Welcome to the Wilcox Family weB LOG, your source for the latest Wilcox news, anecdotes, and rants; and, as Jack Benny quipped on his first radio show (March 29, 1932), “There will be a slight pause while you say, ‘Who cares?’â€â€
After hearing Phil Luchon tell as about half a million times, “You have to buy Dungeon Seige,†I finally picked up a copy of this $30 gem. It’s a role-playing game with an emphasis on action done by Microsoft and Gas Powered Games. David and Isaac beg to play it every day (and lament the fact that, unless they supplement their computer time with educational activities, they only get an hour of game time per day). A few screen shots are below.
[nichelle]Well, the technician checked twice and the result is in: We're having a girl!!!!!!!! We (Isaac, David, and I) saw her yawn several times. The boys were asking many different questions and commenting on what some of the body parts looked like, e.g. a t-rex, a skyscraper, etc. The technician thought it was pretty funny.
Doug and I have had the first name picked out for some time now (before Isaac was born), but we're not sure what the middle name is going to be. Your suggestions are welcome. [Note from Doug: I’ll get a Web form up for submissions soon.] For those that don't know yet, the first name is going to be Naomi.
Well, it’s about time I updated a few family items; Nichelle can add her 2¢ later.
I scored 44.77318% — Major Geek. (SWEET! I’m actually far more geeky than a couple years ago: 61.14398% – Extreme Geek.) Co-worker Kevin Miller may be disappointed in that rating, he always acknowledges me as an Uber-Geek. :: sighs ::
Or Perhaps You Are Evil Genius Material?
Scientists in the UK have created a sticky tape which works in the same way as gecko feet.
Co-worker Brian Cortez sent me this link from the BBC, about a tape that has been developed that works using microscopic hairs, just like a gecko’s feet. (Isaac owns a New Caledonian crested gecko, and they are amazing climbers.)
There are still significant technical challenges to overcome before this can be mass-produced, but Brian suggested this likely scenario at the WIlcox house:
I can see the toy manufacturers drooling over this one. Imagine being able to sell a set of real “Spiderman†gloves! I can also imagine you as a parent telling your son Isaac to get off the ceiling … it’s dinner time. 🙂
[doug]Okay, I’m really a fairly big Star Trek fan, despite being very disappointed by the latest film, but this list on the Happy Fun Pundit site is too delicious to pass up. Somewhere down the page you’ll find my own comments.
Here’s item one from the list, to give you a sample:
Noisy doors.
You can't walk three feet in a starship without some door whooshing or screeching at you. My office building has automatic sliding doors. They're dead silent. If those doors went “wheet!†every time a person walked through them, about once a month some guy in accounting would snap and go on a shooting rampage. Sorry Scotty, the IEEE has revoked your membership until you learn to master WD-40.
[book][doug]Kevin Miller loaned me a copy of Sailing To Byzantium (published by ibooks, a truly excellent collection of science fiction novellas by Robert Silverberg. I would highly recommend this book, even to those who are not diehard science fiction fans. I think the only Silverberg I own is Sunrise on Mercury, but reading Byzantium makes me want to go back and re-read it. (Sadly, its buried deep in our packed-for-the-move book boxes.)
[doug]Note: I have tried to keep this as spoiler-free as possible. In the first 15 minutes of the film, I wasn’t actually sure I was going to like it. Although the opening featured quite a good look at the long-mysterious city of Zion, it was mixed with a somewhat drawn-out combination of scenes of a mass dance ritual in the “Temple,†(a bit reminiscent of some parts of Kim Stanley Robinson’s Red/Green/Blue Mars trilogy) intermixed with an uncomfortably erotic scene with Neo and Trinity. After that, though, things really took off.
Reloaded is significantly more complex than The Matrix. Obviously, the war against The System is not over, the machines have improved themselves somewhat, and much is revealed about how various programs operate within the system, and about the world of the Matrix in general. We are also given a much better understanding of how Morpheus and his crew fit in (or fail to fit in) against the backdrop of Zion’s culture and its military and political leaders. The origins or reasons for existence of some key charactes and “programs†are explained, but without the horribly unfitting and disappointing treatment Lucas gave to the Force with his Midichlorian explanation in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
There were a few disappointments, but not many: One of my favorite characters is not there—although his absence is explained. The background music is not as fitting (or as good) in several places, and sound effects were not quite as good as before, although I have been spoiled by viewing The Matrix in Dolby 5.1 surround at home where every bullet shell casing hitting the ground can be heard, and my son John [john inline] complains that the bass rattles stuff off his desk upstairs. To a certain extent, mostly due to the film’s larger scope and greater number of both protagonists and antagonists, the film, at times, feels to have been run by a different director.
The combat scenes (and we’ve all been jaded by knock-offs in everything from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon to Shrek) were astonishingly well done, intense, and wonderfully choreographed—truly beyond anything I’ve seen on film. It was not the “same old, same old.†The depth of plot and concept far exceed the first film, and overall it requires far more thought cycles to process. Ultimately, this is an amazing film.
Coming in November, The Matrix Revolutions (and if you are patient enough to sit through the credits and music that reminds me of Erci’s cube at MediVation, you’ll be treated to a preview of what is to come).
Tonight I pulled into Wal*Mart to grab a few essentials, and watched the woman in the opposite space power down her window, and dump trash into the parking lot.
It really made me angry, although I didn’t say anything to her. (I can envision being less restrained as I age.) What I should have done (but didn’t think of at the time) is grab a spare bag from my car, and go over and pick up the trash. Of course, someone who isn’t ashamed to dump trash out of her car might not be shamed by having to watch a volunteer pick it up, but it would have been worth a try. Next time …
Our 4-year-old son [david]David has always been a “people person,†even when only 2 or 3 years old. He is typically the one to notice when Nichelle has a new dress or hair style. I get in trouble for failing to notice such things like the house being cleaned (to me it always appears clean).
So, Nichelle has been doing some finish work on our upstairs bathroom, as part of getting the house ready to go on the market again. When I got home from work, I was ordered to go take a look at the bathroom. It looked good, and I said so. I pointed out that a lighter color, perhaps a floral pattern, would improve the darker sponge-painted border Nichelle had created. David, of course, trumped me. “Oh, Mom, it’s beautiful!†That little weasel.