I’m in a Band!
I discovered these meme on BuzzFeed, but only realized how popular it was when it started springing up all over Facebook. Here are the instructions:
Go to Wikipedia. Hit random and the first article you get is the name of your band. Then go to Random Quotations and the last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album. Then, go to Flickr and click on Explore the Last Seven Days and the third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
Happy Birthday to Me!
It’s raining outside, but there’s a downpour of birthday wishes in my inbox, mailbox, LiveJournal and Facebook accounts!
Thank you, everyone!
Solo Excursions
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Race for the Galaxy, by Thomas Lehmann This resource- and phase-management game is as unified and intricately designed economy as I’ve seen, but the Race is essentially a game of four-handed solitaire. There’s no way to directly affect your opponents’ actions save by not playing a specific phase card which they’d undoubtedly choose themselves. Intricate, not replayable. |
The Force is Strong in this One
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Lego Star Wars II: The Original Series Ben’s introduction to Star Wars – he thinks Vader and Luke are friends because they dress the same in Jedi. Keeping Vader locked until the end is a great way to encourage players to finish Free Play mode I had to know what treasures were behind those Dark Force-locked doors! |
Mardi Gras!
Is there anything better than buttermilk pancakes for supper?
How about buttermilk pancakes and bacon?
I didn’t think so.
Ben and Naomi certainly agree.
(Interestingly, this is the first time in a couple of years that I made pancakes according to the recipe, and not the high protein variant that Dina developed to trick our resident fussy eater into consuming actual nutrition for breakfast. The batter just looked…wrong!)
Nan was Christmas to Me
Nan usually took my bed when she stayed over. Every Christmas morning, I’d crawl into bed with her and we’d sing songs. We were supposed to stay quiet and not wake up the rest of the house, but how could any seven year-old stay quiet while singing this:
We wish you a Merry Christmas!
We wish you a Merry Christmas!
We wish you a Merry Christmas…
…I wonder if Santa was here!
It was Nan’s song, and it suited her well – traditional and a little bit cheeky.
When I was a little bit older, Nan and I would sit at the kitchen table before the rest of the house woke up. She’d have a cup of coffee and we’d play rummy and talk about school, weather and books. We always sang her song, though.
While Mom cooked the turkey, Nan sat at the kitchen table and played all the new boardgames with us. It didn’t matter if it was Pac-Man, Monopoly or Upwords. She was game. I remember she particularly enjoyed Scott’s Ghostbusters game, were you had to drop a tiny skull down a chimney on the gameboard and it would knock over the play pieces.
One year, I received a toy piano/organ as a gift, and a neighbor had given me the sheet music for the Star Wars theme. Nan used to play piano at church, and very obligingly plunked out the notes on my 8 D-cell powered keyboard.
I remember the Christmas when I turned five. After the presents were opened, Scott and I were roughhousing in my bedroom. He was three. Things went too far and I whacked him with a belt (yeah, I know, I was a great big brother.) Scott cried, my parents freaked and they confiscated all my gifts.
(Now that I’m a parent, I think that was a remarkably temperate response!)
I didn’t have any games to play with Nan…but then I remembered a deck of circus-themed Go Fish cards that I had slipped into my bathrobe pocket. We sat at the kitchen table and played quietly. I told her I felt sad. She explained about accidents and guilt and apologies. But she didn’t talk to me in her usual way, though. She spoke like she knew I would listen.
Of course, I saw Nan more than one day out of the year, but those Christmas memories are the earliest and, being filled with shared jokes, music, games and love, the strongest.
I’ll miss her next Christmas, and all the time in-between, but I’ll still have that song.
Well Orchestrated
The family outing to the second MSO children’s concert was a great success. As much as Ben and Naomi love opera when presented by Classical Baby, they enjoy it even more live.
There was still some wriggling in the seats, but there was no squawking this time around. We’re growing cultured as a family! [grin]
Final-E!
After putting on the DVD about a dozen times for the kids since the New Year, I’ve finally sat through all of WALL-E!
Naomi sat next to me on the couch and explained that EVE was looking for the plant, and that WALL-E was her friend.
That was a good way to start the day.
Bad Fortune
Hey, remember J.D. Fortune, the lucky Canuck singer who won the Rockstar:INXS reality show?
Well, he got fired and is back living in his car.
At least his run lasted longer than the winner of Rockstar: Supernova!
Monthly Ben Photo
Ben and Naomi have arrested themselves…and now they’re escaping!