MichaelandChrissy.com

In a completely unexpected move, Swavek got me a Logitech G5 gaming mouse and “Mass Effect” for my birthday. This is some pretty awesome hardware. It’s got a lot of features that my old Logitech mouse didn’t have, such as two thumb buttons and a wheel that tilts to the left and right. Even the cord is unique: it’s roped fabric, like a shoelace, instead of flexible plastic. What makes this a gaming mouse, though, is its more unusual features, like adjustable sensitivity and weight tuning.

Mouse sensitivity came be ramped up or down on the fly by the two buttons below the wheel (a plus and a minus). Crank it down, and you have minute control so that the mouse moves very little in comparison to your wrist. Crank it all the way up, and your cursor will jump across the screen with the slightest hand movement. You can even adjust the sensitivity to three separate levels in the software driver, setting each one to exactly what you want (from 200 dpi to 2000 dpi).

I noticed that this mouse is very light compared to my old mouse. That’s because you can set the weight yourself with a pop-out tuning tray. The mouse came with an assortment of 4.5g and 1.7g weights that you pop into the cartridge in various positions. Once the mouse feels good in your hand, then you pop the tray back into the bottom of the mouse and get going. I set it to feel like my old mouse in heft, but I’ll have to play with it until I get it weighted just right.

I hadn’t really thought of myself as a “gamer” until just recently, probably since Aiden was born. I used to only play Blizzard games and the occasional Elder Scrolls game, but I’ve been playing about six to ten games a year lately. The last few have been first person shooters like “Unreal Tournament 3″ and “FEAR”. So, this mouse’s nine programmable buttons of death will really help me step up my game. Thanks again, Swavek!

Aiden has interesting hair.  It’s blonder than either of his parents’ hair, but straight and fine like his father’s.  Unfortunately, the front of his head was being outgrown by the back of his head. The front just hasn’t filled in entirely, while the back is dominated by a huge tuft that sticks out backward, giving the impression that he’s always running into the wind. We call it his “mullet”. 

Last night during bath time, Aiden’s hair was wet and the entire backside was pulled back into a single spike, pointing behind him. I thought it would be pretty easy to snip off an inch or two like that, just take off the end of the spike. On an impulse, I reached over for my electric razor, grabbed the end of the hair spike, and zipped through it. Aiden turned to give me a look of complete horror.  And then I felt it too.

You know that feeling you get when you’re doing about 80 down the highway and you suddenly see police lights behind you?  That’s what it was.  Not guilt for what you were doing, but fear that you’ve been caught and will have to pay the price.  I decided not to hide the deed, but come clean immediately.  This could either go well, in that Chrissy would say something along the lines of “well, he needed it”, or badly, in that Chrissy would freak out. 

Chrissy freaked out. I had ruined the “first haircut” experience for her.  She said that there should have been a professional barber and lots of photos involved. And then she told her mom on me.  Mortified, I tried to explain that it was just a little bit of hair, the mullet is still there (although the tail is gone), and now he’ll be all right to wait another month for a haircut.  I think that they’ve forgiven me. Aiden doesn’t seem to mind at all, and you can’t even tell that I butchered his noggin. 

A “gravatar” is an avatar that follows you from site to site, a globally recognized avatar. That way, you don’t have to set up a new avatar image at every blog and message board that you post to. Sites that are set up to recognize gravatars submit your email address to gravatar.com and get your registered avatar back in return. If only all community-based web sites used the gravatar technology.

I have installed the gravatar capability on our web site so that blog comments will automatically include them, but it only works if you have your avatar registered at gravatar.com. It’s quick and easy to do, and it makes consolidating your many site avatars a breeze. And it’s free. Sign up for an account and set up your gravatar today, and be sure to enter your email address when commenting to this site!

I watched the 2004 CGI remake of “Appleseed” (1988) last year and found myself under-impressed.  The animation was good, but the story was so long-winded that you wait for all the boring talking to end so that you could see the next fight scene.  “Appleseed Ex Machina” (2007) stepped up both the animation and the action from its predecessor, but it did away with most of the explanatory dialog. So, no twenty minutes scenes of smurfs describing the intricate details of metropolitan clone replication management.

The thing that sets this one apart from any other anime was that John Woo was involved as the producer.  John Woo is a legendary director of action movies, know for his use of slow-motion action sequences and lots of shell casings hitting the floor.  The gunplay and action scenes were top-notch.  Although his style is often immitated, you could really tell that Woo was directly involved.  The artists mention in the DVD features how Woo’s ideas were integrated into the film. He would study the storyboards and point out where his style would benefit the story.

The animation in Ex Machina was ten times better than the 2004 version (which was still pretty good).  All of the environments were photo realistic and special attention was paid to the details of every backdrop.  The panorama shots were beautiful, such as the wide view of the city-nation, “Olympus”. The characters models were “toon-shaded”, so they were 3D but had the appearance of two dimensional drawings.  Best of all, the animators finally nailed down the “angry face”, which has plagued computer animated characters in the past. 

The real coup of this anime was the range of emotion.  John Woo was again credited for adding emotional impact to the story.  Deunan and Briareos, the leading pair of the Appleseed movies, have never been closer.  The voice acting brings a lot of the emotion across, but again the facial animation has really improved as well.  Examples of this would be a memorable funeral scene that was very sad and a gathering of friends at Briareos’ bedside after he is injured.  So it’s not all bang-bang action, there’s some meat to this story.

Overall, I was very impressed with the improvement in quality in this series.  It’s definitely on par with many of the summer blockbusters, many of which are mostly computer generated anyway.  I actually waited a while before watching this sequel, thinking that it would be more the same, but I was pleasantly surprised. I would recommend this episode over the previous Appleseed movie, as it stands alone well, retelling a high-level version of the saga.  Of special note: Only one follow the speeding bullet effect was used in this movie.

I installed Titan Quest on Thursday, and I’m glad that I installed the expansion pack along with it.  It’s like Diablo 2, except with Romans.  From the looks of it, all of the features that make it better than Diablo 2 (from a user interface perspective, since I can’t speak to the story yet) come from the expansion pack, “Immortal Throne“.  Stuff like the caravan driver would have been a huge thing in online Diablo.  The caravan driver holds items for you so that you don’t have to keep it in your own inventory. And finally, unlimited arrows!

Unlike Diablo, there are eight different character classes to choose from.  I decided to start with “Warfare” as a skill domain, but you can only choose two skill domains.  You get one to start with, and one more once you hit level 8.  There’s just too many to choose from, and I had a hard time deciding.  So I stuck with “fighter” for the timebeing.  I might enhance it with “Earth” (fire magic) or “Nature” (druid magic) later.  There’s definitely some replay value here, at least, which is better than the first person shooters that I’ve been playing lately. 

The inventory screen is a step up from Diablo as well.  When you move your mouse over an item, the stats for the item are displayed in a box along with the stats of the item that you currently have equipped, so that you can compare the two side-by-side.  When trading with a blacksmith, you have the option to “untrade” before you complete your transaction. I’d really like to be able to carry more, since I love to cart loot back to the villages for cash, and I’ve read that you increase your inventory size periodically in the game.

So far, I’ve gotten to the Spartan camp, cleared out the undead camp just before that, and carried all the loot back to Helos (before I found that there was a blacksmith in the Spartan camp).  There’s no caravan driver there though, so I’ve had to teleport back to Helos to drop off the powerful stuff that I can’t use yet.  Currently, I’m using a spear and a bunch of magic armor.  Not a bad setup for a level 5 guy.  I running around the fields now, trying to find that Centaur boss. We’ll see if this one is as awesome as Diablo 2 was.

The theater got pretty full at the “Death Note” live-action movie, since it was limited-release and only had two showings. I was surprised at how friendly and talkative everyone in the audience was.  I had a nice conversation concerning Japanese horror cinema with the couple in front of me. They were 15.  The entire audience was mostly teens, but some had brought their parents with them.  The parents that weren’t in attendance were all waiting outside in their cars.  I noticed a lot of cars running in the parking lot, with older faces scanning the crowd coming out of the theater.

So the question becomes: Am I too old to be there?  I’ve always loved 80’s cartoons, especially Transformers, because that’s what I watched when I was 12.  I discovered anime in college, and I’ve seen a lot of Japanese animation and J-Horror videos since then.  I dig giant robots.  But I’ve never interacted with the fan base, as I do with Transformers.  I really like anime, but I didn’t know that the core audience is too young to drive yet.  Technically, I’m old enough to be their father. It makes me think twice about attending an anime convention, but maybe I’m just being silly?

I don’t get this impression when I go to Botcon, since it’s full of other adult enthusiasts.  I suppose that I shouldn’t let it bother me.  I’ve currently got the last five episodes of “Blood Plus“, four episodes of “Death Note”, and three episodes of “Witchblade” on my DVR, waiting for my spare time.  Netflix is shipping me “Appleseed: Ex Machina” today, and there are several other sets in my queue.  I guess that if I’m not too old to play with my toys, then it’s OK if I watch Japanese cartoons every now and then. 

I went to see the Death Note live-action movie on Tuesday night. It was pretty good, and followed the storyline of the animated series closely (skipping over bits to cut down on run time). The CGI was used sparingly, which is not surprising for a Japanese release. The special effects were mostly used for the scenes with “Ryuk“, the God of Death, but there was also the ubiquitous follow the flying bullet shot. The movie emphasized Light’s utter ruthlessness more than the anime.  If you thought that Light could be a sociopathic murdering genius, then the movie confirms your suspicions.

The movie didn’t cover nearly as much of the story as I thought it would, only up until episode 9, since the end of the movie saw the first meeting between “Light Yagami” and “L“.  I think that the sequel will need to follow the manga (comic book) version of the story instead of the anime.  First, the anime has way too many episodes to cover them nine as a time.  Second, the manga has a final confrontation between L’s group and Light, whereas the anime goes on after L is defeated. One of them is going to have to die in the sequel, so I’m betting that the manga version will play out.

Chrissy loves to go to garage sales on Saturday mornings.  We look forward to the good weather because that’s when people pull their junk out the attic to sell it in their driveway.  And if you get there early enough, you’ll get the good stuff before everyone else gets to it. Just like “Black Friday”, Chrissy plans these trips in advance and we wake up early to get a jump on the crowd. She likes to target neighborhood sales so that we can hit a bunch in one visit. Usually, we have a plan for what we want, so we know what to look for. 

For example, five years ago, we were looking specifically for decorations for the kitchen and family room.  We got all sorts of country-style craft art for a few bucks each.  These would have easily cost twenty bucks or more at the local craft fairs. People redecorate and practically give their old stuff away.  Three years ago, the goal was baby clothes and toys for our upcoming little boy.  Sometimes you can find name-brand baby clothes at garage sales in fantastic shape for pennies, some not even worn.  This year, we are looking for outdoor toys for Aiden. 

Aiden loves to play outside.  Towards the end of last summer, we found him a “Little Tikes” slide and a cottage-like play area at a garage sale for $10 each.  We’ve got both of them set up in front of our loveseat swing in the backyard, so we can relax while he plays. He’ll run around that slide all day, but we thought it was time for something new (or newer, as it were). So this year, we kept an eye out for outdoor riding toys. We scored a Push Tricycle for $15 last weekend and a Cozy Coupe for $10 this weekend. 

• This Weekend - Cozy Coupe $10, little reading chair $5, mailbox playset $5
• Last Weekend - push tricycle $15, workbench w/ tools $20, step stool $1, bead slider toy $5
• Last Year - Little Tikes slide $10, cottage playset $10, orange wagon $.50

I think that we do the garage sale thing for fun more than to save money on things (but that’s a good bonus).  But like toy collecting, this is about the thrill of the hunt.  Aiden is going to wake up at 7 AM anyway, so heading out for 8 AM neighborhood sales isn’t such a chore.  He loves to stroll around while we shop, so he’s occupied for the morning.  We set out with an objective in mind, so there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in finding what you’re looking for for pennies on the dollar. There are still a few more weeks before it gets too hot to enjoy the garage sales, so we’ll see what we get next time.

Everybody in the world saw the new ”Iron Man” movie before I did, and it was unanimously decided that it was great.  Normally, I wouldn’t go to see a movie at a theater, because I hate theaters, but I was persuaded by the chorus of excellent reviews from my peers.  And it turns out that we were both right: Iron Man is a great movie, and there is no reason good enough to attend a movie theater. 

Last night was Chrissy’s first Master’s class, so it was just Aiden and me by our lonesomes once I got home from work.  We know the nightly routine (bikeride, dinner, bath, book, bed), so there should be no problems.  You foresee a problem coming, right?  It wouldn’t be the first time, as it would seem that I’m getting good at tending wounded toddlers. Let’s get to it then.

I took Aiden into the bathroom for his bath at 6:15 PM, roughly the same time as every night.  Bathtime is our bonding time on the weeknights, since he’s usually in bed by 7 PM.  As the tub was filling up, I told Aiden to put his arms up so that we could take his shirt off.  His panda hoodie got stuck around his neck and wouldn’t come off.  Aiden countered this by bending forward at the waist, directly into the side of the tub. Thump!

I’m thinking, “Ouch, that had to hurt.” But the manuever did help get the shirt off.  I put Aiden in my lap to give him a hug, since he started crying shortly after impact (while still trapped inside the hoodie), and then went to pull off his socks.  And there’s blood on me.  Aiden looks up at me and there’s his bloody nose.  Bleeding while under Daddy’s supervision is starting to become a bad habit with him.  Remind me to coat him in bubble wrap next Thursday night.

Aiden’s bloody nose wasn’t a big deal at all.  I cleaned up his face with a tissue and then put him in the tub.  He loves his bathtime and stopped crying once he hit the water.  I tilted him back so that he could float a little, which kept his head back so that he wouldn’t bleed anymore.  I checked his mouth for bleeding, just in case the damage was more severe than I thought, but he was all right.  Ordeal over before it began.