Narnia: The Teacups, the Pins and the 'Benton.

On Tuesday, my cousin and her boyfriend made the trek from Sydney to join us for lunch (and a hilarious 80's session of Karaoke Revolution Party)
They came bearing gifts from the Sydney clan. The kids loved their presents.

• Bart's biggest challenge with his new badminton set is trying to pronounce it. "Benton?" "Bedbenton?" "Bedmentin?"
• Lisa has already managed to scatter her tea set throughout every room in the house. She'll also stop me occasionally to pour imaginary liquid down my throat. She and Maggie have great fun with it.
• Maggie's hair band/pin kit was a major hit with Marge. Now she has more tools at her disposal to turn our daughters into literal china dolls.

That night, I surprised Bart by taking him to watch The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
I remember enjoying the book when I was young. It was the first fantasy book that I had read, and probably whetted my appetite for the whole fantasy genre.
Some reviews have described the movie as LoTR for kids with a bit of Passion of the Christ. For me, the Christian parallels strengthened the story, and they were portrayed well.
I was very impressed with the movie, even though it was aimed at kids. And it was probably aimed at 'slightly older than Bart' kids.

I watched Bart's posture throughout the movie. He was leaning back for most of the first half, sometimes stretching and sighing out of boredom.
As things got intense he turned sideways a bit and watched proceedings from the corner of his eye.
By the final act, he was literally on the edge of his seat, leaning forward - savouring the visualisation of the types of battles that he plays out all too often with his friends.

At 140 minutes, it was the longest movie that he's sat through.
We had a chat in the carpark afterwards. He was still evaluating what he had witnessed. He said it was pretty good.
But later he admitted to me that he didn't like the movie that much - too scary.
But those battle scenes - yeah, he'd like to watch them again and again. (or in Bart speak - "a thousand million times")

I've already reserved the DVD at the public library when it gets released next year.
A futile gesture - I'll end up buying it anyway!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

It's been a hectic 5 days off work.
And it's ironic that I'm finding time to post a blog entry only after getting back to work.

Even the weeks leading up to Christmas were quite relentless.
Shopping for Christmas dinner was done on Christmas Eve.
We only got The Tree up one week before Christmas.

Christmas tree Version 1 was constructed and decorated solely by Bart.
Most of the ornaments were strategically placed at the top and only on one side of the tree. I'm surprised it didn't topple over.
When I asked him why, he said something about them being shields, or guns or something.
This led to Version 2 being requested by Marge, who charged me with the task of normalising the decoration placement to provide a more aesthetically pleasing and balanced tree.
The next day, I realised there was probably some merit to Bart's original design.

Maggie quickly discovered that someone had lowered the tree ornaments to her height and was keen to show off her fruit picking skills.
At every opportunity, she would grab one and proudly waddle over to us to place it in our hands. Over and over and over again...
The gold balls were her favourite. I'm glad she didn't try to bite into them.

Christmas greetings

Have a blessed and safe Christmas everyone.
It's been a frantic week leading up to Christmas Day. I might revisit it one day in a 'flashback' post.
But for now, this family is enjoying each other's company on Christmas day. We went to church this morning. Played Twister. Took the kids to the park - where Bart rode his new bike. Had a great family lunch and dinner. And I haven't even turned on the PC this weekend.
So how am I updating this blog?
This post is proudly brought to you by the letters: T and X. And by the abbreviations: WiFi and ADSL.
Sure, it takes longer to compose on a PDA, but I can still blog while watching my little girls play lego in their bedroom. And I just stopped Maggie from sucking on a tube of toothpaste.
OK, OK I'll admit it. I am a geek.

[Posted with hblogger 2.0 http://www.normsoft.com/hblogger/]

They've arrived!

The Palm TX is now charging.
The Canon S2 IS has just taken its first photos.
I'm a very happy boy :D
At least until the credit card statement arrives.

Must try to sleep tonight.

T'was the week before Christmas...

... when all through the house, not a creature was stirring - not even a mouse
except the mouse, and the keyboard and the bleary eyed blogger.

We wrapped up most of the kids' presents tonight.

Maggie's getting some Sesame Street toys. A noisy laughing Cookie Monster head on a stick (that sounds pretty morbid). And a little musical saxaphone. Both guaranteed to drive the parents crazy. They'll also serve as excellent bait to entice Lisa to snatch them off her.

Lisa will be receiving a dress-up bear with 4 different costumes. And a Teletubbies book.

And Bart... Tough call. Marge and I are still having talks about that one.
He showed us his Christmas wishlist this morning. It comprised of the following:

• Big castle (Lego)
• Game boy DS
• Invisible ink and special light
• Laptop (Computer)
• New Palm pilot (T3)

The laptop was a carry over demand from last year.

The Palm was a bit of a surprise. Last year he asked me whether he could have my T3 when I died. LOL! Maybe he's gotten tired of waiting. Though it looks like Marge will get the T3 when I get my TX. Bart will just have to be content with Marge's Tungsten E.

And the DS Dream may be over - even though I had my first go of Mario Kart DS at David Jones today. It was a lot of fun. But Marge is quite adamant that I am not to get one.
(Though she did hint that she might reconsider if I buy her a sewing machine. And bikes for the kids. And new curtains for the house. Doh!)

I guess I shouldn't be too disappointed.
Tomorrow I should be getting my Palm TX and also a Canon S2 IS digital camera. Woohoo!!!

Will Bart want a Nintendo DS for Christmas? Yes, he will.

I have almost convinced myself that Bart would like a Nintendo DS for Christmas,
For $188, it comes bundled with Mario Kart DS.
I have fond memories of playing the original Mario Kart against my flatmates on the old Super Nintendo back in my Uni days.
And from all the reviews I've seen, this is one cool successor.

I hadn't considered the DS until I read this post from a like minded Canberran, who also happens to work in IT.
The thought of a wireless 'xbox-live' like experience on a handheld is just too intriguing (or nerdy) for me Bart to ignore.

Further online investigation revealed that there is significant progress being made towards unlocking the potential of the DS.
Such as hacking the wi-fi for other purposes. And SD card compatible cartridges for homebrew apps.
Stuff that Bart should certainly be excited about.

So I had a chat to Bart this morning about Christmas presents.
He seemed excited at first when I told him about my plans suggestion.
But then he slipped into his reasoning mode (something he does quite often these days).
He logically declared that he already had a Gameboy SP, so how about we got him Lego instead?
Doh!

Hmmm...
I'll probably still buy it anyway, because I know he'll change his mind when he sees it.

How's that sound, Smeagol?
Good. Good. Yes, let's do that. But what if he still doesn't want it?
Then we'll have to find someone who does. It would be such a shame to return it to the shop.
Yes, of course. You're such a good father, Homer.

Duets

Tonight was the first time I did a concert with Lisa.
We sang the Alphabet Song, London Bridge is Falling Down, Jesus Loves Me, Jesus Loves the Little Children, This Little Light of Mine, Rock-a-Bye baby and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
And she was quite particular about which songs to sing next.
Granted, the location was on Mummy & Daddy's bed - and the audience consisted of just Maggie (who fell asleep in the middle of the 3rd round of Twinkle, Twinkle)

But it was a great Homer/Lisa moment.

We woke up this morning to find...

Some people must be so stoopid, that they can't think of anything better to do.

My manager told me this week that she woke up one morning to find that she suddenly had solar pwered garden lights on her front lawn. Someone else's lights, apparently.
And another work colleague was the victim of an exploding letterbox while he was watching late night TV.

Anyway, we woke up this morning to find that our wheelie bin was missing.
Stolen. My initial anger quickly turned to amusement.

Why would anyone want to steal our wheelie bin?
Over the last year, there have been so many food scrap and nappy spillages in there, even the flies have abandoned it. We've tried everything to get rid of the stink - from bicarb soda to moth ball flakes. Though we hadn't considered trying to get someone to steal it.

We pity the poor fool who took it. We really do.
Or perhaps it reeked so much, the garbo thought it was part of the rubbish.

Whatever happened, Marge and I are happy.
The council is delivering our new clean fresh-smelling bin to us tomorrow.

Footnote (16/12/05) - I shared this experience with my colleagues at work, and they said it wasn't uncommon. People steal these bins and jump into them to get a little joyride down the hill. LOL! I can't imagine any joy for the person silly enough to get into our bin.

Laser Tag is fun!

My ex-colleagues at work had their Christmas lunch on Friday. I was happy that they still invited me. And even more happy that they decided to go with my suggestion for the post lunch activity - Zone 3 (Laser Tag).

Lunch was at the Turkish Pide House at Jamison. The banquet was good, though we didn't really feel like running around like crazy people immediately after stuffing ourselves. But we did it - and it was fun. More tiring than you'd expect from 2 x 15 minute games. My thighs are still sore, probably from that half-crouched stance that I maintained through the sessions. I finished ranked 3rd and then 4th. My Red Team won both games. And I had the dubious stat of catching most of my hits in the chest, while I seemed to hit a lot of people in the back.

Afterwards, I made the mistake of going to Westfield Belconnen for some window shopping.
I ended up spending $60 at Toys R Us.
The good news is that I've done the Christmas shopping for the kids.
The bad news is - Marge and I kinda already agreed not to spend much on kids toys this time. But why did I still do it? I'm always the one who complains about the toys being scattered all over the floor. And I've even threatened to throw them out.
After all these years, I still weaken at the Toy Store.

Australia's Brainiest Kid?

Presenting... Bart.
[wild applause]

He just finished a week of exams yesterday.

And his school had their awards night tonight.
Guess who topped Grade 2 for academic achievement?

Well done son. All that hard work has paid off. Now you just need to keep that up for another 10 years at school and then 3 (maybe 5) at Uni.
Erm... let's just take it one year at a time.

We're all so proud of you son!

Remembering last Thursday...

Thursday was a blogworthy day, but I didn't get around to it because I was just so busy, and tired by the end of it.
It started very early for me, with a bus to the National Convention Centre for the Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 launch. As usual, for a 'free' event, Microsoft provided a very nice lunch and nice freebies.
Sometimes I miss coding in Visual Studio. Though it's becoming even more point and click programming with each VS release. But I enjoy the IDE, the runtime debugging, and the cool tools and controls. Much better than the el cheapo Editplus / MS Debugger combo we have at work.
Meanwhile, the family managed to get locked out of the house when Bart slammed the laundry door shut as Marge hung out the washing. Of course this had to happen on the one morning of the year that I'm not at work nearby. For $85, the locksmith let her in within seconds, and he didn't even have to touch the lock. Scary.

I made my baby cry :(

I didn't mean to do it.
I didn't even use my Daddy voice.

Maggie was standing on our bed, walking towards the edge.
I was behind her when I said "Uh Uh, Maggie come back here"

We weren't prepared for the reaction that followed.
Marge was standing in front of her and had a perfect view of the transformation on Maggie's face.
The cheeky grin slowly turned into a frown. But it didn't stop there, it kept inverting until her mouth resembled an upside-down U. And then she started crying. The same kind of cry that she reserves for special painful occasions - like when Marge is carrying her around and accidently clips her head on the doorpost.
So Marge picks Maggie up to comfort her, and that's when I saw it.
As Maggie rested her head on her mother's shoulder, her eyes glanced sideways at me - and she gave me THAT look.

I kid you not.

Tough Day at the Office

I need a hug.

At 3pm this arvo, a Priority 1 system problem landed on me.
(Followed by around 50 reported instances of it happening across the country)
I was calm and collected as my internal Doh-meter reached boiling point.
Despite being in the job for around 5 months, I found myself totally clueless about how to fix this problem. Just as well I had help on hand.

Meanwhile, a friend in Singapore decided to email me this picture. Kinda fitting. That's how big my brain really felt like today. Very humbling.

The face of a tourrerist?

I finally went to the Post Office last week to get my passport renewed.
When I handed in my application, the scary woman at the counter asked me where my old passport was.
Doh! I couldn't believe that I left it at home!
Apparently, neither did she.
She gave me a suspicious look and proceeded to tell me that she wouldn't process it without the old one.
I smiled as the Doh's echoed in my head and told her I'll come back next week - with my old passport.
"Sure", she said, as her eyes scanned my face, checking to see if I fitted 'the profile'.
Head shaved with neo-Nazi tattoos - No
Middle eastern appearance with rocket launcher - No
Wearing a motor cycle helmet and large ticking backpack - No
Bumbling unassuming Asian man with obviously fabricated story of accidently leaving his credentials at home - Bingo!
As I left, I felt the security cameras turn towards me... or maybe I'm just paranoid.

Van Nguyen

Van Nguyen, the 25 year old Aussie who made the worst mistake of his life by trafficking drugs, was executed this morning in Singapore at 9am. His plight for clemency has been in the media for the last few weeks.

I was drawn to the coverage on TV this morning. And as 9am approached, I found myself getting teary eyed, with the awful realisation that at that moment a young life was being extinguished.
A mother's son was put to death.
A brother's sacrifice was fully realised.
A single stupid mistake was refused any redemption.
An evil crime was permanently dealt with.
A nation's heart reached out to a grieving family.
A debate waged within a nation's government.
A country's law was upheld - their justice system prevailing.
An international relationship was tested.
A warning went out, sending chills down the spine of every potential trafficker.
Thanks to the media, there were so many sides to this story.
But the common message was clear: Don't deal drugs.

Kids, don't ever play with drugs.