Oh Boy... it has been along time

The problem about being lazy is the lazy part. 

This blog should have been called the "Layer Blogger guide to Parenting", but i think that title was already taken. 

Me and my Family have been on vacation in British Columbia and Alberta, and we got back around the 22nd of August. It was fun. I'll see about getting some pictures/ video up. But no promises there.

School starts in a couple days and i am going to be very busy: 5 courses, Peer tutoring for 2 courses, and an additional job (only temporary) for the College. This semester should be good: all my courses are accounting course. NO MORE LANGUAGE COURSES! WOOT! 4.0 GPA here i come. That claim is not unjustified- last year i got A's in all my courses except for the mandatory language courses.

It is my personal preference to keep blog entries shortish. Too long and it gets boring and harder to stay focused on the material. I also like to keep it topic specific. 

This entry's topic was i am back from vacation.

Happy landing...

We made it! We are in Toronto!

I never have trouble driving down. Usually nice, quiet and fast. This trip was going to be otherwise. All was going well; made excellent time to Kingston; had a spit-stop to feed the Faida (pants) and get some food for ourselves. 

Then the goodness of the trip evaporated. A truck tripped over itself and landed on its side blocking one line of traffic. it took us 1 hour to travel 10 km. 

Then we got hit with rush hour traffic coming into Toronto. 

sign.

so much for my attempt for a new land speed record from ottawa to toronto.

Big Trip...

We are but a few hours away from embarking in our big trip for the year: To BC and then Alberta. We are going... WEST!!! Just like the song!!

Go west!

Two weeks of fun (i hope), and nothing but. 

i suppose i could say more about the trip, but it is late and i have to get up early in the morning to drive down to Toronto. Our first stop on way WEST!!!

My Wife Scares me...

Susie is starting to freak me out.

Apparently her afternoon nap did not go well. It seems there was a small dog outside the apartment that would not stop yapping. 

If it was any closer to the window, she says to me, she would have dropped something heavy out of it and listen for the dog to go splat.

How she said made me believe that she was deadly serious. 

Her attraction towards violent methods for conflict resolution is... intensifying.

scary.

Faida Clip: Laughing

Click To Play

The Title says it all.

Faida Clip: Slow Ride.

Click To Play

Yeah, I took forever to get this one posted. Sorry. 

I have accumulated and formatted the clips pretty early on, but i was still missing a song. That something that held everything together. I also need the song to edit the clips, as you will see. Hopefully. 

Enjoy.

leave me lots of feedback. 

Faida Pics

Good Morning Vietnam!!!!

Spot the baby. I can, but can you?

Faida recognizes her destiny. i think she like it.

Somedays you just want to take a Sledgehammer...

There are days, days like today, where you feel the need to beat the crap out of gear. Specifically your computer gear.

A couple of days ago my home network decided to stop working- no internet connection. It wasn't a big deal since we where going to my parents cottage (btw that was fun). i thought i might have gone over my 60 gb limit, and rogers shut me down. That happens.

But we came back, it is a new month and still no connection. hmmmmm

I called roger: " hey guys just running a diagnostic on my network, just wanted to confirm whether or not i am still getting a connection."

Turns out i am; i didn't go over my limit. Signal is coming into my house, but is not connecting wirelessly to our computers. Ok router, what is your story?

Tried to reset; no joy.

It better not be broken, but after a few more test i was forced to conclude that it was in fact broken.

got a new one, and read the setup instructions. 

Hello Airport Setup Assistant. i had completely forgot about that little application. After running it, the old router was resurrected. 

what a piss off. what a waste of a morning running around trying to fix non-broken stuff.

now i have to go and return the new router. 

Faida Clip Update.

Just a fast progress report update on my Faida Clips.

I have about 3o i need to go through, but before i can do that, i need to to format them all to mp4, because the original camcorder files are mp1. I dunno why. it just is.

Now you know.

Babies are Fast; I mean really fast

I am not lying when i say that babies are fast. Sure they are small; small feet, and tiny hands but when coordinated, they will blitzkrieg the cat food bowl as soon as you turn your back. 

When i say "as soon as you turn your back", i mean when I turned my back. Everytime.

I am going to get a dog lease and a small dog harness, and attach it to her. As soon as she get to close to the bowl, i real her in. It is like Fishing, only i'll be Babying.

Thank you Dr. Evil.

The basic design is good, but it can be improved on: like put some horsepower on the lease. Wheel her right in. ZZZZZZIP.

Yes yes... i KNOW.

i know there hasn't been a Faida video in sometime, but i am hoping to post one by the end of the week(end). 

I am compiling video clips of the aborable one, even as i am typing, so... 

sit tight, 
don't let the bed bugs bite.

Not Doing That Again...

No sir. No way. 
Don't bother asking; just go away.

Working in retail, you sometimes get ask to work in a store other then your own. It is voluntary- they ask and you can say yes or no.

Last night i said yes.

Next time and the times there after, my answer is going to be no.

When you say yes, you get the opportunity to work with some real Ass****s.  Some people would consider me an Ass****, but i have redeemable qualities. i am likeable. 

Last night, that dude had none. 
We get along great, crack jokes and so on and so forth. Come end of the night, this SoB give me a verbal for not quote unquote "doing my job properly".

Sorry Dude-yakking-on-phone-all-night-while-i-served-customers-answered-phones-and-prepping-stuff. 

Feel free to go to hell. 

tomorrow.

God willing.

Hanging out with F.

Me and Faida hanged out today, since susie went to go run errands and get her hair cut.

what did we do?

Well, we finished watching an episode of X-play, then we went for a walk to catch some fresh air. It was fun.

She started to get a little GrumpyStilskin on me, so we went home and i made her some bottles.

While feeding Faida, we watched some West Wing. Didn't last for long, cause she was pretty tired, and had to go to bed.

Then i took the opportunity to read some more HP #7, increasing my lead over susie. She has some catching up to do.





it almost seems like this post was written by a 10-year old, doesn't?

that is why i am becoming an accountant. don't have to worry about grammar and sentence structure.

too much work.

Ladies and Gentlemen, May i present to you: FEAR

if you are looking at your rearview mirror and you see this car, chances are good that it is me.

Skelator had his purple tiger.

The goblin has his Wing-thingy

i have a MUSTANG with a decepticon symbol.

Fear.

Me.

Please.

Civilization Museum Visit

Click To Play

Here are some of the stuff we saw at the Museum. I would have uploaded sooner, but i was screwing around with some of the settings to see what i can do. iMovie is a pretty basic program unfortunately, but i am not yet convinced that i should upgrade. 

As you go through it, you will see that some of the picture are of poor quality. The good camera was also in the diaper bag. And we all know where the bag was, while we were in the Museum. 

at home.

Being Out Eviled Sucks.

i was quite proud of my efforts to thwart susie from reading Harry Potter. So proud that i bragged to my colleagues about my ploy. i shared withe them my genius. They agreed. Very clever, they said.

When i got back, i was giggling to myself. "susie", i said "did you read HP?" giggle giggle

"No", she replied "Faida kept me busy." 

i see the book on the cough, the fake book that is, and i reach to my secret HP hiding place, pulled the book out and it was a different book.

oh how susie laughed and laughed and laughed.

very disconcerting for megalomanic like myself.  

It looks like I have met my nemesis, and made the mistake to marry her.

Game on Nemesis. Game on. 

i am a bastard...

in order to prevent susie from finishing the new harry potter before me, i hid the real book, and place the cover sleeve over a decoy. heeeheee.

how long is it going to take her to figure it out?

heee heee.

it is fun being evil.

To Punish and Enslave...

Ok, that is it. I know whta car i am going to get when i am in the money: a Mustang. But not just any old Mustang: i am going to get the one Barricade (a Decepticon) is. Or should i saw was. IT LOOKED TOTALLY WICKED.

 i am going to keep it black, but along the side i'll have the words: "To Punish and Enslave" printed along the side.  Since i am one of Scott Sigler's Minions (junkie) it is appropriate. 

Also, here is the cool part, i am going to remove the Horsy symbol at the front and have a Decepticon symbol.

EEEEKKKK! my brilliance scares me (and excites me). 

... so we forgot the the daiperbag.

it has become one of life little necessities... zee daiper-bag. Can't leave home without it. Seriously. Don't. 
it is like life insurance: you don't necessarily need it all the time, but when you do, boy do you need it.

We went to the Civilization Museum yesterday, only to realize that we have forgotton Faida's Bag'O Daipers.

Fantastic.

Thank God Faida has alot of patience for her parents. She wasn't mad at us; she didn't throw a tantrum. But i could sense her disappointment; like we let her down; like we forgot to go to her soccer game after we promised we would.

Sweety, just in case you are reading this years from now, we would never (and hopefully we haven't) do this to you. Promise.

Now, obviously, we couldn't stay as long as we would like, but we did mangae to see the China Exibit. It is awesome. For the extra $5 more to see it- consider it ZATAOCM-approved.

To end the post, like most cases, this outing didn't require "life-insurance", but i am never leaving home without it. i promise.

Faida and her Corner

Faida has found her spot. her playpen. her domain of dominance (yes it does include my heart, but other than that).

you know that clip i showed earlier of standing up for the "first time" (more like senond or third, but first time recorded)? that is her spot. she is all over those boxes. 

i am going to try and get some footage of it and put together a montage of her. 

it is quite fun seeing her climb on it, going for the books and pulling them out. i acn actually her going. "what this daddy? What this?"

occasionally, i'll open the game console chest-o-treassure, and  her touch them. she loves it. 

sign.

she is daddy's little girl. 

Trent Setting

as per usually, whenever me and my brother-in-laws hang around it doesn't take long for the conversation to turn towards videogames. and when i say long, i mean 5 min. that is long enough to get the small talk out of the way.

things like: "how you doing?". "how is work?". "how was the drive up?", "Some Coffee and toast?"

looks like they are finally getting an xbox360. but not just any old one... the ELITE. you know, the nice black one with high def built in and additional odds and sodds.
and they are going to get for less then what i paid for the original xbox360 when it came out. 

sometimes, just sometimes, it doesn't pay to be a trent setter. 

another example is the DS. the original looks like a toy for a 10-year old. the DS lite is gorgeous. 

why must i be tormented like this?

long story short: no more toys till they are atleast 2nd generation. 

let other people spend their money on 1st gen gear.

So, Doritos wants a game

Doritos wants us to make them a game. And when i say make, i mean come up with an original concept incorporating some Doritosish stuff. and when i say "us", i mean only people that live in one of the 50 states of America. Rest of the world excluded. 

that is a burn. BURN WORLD BURN. 

ouch.

i am feeling the love.

no matter, here is my idea. I call it: "Maintaining Freshness"

Imagine a whole "universe" existing inside a bag of doritos. there are various creatures, there is good and there is evil. 

the evil is shit like mold that tries to make the universe unfresh. the good, tries to prevent this. there is a agency that sent its operatives all over the place to eradicate this evil. the agency is called DORITOS. i still don't know what it should stand for. but bear with me.

ok, gameplay: i see it as kinda top-down action/ stealth game. a shallow angle top-down (like metal gear acid) that should be rated T for teen (due course language and violence).

This game is also going to need humour. lots of humour (hence the T rating). I see Raze's Hell (for the xbox) humour. 

So you get send to a chip where evil has spawned, and you have to run the gauntlet till you get to the boss battle. so forth and so on.

you have to keep the bag "safe" till the best-buy date, or until the bag is opened and eaten (what shall be known as the Great Release). 

i can see quotes like "INTENSE" being displayed after you stealth kill an enemy. Doritos want us to make references to their intense flavour. Or you can earn INTENSE POINTS, with which you buy weapons/gear and shit.

but this game needs humour, ridiculous humour. that is what will sell it.

ok people. i did most of the legwork, now fill in the details. if you (americans) do use it, i would like some kind of recognition. not much, just a tip of the hat (without the wag of the finger).

 

Baby Monitors...

A quick word on baby monitors: they are no replacement for the human ear! They should not be used as a substitute. let me tell you why:

They can fail and when they do, horrible things happen.

Both me and Susie were both sitting next to the monitor, paying attention to it while we are playing our respective games (susie: gcube-Paper Mario: thousand year door; me: psp- Tales of the world). in the mean time, Faida woke up and started crying. By the time we finally figured out that there is something rotten in Denmark, she was sitting up and crying her little head off.

This may not sound so bad... but for Faida to be sitting up and crying means that she has been up for some time. 

this is very disconcerting. 

It is also worth mentioning that putting a crying a baby back to sleep involves a great deal of patience and effort. 

the final word: baby monitors are great, just don't rely on them as being infallible. 

SMACKDOWN!!

Click To Play

Are you ready to rumble?! Faida Vs. Mr. Paws!

I am Dr. Moreau (of stuff toys)

I am a very dangerous man to be left alone in room filled with stuffed toys. very dangerous indeed.

is it too late for me to say that no stuffed animal was hurt during production of this picture?




probably.

When your Baby wakes up in the Middle of the night...

Last night taught me a lot about what to do (and what not to do) when your child wakes up in the middle of the night.

Most important, and say this with me: Moms/ Wives DO know best. Don't fuck with the mom's strategy for getting the child to calm down and go back to sleep. Just because you don't understand the plan, doesn't mean that it is not working.

Take me as an example of what not to do. i interrupted the plan; i thought it wasn't working. for my trouble, i got an upset crying baby and one pissed off Susie.

Great.

Luckily my wife did take pity on me... and hour and half later. she toke Faida, had one of those mother-daughter conversations with her, and 30 minutes later she was asleep.

When i say Mother-Daughter conversations, i mean the original strategy that i so boldly interrupted.

whooops.

My bad.

So Proud...

Click To Play

As a father, i have never as proud as i am today of my little Girl. Watch and enjoy. I'll post later about my editing experience, but i have to get ready for work.

A Brilliant Commercial.

I found this ad on AD Persuaders, and thought that i must share it with you.

Playing With Your Child...

Click To Play

It is important for parents to have a game that they both can play with their child. Here is ours: Attack of the MOMMY!

Indentity Crisis(?)

Recently i have been toying with the idea that having an Online Identity has the potential of resulting in an Identity Crisis.

Lets start with the Name. If your Online name is different than your Real Life name, doesn't that mean that you have now become two persons?

Lets take it one step further: what if your Online Behaviour differs from your Real Life Behaviour? For this step to "work", lets remove a variable from the equation: the type of Online Game (FPS, RPG, Racing... whatever).

You choose your own Online Behaviour: aggressive, passive, caring, helpful or even asshole. How would your choice of Online Behaviour differ from Real Life Behaviour?

Or more importantly, can prolonged Online Behaviour, that differ from Real Life Behaviour, have an influence on your Real Life Behaviour?

Can this Influence then, in effect, lead to said above Identity Crisis (since it will be a clash of personalities)?

These are some fun questions to toy with. But for the love of God, don't tell jack thompson.

Ok... some child maintenance.

Lets call this one: "a Good Night Sleep".

If you live in small apartment, the key to a good night sleep for your baby is to keep the noise down to a minimum. This may seem rather obvious.

Sure you are going to turn the tv volume down and so forth and so on.

But lets say you wake up in the middle of the night to go pee, what is the first thing you straight afterwards? Flush the toilet, right? whoops.

A toilet, when flushed, makes a ton of noise. This noise has the potential of disturbing the baby's sleep.

Start training yourself to flush in the morning when you wake up.

Again, this advice is only really applicable to small apartment parents. House parents can feel free to ignore- unless the only toilet is next to the baby's room, then remember.

My hate for Media Commentary misplaced?

As i am listening to the G4 and the 1UpYours crowd talking about the E3 Live Conferences, i got slightly annoyed. They sound either like bubble heads or jaded about what they have seen. It made me wonder whether the media is still a valid form of information distribution.

I actually started to compare the media culture to an infection/ parasite that feeds of an Information lifeform, and that their excrement is bits and pieces of the said lifeform with added chunks of commentary/ static noise. You can think of this as Information Degradation. You have to listen between the static for the good bits information.

The question is, is there any way to avoid this degradation? The addition of Static Noise?

G4: The Lab

I dunno who watches the G4 show "The Lab with Leo Laporte" but if you do- doesn't he remind you of Micheal from the TV show "The Office"?

His mannerism is the same. I be Steve Carell based his character on Leo.

E3 Sony

ok. it is over. I'll be honest, when Adam Sesler said there is the possible announcement about a PSP hardware upgrade, i became very excited. Here comes the second thumb stick.

Out came Jack Tretton... in his virtual form in the sony Playstation Home environment; it was a little gimmicky in my opinion. He really was uncomfortable in front the crowd and even pointed it out a couple of times. *sign* this was not a good start for sony.

Kaz Hirai arrived on stage with the new PSP... 33% lighter (who cares), 19% slimmer (who cares), tv ouput display feature (ok kinda interesting), but where is the second thumb stick that everyone wanted? I can tell one place where it wasn't... not on the new PSP hardware! *sign* so far, so bored.

I left for a bit to give Susie a hand with laundry, fairly confident that I won't miss much.

G4 didn't help either: tons of commercial breaks as well as zoomed out camera shots of upcoming games. When Call of Duty 4 was shown on PS3, it was so zoomed out, that you really couldn't compare the graphics with Xbox 360. Right afterwards, it zoomed in to show Assassin's Creed.
This pattern repeated itself quite a bit.

Fortunately, that was not the case when they show cased Metal Gear Solid 4 and Killzone 2. Both do look amazing, but not enough for me to spend the money on a PS3.

We will have to see how my TA jobs for the school year works out.

E3 and Rice Krispies

Here is how the Little One enjoyed the Nintendo E3:

Click To Play

E3 Nintendo

OMG! Awesome! Nintendo is showing why they are leading the Next Gen Console race. There are some amazing Hardware on the way as well as games for both DS and Wii. For the Wii the game library is going to increase from 60 to 160 by Christmas, and for the DS 300 to 440 for the same time period.
Both Zelda and Ninja Gaiden looks amazing for the DS
Mario and Sonic Olympics looks amazing for the Wii- in fact, i feel that this game is going to replace the need for Mario Party games.
Wii Zapper and Wii Balance Board = AWESOME! I want both. The Zapper is going to particularly wicked for on-rail shotters like time crisis.

Comparing with what i have seen at the Microsoft and Nintendo Conference- Nintendo has more wicked shit. Sure, Microsoft has Halo 3 and Mass effect coming out this month but my heart wasn't pounding when they delivered the news. Don't get me wrong, Halo looks like alot of fun as well as ME, but there was something about the Nintendo games being announced that send me over the edge.

Thank God the commercial interruptions on G4 was kept to a minimum. Almost like it was timed when slow announcements were taking place.

ok... 30 min break then it is Playstations turn. I am not really a sony fan, but I'll still watch and see what they have to offer. Hopefully not any more movie-games. That shit is getting old really fast.

E3 Morgan Webb Update...

It turns out that it was the brown suit- she is still easy on the eyes.
and i made a boo-boo: it is Adam Sesler, not Sandler. whoops.

and thank you G4 tv for putting in commercial breaks during the live Microsoft Conference. That was a nice touch- especially when they showed the Halo 3 Single Player montage. Awesome. Really.

E3 & Blog Launch

Kicking off the blog at the same time as the start of E3'07.
This is going to very exciting. Me and Susie is sitting next to each other listening to Adam Sandler and Morgan Webb yakking on about this and that. Is it hust me, or has Morgan packed on a few pounds? or is that brown suit? either way, she is no longer easy on the eyes.
.... yup, susie just slapped me.