All Your Base Are Belong to Us

LEGO Batman

Otherwise known as "Peace on Earth."

Know Your Roots - Retro Atari Gaming

There was a growing level of excitement as I unpacked this exotic gaming system from the plain cardboard box in which it has been stored since I bought it on eBay over a decade ago. Every few years I break it out as novelty entertainment during a party or gathering. Usually within a day or two it goes back into hibernation in the closet. This was the first time, however, that I was resurrecting the Atari 2600 purely for the kids enjoyment. Jameson was particularly intrigued by the idea that this system was the great, great, great grandfather of our Wii and PS3.

His enthusiasm was building as he poured over our catalog of games, each with a more magnificently illustrated label than the last. The game titles foretold of epic adventures to be had with names like Space Invaders, Missile Command and Air Sea Battle. He seemed appalled that I had withheld such an amazing collection of electronic entertainment from him up until now.

And then we put in Pac-Man. The disappointment was instant and absolute.

Let's try another one. Lame. And another. Lamer. And another. Barely playable. And another, and another, and another.

These are boring! The control doesn't work right! It's not like in the picture!

It looked like my attempt to bridge the generational video game gap was going to be a failure.

But then we tried Pac-Man again. The old man showed him a thing or two. Things started to be less about the graphics and sound and more about the challenge. The same thing for Space Invaders. Before long, that familiar look of concentration and determination had emerged on Jameson's face as he racked up points on Asteroids.

It's true -- much like storytelling in movies -- gameplay transcends technology.

So now we have a house full of Atari gamers. The most popular games so far are Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Grand Prix, Berserk and Space Invaders.

The best quotes so far:

"Is there a hard drive in here?"

"How do you pause?"

"Why are the controllers so hard to push?"

"Can player two just hop in and hop out like in LEGO Star Wars?"

"Are these the only video games you could play when you were a kid?"

"Can I save my game?"

On a side note, let me just say it was refreshing to set up a piece of technology that required only three steps: 1) connect a single cable from the Atari to the TV, 2) connect the Atari power supply, 3) tune the TV to channel 3.  That was it -- Special Agent Oso could have done it. No digital audio cables. No networking. No sensor bars. No account creation. No set up and option screens. Apple only wishes their products "just worked" like this.

Game Room

I think this accurately describes the real driver behind the success of Apple's iPhone and iPad.

Question of the Week: Small Successes

Every Sunday, the Multiples and More blog poses a "question of the week." This week they want you to "name 5 small successes in your life from the past week." In other words, what were your victories? What did you get right?

Most successes in my life are the direct result of serendipitous luck or divine spousal intervention. I'm sure any successes from the past week were similarly had, but who knows, maybe I did actually accomplish something myself. Let's see what ended up in the win column...

1. Poopless Beds - I wouldn't even call this a small success. This might be our greatest accomplishment of the last six months. The solution was simple: putting Truman and Amelia's zip up pajamas on backwards. (Thank you for that lifesaving tip, Angie. Have you ever considered starting your own blog?) Of course, as the laws of nature require, every action has an opposite and equal reaction. Since the twins can no longer spend their mornings smearing poo all over their beds, they have redirected their efforts towards mastering the art of vacating their cribs with nary a sound. And then of course removing every single item of clothing from their dressers. Every single item. But hey, I'd rather refold clothes than swab shit any day. Oh wait... there was the carpet caca incident... I'll let Julie tell that one. No poop in the bed is still a victory.


2. Showing of the House - We finally had a house showing on Sunday. That's a success in and of itself, but I didn't really have anything to do with it. Getting the house ready for a showing -- now that's a monumental triumph. Technically Julie deserves 95% of the thanks on this win, but I will take a little bit of the credit. Sometimes just staying out of the way and not impeding progress is the best contribution I can make. I'm good at doing the heavy lifting and the jobs that involve power tools. And if a task requires a discerning eye and attention to detail and hours of refinement -- I'm your man. However, if you need brute force, "good enough" cleaning -- like cleaning an entire room from top to bottom in 20 minutes -- I'm the key ingredient in the recipe for failure. For example, consider a bookshelf that needs a touch up. I can't just straighten the books and dust it off. I need to remove all the books, dust and polish, and replace the books organized by subject, author, size and color. So when it comes to preparing our house for a showing, my "help" can easily become a hinderance. This weekend though, I didn't get picky about cleaning projects and I handled the brunt of keeping the kids fed and out of the way. Like I said, Julie gets most of the credit, but I'm still counting it as one of my successes.


3. Answering the Call of Duty - I completed the single player mode in the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I know, awesome, right? It took several hours (though a real gamer could probably complete it in a couple of hours) but I'm old and any game that uses more than two buttons is technically out of my generation's wheelhouse. Now, I know what you're thinking -- beating a video game is a success? Well, yes, it is. The mere fact that I fed, bathed, played with, read to and put to bed the kids and still had time to play a video game is some kind of success. Granted, the time spent in front of the TV could have been spent on the treadmill and my inactivity probably contributed further to my ever increasing atmospheric displacement. Wait, was this a success? Hmmm. Well, I was drinking Michelob Ultra while I shot up the terrorists. I'm counting it. Sorry, my list isn't open to appeals.


4. Page Turning - OK, this is the smallest of victories. I read a few pages of the book I've been trying to tackle for months. To a normal human this would not be a success, but seeing as how I go weeks or months without reading anything beyond my computer monitor, I'm definitely counting a few turned pages as a positive. I'll be working on this more and more in the coming weeks. I used to be an avid reader, back in the day, but unfortunately it's an indulgence that's fallen by the wayside. In fact, I read so little now that even when I do set aside time to read, I find myself rereading pages two and three times because I can't stay focused. I've lost the ability to shut down and immerse myself in a book. My mind constantly wanders. I'll get back there, though. Someday.


5. Early to Bed - This was an unexpected success. Despite years of bad parenting, Jameson went to bed early (before 9:00) twice this week. Hopefully this is an oft repeated success. Jameson is our hard one to get to sleep at night. He's a night owl, like his mom and dad. Let's face it, he's our first born and we didn't know what the hell we were doing in the early parenting days. Kids need schedules? What? That's crazy talk! Well, anyway, Jameson has had the privilege of being our guinea pig offspring and now routinely stays up until ten or eleven o'clock at night. Sometimes later. Things have progressively gotten better. He goes to sleep much quicker than he used to (in the early days it would sometimes take over an hour to get the kid to sleep) and we're slowly moving up his bedtime. That's a good thing for us and eventually it's going to be a necessity once he starts school. So two nights this week asleep before nine o'clock is definitely a success.

So what an awesome week, eh? Can't wait to see what earth shattering accomplishments I'll be bragging about next week. Maybe it will include more treadmill and less gaming.

Your Princess Is in Another Castle

Like combining chocolate and peanut butter.

Pinched from Your Beard is Good

Master and Apprentice

Gamer and gamer-in-training.

Spore

This looks like another great way to waste time...

All Clear

It appears that bug that had a grip on our household for the last ten days is really and truly gone. I escaped unscathed, but Jameson starts his new daycare on Tuesday, so I can only imagine what wonderful microscopic intruders he'll be bringing home. And Jameson is the perfect host, judging by the way he greeted a little girl at tumbling class on Saturday... with a big smooch right on the lips. But I can't blame him, you know, with the rock star lifestyle and all. Speaking of rock stars, the hard rock band that Kip and I started, Satan's Hairline, has over a quarter million fans. We've got some gigs on the West Coast coming up that should really put us on the rock map. If I can only get my "Don't Fear the Reaper" guitar solo nailed down... To our true fans, don't worry, we'll never sell out. Satan's Hairline will burn out before you ever see our music in Starbucks.

Rock Star

I never understood what this whole Guitar Hero and Rock Band craze was about. It seemed like a pretty boring idea for a game to me. Then Kip brought Rock Band over to the house a few weekends ago. I was addicted about 30 seconds into my first Weezer jam. It's a very simple concept that basically consists of correctly timing the tapping of little colored buttons. Except instead of being on a traditional game controller, these little colored buttons are on toy instruments that totally, kinda, not really, look like actual instruments. Brilliant. As you can see below, Jameson got in on the action too. He's like some kind of music prodigy or something.

He really got into the drums. And check out the lip curl when he's holding the guitar. That wasn't coached, and I have no idea where he got it. Must have been channeling Elvis.