Hung some glass

My wife and I have a fascination for blown glass. I'm not sure where we started but we love the look of Chihuli pieces (which like any other human being we can't afford). We hung out in some glass blowing studios in Seattle and purchased some pieces that we liked and just hung them up. Hopefully we can add some more in the future. I am signing my wife up for some lessons/classes this coming summer when I take my kids to PAX. She should enjoy the week just as much as the kids!

Jam Session Play

Started playing with Jam Session. It is fun, (and this is the bottom line really... the rest of this blog means nothing, other than my ineptitude at the game, despite sucking, being tone deaf, and making my dog howl throughout the game/music play I had fun) I need to work on my music skills though, I sound worse than my ten year old on the viola. The tutorial is very basic, but it clues you in on the gameplay... but you can suck harder than drinking a Wendy's Frosty through a straw and you can still get through the tutorial. Your music still sounds like my kid on the viola. With some practice, and having heard some of the songs you can figure out the rythm and where the words start and end, but this is far from obvious where they are placed on the sheet music.

Once I emerge from the 8th level of suckitude I may post a song, my son wrestled the game from me and managed to play something much more outstanding than on the viola in about 30 sec... so there is a future.

Jam Session

I have been thinking of getting Jam Session for the DS, but luck would have it that I just won a copy from Ubisoft. So I look forward to playing that soon. Although play is probably not the most appropriate term as it really looks to be a guitar simulator, but we will see. The folks at Penny Arcade have talked it up

Speaking of PA their Child's Play Charity is back up for business. http://childsplaycharity.com/
go give!

On with the gaming

I finally finished Halo 3, I enjoyed playing it, but after spending weeks avoiding spoilers I was disappointed in the ending. I know, Halo doesn't sport boss fights... unless of course you count the scarab battles which are great, but ending in a -SPOILER- car race against gravity, somewhat anticlimactic. I do look forward to some 4 player legendary coop, with of course known friends as randomly hooking up ends up in the predictable hell of 13 year old racist homophobes. I truly would rather play with my ten year old son, he is good, funny, and not a total tool.

It's hard to overstate my satisfaction with Portal. It is by far the single most striking game I have played with my kids. Both my kids (10+9) can sing the song on command. All I have to do is fire up the "this is a triumph" refrain and they both bust into synchronized song.

I haven't decided what's next for me, although I probably should finally buy Bioshock, I am somewhat torn on PC vs 360 on this title. I thought that the HLep2 was a no brainer on the PC particularly as the mod scene is so important when it comes to replay value... I don't know if this is as important in Bioshock. The main issue with purchasing a game on the pc for me, is that I don't like sharing my pc, it's easier to share the 360 and watch someone play but on the pc I feel stymied by sharing with the kids.

On the other hand I should really commit to Dead Rising, a marvel of a game that is as hard to finish as riding a bike into a lake, but somehow much more enjoyable.