take a power nap. I woke up as the last group was leaving.
- I received Super Street Fighter IV as a Father’s Day present. Aww. Since Marvel vs. Capcom 3 isn’t out for a long time, I’ve been jonesing for some classic SF action. Of course, it didn’t take me long to remember that I’m not good at these games – Akuma vs. Ryu will go down as one of the most difficult battles I’ve faced in a long time.
- SFIV ultra-combos are sweet. Akuma sends Ryu to hell.
- Over a decade after it’s release, I’m still pushing to finish Final Fantasy Tactics. I am researching power-leveling techniques, specifically to build up stats on my characters. I should probably just try to beat the game …
- Me: (watching Hell’s Kitchen) “It’s like I’m always saying, haste makes waste!” Boy: “I’ve never heard you say that.”
- The boy built a large platform affixed to his Lego base, reminds me of a deck, which means I like it.
- GRILL’D: Boneless ribs – to perfection, built a ‘hot alley’ in the coals for potatoes, and put them down there, did not rotate at all, and they were magnificent, put asparagus over that region, finished strong. In the hot half of the grill I did some fat ribs and they turned out great.
- TV: Wipeout is back. Hell’s yes, but nothing too funny last night.

Well, that’s what I can think of for now.