A little, tiny movie

We've been known to make movies, but since baby Elizabeth joined us it hasn't been easy to do. Last weekend we busted out a very quick commercial parody involving Elizabeth, Barb, Aaron, his daughter Lily, and myself.

It was inspired by my purchase of a gaming headset from Turtle Beach. I got it so I could actually hear the video games I play Saturday nights right outside Elizabeth's room. Prior to the headset I'd keep the TV audio so low I could barely hear anything.

The packaging said "Trash talk your friends! For when it's too late to be loud." That makes no sense, of course, as the video illustrates.

However, the headphones are awesome for hearing the game. I really am glad I purchased them. Tomorrow I'll play an online game with friends for the first time with the headset and that should prove interesting.

It was incredibly fun to make the movie, and equally fun to get two positive reviews on YouTube -- including one from Turtle Beach itself which said "LOL 5/5!"

Dang. That's cool.

C++

Thank Christ! Our 'c' key is back. I had pretty much given up on email and blogging due to the breakage of the 'c' key on our laptop courtesy (see!!) of Elizabeth. Then I learned that replacing a laptop keyboard isn't nearly as scary or complex as one might think (thank you, Internet!). So, I ordered a replacement keyboard for our Gateway MT3707 and -- bammo! -- we're in business. It was actually really easy. I regret not making a video of it, as despite searching all of the internets I couldn't find a video or instructions for replacing the keyboard on this particular computer.

So, if anyone reading this wants instructions, email me at andrew_larrison@yahoo.com. Com!!

Dancing Baby II - The Wrath of Dancing Baby

Third attempt. First time I tried the "Blog This" button in Picasa and it seemed to be uploading, but lo and behold it only uploaded one frame of the video. Second time I tried the "Add Video" button in Blogger and the upload took so long that eventually the laptop overheated and shut down (it does that).

A little research revealed that Blogger uploads are limited to a hundred megs and my video was 101! Bummer. So I trimmed it in Windows Movie Maker and tried again. Movie Maker converted the file from an .AVI to a .WMV, and I'm not sure if that's supported by Blogger.

Time to find out.

Publish!

Dancing Baby

 

Testing, testing. I'm trying to figure out a good way of sharing baby videos with the family without having them public on YouTube. After posting a video of Elizabeth Rose after a bath, and getting a couple of semi-creepy comments (and 57 views in only a week!), I made all baby videos private. Screw the creeps.

It makes me wonder: how on Earth do the weirdos who enjoy looking at a stranger's naked baby and commenting about it find the videos? I had been thinking that the millions upon millions of videos on YouTube lent a de facto privacy.

Anyway, if this upload works, and the video looks good on the blog, I'll make a separate Elizabeth Rose blog to share these videos.

Hottest Day of the Year. Not!

 

We three rode in The Hottest Day of the Year ride today. In a stroke of divine irony, the temperature was 20 degrees cooler than it had been at the peak heat a few days earlier. Thank goodness, as the ride was 15 miles long and in 100+ degree weather would have been a chore. As you can see, Elizabeth didn't make it the whole way. She passed out about halfway through, napped on the bike for 20 minutes, then came awake to find herself mid-span of the Broadway Bridge. She cried for only a moment before coming to her senses and getting back into the groove of fun.

The ride had two stops: the first one involved a huge Slip-n-Slide and PB&Js; the second, watermelon. We missed out on the watermelon due to our sleeping beauty.

Next week: Bridge Pedal!

Hottest Week Ever

Look closely at the dashboard. See the temperature reading? It's a bit exaggerated, as the car had been sitting in the sun on pavement for an hour or two. But we felt every degree of it.

And Pat is living in the basement, which is normally or refuge from the summer heat.

Ah, well. Elizabeth was stalwart. The heat didn't seem to bother her a bit. She and Barb had it worse than I did, as I, at least, got to spend 8+ hours per day in the air conditioned federal building.

After four or five days, the weather has returned to a reasonable low-90s.

No [See]

Elizabeth Rose broke the "see" button on the laptop. I have no [see]. That la[see]k is a serious dis[see]ouragement to email-writing and blogging. But not enough of one to prompt me to buy a new laptop. Not even [see]lose.

That's the main reason I haven't posted in three months. For instan[see]e, I really want to blog about signing Mom up for [See]lear, the Wi-Max internet provider. But how {see]an I write about that without persistent use of the broken letter?

So my thoughts turn to the blog-able phone: as before I was obsessed with getting a portable gaming-thing (DS) and later an Xbox, now my obsession has fo[see]used on smartphones (namely, the G1, iPhone, and Pre).

Already you [see]an see how irritating it is to work without the [see] key. So I'll stop.

What Is It?

 

What is this image? Did Elizabeth's blocks find their way to this world from another dimension, a dimension where this thing is a recognizable object? We have speculated: submarine, schoolbus, football helmet, ocean liner. But it doesn't really look like any of those. Of course not. When would you ever compare a football helmet to a submarine? Never.

Never in this world, at least.

Jasper!

As promised (to myself, not you, dear blogreader), I bought an Xbox 360 in January 2009. Given my needy house and ten-month-old daughter, it was perhaps not the smartest purchase. On the other hand, I made this stupid purchase as smartly as possible. First, as none of you know, the Xbox "Jasper" chipset recently debuted. It is supposed to solve the console's dreaded Red Ring of Death (see illustration). This so-called RROD is an indicator that the console has broken, and means you have to send it back to Microsoft for a time-consuming fix. This is by all accounts an extremely common problem. Microsoft spent a billion or so extending the 360's warranty to three years in an effort to bolster consumer confidence. It is a testament to this machine's awesomeness that people continue to buy it like crazy despite the horrible reliability rate. (Anecdotal evidence: my friend Jason Bowders, who is the biggest gamer I know, bought a 360 at launch and is currently on his third!)

Thank Zeus that Jasper came along just as I was getting ready to buy. Because there were pressures in both directions (i.e., buy and not-buy), and the existence of Jasper alleviated one of the not-buy pressures, tipping the balance toward buy.

Pressures to buy: 1) I love videogames and the 360 is the best console out there; 2) I had told myself last year when I "gave up" videogames (see previous posts describing my failures) that I would for sure buy a 360 in January '09; 3) My friend Dave Reis bought a 360 partially because I told him I would buy one, then he was diagnosed with two -- not one, but two! -- types of cancer.

Pressures to not-buy: 1) I'm a cheap bastard and the $200.00 price point is deceptive (see below); 2) Barb hates videogames and hates that I play them; 3) The 360 is an unreliable piece of crap and Microsoft sucks.

I read about Jasper and planned an elaborate strategy for making sure that I got one of the new, supposedly-reliable Jaspers and not the old-stock crapola Falcon. But, as often happens these days, plans went awry, twisted by the baby imperative, and I ended up just going to GameStop in the Lloyd Center and buying whatever random Xbox 360 Arcade they handed me. Fortune favored me, though, and I ended up with a Jasper.

Add to the bill two games (both with the idea of playing online with friends -- oddly enough, this whole Xbox thing is driven by social pressures). Cost: two bills for the box, fifty for game one, sixty for game two = $310.00. As my old pal Simon called Peter might say: "Fuck a duck!"

And that's just the beginning. Because the Arcade doesn't come with a hard drive. But you really need one to play online. Normally the 60Gb hard drive costs $100.00 (highway-fucking-robbery). But I found a refurbished 20Gb bundled with a refurbished controller for $40. (A new controller is $50!). Then I bought a 13-month Xbox Live membership for $30 (normally $50). Now our total cost for the $200 game system is $380.00.

That's a lot of money.

But it's also a bargain, since many of the suckers out there just buy the 360 Pro for $300 (includes 60Gb hard drive), then buy a new extra controller ($50) and a year of Xbox Live ($50) plus the two games, and they pay $510.00.

Here's the verdict: the games are crazy fun. The Xbox Live service is incredibly smooth and polished; I can't believe how easy it is to play online. The regular online gaming (in the game Call of Duty 4) isn't to my taste -- it's too hard, too competitve, and too random; but the other game I bought, Left 4 Dead, is my absolute ideal multiplayer game. It's as if the designers tapped into my dreams (well, nightmares -- we're talking zombie apocalypse here) and turned them into massively successful entertainment.

As Barb and I keep finding ourselves saying, the future is now.

A Poem by James P. Blaylock (for Anson)

"Beer, beer, beer.
"Never fear."