kilday’s Neighborhood

So then I asked him "Are you just playing the field then?" and after my brief explanation he says "No Dad, I'm just running around the field and hiding behind the trees so none of the girls can find me!" with a big grin on his face.

I just about choked on my food laughing.  I love how a child's mind interpret metaphors.

That should wrap up the festivities until Christmas.

Anyway the truck has started just fine every morning and I'm pretty happy with that since it's 14 years old.  This is our second winter with it and it was a little rough in the real cold weather last year so I fixed it up a bit over the summer and it seems to working well so far.  

Hopefully it will continue to be a happy all winter.

What really brings me to my point though is that this second book is the end of cycle.  That's right it's not a trilogy.  I have nothing against trilogies as long as the story is there but lately it seems like everything is being stretched into a trilogy just to be cool.  It's a nice change of pace to see a story run it's course and finish when the time is right.

*These were taken a couple of weeks ago. I was feeling quite depressed and wanted to cheer myself up. I slipped on layers of brightly colored clothes and my trusty polka dot rubber boots (which have sprung a leak somewhere on the right side). Of course if I was going to splash in the puddles outside my home, I had to bring Ruby (my camera) out to play too. I love the sound of my rubber boot slapping upon the smooth puddle surface, and the sound of the displaced water splashing on the pavement around me. It was fun until my sock started getting wet ;-(

I did it though. I got out and moved for 20 minutes or so. I went back inside, swaddled myself in fleece and thick striped socks and laid back on the couch to watch re-runs of law & order (they are always on, that and golden girls but I dont watch them, really I dont, okay maybe once in a while...)

*I wasted several weeks when I should have been making soap for christmas. Now I am rushed, I have been making a batch a day to have them cured in time for christmas. In fact a couple wont be good until two days after christmas. Ooops. Now I cant lay my head on the couch and watch the golden girls Law & Order.

I only have one more batch to go, mint will be made tomorrow. Then I can get all those pots and pans and molds and cooler and oils in the garage again. They are crowding my kitchen.

*It is so cold. Frosty mornings. I want to go take pictures, but it is so cold out there. I have not been taking very many pictures lately. I just have not felt the motivation.

*while bringing in a load of wood for the wood stove I cracked my knee on the door frame. It is so dark blue now. I cursed a blue streak (what exactly is a blue streak?). This happened two days ago and even now it is throbbing. I really smashed it. A few weeks ago I stubbed my toe on one of those strips the put in the doorways to separate carpet from wood floor or in my case wood floor from linoleum (I know it is really vinyl, but I love the word linoleum). Well I managed to stub it so hard that it bruised me under the nail, it looked like it bent the nail back. Strange thing is that I have NO idea how that could even be possible. Seriously, how does one bend a toenail back on something that cannot grab your nail? I cried a little and cursed another blue streak. This happened weeks ago and it is still a little tender.

*Mr. L said he will hook up the Wii tonight. I am excited about this.

*pandora has now played 6 Beatles songs, 4 radiohead, and 3 4 Elliott Smith in the 3 hours it has been on. Now it is playing Linus of Hollywood, I have not heard this since a trip to California to meet my friends baby. I heard the CD several times when I was there, her baby loved it. At the beginning of the trip I planned on buying the CD, near the end of the trip I knew I would not.

*I am going to make an eye appointment soon. My sight has become rather bad lately. It is time for Lavender to get glasses. I want some cool, hip, retro, cat eye style frames. I hope I can find some that fit my personality and style and face.  I also hope the three spots I have been seeing for quite some time are no big deal. one is starting to bother me when I read. I am scared.

*Just got the mail. I hate it when junk mail reads "This is NOT Junk Mail". Liar!

*I think I am going to go heat up some apple cider and cozy up on the couch and watch some golden girls Law & order. My cider addiction is out of control this year. I have gone through several gallons since halloween. It is just the tastiest coziest drink in the world this time of year. I bought myself another gallon last night at the store. It will be gone by tomorrow. I may have a problem.

Fast forward to the current crop of games and I've found an awful lot of games, dare I say most games, that don't have a multi-player option.  Looking a little closer also reveals that many games with multi-player only have an online multi-player option.  This basically means that you can't sit on the couch with your friends and kick each others butt on your favourite games.  Where's the fun in that?

A very crazy example of this is the TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) game.  I picked this up for my son a while back because he loves the turtles and is getting pretty good at video games, although he does need help with the trickier parts.  We were very excited about playing the game together only to plug it in to discover it's a 1 player game.  That's absolutely ridiculous!  There's 4 turtles in the group and they do everything as a team helping each other out.  Whoever thought of this concept needs a swift kick in the rear end.

We gave the game a try anyway simply due to my son's love of the turtles but it was a very disappointing experience.  Every time he got in over his head, which was pretty often since he was 4 at the time, he had to stop playing and watch me play.  Not too exciting for a kid or a parent.

After this experience I've been very particular about checking for multi-player options on any game my son is interested in and I've found a few really good examples which are great fun to play.  I'm not talking about the Wii here either, that's a whole different ball of wax.

By far the best ones I've seen are the Lego games such as Lego Star Wars, Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Batman.  They all have great concepts to work with and the game developers have really nailed the game play.  You can play 1 or 2 players and the second player can drop in and out at anytime plus you can replay any level at any time.  This is really handy as a parent as it allows us to play alongside each other and talk about video games, guns, fighting etc as we play.  

One of my sons first games when he was 3 years old was Lego Star Wars.  At that time I did pretty much everything required to finish the levels while my son followed me around blasting the crap out of everything unconditionally.  Over time he started to do more and more things while I gradually started following him around and simply helped out here and there.  It wasn't too long before he could do it all and we simply played together to have fun.

Last month we picked up Clone Wars Republic Heroes and it turned out to be a great multi-player game for younger players.  The second player can drop in and out at any time plus there are countless progress markers where the characters get re-lifed after any unfortunate incidents.  This is great for my son when he gets stuck at a particularly tricky spot since I can finish it up then he gets re-lifed right next to me and we can continue.

Good multi-player games like this allow us to play together and have fun while and allowing me to have some control over the time spent with video games.  Hopefully more game developers take notice of this and design their games with multi-player in mind.