Axe Grinder

Video Game Update

I beat Castlevania : Portrait of Ruin with about 87% complete (I didn't do all the quests) . Great game, would highly recommend.

I've achieved 5 stars on all the songs on Easy Mode and all but 1 song in Medium mode on Guitar Hero II. I thought Medium mode would be as far as I could get but I finally beat a song I'd been stuck on in hard mode (by beat I just mean I finished the song... haven't even begun worrying about 5 stars on hard mode). Anyway, after that I've been able to progress through 3 or 4 more groupings of songs in hard mode. This game has been alot more fun that I thought it would be. I had expectations of it being a novelty kind of fun that would wear off quickly, but it's maintained. Heather has started playing too... she's no Clapton yet, but she's getting there. Once she's got her chops up we can play do-op style and she can be the Malcolm Young to my Angus Young.

Today I started Final Fantasy III for DS. This is the first Final Fantasy game I've played... it would be like if a gamer had never played a Mario Bros. game. There have been a bunch of Final Fantasy titles dating all the way back to the original Nintendo with versions on lots of other gaming consoles and systems. So far it seems good, but it's a bit slow. While walking around through the first cave I'd get attacked and battles go into a different mode then when the battle ends there's a little delay while it shows you what you earned from the battle. Maybe it feels so slow because I just finished Castlevania, who knows.

Christmas 2006

Well Christmas has come and gone and we had a great one. This was the first year Brooke was really excited about Christmas and learned how to rip open presents. We did many celebrations including a few in Oklahoma City and a few more in Tulsa.

In Oklahoma City we did Christmas with my dad and then Saturday before Christmas we opened our gifts for each other and stuff we got Brooke. Heather and I didn't get each other too much. I got a new MP3 player and Heather got my old one (advantage: Jason). I got a killer Creative Vision:M 60GB player. Heather got me and Brooke Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat and an extra set of Donkey Kongas. We got Brooke a bunch of Barbie stuff, more Dora Doll House things, books, a workbench/mechanic pitstop thing, and a Dora Game set, and some other little stuff.

In Tulsa we went to Heather's parents house, my mom's house, and my aunt's house. We also managed to get a swim in for Christmas which was a first for me. Brooke had alot of fun going to all the different family member's houses and opening gifts. Santa visited her at Nana and Grandpa's house in Broken Arrow. He brought her a Dora Scooter, a Dora Sit and Spin, more Barbie toys, a pile of Books, some Backyardigan plush dolls, and some other misc things. Nana went to get Brooke's cousin Alaina the day after Christmas so Brooke and her got to play together a little.

We stayed until Wednesday afternoon and headed back to Oklahoma City. Before we left town we had lunch with Ceth and Amy. I was wanting to see Jaime and Justin but neither were in town when we were there so it didn't work out this year. No Coneys this year but we did make a few stops at QuikTrip (QT)

Key gifts for me :

Final Fantasy 3 DS game
Castlevania : Portrait of Ruin DS game
Guitar Hero 2 PS2 game
Best Buy giftcard
Polaris sweatshirt
Money, money, money

Brooke:
Zoo Duplo block set
Dora talking cash register
Hungry Hungry Hippos
Old Main, Go Fish, Slap Jack, and Crazy Eights card games
Diego rescue field journal
Doodlepad Pro
T-Ball set
Basketball goal
A crap-ton of Barbie dolls/furniture/etc.
A ladybug raincoat/boots/umbrella
A Madeline doll
A refrigerator phonic teaching thing
Backyardigans CD

Heather:

Robe
Shoes
Money
CD's
Books
Zoo Tycoon 2 Collection
Magic Bullet
Pyrex storage containers (she asked for them!)
Quesadilla maker


I don't have too much in mind for my money. I did order the first Guitar Hero because I'm having sooooo much fun with the Guitar Hero 2. I'll also probably get Neverwinter Nights 2 for the PC when I finish the 2 DS games. There are a few CD's I might pick up as well. I'm also going to pick up Donkey Konga because the Jungle Beat game is too hard for Brooke and it's not really about playing the drums it's more using the drums to take Donkey Kong through an adventure. The rest I'll probably just hang onto until something cool I can't live without pops up.

I think those are the hilights (pics). We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to next year when Brooke will be even more excited about Santa and Christmas.

Oh!, Christmas Tree

We got our tree up this weekend. This was the first year Brooke helped out. We also put a little fiber optic tree on our entry table and put some of the little Dora and Spongebob ornaments on that tree. It's officially "Brooke's Tree".

We also got all the lights up outside. Did the usual this year... red and white alternating big C9 lights with icicles on the house outline. Did one red tree and one white tree. Decorates the large holly bush with red/white minis. Put Mr. and Mrs. Claus in Brooke's window this year.

See pics of the decorations

Classic

I was shaking Brooke around today . . .

"Stop Dad, you're making me nervous".

I have no idea where she picked that up. And as we were laughing she was like "What's nervous?". So she doesn't really know what she said, but it was funny.

A Fun Wiikend

So last night about 11:45 Heather took off for GameStop to pick up our previously preordered Nintendo Wii. She got right in and back home. We got the Wii, another controller (Wiimote + nunchuk), Zelda: Twilight Princess. The Wii comes with Wii Sports.



The only thing different than setting up any other console you've ever had is the Wiimote light sensor. It has an ultra thing cable that's quite long so anyone should be able to install it with any configuration you have for your home entertainment system. To get going we just set it on top of our tv screen and ran the cable down the side of the TV. We're planning on doing a proper install today.

The thing setting this console apart is the controller. The Wiimote is a slim remote control looking device that goes in one hand. There is a nunchuk attachment that goes in the other hand and they are connected by a short cable. It feels really natural holding it, and it's not nearly as difficult to get comfortable with it as you might think.

In a few minutes we were trying out Wii Sports. We tried them all but the golf. The baseball is alot of fun. With 2 players one person is pitching and one is hitting. The hitting motion is just like hitting a baseball. It's not as complex, you can swing up for getting air and what not, but you use the basic hitting motion. Bowling is probably my favorite. Again, you use a normal bowling motion. You can hook the balls as well. Boxing is the weirdest. It's a little chaotic and kind of hard to tell exactly what's going on... I'm sure I'll get into it the next few days. Tennis is pretty fun as well. You can do backhands and forehands.


I started Zelda this morning. It's fun as well. So far I haven't gotten into much content that requires the use of the Wiimote sensing ability. I did just finish a fishing pole quest and that does require you to use a fishing pole motion. I can't wait to get the bow and arrow and try that out!

So far I'm very pleased. It seems like a lot of fun with the unique controls but I also didn't have to spend 600.00 on the console like the PS3!

Here are a few pictures from the first night.

Bummer

The Pride of Broken Arrow won the BOA National Championship yesterday.

Whoa!

I plan on spending the rest of the day under a blanket crying

Pic

The kids are coming to get presents

So this was the first year we took Brooke Trick Or Treating. This year she was a princess and she had a lot of fun going around to our neighbors and getting candy. We just did a few houses and then we all passed out candy to the kids coming to our house. Brooke LOVED doing that. Bailey was locked up in Brooke's room, so he would bark which signaled to Brooke to run into the entry and wait for the kids to come to the door. She would say "the kids are going to come and get presents".

We decorated the front yard again this year. We added a few new things this year. We got a skeleton that lights up and we also added some little pumpkins on stakes.

Heather carved two pumpkins. One was pretty standard and the other had carvings on the front and back. The back would cause a shadow on the wall of a cat, and the front was two scary rats. Pretty cool.

Brooke's cousin Alaina was here right before Halloween so they helped scoop out the gunk from the pumpkins.

I took pictures.

This, That, and More Stuff

Just an update since I haven't posted in a while . . .

I'm 32 now. Brooke is 3 now. We had a party that was off the hook for Brooke! Hello Kitty style. She had fun. Heather's parents stayed late after the party and watched Brooke so we went and saw The Departed. It was GREAT! Really cool story, great acting, violence... another classic Scorsese movie.

We are potty training Brooke now. We started 2 weeks ago and we've had several days already with no accidents. Obviously we're still doing diapers when she sleeps, but first thing in the morning we get up and go and most days she tells us every time she needs to go. The first day or two she didn't quite get it but I think she's picking up now. She called me one day early and work and it went like this . . .

Me; "This is Jason"
[pause]
Me: "Hello?"
Brooke : I WENT POOPOO IN THE POTTY

Pretty funny!

We have our Nintendo Wii on preorder and will be picking it up in a couple of weeks when it's released. No PS3 for us. We wanted to get one to EBay but no luck, but we're still happy to get a Wii for us to actually play.

OBA was this past weekend in Edmond. My friends Ceth and Amy were in town for it so we hooked up with them and ate dinner Saturday night. In talking with them it sounds like Union is pretty terrible these days which stinks. Broken Arrow is doing well but from what they say basically all the other bands in the state are lousy. Ceth says most kids don't care about marching band. I don't understand why they even join if they don't want to succeed at it.

We went to the OU v. Colorado football game last weekend. My aunt had suite tickets and took us along. It's definitely an experience! It's posh. Each suite has like 3 or 4 rows of seats that are roomy and comfortable. There is a full kitchen area in each suite and personal host for each suite that is there to take care of you. Outside the suites there are lounge areas with couches and tv's and big buffet lines with all sorts of good food: burgers, chili, brisket, sandwiches, wings, etc. In the room they have more wedding appetizer stuff... fruit, cheese, crackers, more wings, cake, pastries, etc. Then anything you could want to drink... beer, soda, wine, on and on. It was cool and hopefully I get to go again.

Work is good.

Guess that's it. Best line I can think of from Brooke :

'When I get bigger I can go to Wal-Mart by myself. Then when you guys get bigger you can go with me'.

The new rig

Well I built a new PC this week. My friend at work Erik built one a few weeks ago and I went with a very similar system.

• Gigabyte 965P Motherboard
• Intel Core 2 Duo (CONROE) e6400
• ATI X1900XTX Video Card
• 2 GB RAM
• 320GB Seagate Barracuda Harddrive

It went mostly smooth. Had a few hiccups. The first one was after I had everything put in the case I came into the ofice to plug it into the monitor and make sure it booted... it did! While I was talking to Erik online using Google Talk (tangent... all my friends/family should get a gMail account and use gTalk to chat online with me. You'll need an invite from me so let me know) I noticed the pc just shutoff. I booted it up again and it did it again. Erik said it sounded like a overheating problem... and indeed it was. The CPU was getting up into the 100 C temps. I shut everything down and proceeded to get the heatsink/fan correctly installed on the motherboard. I found this to be a big pain. I worked on it for a bit and then gaveup and went to bed. I woke up at 2:50 in the morning and it was driving me nuts.... so about 4:00am I had the fan installed correctly and everything looked good! The next night it was time for loading on the software. Formatting a 350gb harddrive took over an hour. Then I had a little problem with one of the front USB ports... turned out a connector had wiggled out or was never put in correctly by the case manufacturer. No big deal. I put everything in closed it up and it's under the desk now!

I probably saved 500.00 or so doing it myself... but that doesn't mean it's the right choice for everyone. You have to be comfortable doing that kind of stuff and realize that I don't have a company I can call if my pc doesn't work (like Dell support). Those are issues to consider for sure.. . there's a lot of piece-of-mind knowing you can pick up the phone and have Dell fix your computer.

I took a few pictures along the way (you can click the image and then at the top of the image click "All Sizes" to see bigger versions if you're intersted in seeing the details)

I just realized this is probably not interesting to anyone but me... oh well, it's my blog!

Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

So it's started. The fall season is the best season :

• College football starts
• NFL football starts
• The best part of baseball : playoff races and playoffs
• Halloween
• Awesome weather
• My birthday
• Brooke's birthday
• TV shows all start up new seasons
• Thanksgiving
• Leads right into Christmas time

Definitely hands down mine and Heather's favorte time of year. What do you guys think is the best time of year and why?

SoaP

We saw Snakes on a Plane Friday night. It was pretty awesome. Over the top with the attacking snakes and some awesomely funny lines. Good times.

My Top Ten Drummers

So I was watching a Rush DVD this morning and it got me to thinking about my favorite drummers. Alot of my friends over the years ask me for my opinion about drummers. Who I like, why, etc. So here goes. I am taking the wuss route and not actually ranking them, these are just my favorite 10 in some order.

Neil Peart - ok, with one exception I'll rank. He's my favorite. Neil is the drummer for Rush. To me he has all the things I look for. Chops, chops, and more chops. A unique style - most notably would be the ride cymbal pattern that can be found in a ton of different Rush songs. I think he has a good sense of musicality as well. Alot of drummers with insane chops tend to lose site of the fact the band is trying to create a good song. They simply take a song and then show how many awesome things they can play on top of it. I've never felt that Neil's parts are distracting or take away from what the band is trying to do. He also led a project Burning For Buddy where he gathered alot of great rock and jazz drummers to pay tribute to Buddy Rich.

Tommy Lee - Obviously this isn't about great drumming skills. After my Duran Duran/Michael Jackson phase I discovered Motley Crue. I had a neighborhood friend named Chris Nolan. There was an older girl in the neighborhood that would babysit him from time to time. Once when I was over there she pulled out the Shout At The Devil album and I was HOOKED! I've been a huge fan of Motley Crue and Tommy Lee since. To me Tommy is the essence of a cool, bad boy, rock and roll drummer.

Mike Portnoy - This one may not be a common name to everyone. He's the drummer for Dream Theater and considered year after year to be the best drummer in rock. Dream Theater is a band full of guys with amazing talent on their instruments and Portnoy stands out. If you just want to hear some amazing licks and fills this is the guy.

Dave Grohl - First made famous when he was the drummer for Nirvana, he is now the frontman/songwriter for the Foo Fighters. This is a guy that combines good technical skills with a lot of style. The thing I've always loved about Grohl is how hard he hits. I read an article in Modern Drummer where he was talking about sticks he would use that were just basically 4 times the size of a normal stick and no real shape to them. He said they were just like tree branches cut down. He plays LOUD all the time. It's great! My friend Justin used to tell me I kinda look like Dave (back when we both had long hair) - something about the big mouth/teeth I guess.

John Bonham - No drummer list can be made without mentioning the drummer from Led Zeppelin. In my opinion he was the original heavy metal drummer. What I love about Bonham is the sloppy style. Listen to some Zeppelin albums and you'll hear how loose his patterns and beats are. He seemed to always have little ghost notes and such going on with his bass and snare. I guess he wasn't a big fan of just straight bass-snare-bass-snare standard rock patterns.

Larry Mullen Jr - Yes, the drummer from U2. Yes he's really worth mentioning. When I was a young up-and-coming drummer I was all about chops. If a guy could play fast and lots of notes I figured he was the best. I'm guessing half of what Neil Peart and Mike Portnoy play Larry couldn't play. But I've learned style is also important when you're a drummer. To me Larry sounds like Larry and noone else does. In the early days of U2 he would play alot of his standard patterns using toms and interesting hi-hat patterns. Listen to Sunday Bloody Sunday. That pattern is really cool and not boring at all. It's not loaded with notes or complex parts, but it's totally unique.

Stewart Copeland - master of the hi-hats and drummer for one of my favorite bands The Police. Another guy with a really cool style but he could back it up with great chops. In the early days he would play fast and some of the early live recordings the tempo by the end of the song wasn't even close to what it started as because Stewart would play like a spazz and speed up. He was also the master of using hi-hats in fills and between patterns to add really cool unique sounds.

Jimmy Chamberlain - Jimmy was the drummer for the Smashing Pumpkins. What I loved about his playing with the Pumpkins were the really cool basic patterns. Another drummer that didn't seem to be happy playing standard rock beats.

Will Calhoun - the drummer from the band Living Colour. He doesn't get as much love as he should. He's one of my favorites for sure. What I love about his playing is the way he blends funk, hip-hop, and rock elements to create awesome drum parts.

Dave Weckl - In my opinion the best drummer in jazz today. You have to have a great understanding of music to even play jazz, and this guy doesn't just play jazz but does amazing things. He made his name as the drummer for the Chick Corea band and is now a successful solo artists. I have all but 1 of his solo discs and they are really cool if you like jazz and want to hear some amazing drumming. Every fill he does sounds like something I couldn't play.

No disrespect to Buddy Rich

Well that's the list. Who did I miss? I can think of alot of drummers I like that didn't make my list. Who's on the list that you think is ridiculous? Do you like any of the drummers on my list? Why? Discuss . . .

I did it, I did it!

At approximately 8:45am on August 5, 2006 I dodged a blue shell!

I was using Peach on the Poltergeist 4000. I was doing a 150cc trying to get my rankings up to 3 stars.

WoW it's over

I finally quit being lazy and cancelled my World of Warcraft (WoW) account today. I haven't played in almost 3 months so it was obvious I wasn't going to want to play. Maybe when the expansion comes out I'll roll a new character and play again. Hopefully some of the guys I used to play with or some guys at work that I didn't know played until after we were already all in it (Hardwareguy, Johnson) will want to do new characters and start over. If everyone is just wanting to power level up to 60 to do raiding stuff still I'll probably skip the expansion and buy another Nintendo DS game.

Still playing Mario Kart all the time. I'm trying to get my buddy Ceth in Tulsa to get one so we can play Mario Kart over the internet. That would be a blast!

It's super freaking hot here... ugh. My lawn is looking really awesome right now... next to my next door neighbor I'd say best on the street.

Mets are still easily in first place! Whooo hooo... go Mets!

j

Punta Pics

Here are pics from our trip to Punta Cana.

Pedro, Sosa, and the McIntosh's

Well as most of you know we just went to the Dominican Republic. Heather's brother got married this past Thursday at the Breezes Punta Cana Resort. It was great to make the wedding and spend time with Heather's dad and brothers, but it wouldn't be our first choice for a vacation spot.

We left Oklahoma City Tuesday morning. We had a 6:20am flight so we got up and out pretty early... like I got up at 3:30 in the morning early. We had a short layover in Houston and then went on to Ft. Lauderdale. We found a Dave and Busters close to the hotel so that's where we went for dinner. We had never been to one and it was pretty neat. It's like a Celebration Station/Incredible Pizza kinda place on steroids. And it's not so geared towards kids. They have a full blown restaurant and bar with all kinds of things to eat. Then they have a giant area with all the games to play. The video games are crazy. Then like all those places they have tons of “earn tickets” games where you can redeem the tickets for crappy trinkets. We got Brooke a bunch of little goofy toys, but it turned out that she loved playing with them. We went back to the room and fell asleep watching the NBA finals, where Miami won the NBA Championship. When I got up in the morning there was a Miami Herald in front of our door. We saved the paper for Heather to put in her scrapbook. After a quick breakfast it was off to the Ft. Lauderdale airport for our trip to Punta Cana.

The experience was not so great at the airport. We flew Spirit Air, which from what we can tell takes all the people too rude to work at the major airlines and lets them be the face of their business. When we got to the ticketing area a Spirit agent told us to go “all the way to the end” for Punta Cana. So we did... then after standing in line for 10 minutes some other lady starts in with “this isn't the line for Punta Cana'. Some of the people in front of us made a stink about it “well that lady down there told us to come here”. The lady was completely rude... she just said “this isn't the line for Punta Cana... it's over here”. So my temper flared up. I just wanted her to acknowledge it was the other Spirit rep. That made the mistake telling us to get in that line... so I said “but you can see why we would all be in this wrong line” to which she replied “this is the line for Punta Cana” and pointed where she was standing... so again I said “but you see why we're all here right” after a couple of exchanges like this she was like “yeah”. All the while Heather was telling me to shut up and calm down for fear we'd get arrested. But we didn't...we stood in another line for like an hour and finally got checked in. The plane was late boarding and we got to Punta Cana I think about an hour late.

When we arrived at the airport in Punta Cana it was pretty wacky. Finding someone with 1^st grade level English skills was a major challenge. Also you have to buy some stupid visitor card for 10.00 a person... then you literally walk about 20 feet and turn it in to someone. So it cost us 30.00 for what I have no idea. I also found it interesting that the Dominican Republic doesn't care who comes and why. There was really not customs at all to go through. Heather stood and fought to get our bags and I watched Brooke. After we got our bags some guy ran up and grabbed them on his cart and we were off. That was it. No one asked us anything about why we were there or whatnot. It just seemed odd. The next challenge was finding the right bus to get us to the hotel. HOLY CRAP! We visiting about 4 different buses and each guy was like “Breezes.. no”. We were kinda freaking out. Finally we got on one and a VIP Tour rep (the Tour company the thing was all booked through) assured us the bus was going to Breezes. The driver was nuts. They drives pretty crazy over there. Motorcycles and mopeds are really big and all the guys with vans, trucks, buses, etc. just honky at them and get within about 6 inches of hitting them when they pass. If I ever live there I don't plan on riding a motorcycle. We made it to the resort after about 30 minutes.

Checking in was a mess. Luckily Heather's dad saw us so he could show us the ropes. He had already been there for a few days. We got our room then had to come back in 10 minutes to get our keys. It was weird. We were starving so Rick showed us where we could grab some grilled chicken. It was really good. We had a quick bite and made it up to our room. The rooms were okay. Nothing super fancy, but they were clean and big enough. Heather thought the bed was uncomfortable but it didn't bother me. It was really cloudy and thundering when we arrived so we just left on our shorts/shirts and took Brooke down to the beach. I took her close enough to get her feet wet in the ocean. She seemed to think it was pretty neat. After we played for a bit we got cleaned up and went and had dinner. It was buffet style because we didn't have reservations at any of the restaurants. It wasn't bad.

Thursday we met Rick and Heather's brother Issac for breakfast. Then it was off to the pool and the beach. Brooke didn't want to play by the water at the beach. The waves were too scary for her. So we just played in the sand. She had a lot of fun. Heather, Rick, Issac and Issac's fiance Natalie took kayaks out into the ocean. I needed a zoom lens. Oh well. We had lunch at a place by the pool and then everyone went to cleanup and get ready for the wedding.

The wedding was nice. It was cloudy so not crazy hot. After the wedding we went to the beach to do pictures. Then we changed into shorts for the dinner/reception. It was nice... good food and got to visit with everyone.

Friday we had a few hours to play around at the pool before we caught our bus back to the airport. We arrived back in Ft. Lauderdale Friday late afternoon. We stood in a bunch of lines for customs things. We didn't get checked much so it wasn't a big deal just a pain with all our luggage and a 2 year old in a stroller. We had dinner in the hotel.

Saturday we had the Embassy Suites breakfast which is always nice. Then we had 4 or 5 hours to kill. Heather was feeling sick to her stomach so we took it easy and just walked around by our hotel. There is a river area 4 blocks from the hotel so we went and hung out there for a bit. Then it was back to the airport again. We got on an early flight to Houston than originally scheduled because a flight was delayed. Turns out the one we were on that departed about 5:30 was supposed to leave at 9:00am that morning. OY! Those poor people. Anyway we had a long layover in Houston and finally made it back to Oklahoma City around 11:00ish. We were in bed by about 12:30.

Overall it was okay. I think with having to deal with lines/airports everyday but 1 on the entire vacation made it a little annoying. The resort was too crowded. Lines and reservations for everything which isn't great when you're wanting to just chill on a vacation. Lots and lots of bottled water. I had a Dominican beer... Presidente. It wasn't bad... tasted just like your average beer. I didn't get much sun because we just weren't out much and it was cloudy quite a bit of the time.

Pictures coming soon . . .

One of the cooler shows on Earth

So Brooke and I went to the circus yesterday afternoon. We had great seats. We were dead center, probably 10 rows up. When we sat down I saw a guy caddy-corner in front of me shooting some pics with a pretty nice looking rig. Turns out it was KJ from work. He was there with his family. That was cool durning the intermission I had someone to talk to.

The circus was pretty neat. It's basically the same concept as the last time I went when I was a kid, but just bigger, louder, etc. Brooke seemed to like the elephant tricks and the tigers. I think it was a little long for her, plus it was late in the afternoon so she seemed to get a little tired as it went on, but overall she had a good time. She picked out a circus bear stuffed animal for her present from the circus. I wanted to get her a t-shirt too, but they didn't have any kid sizes!?!. I said to the guy "good luck selling all these to adults". That makes no sense.

We walked through the old Myriad Center (now the Cox Convention Center) to get to the Ford Center. When we were walking through we happened to time it perfect and Brooke got to see them walking the elephants out of that building towards the Ford Center. That was pretty neat.

It was a good time.

Two Screens, tons o' fun!.. and some clowns

So if you haven't been keeping up with handheld gaming news, the new Nintendo DS Lite comes out this Sunday. But if you have been keeping up with handheld gaming news, then you know that last week several large retail chains across the country screwed up and started selling them early. Sooo... we got a tip from a realiable source at work that a Target nearby was selling them. Heather took off the next morning and managed to get one!

They are way different than the other gameboy models you might have played. Not just the two screens and the touch screen and the microphone... but the wireless connectivity is pretty amazing. There are about 4 of us (soon to be more) at work that have DS's. So everyday we've been eating real quick and the playing games against each other for the rest of the lunch period. It's a blast.

Then tonight I decided to try the WiFi. If you have a wireless high speed internect access point you can play online against anyone from around the world. Fortunatly I have some cool neighbors with wirelss networks so I was able to try it out! Thanks guys. Anyway, very cool and takes handheld gaming to a new level that's pretty sweet.

Heather likes it too. And we got Brooke a Nintendogs game that she thinks is really neat. She can say "Daisy" (what we named our dog in the game) into the microphone and the puppy will come running to the front of the screen. You can use the touch screen to "pet" and interact with the dog. She giggles all the time when we're playing it.

Also going to the Ringling Bros circus tomorrow. Heather wasn't too interested so it'll just be me and Brooke. I haven't been to one since I was a kid so I think it'll be fun.

It's pretty much my favorite animal

Apparently Napoleon (click here for awesome video clip) wasn't just making stuff up when he drew his favorite animal the liger. They look pretty cool, maybe we'll get one for Christmas.

Showtime

So we took Brooke to her first movie yesterday. We went and saw the early showing of Over The Hedge at Quail Springs Mall AMC. It was actually a pretty good movie and Heather and I laughed several times. As with most animated movies these days it's loaded with celebrity voices - Bruce Willis, Steve Carell, Wanda Sykes, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Gary Shandling and others. Wanda Sykes playes a skunk named Stella and she has some pretty funny lines. Anyway, it was a good time and Brooke seemed to enjoy going to the movies.

After the movie we went to Cheeseburger In Paradise for lunch. We hadn't been yet and it was pretty cool. The burgers were really tasty.

That's that