The Diary of A Simple Man

Sebastian asked me to read more of Cheaper By the Dozen this afternoon. I was happy to do it, since it meant that the TV wouldn't be on. So the three of us sat in the living room for several hours while I read. Teri slept for about two hours, but woke up in time to hear the last three chapters, as I hope she would.

It's a very fun book to read, but also physically challenging. The father, Frank Gilbreth, is a grand character, and I read him with a booming, hearty voice - it's really the only way to do it. After a while I started to feel as if I'd been lightly sandpapering my throat. But after a short break or two, I continued. I ended up reading the whole second half, and finished it.

He loves the book; he laughed and laughed. But I knew that the last three chapters would be tricky. While much of the rest of the book deals with the family members as children, in the two penultimate chapters the older girls have started to grow up. I knew that much of those chapters would go over his head.

And as for the last chapter...well, I don't want to spoil the book, so here's a ( spoiler warning. )
After that we watched the 1950 movie adaptation of Cheaper By the Dozen on Netflix - it was available to watch via instantly. If you don't know, let me say up front that the execrable Steve Martin movies that go under the same name have nothing whatever to do with the book - other than the title, and that they feature a family with twelve children. It's just another case of Hollywood taking something nice and crapping all over it, as they always do.

We'd all seen bits of the movie before, but never the whole thing. It was nice to all sit down together and watch it, particularly since we'd just finished the book. The movie was considerably more faithful to the book than any movie adaptation I've seen in the last twenty years; certainly far more faithful than Peter Jackson's inexcusably awful Lord of the Rings movies. The father was played by the slender and sprightly Clifton Webb, who was not a good physical match for the real Frank Gilbreth (he was tall and quite overweight, according to the book), but Webb played the part well enough. A romantic subplot was shoehorned in, but it's relatively minor and inoffensive. Likewise, a small running "suspense" plot was added too; it didn't really work, but didn't harm the movie much either.

The names of a few secondary characters were changed for no obvious reason, and much of the action in general was telescoped. The first half of the book was essentially cherry-picked and packed into the first quarter of the movie, with the more adult final sections being expanded quite a bit to fill in the remaining three-quarters of the film. Also, some lines were given to different characters than in the book, and a few key lines were slightly amended. But all in all, I was surprised by how faithful the movie was to the novel.

One annoying thing: our Wii's wifi connection completely failed with four minutes left to go in the movie, just after a very dramatic moment indeed. I had to run upstairs and pull the plug on both our cable modem and our router for 30 seconds. After that, we were able to finish watching the movie.

Sebastian liked both the book and the movie very much, and gave them both five stars. All in all, a very pleasant night for the family!

Our next step will be to read AND watch "Belles On Their Toes", the sequel to Cheaper By the Dozen. The movie can be ordered as a disc from Netflix; there's no streaming option, unfortunately. Our local library doesn't have a copy of the book, but the Rhode Island library network has many. I've requested a copy, and I imagine it should arrive soon. I'll put the movie at the top of our Netflix queue in time to have it just when I finish reading the book to Sebastian.

I ended up having to call Nintendo customer support, because their site simply would not work. It was a pleasant call; the Nintendo rep asked me what sort of phone I was using, because she'd never heard such a clear call in her life. I was using Google Voice with my headset, and told her so.

On the down side, we're not qualified for free repairs. We'll have to pay $85 plus tax to have the Wii's lens cleaned. If we do, though, it will have a new warranty for twelve months. Still, that's more money than we'd care to spend at the moment.

I also discussed our DS problems with the rep. We have three DSes and a DSi, and none of them are working properly; they all have big problems playing almost any game. They no longer recognize that a chip has been inserted, most of the time!

Unfortunately, it would be ANOTHER $85 per machine to have them repaired, since they're all off of warranty. That's $425!!!

We could save $40 by shipping all of the DSes with the Wii, and the rep was able to reduce the per-DS cost to $50 under that circumstance. But that's still $285 plus tax.

I think we'll have to have the Wii repaired, since Sebastian's heart would break otherwise. But as for the DSes...I don't know.

I'm really dead tired. But let me see...

Lots of handywork lately. I replaced the light switch inside a ceiling fan in the kitchen. I helped (a bit) Teri's brother and his wife as they put drywall up on our dining room ceiling. I helped put joint compound on the drywall. And I installed a steel floor jack in the basement.

Our living room floor had always had a tendency to shake a bit, particularly when Sebastian jumps up and down. It was a little scary. My Dad had put a 2x4 in the basement a few years ago, but it was starting to splinter. So I picked up a steel floor jack at Lowes for $40. It wasn't too hard to install, and now the floor is nice and steady.

Okay, it still creaks here and there, but it's much more solid-feeling.

And today, I did something quixotic: I bought a Wii Fit. They had a fresh shipment at Best Buy in the lobby at work, and I had some extra money, so I said "what the hell". Maybe it will help us lose weight, all three of us. I'd read mixed reviews, but it seemed worth it to spend $89 on the possibility of getting Sebastian into better shape. I worry about his weight.

It turned out well, at least tonight. We all played it, even Teri, and I worked up a damned good sweat. It's surprisingly solid and strong; I'd heard that it was only good for up to 250 lbs. (I'm over that, unfortunately), but I did some research and found out today that the American model can handle up to 330. So I can use it.

And it's fun! It's an accurate electronic scale, and it tracks our weight and BMI. I'm going to try to use it every night. It can't hurt, right?

Update: I forgot to say, the whole thing was rather synchonicity-ous. If I hadn't put the floor jack under the living room two days before, right where the Wii balance board HAD to be, the whole house would have shook when we played Wii Fit.

A comment from Askville about DS games:

My son got one a month ago. We got my wife one for Christmas. I'm the only one in my family who doesn't have one.

Super Mario 64 is a great game, if you like that sort of thing. I'm also really looking forward to trying The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, which is a sequel to the superb The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the GameCube/Wii. Both of those games are essentially RPG/adventure games, but they're beautifully done.

But the game that has REALLY hooked every adult so far is Margot's Word Brain. ( Read more... )

I don't know if LJ is dying or if it's just the holiday, but it's awfully quiet around here! I don't feel like writing much myself. I'm feeling lousy in all sorts of ways.

But I guess I'd better do some updates.

- Sebastian got the Nutshell Kids book collection in his stocking. They're four tiny little books by Maurice Sendak, and were all turned into songs by Carole King for the Really Rosie TV special. Sebastian has been reading the books every night...it has been a really special time for us.

- I've managed to make flossing a regular part of Sebastian's evening routine. It should be a big help to him for the rest of his life.

- I picked up a card reader for $14 at BJs yesterday. You see, when I bought my computer I saved a few bucks by eliminating the card reader; I didn't really know what it was, and it sounded useless. But my camera needs to be powered on in order to transfer pictures from the SD card to the computer, and the process is very clunky; Windows doesn't interact well with my camera.

The connection often fails - not the actual wire, it's more like the camera goes into sleep mode and the computer forgets it existed - and even when it works, the transfer speed is really slow. It took nearly an hour to empty the 2GB chip!

What really pushed me over the brink was my attempt to show photos and video from our Disney trip to our families. Both of our families came over (on different days), and I tried various ways to get the pictures to display on our TV. A DVD simply failed. A data CD gave the message that the photos were an incompatible size. It was really frustrating!

Since we'd recently gotten a new router and hooked it up to the Wii, I downloaded their new Photo Channel 1.1 - it was free. It was also rather promising, and I was excited to see that you could use it to show photos and videos from an SD card. Once again there were problems, though. I discovered to my horror that Windows wouldn't allow me to copy pictures TO the camera. It was a one-way connection!

Our families aren't likely to visit again for a long time, but nonetheless I went and picked up a card reader. It let me throw about 30 photos and 30 videos on the SD card quickly and easily - it's SO good when technology works well. I put the card in the Wii, and was amazed at the results.

You can view individual photos and videos, edit them, turn them into puzzles, zoom in, etc. etc. You can also play videos backwards - and we all just about died of laughter watching Sebastian shoot up a water slide.

It was the slide show feature that was most impressive, though. It has a lot of options for control, but the default settings produced a simply lovely show. Photos and videos were shown in the order they were taken; the photos were displayed in various ways, zooming slowly in or out or across, with some really lovely and effective music playing as a soundtrack. Videos were intercut with the photos beautifully. Nintendo did a really great job, I must say!

We did a bit of shopping on the 26th, and I picked up a new wireless router. As you may remember, our old Linksys one died a few months after we bought it. So this time, I went with a Belkin.

It was...I can't tell you how much easier it was to set up than that Linksys router. It was so easy to get it working with the Wii, and I was stunned at how much easier it was to set up security, too.

We had a lot of Wii updating to do, and I couldn't resist downloading a few games: Star Fox 64 and Dungeon Explorer (which was originally on the Turbo Grafx).

What else? Oh, right: Sebastian got Teri a DS for Christmas. I figured, what the hell. We survived the flight home, after all - and that was a pretty scary experience.

One thing I forgot to mention about the flight: when we were in Atlanta getting ready to come home, and the weather reports were really bad, and the pilot was making scary-sounding announcement (and sounding pretty scared himself)...I went over and bought Sebastian a giant $53-dollar stuffed panda from the Zoo Atlanta kiosk. I figured that on the small chance that we might die, it made more sense for his last few hours to be as happy as possible - and that by holding the panda on his lap, he'd get a little more protection if the plane got shaken up.

Teri and Sebastian got a lot of DS games, too. Teri bought Shrek: Carnival Games; I tried to tell her that that was almost certainly a crappy game (stuff based on movies and TV usually is, and I personally HATE Shrek) but somehow lost the will to press my point. Sure enough, though, the game turned out to suck royally.

One game that has addicted both of us is the "Word Link" game in Margot's Word Brain. It's kind of like a cross between Boggle and Tetris, with the emphasis on Boggle. You have to make words from letters, and when you do the letters disappear and new ones drop in from the top. You only get 90 seconds to get as high a score as possible.

I have the two top scores right now, but she'll doubtless beat me eventually. She'll have quiet time to play. And random chance is definitely a large factor, so the more she plays, the more likely she is to get top scores.

Argh. Must sleep.

It's a truism that you need to walk or jog for at least 30 minutes to elevate your metabolism. Anything less doesn't really help much, I'd heard.

But a couple of weeks ago, I found myself wondering: what would happen if, every two hours, I got up from my desk and took a five-minute walk down and up the stairs? Would it make any difference? I was planning to try it, but between the holidays and getting sick I didn't really have a chance.

But now I will, because apparently researchers have found that sitting for hours on end actually causes the enzymes that burn fat to shut down.

A New Way to Control Weight? Scientists Say Just Standing Up May Be as Important as Exercise

Go figure! This also explains why some Wii users lose weight, come to think of it.

Early this evening Teri, Sebastian, and I did ten frames of Wii bowling. To be honest, we haven't used the Wii as much as we should; I'm not sure why. We'll have to use it more.

In the first frame Sebastian stepped right up, waved his arm in a typical wild I'm-six-and-I-don't-know-what-I'm-doing motion, and got a strike. On his second frame, he did the exact same thing again; two strikes in a row!

I was up next. This cold has been killing me; I really do feel pretty awful, and it showed in my game. I only got one spare in the first nine frames, which is much worse than I normally do. Going into the tenth frame, Sebastian was strongly in the lead, with Teri trailing badly and me in a dismal last place.

For the first time in my life, though, I bowled a turkey in the final frame! Three strikes in a row. I think the difference is that I worked out a new motion. I did my usual position and swing, and then shoved my remote straight forward towards the Wii sensor strip as I was releasing the ball. I mean the button.

Even with a turkey, though, I still came in last - Teri beat me by four points! And Sebastian beat both of us. I'll admit that I coached him a couple of times in the middle of the game to help him pick up two spares, but even so, he did a fine job of bowling.

Okay, time for me to sleep.

I was in a Target somewhere near Walpole early yesterday evening, and was shocked to see twelve Wii systems being put out for sale. The clerk told me that they'd had them for four days. Either people don't know they're there, or maybe the craze is slowing down a little.

Here are the games we've bought online for the Wii so far:

Donkey Kong - I got this mainly for Sebastian. Frankly, it's a disappointment; it's the old console version, NOT the arcade version. It lacks the later levels, and gameplay isn't the same.

Military Madness - This is hands-down the BEST strategy video game ever made. I played it way back when on the TurboGrafx-16, still own it, and have an emulator to boot - but I jumped at the chance to get it on the Wii. What an awesome game! I hate strategy board games, and I'm still a huge fan of this one.

Super Mario Bros. - The classic old side-scroller that I used to pump quarters into in college. What fun.

Bonk's Adventure - An absolutely great old TurboGrafx game, with one of the best endings I've ever seen. This was the first in the Bonk series, and I think it's the best. I can play this one through from start to finish in less than an hour, but it's still great every time.

Bomberman '93 - This is an update of the old Bomberman game that I played on the TurboGrafx. It's definitely more complicated than the original, which I frankly miss. Unfortunately the original isn't available on the Wii yet.

Super Mario 64 - When my roommate Scott first brought this home and started playing it, I went insane. I dreamed this game for years afterwards. It's the definitive 3D game. I sometimes wonder what made it so incredible: was it the ease of control? The clarity and bright colors? The depth of play? Maybe all of that. In any case, we've already collected over 90 power stars and are working our way towards 120 and a rooftop meeting with Yoshi.

I think that all of this shows that the Wii is headed towards the top of the console market. Whenever I read a story about the Wii vs. other consoles, inevitably there are some furious comments from Xbox 360 or PS3 fans screaming that the Wii is only a fad, a gimmick, with pathetic graphics - surely once everyone realizes how superior the Xbox or PS is they'll come crawling on their hands and knees, leaving the Wii behind them.

Bullshit! As someone pointed out, Nintendo has gone beyond the hardcore gamer market - they're no longer dependent on competing with (and beating) Microsoft and Sony, they're actually reaching an entirely new, untapped market of former non-gamers. Look at me - I haven't bought a new console in a long time, and the only reason I have a GameCube is because Teri bought it for me to play while I was recovering from surgery. Yet not only do we have a Wii, but we're buying games from it. The nostalgia market is yet another one that Xbox and the PlayStation haven't tapped into.

The hardcore gamer market is miniscule compared to the potential market for the Wii. And don't even get me started on the stupidity of selling a game system at a loss in order to make it up on the back end! Well, actually it does work, of course (or rather it can), but if your competition is actually making money on every system they sell, you're in serious trouble.

And since 95% of the responses to those grumpy hardcore gamers are inevitably pro-Wii, I think the majority of people agree. :D