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That Was the Year-End That Was
Jan. 6th, 2013 10:49 pmThe last four weeks were more than 50% composed of sick days by someone in the house. The last two weeks were my "holidays". Gray went to the emergency room three times in less than 48 hours two weekends ago. Diagnosis: Croup; we already told you, croup, go home and stop bothering us; and wow, pneumonia, that ER doc this morning was an idiot! We were not amused. He's dandy now, but that didn't really put us in a powerful Christmas spirit. A couple of the other kids were coming down with something by Christmas Eve, so we cancelled our planned gathering of friends and relatives for the next day.
Between the kids' illnesses and our own,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
aelfie and I weren't up for much. The kids watched too much TV, so our attempts to detox them this week have been rough. Jen's computer hard drive started to fail the same weekend as Gray's ER fun, so I got to start my "vacation" with computer maintenance! I browbeat it into booting off of DVD long enough to backup the critical files, but we are presently a one computer family. Jen and I have separate systems because we enjoy being married to each other. I have confidence we will survive this disruption long enough for Dell to sort things out...again. (Usually we have to send it in to have the screen or keys replaced due to kid intervention.)
The weather finally cleared up enough to take the kids to the park a few times this past week, but before that we were confined inside. This did nothing for anyone's mood, but did provide plenty of time to read or overuse media.
I reread How to Lie with Statistics, a book which I think should be a high-school graduation requirement. Jen has noted my opinion on this for future reference.
We watched the second episode of the latest BBC Sherlock and assorted ST: DS9 episodes (Jen watched in order, I watched bits when I was in the room reading). I watched Gattica, which was on my "I should really watch this some day" list. I took the older three kids to see Monsters, Inc. in the theater (not 3D) Christmas Day. Jen and I watched the pilot for "Mockingbird Lane" and bemoaned that we only learned of it due to its failure to be picked up.
I finished up two video games, Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked on PS2 and To the Moon on PC. The R&C game is the 4th, and it was good and short enough to finish, but sufficiently different from the previous three that it won't be a favorite. To the Moon is a seriously odd little game. It appears and controls like an early Final Fantasy sort of JPRG, but it is really an interactive movie with a few puzzles to draw in the immersion. The teaser description hooked me, and it was cheap from GoG.com. If you could enjoy a game with no combat at all, but more of a SciFi/mystery/... -- look, here's the blurb. Figure out if that's wacky enough to capture your interest. I thought this game was deserving of its praise -- the plot is outstanding, the music is wonderful, and the interface does not get in the way of the story. I am intrigued by the possibility of additional games in that world.
Between the kids' illnesses and our own,
aelfie and I weren't up for much. The kids watched too much TV, so our attempts to detox them this week have been rough. Jen's computer hard drive started to fail the same weekend as Gray's ER fun, so I got to start my "vacation" with computer maintenance! I browbeat it into booting off of DVD long enough to backup the critical files, but we are presently a one computer family. Jen and I have separate systems because we enjoy being married to each other. I have confidence we will survive this disruption long enough for Dell to sort things out...again. (Usually we have to send it in to have the screen or keys replaced due to kid intervention.)The weather finally cleared up enough to take the kids to the park a few times this past week, but before that we were confined inside. This did nothing for anyone's mood, but did provide plenty of time to read or overuse media.
I reread How to Lie with Statistics, a book which I think should be a high-school graduation requirement. Jen has noted my opinion on this for future reference.
We watched the second episode of the latest BBC Sherlock and assorted ST: DS9 episodes (Jen watched in order, I watched bits when I was in the room reading). I watched Gattica, which was on my "I should really watch this some day" list. I took the older three kids to see Monsters, Inc. in the theater (not 3D) Christmas Day. Jen and I watched the pilot for "Mockingbird Lane" and bemoaned that we only learned of it due to its failure to be picked up.
I finished up two video games, Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked on PS2 and To the Moon on PC. The R&C game is the 4th, and it was good and short enough to finish, but sufficiently different from the previous three that it won't be a favorite. To the Moon is a seriously odd little game. It appears and controls like an early Final Fantasy sort of JPRG, but it is really an interactive movie with a few puzzles to draw in the immersion. The teaser description hooked me, and it was cheap from GoG.com. If you could enjoy a game with no combat at all, but more of a SciFi/mystery/... -- look, here's the blurb. Figure out if that's wacky enough to capture your interest. I thought this game was deserving of its praise -- the plot is outstanding, the music is wonderful, and the interface does not get in the way of the story. I am intrigued by the possibility of additional games in that world.
