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Roanisms
Call of Doodles
01.29.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Roan and I sat down to play zombies last night, and being his usual self, he jumped up right away and said “I gotta pause this. “. He made a drawing for me, and was reminded of it when we started playing. That’s it above, and as you can see it’s completely awesome.

He drew C.O.D. on our t.v. with: the xbox, controller, zombies, player arm, my game collection, and even Tabbouleh napping on top of the t.v.

I hate to pick favourites, but this is by far my favourite drawing he’s made for me. It’s very accurate for his skill level. I’m sure if I tried to draw the same thing it wouldn’t be as close to the game as what he has.

I also love the fact that he put me on “Round 28″, since he knows I’ve never made it passed 27.

Here’s a close up of the zombie, so you can get a sweet view without the H.U.D.
Random, Roanisms, To do's
A tiny Cobra’s to-do-list
01.29.10 | Permalink | Comment?

1. math teSt Fri

2. Pee Jy Day

3. Sianc progect

Personally, I’m stoked for #3 – we get to make a balloon propelled car!
Angry Art, Random, Sketchup
Moth-balls and muzzle flare
01.26.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Back when I was making robots all the time, I started a bunch and left them to be finished when I had time and was bored. Today I had some time, and was bored, so I finished my granny robot. She was just a head this morning, but by noon she had a body and a bunch of accessories to go along with it. I think I was inspired to finish this today, by the episode of Hoarders Holly and I watched last night.

I had fun modeling the bingo dabber, and the remote control. One day, if I ever learn enough to make a game using my models, I’ll have tons of background models for just about any setting.

Last week, in my spare time, I worked on a couple different gun models. Playing a lot of Call of Duty inspires me to model cool guns. Here is some shots of one I finished on the weekend. It’s not modeled off any particular type of gun, but it’s supposed to be a semi-auto assault rifle.

I think the next gun I will model is a Browning. It’s one of my favourites.
Photos, Random
That’s right ladies…
01.23.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The other night, Holly and I went to a meeting with Andrea (the boy’s step mother), to learn more about dealing with kids with ADD/ADHD. While at the meeting, Holly’s parents came by to watch the boys. When we got home from the meeting, Gage was playing Halo with his Grandpa, and he told me as soon as I walked in “I’m dumping Tara tomorrow.”. I was curious what happened, so I asked. He said he found out Tara only went out with him so that another boy wouldn’t ask her out. He felt used, and was both sad and angry.

Holly got her catty girl defenses up, and demanded the whole story from Gage. After he filled her in, they together devised a plan for breaking Tara’s greedy little heart. He made a t-shirt (above) with a Sharpie, and then practiced what he’d say. He tried to convince Holly that the best way to do it, would be to get someone else to break up with her, but Holly knew that was what ALL grade 7’s do. Gage would be different – he would set precedence for break-ups at Prince Phillip.

He came home from school the next day smiling like a fool, and dying to tell me about what happened. I was having a smoke with my friend Anthony while we listened to his tale, and when he was done Anthony and I looked at each other and said the same thing – “I wish I was that cool when I was his age.”.

Here’s a brief summary of the story:

-Gage wore the shirt to school, under his hoodie.

-Once he got to school, he changed hoodies with another kid, so he could have a zip-up (props to him for realizing there was possibility for failure, or reduced coolness, by fumbling to tear off a pull-over).

-He waits until first break, then walks over and says “Hey Tara”.

-She says “Hey Gage”,and Gage responds with – “We’re done.”. He then turns around, rips his hoodie open and proceeds to walk down the hallway shouting “You hear that ladies? Gage is available!”

-He then came home and bragged about how he’s the king of the school, and about how much better he felt about the whole thing now.
Food, Random, Roanisms
We refuse to eat animals even if they’re made of pasta
01.22.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Roan was just here for lunch, because he isn’t supposed to eat any hard foods, and we didn’t have any soft foods to send with him to school. I planned to make him animal-shaped-pasta-in-a-can, but when he got here he had two soggy slices of cheese pizza. I suggested he just eat those, since clearly they weren’t very “hard”, and I made myself some cheese and crackers.

I asked about the girl he has a crush on (her name is Victoria), and what she thought of his tooth. He said she thought it was gross and told him to get it away from her then ran away. I asked if he was going to leave it here at home now, since everyone got to see it, and he said he might as well. He put it on the table and told me to make sure if anyone came over, I show it to them. I promised I would, then asked what time lunch started. His response – “5 minutes ago.”. I looked at the clock and noticed it was 1:24, so I asked “Okay, but what time was it then?”. “One o’clock”, he said. I then asked “And what time does lunch end?”. First he said he didn’t know, then he thought about it and said “Well, lunch + outside = 2 o’clock”.

So this has me thinking of a new product idea. A clock with pictures, that a parent can customize their arrangement. So instead of numbers, it would have a sun in the 7:30am spot, then a cereal bowl at 7:45am, a toothbrush at 8am, a school bus at 8:30, and so on… I have no idea how you would do it, or if it would be counter productive to learning to actually tell time, but if someone wants to find all that out, then make it and give me credit, I’m okay with that. I’ll even show you Roan’s tooth.

Also, F.Y.I. – those aren’t “peace signs” we’re throwing up, those are pizza signs.

We love pizza.
Life, Roanisms, Video
Molars for dollars
01.22.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Last night, Roan and I had appointments at the dentist. I was there for a cleaning and he was there to get a tooth pulled. He went in first and wanted me to come with him. He was okay at first, but you could tell he was terrified. The whole procedure took probably 20 minutes (maybe more), because he kept asking them to stop because it hurt too bad. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t hurting as much as scaring him. He had lots of Novocaine, and I think he expected to not be able to feel anything at all. He stopped her once and said “Wait, wait, wait… I can feel the outside of my cheek. Should I be able to feel that?”.

While I was watching him squirm, and the dentist yanking at his tooth, I was reminded of all the times I had surgery or broke bones or whatever, and my dad was never able to watch, or sometimes even be in the room when they worked on me. I had a rough time watching him in pain, and I even had to hold his arms down at one point because he kept trying to grab at the dental tools when it hurt him. I felt terrible, but I knew it would be okay. By the time he was done, I was sweating profusely. I can understand now, why my dad couldn’t watch me get my appendix cut open while I was awake – it’s not necessarily the blood or what is being done, but more the feeling of not being able to do anything to help such a sweet little kid who is terrified and in pain.

He was supposed to get a metal spacer put in, to prevent the teeth from shifting, but since it took so long they had to rebook him. I also missed my cleaning, but got all the preliminary “new dentist” stuff out of the way (x-rays, measuring). We have to go back on Monday afternoon to finish what we didn’t have time for. Hopefully putting his spacer in goes a little easier.

This morning before school, Roan and I were talking about his tooth and how he can’t lose it today, or Holly won’t give him the $10 she promised. I told him he should start a bidding war, since he’s already been offered $10, and who knows… maybe he’ll get enough for the Nerf gun he wants. We came up with a plan to drive up the price, and he decided to rehearse before trying it. There’s a video of the rehearsal above.

I figure if Holly doesn’t bite, we can put that sucker up on ebay!
Gaming, Random, Video
Come on!
01.21.10 | Permalink | Comment?

The other day, Holly and I went out to find a replacement controller for my 360, because Roan had picked a chunk off one of my analog sticks, and I now refuse to use it. We looked for a pink controller, but they were discontinued so long ago that no one has any left. I found a good used controller at Entertainment Overload in St Catharines for $35, along with a copy of Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard.

I have wanted to play this game ever since I heard that Will Arnette was going to be the voice of Matt Hazard. I would have rented (or possibly bought) this game the day it came out, but I was on the island with no xbox or money at the time. I did however bend on my “no game blogs” rule momentarily, and read a fraction of a review, as well as checked it’s review score (I believe it got a 7.0 or something). I decided not to read about it, or check anything else out, until I played it.

I still haven’t read anything about it, but I did play through the full game over the last two days (it’s a short one), and I have now formed my own opinion of the game – this game is shit. I’m not sure why so many things made it passed quality assurance, but I think it could have something to do with there being only 2 testers. TWO!

At first I enjoyed the game for the reasons I expected I would – GOB humor. Quickly the fun wore off, and it became more about playing the game just to see how poorly everything was done. I put a bunch of videos I took after the break (I figured I wouldn’t fill up the blog’s front page with game videos, since I think Holly is pretty much the only reader, and she’s not going to care about this one) of the various mistakes, glitches, and apparent lack of effort you will find in this game. It’s not all the things I found, but there are some here that show just how little effort must have gone into fine tuning this game. (more…)
Life, Random
He likes me so much, he’s mimicking my insomnia!
01.19.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Lately Roan has been coming upstairs around 10pm and saying he can’t sleep at all. It occasionally happened before, but recently it’s frequency has dramatically increased. One night last week, he came up and said “Mom, I can’t sleep. I’m just too pumped!”. She sent him down to sit with me while I killed zombies with my brother and friends online, hoping he’d get tired and fall asleep. It worked eventually, but he was up until almost 3am, and had school the next day.

Saturday night apparently was a similar situation. He was at his father’s house, and was up almost the entire night, getting only 3 hours of sleep, between 3am and 6am. He didn’t yawn once the entire next day while we were at the Monster Jam. Not even in the car. We got home around 8:30pm (his bed time on a school night) and he was wired. We let him stay up until 9, then told him to go to bed. Shortly after Gage went to bed, Roan came up and laid down with Holly because he wasn’t tired. They started watching a Garfield movie, but when Holly started to doze off, she told him to go down and watch in his room while lying in bed. He watched the entire thing then came down to sit with me while I played games again.

I was extremely tired from the long day we had, and was ready to pass out myself. I turned the games off, and Roan and I looked at pictures and videos from the Monster Jam. He was still wide awake, and super hyper and it was now 2am on a Sunday. I told him to come lay on the couch and watch Hot Fuzz with me. I lasted 15 minutes before blacking out. I woke up only when I heard him run up the stairs and go get some toys in his room. I went up to see what he was up to, and as soon as he saw me he said “That movie was sooo awesome Eric! There was so many really cool parts!”. He said it so loud I thought he was going to wake everyone else up. I brought him upstairs and he climbed in bed with Holly and I. He finally fell asleep around 5:30am.

The next day I woke him up around 9:45am to make sure he didn’t sleep all day, and he said he was fine to go to school. I asked if he was sure, and he said yes. Holly called the school and I told him to go get ready because they were expecting him for 10:30. He said, “Okay! but then… Nazi Zombies?!?!?”, with a huge grin on his face and one finger pointing straight in the air. I told him we didn’t have time, and promised to play with him when he got home. I walked him to school, and the whole way there I was thinking about how fun it would have been to stay home and kill zombies with him all day.

Last night Holly got some melatonin for him, for nights when he can’t sleep or is “too pumped”.
Life, Photos, Random, Video
Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
01.19.10 | Permalink | Comment?

On Sunday my parents treated all of us (Holly, the boys and I, and Chris and Lisa) to Monster Jam tickets at the Rogers Center. I haven’t seen monster trucks since I was about Roan’s age, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was surprised at how small the track was, and how short the races were, but it was still entertaining. It started with a big introduction and parade around the track. Then they got into the races, which were only one lap. The races went by fast, and weren’t that exciting. After Grave Digger surprised everyone by winning for the 8 millionth time, they did some dirt bike tricks that were pretty cool. Then there was the freestyle truck part, and it all ended with a demo-derby.

On the way up, Roan decided Monster Jam is fixed, but still had fun cheering and watching them crash. He called Grave Digger as the winner, and told me the only truck that could have maybe beaten him was the dinosaur truck that got a flat tire during the races, but most likely, they would have tied.

When I got to the gate I was worried they would confiscate my camera, because there were signs saying so on the walls, so I was very discrete about taking photos and videos. That is until I looked over at my mum and saw her rocking the 1000x zoom lens while sitting next to security (guy in the yellow shirt). I figure they must only care for concerts and maybe baseball games. Either way, that rule is bullshit.

The most entertaining part of the show was the freestyle part. Although the first truck out was kind of lame, the rest got progressively better. One shot flames out the back end, and 3 of them got wrecked. The video above is one of them. The other was a roll over (below), and the third was a hydraulic line that snapped on the guy’s first jump.

Another interesting part of the show was seeing them take the huge tires off and replace them with small tractor wheels. Holly and I discussed that on the way up, and speculated that they had to take the tires off to ship them, but I didn’t expect to see them do it, or how funny it would look when they did.

After the show, we all went to the Gateway in Grimsby for “dinner”. Roan had a tough time deciding what to get, but found some poutine (we didn’t tell him the gravy has meat in it) at NY Fries. After he ate, he bought some Double Sour Skittles and shared one with each of us. Everybody thanked him and he felt good about that, so he insisted I give him enough money to buy everyone a treat. Everybody got Crunchie bars, and I got a box of Smarties. Apparently Roan missed my complaint about there being TOO MANY Smarties in my Smarties Blizzard just two minutes prior. I love that kid.
Random, Roanisms
Professor Roan’s latest revisions to the English language
01.18.10 | Permalink | Comment?

Smitherin – The act of spreading, or smearing a substance on an object. Example: “Gage, you’re smitherin the sour cream all over your taco meat!”. This was a huge food faux pas for the region’s most powerful newest vegetarian.

Ouwbbow – Is the “other” way to spell ELBOW. Roan kept complaining about Gage hitting him in the elbow or something, but it didn’t sound like elbow. I asked him to spell the word and realized he thought it was an “Ow-Bow”. Holly told me it’s probably because he broke his elbow when he was really young, and thus only knew it as an “Ow-Bow”.

I have to start recording all his dialogue, he’s hilarious and I can barely remember half of what he says. One thing he said the other day while at the monster truck show was great: “I don’t like it when they have a meeting before the race and say ‘Okay, Grave Digger, you win, I’ll crash… okay?’…”. I’m pretty sure he came up with that based on our conversation in the car on the way up. He asked if I thought Grave Digger would win, and I said, “sure, I think he pretty much always wins, no?”. He agreed, and we decided Monster Jam is probably a lot like pro wrestling. From that, he came up with monster trucks having meetings before the races. Which I think is probably a pretty good guess.