"They celebrate Easter the exact same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit … left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. Anybody got any idea? You know, I've read the Bible. I can't find the word "bunny" or "chocolate" anywhere in the fucking book. Where do they come up with this shit?"Happy Easter from me and Bill. :P I'm having soft tacos for lunch, which is how they list the tradition in the Gideon Bible, I think. Otherwise, it's a lazy, cold day off from work.
As previously mentioned, I purchased the Robocop three-pack from work the other day. I didn't actually end up watching it the other night, I went to bed instead. So I watched the first flick today instead.
I had forgotten how funny the movie is. Funny story about that, Robocop came out right around my eighth birthday. My mom was dating my soon-to-be stepdad, who took us all to see it. I was eight. At Robocop. Which was pretty damn close to being rated X. I loved it- had a bunch of the toys, watched the cartoon, played the arcade game whenever I could. Speaking of which, was the arcade game as good as I remember it? In my mind, it's right up there with Spy Hunter, Wrestlefest, TMNT, etc. in the pantheon of Good Arcade Games From When I Was A Kid. Perhaps I shall
download it for MAME, er
go find an arcade, er download it for MAME and see if it rocks the way I think it does. All I remember was that you pretty much needed the Cobra Assault Cannon powerup to fight the bosses. Or a shitload of quarters, as you did in every arcade game back then.
I think I'm getting sick. My throat's been sore since yesterday, which I was hoping was just due to dust in the house. I woke up today and I've got a nice sinus fog and my throat is worse. Go me. I don't ever get sick, so it's time to overmedicate and then laze around the house some more. And probably be better in time for work tomorrow. Maybe.
Easter Sunday text message update! ZKAT is good, cute, and full of sugar today. (Pink and yellow Cinderella dress with silver shoes, for those keeping track.) There is apparently a egg hunt later that she will be partaking in. It's cold up there too, but the egg hunt is in the mall, I guess. I picked up Charlotte's Web for her last week; we were selling it with a copy of the book, which is always a bonus. BOOKS: CHECK EM OUT.
Did you see that someone beat me to the LEGO Mindstorms Wii Bowler bot? Perfect game like woah. Way to go, guys and/or gals. That seriously rocks.
Their design is pretty close to how I saw it in my head, although I saw it as being less squat and more tall, probably because that's how I figured the Wiimote would have to move in order to emulate a human playing. I wonder how much trial and error it took to find out that the Wiimote could spin around the axis and emulate the throw... I figured I would have to have it swing down like one of those pirate ship rides at an amusement park and then reset itself after every throw, which would have made it more tall, Tower of Terror style!
They released the program code for it, which is terribly, terribly, terribly simple. Good Lord... keep it simple stupid. I was curious to see how they handled the loop, which I was going to terribly complicate. I was thinking that you'd have to have the bot listen for the chime that the Wiimote makes when it is a player's turn to bowl, and then start the loop, which is fine up until the tenth frame, when the three throws cause the remote to stop chiming. Fifteen second loops, infinitely. I need more programming practice. I really was going to make that a lot more complicated. It presses A, it grabs the trigger, it swings, 0.25 seconds elapse, it stops grabbing the trigger, it stops the swing, back to start.
(PSA! Ben and Jerry's has Free Ice Cream Day on April 17th. This notice is mostly for me to remember, and I'm not even sure there is a B&J around here, haha.)
...of course, that means that I ended up buying presents for myself too. I finally found a copy of Zombies Ate My Neighbors, so I no longer have to scour each and every used game shop that I come to for it. The Indiana Jones game was an impulse buy, fueled by my general excitement lately about all things Indy. (Is it May yet?)
So I went up and saw MEGA TODDLER ZKAT over the weekend. I've got pictures all over the place. Of course, the memory card that I loaded with both camera pics and phone pics wasn't recognized by the stupid picture machine at work, but what else is new?
Speaking of work, they're opening another new store in just about three weeks. My old boss wants me to go and help set up their entertainment department, not unlike how we did with the Vestal store last May. On one hand, I'd like to go to see the few coworkers that did end up transferring there, but on the other hand, it's a fairly busy week for me as it is. I've got nine straight days of work, so anything that I did at the new store would basically be on top of that, for six hours at a time after the time that I went to lunch at my store. Plus, as I've mentioned on numerous occasions, I don't particularly care for the old boss in a boss regard, haha. I may or may not end up doing it; I told them that I would discuss it tomorrow, when I'm actually working.
The new vehicle is still awesome. I got a chance to really break it in this weekend when I went up north. Better gas mileage than what I expected: 27mpg on the highway, with cruise control and some AC. Looks like I can expect around 400 miles per tank, which is better all-around than the Mustang was. I was a bit worried about the mileage, since it is a much larger vehicle than what I'm used to, with an automatic transmission to boot. However, it is only a 4-cylinder, which is probably the major saving grace there.
I'm just about to finish Golden Compass (couple chapters left, I just am being lazy on this, my day off), which I wanted to read before the movie came out and have done so. Hooray! Great book, can't wait to get right into the rest of the series. I'd also really, really like an armored bear, a fact that I'm sure that you are very aware of. I also have to finish one of the Heroes discs and send it back to Netflix so I can be caught up there too. (Yeah yeah, I know, the new season started last night. I'll figure it out somehow, haha.)
TJ out.
That chipmunk is probably doomed!
I think I'd never shave again if I could.
She's very fond of her Uncle Jim, who she doesn't see all that much. I'm glad she's taken to him.
NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!
Over two days, she took four baths while I was watching her. I think she gets dirty on purpose just so she can take them.
She looks impossibly older than two and a half here. It's the hair, I know.
She knows she has them the wrong way. "You're small, Daddy." *flip* "Now you're big."
Haha, she's planning out her day on MINI BABY PALM PILOT! (It's a Sudoku thingy. Touching it makes beeps.)
Although it looks like it, she's actually not up to mischief here.
So she has these little plastic toy cats. There is a mommy kitten and a baby kitten. They're each probably about the size of a quarter. It was a minor to-do when the baby kitten was misplaced somewhere in the house, which has a lot of places for baby kittens to get lost. Luckily, she was found the next day, right where ZKAT said she was, even though I had looked there about four times the night before.
See, here the two kittens are getting buried so that they get dirty, so that they all have to take a bath later. It's a vicious cycle.
That's all for now. I'm off to go attempt to remove the dustball that has become my room. Yay allergies. In other news, I'm looking at trading the car in for something that's a little more winterish (and less expensive) than the Mustang, since NY won't let me drive it anyway, haha. Maybe I'll test drive something while I'm out later.
These pictures are among the best of 178 really terrible pictures. It's next to impossible to get pictures that aren't blurry or of the back of her head, haha. Note to self: when buying new camera, take ZKAT to store to test it. I've got her attention here with the age-old photographer parent's trick: Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. It should be noted that this trick has a difficulty rating of 5; as I tend to forget to unwrap the candy first before trying to juggle viewfinder, zoom, candy wrapper, etc. etc.
These first few shots were taken at my grandparents' house. ("Grammy and Pop Pop" since you were wondering, haha.) It's wonderful, comfy, and has lots of things for her to play with. Plus there are a lot of ladybugs, which she thankfully no longer enjoys eating like she did when she was crawling. She does know that they stink though, "Daddy, ladybugs P U stinky." One of my favorite anecdotes is about how there's nothing worse than a baby's breath after she's eaten a ladybug.
Talk about comfy! I mean, look at how comfy that recliner looks! And there are two of them! I can, have, and will again fall asleep in those and stay there until morning.
Through the magic of The Patented Technique For Showing The Best Pictures Last, I'll bet you didn't even know that this first set were actually the last pictures taken this weekend. Haha, I fooled you! ZKAT didn't even make it up to my grandparents' house until Sunday afternoon. In any case, she has some fuzz here in this last one. Yay for fuzz.
The pictures in this next set are from Lorien's parents' house. ("Nonny and Poppy," duh.) It's right on the shore of Lake Champlain, which can be seen through the big bay window.
Look! She has fairy wings!
I should take a moment to point out "Blue Bunny," who is in several of these pictures. He's a Dollar Store Easter Bunny, and ZKAT adores him. In all honesty, he's fairly hideous, which is why Lorien tried hiding him from ZKAT, only to be thwarted by Nonny, who left him right out in plain sight, haha. Blue Bunny pretty much goes wherever ZKAT goes.