Scooterville shifty clinic

A snowy afternoon spent at the local scooter shop learning the inner workings and repairs on our scoots..

A duck, the Pope, and Santa walk into a bar..

.. No, really! They did! We really don't know what it was about, but there was a miniature coffin involved, as well. And we remember it happening last year at about this time. Thanksgiving Turkey Funeral?

Bear Lake in Late Fall

Another beautiful weekend at the cabin. The lake hasn't frozen over yet, but there is enough ice that we were able to toss rocks on it to see if it would break. It didn't. And then we had a family discussion about ice safety, mostly for Jill. :)

The Bomb!

The remake of the original jmlb production has finally been released!

Animal Crossing: City Folk, my impressions

Some of my observations, thoughts, etc.  I think I'm trying to convince my friends to get online with this so we can visit each others cities... :)

• We did *not* get the wii speak version, waiting to see if it sucks and if we know anyone else with a speak.
  
• I played it forever on the DS (Wild World), and now on the Wii.  I have no gamecube experience, so some of this might be redundant to the GC, but I never knew it.  :)
  
• I did nooks tasks for me and Eli *and* Lily, so I'm tired of that treadmill, but now that it's over it's cool.
  
• Screen is SO MUCH BIGGER THAN DS.  
  
• It feels like the same old thing, but fresher.  I'm absolutely going to spend many many hours in the wii version.
  
• Subtle improvements here and there in the UI.  Just makes simple menu tasks cleaner.
  
• The city is just all the weekly visitors in one place, which is kinda handy.  Oh and having a hairstylist that's not just at nookingtons.
  
• I got a makeover to look like my Mi.  Works well.  It's a mask though, so you can't add more to it, like glasses on your Mi.  It just swaps out to the original character face.
  
• I've paid off my first mortgage already, but the kids will be stuck in their tiny cabins forever.  I make money faster than the kids, mostly because I don't just goof around, which I probably should do more often.
  
• We all live in our own places, which is really nice.  No more fighting about who changed the wallpaper, but as I said, the kids will lag behind in expansions which could frustrate them.
  
• It means they have to pay their own mortgage, which they don't care about yet.  When their house gets too small for them we'll see how they deal.
  
• The experience on the DS pays off in knowing how to make money, but I'm cool starting over on my bughunt and fishing and stuff.
  
• One player per wii console.  That's going to cause issues.  We have a 20 minute block rule in the house right now which will hopefully help.
  
• I don't know about visiting other towns when they're not there.  Which kinda might suck.
  
• I love how the kids find certain things fun.  Lily is a designer and Eli is a pitfall seed aficianado.
  
• It's gotten Lily reading a lot more, but she DID delete the town once on the DS, so not that well, I guess.  
  
• Fishing is a bit easier with the wiimote -- not in the "jerk to pull the line in" thing, you can use a button instead -- but in ability to aim your shots better and easier.
  
• Right and left on the directional cross swap out tools.  So you can go from net to shovel to fishing pole without doing the inventory screen.  Nice.  (And apparently "down" removes items from your hands.)
  
• When you sell stuff to Tom, you select the items in your inventory -- not moving them, just selecting them.  Much nicer.
  

If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, it's a new game for the Wii, but it previously came out on the Nintendo DS, and before that the Nintendo Game Cube.  It's very freeform and kid friendly, as there's no real death or killing or fighting.  Just fun!

Den 9, Hole 9

Our super fantastic mini golf hole survived the Pack meeting / golf game today. It was lots of fun!

Gadget Guy 2: The House of Locks

Teaser for Gadget Guy 2: The House of Locks

Threads

Threads was a BBC presentation in 1984.  It's split one hour before a nuclear war and one hour of aftermath.  It was done in a somewhat documentary-style, but it has a number of storylines following normal everyday folk.  It has one of the most scientifically accurate predictions of the aftermath including a nuclear winter.

I remember seeing it when it when it came out - they showed it on PBS with tons of warnings about graphic scenes.  It was scarier than "The Day After" because it seemed more real - less like a tv movie.  It also represented the news and information just as we would, via the newspapers and televisions.  When they stop working we lose our connection to the rest of the world, no matter where we live.   (Yeah, and the Internet, but that's probably more fragile than televisions for everyday people.)

But watching it again I was struck not only with the perspective of someone who now has a wife and children, but how things in the world really haven't changed much.  While we don't have a cold war anymore, we do have tensions in the middle east, a fragile infrastructure that would be a trauma to lose, etc.

It's truly horrifying.  Everyone should see it once.

R.I.P. fnirt and Miloton

I don't know how she got past the confirmations, and she doesn't either, but Lily appears to have deleted Miloton.  It was a town on my Animal Crossing Wild World game for the DS.

Ok, so you're wondering why I would be bummed about this?  Well, I've been playing that game for almost two years now, and it took a lot of hours to get my house, my money, all my furniture, etc.  I had a birthday cake from the townsfolk, and just today I found my first four leaf clover.  And did I mention the new version coming out for the Wii would allow you to bring your character over from your DS?  Yeah.

I guess I wouldn't be so upset, but Eli and Lily just got into it.  They finally found out how fun it was and really started to play a lot.  Eli loved writing letters and planting pitfall seeds to annoy the NPCs.  Lily would make shirt after shirt or plant flowers here and there forever.  And I could help them by giving them money or tools or advice.  And they could go to Nookington's instead of just a tiny little shop in the beginning, etc.  I had worked hard on it and I was finally seeing that pay off for the kids.  Lily still doesn't know what she did, but she's sad.  Eli's stopped sobbing (he was really putting in a lot of work already) and I'm slowly getting over it.

But I just don't know if I can plug away at working for Tom Nook and paying off those mortgages anymore.  And farming trees?  I'm not sure I can do that, either.  Maybe I should just buy a fishing pole and live the simple life of a fisherman...

We've all decided to create a new town and call it Craigville.  But maybe I need some time to grieve...

Coming Soon - Gadget Guy 2: The House of Locks

Today we filmed the first set of scenes for Gadget Guy 2:  The House of Locks and hopefully we'll finish shooting tonight after dinner.  Then comes the long and laborious (actually fun) process of editing and composing.  I think this one is going to be great though, and the addition of Gadget Guy's sidekick Gadget Girl is sure to add to the story!

Halloween 1998

Ahhh... memories..

The kids costumes

Eli was Han Solo (with some reasonably dyed hair) and Lily was Leia.  Lily decided at the last minute she didn't like the hair we designed for her, so she went with the hood up.  Looked great anyway.

They preferred the blasters I made them to the ones they made out of legos.  Good call:

As for their pumpkins:  (Eli's)

And (Lily's)

Hallowii-een

Well, we got our costumes done in time for the party down the block, even if a lot of the people there didn't know what a wii-mote was. But as always, there is a joy in being the obscure.

Scrolly Goodness

Someone asked recently if I'm posting these things realtime or am I back filling from my collection. And if it's realtime how on earth do I find the time to do all of this stuff?

Well, a lot of the posts are older items I'm just trying to document, but some of them are realtime. In this post I have a lot of scroll saw items that really don't take that long to do, it's just a matter of planning, executing, and following up. All three steps are difficult for me. :)
J and I were in the garage and while she was sorting something or other I picked up a tiny scrap of wood (final puzzle is about the size of a quarter) and knocked this out in a few minutes:  (yeah, I can be cheesy sometimes, but I always mean it!)

This next one is from a book on Fantasy and Legend Scroll Saw Puzzles, which I really like because of the specificity of subject but the variety of examples.   I've done quite a few of them already, just have to post them:

Finally, three images from a common theme:  Sea Life.  I used some patterns from a simple scroll saw pattern book, and just improvised a bit as well.  Final pieces are about two inches wide/tall.  The original patterns didn't have puzzle shapes cut in them, and I'm just now learning how to cut them so they stay together:

So no restrooms for customers..

.. Just the general public?

Yet another lighthouse

I'm a sucker for the nautical stitchings, apparently. This was fairly easy and a heck of a lot less work than the more detailed 'gold' Dimensions lighthouse with a similar look.

It's no Surly Coffee Bender..

.. But lots of fun anyway. It just didn't have same amount of that coffee taste. And you don't want to know how much it costs per bottle.

The quest continues.

My Worst Nightmare

"Hey dad, come look in the garage" is what the note said. When I opened the door and saw this.. vehicle.. I was surprised but guardedly so. I knew Jill wouldn't just buy a car without me but WTF?

Turned out ok as it's a rental from the dealer while they sort out a troubled seat belt in our car.

Whew!

DMC Ship and flags

Another pattern from the DMC brochure I got with set of floss. It had been a while since I found a pattern I really wanted to do for myself, and this was a fairly simple and quick one. I chose a cream 18 count aida in order to highlight the detail as well as give it a weathered look.