Chess

It's been a long, long time since I last played chess and I wasn't particularly good at it back then, I figured I was doing well to remember the moves for each piece and how to set up the board.

Dave and I both claimed that we had no idea what we were doing but I suspect he was trying to be kind to me, after all he has 6 months of chess club under his belt. I was doing so well right up to the point where I completely failed to notice my queen was under threat and David snaffled her up with a hoot of triumph.

We continued with our war of attrition with David getting quieter and scowlier by the minute as I cleared his pieces from the board until finally he was left with just his king and queen. At which point I skilfully backed myself into a corner and the bugger WON!

I'm so embarrassed.

By the way, the scratches on the board? Are cat claw marks. Don't ask.

Muuum! Stop blogging!

After a slow start to the day we went off to my mum's place for lunch where we finished off the last of her Christmas ham.

Then I fixed her table tennis table (it needed a couple of new screws on one of the hinges) and we had a frantic search of her garage looking for the net, paddles and balls. Mum, the kids and I took turns playing one-on-one, I think the longest rally of the day that wasn't between Mum and I was 5 hits, we all spent much more time chasing after errant balls than actually playing!

Once we'd exhausted the possibilities of hitting a small plastic ball around the garage it was movie time. Unfortunately I'd forgotten the blindfold and earplugs so Tom did get to watch The Tale of Despereaux after all. I've only read the first few chapters of the book but even from that I have to say the movie didn't seem to capture the feel of the book. Which isn't to say it was awful, but although I wasn't sitting there desperately wishing the end would come quickly (as I did with Clone Wars for example) I do think it could have been a lot better. There was a somewhat disjointed feel to it as though they couldn't quite work out what they wanted the film to be about. I'm going to have to finish reading the book and see if I can figure out why it didn't quite work. The kids all liked it but Caitlin's verdict was that the book was better.

After a detour to the supermarket to pick up science supplies we headed home. I'd been thinking we'd get experimental tomorrow morning but Tom was so excited about the one he had planned that he bullied me into getting it started straight away. So at 7:30pm, instead of cooking dinner, I was stirring up a saturated solution of Sodium Carbonate (washing soda) for a crystal growing experiment.

Eventually dinner was cooked and eaten (spag bol) and now Tom and Caitlin are playing Singstar Abba, David and Adam are playing City of Heroes on-line with Uncle Gaz (Adam's brother) and I'm thinking about making myself a hot chocolate with butterscotch schnapps.

But apparently I'm required to get off the computer and do a Singstar song with Tom first!

Well, that was extraordinarily frustrating

Santa brought Guitar Hero World Tour for the kids this year. It was unpacked and set up with much excitement...and then nothing, the game wouldn't start up, we couldn't get the PS2 to read the disc. Great. We know it's not the player, all the other games still work just fine.

Rather naively, as it turns out, we assumed that we could simply take the disc back and have it swapped for one that worked. HA! Oh foolish ones!

We took the disc in to EB Games at Hornsby and explained the situation. We were told that no, they couldn't just swap the disc, we'd have to bring in the whole bundle and by the way we don't have any replacement bundles in stock and we won't have any for anywhere from 2 weeks to who knows when. With steam coming out our ears we went home, with 3 kids in tow, packed up the whole box full of tricks and took it back to the shops.

We were kind of hoping that when confronted by the ginormous box with the packaging all messed up that the staff would come to their senses and decide that maybe just swapping the disc wasn't such a bad idea after all. (Though I'm pretty sure they'd have been out of stock of the disc only versions of the game too, most places seem to be sold out.)

Nope, they couldn't possibly do that, there was no way to enter such an action into their system (um, so don't enter it into the system?). In the course of me trying to persuade the staff to think outside the box (and maybe act like they give a shit about the whole thing) one of them finally asks had we been in touch with Activision, because apparently if there's a problem with anything to do with Guitar Hero there's a slip of green paper in the box that says you're supposed to ring Activision up and they'll send you a replacement part (which they're doing because there's been lots of problems and they don't want the stores to have to deal with doing lots of replacements). Um, no. We hadn't seen any green paper, what with the kids unpacking the box and all.

I turn to the guy who told us to bring the whole box in and suggest that it might have been nice if he'd mentioned that in the first place. He says he assumed we'd have known. Bullshit, when I told him we had a faulty disc it should have been the first thing he asked me.

So we take the box back to the car. After finishing our other shopping we head home. Adam goes to the Activision website. Yep, we can ring them- at $2.50 A MINUTE. Fuck that. The links for Guitar Hero support in the Asia Pacific region lead to a dead end with a drop down list asking what country you are from but without Australia as an option. After a bit lot of surfing around the site he discovers the crowning glory of this whole saga.

If necessary, take the game back to the point of purchase and exchange it for another disc.

Eventually we do find the green slip of paper. It specifically says to contact Activision for problems with Guitar Hero peripherals. Not the games discs.

The only reason I was willing to go through the contacting Activision route in the first place was because we'd have to wait for the shop to re-stock to get a replacement through them and I hoped Activision might be a little quicker getting a new disc out to us. Right at the moment I feel like printing out a copy of the trade practices act and throwing it at somebody.

We'll be ringing EB Games in the morning.

Plague!

I got nothing, have some giant microbes:

Last November I got to day 22 before hitting the wall and fobbing you off with my shoe collection, I hate to think what depths I'll be driven to in another week from now.

I think what this collection has over the shoes is its undeniable cuteness, geek value and the therapeutic benefits of being able to throw small stuffed toys at one's children while yelling "Plague! Mad Cow Disease! Flesh Eating Bacteria!"

The kids have devised a complex game with specific rules for the use of each critter. Various diseases can only be launched at your opponent under certain conditions, possession of the white blood cell is hotly contested, and should you have the misfortune to find yourself with custody of both the egg and sperm cell you are required to imitate the gait of a heavily pregnant woman for a set period of time (yep, even if you're a boy). It's all very educational.

And a fun time was had by all

Tonight was the P&C Trivia Night. More a social occasion than a fundraiser so not too much organising needed to be done, I bought a few prizes and we decorated the school hall with some token balloons and tealight candles on the tables. Ariane's sister was our trivia master for the night and she did an awesome job, everyone was very appreciative.

So, we sat around eating cheese and bikkies, drinking red wine, answering trivia questions, attempting to burn down the school...

...WHAT?

Um. You know those tealight candles on the tables? Turns out it wasn't such a brilliant idea to have candles around when you're going to be passing multiple sheets of paper back and forth between people. Or maybe that was just our table, no-one else seemed to have a problem :P


Once we'd finished the trivia part of the evening we turned on the music. Some of us even got up and danced. You know, the ones with a defective inhibition circuit. At least The Time Warp got a few extras on their feet and joining in.

Oh, and our table won the trivia :)

This was much easier than making a dragon cake

Dave's 11th birthday party was a big success, the boys all had a great time playing Dungeons and Dragons. I was by no means sure that it would work out today as none of them had ever played before, but all went well under Adam's expert GM-ing and by the time we were half-way through the session they were all asking when they could come back and play again. Actually, I enjoyed it too, it's many years since I last played any RPGs, I hope this will be the start of regular games. My level 1 thief did quite nicely and only came within a whisker of dying once...I think the GM was rigging things!

I spent most of the week in denial about the need to come up with a cake design involving a dragon but was rescued at the last minute by an inspiration that involved much less creative agony. Dave was happy with my suggested dice theme and here's the result.



More gimmick than culinary art, but then it only took me a fraction of the time I'd normally spend decorating which was a huge plus today!

We have Wii

When Adam was away at the conference in Amsterdam recently his name was drawn from a hat to win a Wii. The criteria for getting your name in the hat in the first place was to be one of those still in attendance right at the bitter end of proceedings, so I guess it was by way of compensation, or something. Anyway, today he brought it home with him (he had it posted to the office). There is, of course, much excitement. The kids have all played bowling on Wii Sports, David scored 224 pins and is mightily pleased with himself, and now Tom and Caitlin are playing tennis - or trying to anyway. The first thing Tom did when playing tennis was to throw the remote across the room - eek!

David is currently posting a boast about his bowling score on his brand new blog. Which you aren't allowed to read without an invite because he's only 10 and I'm not letting the net loose on him :P I think I may have found a way to get him writing regularly! I've suggested a blog a couple of times in the past but he always turned his nose up at the idea, however, this afternoon Caitlin was wanting me to post more of her Doctor Moo drawings and I suggested that she should have her own blog to post them on instead. So we signed her up (nope, you can't read hers either!) and Dave suddenly developed an interest in having one for himself. Should've thought of that before.

Now to drag the kids away from the Wii and get them headed for bed - wish me luck, I'm gonna need it!

DIY Munchkin cards

This afternoon the kids decided to make their own Munchkin cards. This is one of Tom's creations - a Level 20 Tooth Fairy, if you defeat it you get 4 treasures and go up 3 levels, but should you lose the fight the bad stuff that happens is "pulls out your teeth, lose a level".



If you're trying to remember why this seems vaguely familiar it'll be because you've read Hogfather.

Jipped

David just won the game of Super Munchkin we were playing by killing some Level 1 Thugs. There is no justice.

Also while we were playing guess who squeezed in between the fly screen and the closed kitchen window and succeeded in dislodging the screen from its frame altogether?