a there was much fun to be had
It’s finally happened. The greatest woman alive has become perfect. She already had intelligence. She’s already had personality. We all know she already had the looks. Now, why wonderful wife, has rounded out all these traits with the final piece of the puzzle. Now she plays video games.
I’ll start from the beginning.
Last week Valve Software announced that they would be selling “The Orange Box.” It’s a combination of three upcoming games from Valve. Half-Life 2 Episode 2, Team Fortress 2, and Portal. It also includes the previous two games from The Half-Life Series. With this pre-order, game “Peggle Extreme,” a fanciful game with unicorns and fireworks, mixed in with familiar characters from the Half-Life Series. It was an odd, awesome mix. Made me think of Burger King and Skittles commercials.
So I played through this limited version of thew game, and found myself agreeing whole-heartedly with the reviews that stated it was “one of the most addictive games ever made.” It wasn’t long until I noticed the “duel” portion of the game. I called Teresa into my room and had her sit down and play a little. At first there was the expected “this is silly” kind of comments. At the end of each level it gives you the option to play another level. I clicked it the first three times, but after the fourth game, I sat there, and waited to see what she would do. There was a second or two or silence, and then she grabbed the mouse and it “play random level.” My heart leapt.
We played for a good 45 minutes. We finally stopped and Teresa brushed it off like a one time occurrence. Then we played for another 45 minutes the next night. It quickly bought Peggle Deluxe, the full, unlimited version of the game. 10 bucks for finally being able to play video games with my wife isn’t too bad at all. We now play it nearly every night. We’ll play to whoever can get to 1 million points first. She beat me last night, I beat her tonight. The war wages on.
My only complaint about the game is that Duel Mode only lets you play levels randomly. Considering we have started to play it regularly, it would be much nicer for us to play it through the levels in order, progressing past what I’ve unlocked with single player. Other than that, it’s a solid game with plenty of replayability for only 10 bucks.
noah would like you to know…
that he’s the saddest little baby ever.
just checking in…
So let’s see what’s happening on the Noah progress meter:
He’s started training to roll over. There’s no better word for it than training. He’s not playing around, and it’s not by accident. You lay him on his rain forest play mat, and he gets this determined look on his face, shifts his weight to his left and then rolls hard to his right, getting all the way up onto his side. Then he rolls back onto his back, and does it again. He will conquer this challenge. You can see it in his eyes.
Or maybe he already has. Teresa tells me on Tuesday morning he did just that. Now, I’m of the “if it’s not on film, it didn’t happen” school, so we’ll see.
He’s begun to play with toys. We have this ring/rattle thing that he use to just hold onto, but now he will actually bring it up to his face and look at it. He stills refuses to chew on anything but his fist. Here’s hoping he doesn’t end up with lobster hands or something.
So today is the first day of our second weekend on our own together. With Teresa back at work, he’s all mine from 6:30am ’til 8pm. All I can say is, thank God we switched back to Netflix, with it’s streaming online movies. Last weekend I watched three movies a day. Thus far today we have one down. Once he feeds again I’ll throw him in the car to run some errands, and then we’ll go to the park. I’m trying to not just sit on the futon all day watching movies. But it’s tough to do much of anything with a 15 pound needy man beckoning you every few minutes. I’m very much looking forward to the days when we can actually go out and do something more than me sitting him in the stroller and imagining he’s enjoying himself.
Which reminds me of the lesson I learned: while the park that’s fifteen minutes away is super awesome, the kid sleeping in the stroller doesn’t care, and so it’s probably better to just go to the one that’s 2 minutes away.
© 2009 tonybullard.com
