MichaelandChrissy.com

Diablo (1997) was the first PC game that I bought for myself. I had played other computer games, but they were either shareware or borrowed from my friend Swavek.  The interface was so intuitive, just point and click to do just about anything.  Although there were only sixteen levels, each one was randomized every time you played, so it never got old.  It was different from anything else that I had ever played before.  It was also the first PC game that I played online (not including Doom’s peer-to-peer cooperative mode). I would join a small team and defeat Diablo at least twice every night.

When Diablo 2 (2000) came out, I bought it on the day of release and played it day and night for months. More character classes, each with a unique skill tree, made gameplay very customizable. And it was BIG: four entire Acts of content that spanned many diverse environments.  And the loot was incredible, even allowing you to piece together rare sets of items for extra bonuses.  Diablo 2 was the only game that I ever bought items for outside of the game. People sold powerful weapons and armor on eBay; you would pay via PayPal and then the seller would give you the items online in a private game.

“Stay a while, and listen!”- Deckard Cain

So when Blizzard announced Diablo 3, my heart stopped.  Well, maybe not stopped, at least not until I actually say the preview site. Then I died.  Seeing Deckard Cain, the narrator for the first two games, again was like being greeted by an old friend. The new Diablo 3 site includes “The Journal of Deckard Cain“, with thirty pages voiced by the same guy who played Cain before.  The journal is illustrated with plenty of concept images from Diablo 3, as well as all of the cinematics from Diablo 2 (they still hold up very well after all these years). It serves as an excellent refresher for the Diablo mythology.

The new content introduced in Diablo 3 looks really good.  There is an excellent gameplay trailer that highlights the new environments, two of the five available character classes (and their abilities) and some of the new monsters that will appear.  The designers include enough of the familiar to make the game slightly nostalgic, but also include enough new stuff to push ahead of the copycat games that have come out before. There was even a “boss” battle at the end of the trailer that left me wanting to play the game right now. I’m pretty excited to see more from Blizzard’s Diablo 3 site.

The Transformers Collectors’ Club exclusive “Topspin” figure came in the mail yesterday.  Since Fun Publications took over the TFCC and Botcon duties, they have worked with Hasbro to consistently release excellent exclusive figures.  Each year for the last four years, they have given away a free basic-sized combiner piece to all current members.  I’ve got them all, but I can’t believe that I’ve been a TFCC member for four years now! 

So far, the exclusive pieces have been two repainted limbs from Energon Superion and two repainted limbs from Energon Bruticus.  This works out nicely, since each of those gestalts had two sets that were effectively the same mold, only repaints of each other.  So, TFCC has given us the first Energon combiner that has non-identical limbs.  

Just one more piece to complete the TFCC exclusive combiner set.  Rumors say that the torso piece will be the Energon Storm Jet (not “Silverbolt”?) mold.  Can’t wait to put all the pieces together to display my Collector’s Club set next to my completed Energon Superion and Energon Bruticus sets. But that will have to wait until next year!

Chrissy and I watch new episodes of “Jon and Kate Plus Eight” on television every Monday. These people have eight kids, so it’s fun to watch them suffer through the same problems that regular parents have (except eight times over, all at once). Kate manages this herculean task by implementing highly effective organization and planning skills. Chrissy, being an organizational maniac on crack, often emulates Kate’s parenting efforts.  This is how we got a “Naughty Spot”, which is what Super Nanny would have called their “Time Out Spot“.

Ask not for whom the Naughty Spot tolls; it tolls for thee.

To keep their six toddlers in line, Jon and Kate put them in “time-out” when they act up.  Each child has their own Spot on which they have to sit during time-outs.  Chrissy decided that she had to have one.  We actually ordered two, in anticipation of wearing one out (or just having one on hand for Gavin when he’s old enough to require one). They arrived in the mail about a month ago, but have remained unused.  Generally, Aiden is a very good boy, so we ended up with a circular, decorative rug in the corner of our dining room.

Today, Aiden was sent to the Naughty Spot for the first time. He has picked up hitting people (we think from the older kids at Gymboree), but now concludes with nasty scratches from talon-like nails.  Neither of which makes Chrissy very happy.  Aiden had to spend two minutes in time-out on the Naughty Spot.  He loved it.  Big smiles.  It’s his new favorite place now.  At least he didn’t hit anyone afterward.  We hope that, eventually, he’ll equate the Naughty Spot with punishment.

Aiden got his first haircut on June 19th, 2008. Grandma brought her stylist kit over and did the honors. He cried the entire time, even after Chrissy gave him a Ring Pop to calm him down. Apparently, he didn’t like sitting on a step stool, drapped in a plastic covering.  Grandma did a good job, and you could barely recognize him when she was done, and not just because his entire mouth was blue.  He looks like such a big boy now!

Ill Will Press creates these hilarious (re: mature content) cartoons about a girl and her mouthy little squirrel.  One of their secondary characters is this neurotic little guy with huge glasses that talks really fast.  In one episode, this neurotic sidekick finds a blood pressure tourniquet and calls it his “Kevorkian Scarf.” He proceeds to put it around his neck, thus asphyxiating himself when it inflates. For obvious reasons, I thought that was terribly funny.

I can’t see a sphygmomanometer (yes, that is the medical term for it) without thinking of the “Kevorkian Scarf”.  So, Aiden got a little doctor’s kit for Christmas, which included a fake blood pressure cuff. It’s way too big for his arm, but the velcro attachment fits nicely around his neck. He’ll be too big to do this safely in a few months, so I couldn’t help myself.  Don’t worry, it doesn’t inflate!

Buyers, you can no longer receive negative or neutral Feedback from sellers.
You should leave honest and accurate Feedback without the fear of receiving negative or neutral ratings.

I recently got this message from eBay that says that sellers can’t leave you negative feedback anymore.  Buyers will no longer have to worry about being screwed into accepting crappy service from sellers on eBay.  This is good news, since I’ve been blackmailed into removing negative feedback at least once.  So, I’m glad that eBay is now protecting buyers from these types of scams.  Just because a seller doesn’t have a storefront, they shouldn’t think that they can forgo basic customer service. If you accept money from someone, then you have an obligation to them to respond promptly to their emails and ship their product quickly.

But I digress. The time that I got the shakedown, a seller took over a month to ship my item and would not respond to any of my emails.  I thought that he was pulling a fast one, so I left him negative feedback. I was in the process of trying to get my money back from PayPal when the item arrived, a month late. The seller then miraculously appeared and said that he would in turn leave me negative feedback, ruining my perfect record, unless we mutually rescinded both claims. That was total bull, since all I did was expect the items that I paid for to be shipped within a decent time.  I did it though, since I didn’t want my perfect feedback rating to be trashed.

I don’t like getting wet, let alone being rained on. Normally, I won’t even leave the house if it looks like it’s going to rain outside. But the weather has been very strange lately. I seem to have gained the uncanny ability to induce precipitation on a beautiful day simply by getting into my car. Furthermore, the brutality of the rain is inversely proportional to the length of my drive. I can control the weather! Don’t believe me? I’ll explain.

On Saturday, Aiden and I drove to Meijers to get some groceries. It’s not very far to go, and it was only a little cloudy when we got there. As we were about to check out, rain started to come down in sheets, and driving wind was pushing the torrent horizontally. I didn’t want to go out in that. Then someone got on the intercom and announced a Tornado Warning. A tornado had been spotted only a mile away! About a hundred customers were herded into the “Tornado Safety Area”, which was basically the stock room. It was a huge concrete bunker with steel roofing joists, so we were pretty safe there. They let us out about fifteen minutes later, and the rain had completely stopped by then.

I thought this was just a fluke, but we got a near repeat on Sunday. I had just put together a sandbox for Aiden, so Chrissy sent me to Lowes for play sand. Again, it was cloudy when I got there, but no rain yet. When I tried to check out, the downpour started. It was coming down so fast that water was pouring over the sides of building. After waiting inside for fifteen minutes for the deluge to stop, I decided to make a run for the car. I was soaked to the bone before I even got my keys out. And once again, the rain had stopped when I got home. The drive to Lowes was a little longer than the drive to Meijer, so logically there was no tornado this time.

Yesterday, I produced a moderate amount of rain on my way home from work. It had been a nice day, and I had even gone for a walk across campus that morning. The first drops of rain fell as soon as I got into the car to go home. People tend to forget how to drive when the road gets a little wet, so traffic snarled up a bit. That made my commute a little longer, about a hour, so the rain wasn’t that bad (remember, the shorter the trip, the worse it gets). So it would seem that my suspicions are justified. I would hate to see what would happen if I drove across the street. The heavens might open up and unleash an F5-level twister on us!

There was a recent episode of Doctor Who where he, Martha and Donna ended up on an uninhabitable world with a group of humans battling a group of fish people (called the Hath) in an underground city.  The Doctor gets his hand stuck in a gene sampler and ends up with a daughter or something.  The really interesting part, for me, was that both sides of the subterranean conflict, both human and Hath, were fighting to possess a mythic weapon of unimaginable power.  The Doctor discovers that it is actually a device that terraforms planets, or takes dead planets and makes them habitable.  That sounds a lot like Project Genesis to me.

So my first thought is: how can we tie in the Star Trek universe with the Doctor Who universe so that there are Klingons searching here for the Genesis Device? Wouldn’t it be cool if Birds of Prey showed up above the planet, and we end up with middle-age Kirk joining up with Doctor Who to keep their quarry out of the wrong hands (all of them). I can just see Christopher Lloyd saying: “So, Doctor Who, you won’t give me the Genesis Device?” Zap! Jenny gets the Klingon disruptor and that’s it for her recurring character.  Kirk howls, “You killed my son!” The Doctor cries, “You killed my daughter!” Great stuff. Unfortunately, that’s about as far as my little fanboy brain-wanderings went. Neat idea though.

Rene Engström is a Swedish cartoonist who does the web comic “Anders Loves Maria“.  She draws and paints each update by hand.  The art seems to be finished in water colors, and they turn out beautifully with spectacular shading and gradation.  The subject matter leans towards the adult side, with some nudity and mature topics, but the story is taken seriously and is very well put together. I’ve added it to my daily reading list.

I first heard of Rene on Twitter, where her handle is “reneengstrom“.  Today, she was taking random requests for quick sketches and then posting the results for everyone to see.  Some of the requests were pretty out there, but she came through imaginatively every time.  I requested an Optimus Prime sketch, and she sent over a picture of her work.  That’s some funny stuff; I laughed out loud.  Thanks, Rene! You made my day.

Chrissy got me a “Nintendo Wii” for my birthday, because she’s the best wife in the world. She actually bought it about a month ago, but it’s been in hiding until yesterday. I’ve been keeping busy with “Titan Quest”, so I wasn’t in a hurry to play new games. I should have been, since it turns out that the Wii is terribly cool (I had never tried one before). She got me “Mario Kart” and “Super Mario Galaxy” as well, so we’re set for Wii games for a while.

The Wii has wireless connectivity, so now we can play games with people on the internet. We thought that we would need to get the LAN adapter to plug into our network, but we hooked it up into our home wireless network instead. Out of the box, it taps into news and weather reports online. However, you have to use the “Wiimote” to read the news, which is kind of awkward. At least we don’t have to go through dial-up to get to the Nintendo services. But let’s talk about the games!

Mario Kart is a lot of fun. It’s hard to hold that wheel out in front of you for too long. I could feel it in my quadreceps and chest after about an hour of playing it last night. That didn’t stop me from playing though. We have it installed on our 57″ projection screen television, and the audio goes through the surround sound speakers, so we get the whole experience. I didn’t expect it to be this much fun, but here I am yelling and cheering while I play. Chrissy and I raced against each other for a few circuits, and I foresee a lot of friendly competition between us in the future.

I dug into the “Wii Sports” games that came with the system today. I was surprised to find myself wearing down physically after about a half an hour. I’ve been riding the bike lately (with a little boy tethered behind me), so I’m not completely out of shape, but the tennis and boxing games are using muscles that the bike doesn’t excercise at all. I was a sweaty, worn out mess after an hour, but I plan to go back and play some more “Wii Boxing” later. Put down the game and hit the showers, mister.

Later on, Chrissy and I took turns playing Super Mario Galaxy. The controls are a little strange, in that you move Mario with the little controller in your left hand while you point at the screen with the Wiimote in your right. While Mario explores little planets (”Bonjour, Petit Prince!”), vertigo sets in as you try to point him in the right direction despite the fact that he’s upside down. And my wrist is going to have to acclimate to the “spin attack”, which you execute by shaking the Wiimote back and forth in your hand. Yes, the controls take some getting used to, but that’s part of the fun.