Ah Christmas

Well, it went off without a hitch (besides my best attempt at being a Scrooge). Miranda was overall not getting it, which I was totally expecting. She tore into a couple of presents, but that was because she loves to shove paper in her mouth as opposed to any yuletide interests.

Once the toys were open she dutifully went to each one and checked them out. However I am noticing that she has more of an interest in the noisy ones. How come I am not surprised? She got some pretty clothing and noisy toys and lots of pictures taken of her. Fun.

I am definitely looking forward to next year to see how it will be greeted then!

Merry Christmas

Hope you had a Merry Christmas. I will be putting up pictures tonight/tomorrow...

The world is clearer now: HD part 2

I am not sure how much HD is on DirecTV... but after finally surfing all the channels that I have on basic now (before I had 60 some odd analog stations, and now have those plus 90 odd digital stations), I have all the normal channels in HD. So I am able to watch both the fox and CBS games in HD, as well as getting PBS, ABC, CW, etc.

So hears to basic comcast cable. Hooray.

Watched soundstage the other night with the Wallflowers in 720p. Pretty sweet. Probably have to move my dolby digital setup upstairs to enjoy the 5.1 sound.

So Miranda is doing well going into the first Christmas. She however has been busy tugging at the presents and at the cat as well. Sigh. And she can really move. Not walking but good enough with the hands to pull anything down within in reach.

Football and HD :)

So recently we picked up a High Def TV as our mutual christmas present to each other. Mostly because our living room is bigger and our old and failing eyesight need the size boost :)

So this last weekend I hooked up an antenna to the TV and with really the only channel we can pickup indoors, we (meaning I) watched Kiro 7's 1080i broadcast of the Cardinals versus the Broncos. It was truly an awe-inspiring TV event. Ok, I might have gone a bit too far on that one. It was definitely impressive and probably one of the better ways to showcase HD is with sports...

I really didn't care about the outcome, but really had a hard time shutting it off and going and doing something constructive. If only I could get the NFC games instead of just being able to pick up CBS.

Whoa!

Power's back

Whew, powers back on. I do hope that all the hundreds of thousands of people are able to get power back soon. It was starting to get bad in terms of our lack of cloth diapers and the fact that the house was ice, ice cold. But Miranda and Michelle spent last night in a hotel and I stayed home to make sure everything came on ok. Of course nothing came on....

I think one of the first orders of business for the spring is to start a better plan of action for when these types of events occur. Even at 50 degrees, it was just too cold in the house.

I also took the time to learn how to start the pellet stove. Unfortunately the thing needs power to run the blower and the auger bit to feed the stove. Oh well.

Hold on tight now

Well Western Washington moved on from the snow storms we got last month and the rain storms the month before to having high wind storms. It really wasn't pleasant. Now we have 1 million homes without power and lots of down trees. Michelle, Miranda and I are fine if not tired and a little cold. Hopefully power will be restored soon.

Storm photo slideshow from KiroTV

Stability and games

Last night I spent a little bit of time playing Enchanted Arms for the xbox 360. My rough impression is that it is another Final Fantasy game. However this is more of a gripe post, not a review. I was playing and fought two boss characters in a row with lots of dialog and no chance to save when suddenly the xbox locked up. I don't know whether to be mad at the game or the xbox for wasting my time. Ug.

Gaming and Violence

I don't have a problem with violence in games. That completely relies on individuals to be able to separate fantasy from real life. Some things that can be hard for some. But even if you limit violence directly added to games, you will still get some people that will add it in themselves.

How to do anything you want in life

On Grady Booch's blog (of Software Architecture fame and from Rational) recently discussed a Slashdot thread on understanding complex software and code. The best take away from this is:

Professional singers work hard to polish their voices; good writers write and write some more; world-class photographers take lots of pictures; athletes train their bodies through hard yet thoughtful workouts. There is no royal road to becoming a great programmer: it takes dedication, passion, and lots of hard work.

Friday night gaming

Since I recently got a new Xbox 360, which I made reference to in a previous post, I have resumed my Friday night gaming sessions. It seems that the most recent game of choice is the ultra violent Gears of War. I recently completed the single player on easy and found it to be a good story and have gone on to play a lot of multi-player. The game seemed simplistic and straight forward in technic but I am starting to notice little bits of strategy and can be brought into it. I do miss the massive games that we could get using Halo 2, since this is limited to 4 vs. 4 at the most.

Miranda is doing great. Motor skills are almost too good (as she has been unplugging things) and is doing better with solid foods and the sippy cup. So things are going well...

Now you can order babies from Amazon Japan

タミータブ (from Amazon.jp)

Check out the customer images.

Quick snippet and a link

Well I think that between Miranda and my recent purchase of an Xbox 360 Console Includes 20GB Hard Drive along with Gears Of War, my blogging has taken a back seat. Kinda sad. On the neat note, Miranda is starting to clap. We have been working on it for a while and she now has it down pat. YEAH!

As for the link, I just saw on Andrej Gregov's blog, that Jeff Hawkins talks about when to go the entrepenurial route and when to work your current channels to get ideas funding. I will definitely listen to this tonight.