Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

Today we all took the subway downtown to have lunch at the overpriced salad bar at Whole Foods — overpriced being appropriate because Caitlin and I watched Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore’s latest, one of his best yet, in the same arena as movies like Zeitgeist) after Nefarious went to bed. To our happy surprise when we walked out of Bay Station we found out that we were in the middle of some winter festival with tons of ice carvings, and the whole thing was going on to promote the area’s businesses, which was nice because Caitlin and Nefarious got free hot chocolate at the Starbucks tent, and not so nice because it was extremely crowded and you couldn’t take a step without blocking someone’s photograph (including a wedding).

Of course we took some pictures too which I think turned out well. At least when my illness does me in there are tons of nice pictures that Nefarious can look back on — I was talking to someone recently whose dad died when they were quite young, and they had barely a single photo of him and described the torment of him slipping away as their childhood memories faded… I just ordered myself — and yes, I do seem to be on a self-gifting kick — a little Flip Ultra HD miniature camcorder as well as one of those twisty gorilla tripods that can do stuff like wrap around pipes, and the next book we read (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix) I’m going to record us cover to cover. Maybe one day her children, if she has them, will be read to “by me” as well, while they watch their mother as a child enjoy the same book they are. Perhaps it will go on for more generations as well. Thinking about that possibility makes me very happy.

All in all I don’t particularly like living in the big city, and would prefer somewhere less crowded, but one of the many redeeming qualities is that you often randomly bump into events and street festivals like this. Afterward we were considering going to the ROM (the museum) because I just renewed our family membership so it’s “free”, but we ended up waiting, in part because they’re currently rebuilding some of Nefarious’s favorite parts, not least of which is creating a larger version of the bat cave, which she and every other kid I know loves sprinting through (I think it’s not until they’re older and more patient that they walk through slowly enough to appreciate what a beautiful ambiance the place has).

Then Nefarious went crazy and started smashing everything! Just kidding, we found this sculpture that way, honestly. A guy actually came on the PA system and said that because of the warm day and cold night that the ice sculptures were unusually brittle and begged us all not to touch them.

Later in the day, after we got home, Nefarious and I went out to pick up a Wacom Bamboo tablet (which is nice and big and quite inexpensive in comparison to the other full sized ones), and I’ve installed the drivers and software on both of our machines, so she spent a while learning how to use it… The main reason I got it though was because I’ve been seeing so many great flip book and stop-motion animations lately that I really wanted to make some more myself, and I think doing it with the tablet is way better than using paper (and a mouse is too hard to draw with in large volume).

I’ve really been enjoying have two monitors again, but I do sort of feel like I’m “walled in” by them, which isn’t so nice. I think I might build a table arch over the one monitor using 2x10s, so instead of putting the two of them side-by-side I’ll stack them vertically. Other than that, I have still not heard from the guy whose Delorean auction I won, so my worry that the whole thing was a too-good-to-be-true scam of some sort was true is growing. Fingers crossed… But if not, I’m keeping my eyes open for another seventies Corvette.

Nefarious and I have not been playing much chess lately because we got a bunch of new strategy games and because we’ve been playing card games and she’s really into them right now so it’s all rummy and blackjack and crazy eights and such, but today I came up with a new game that I presented to her and her school pals when I picked her up. This one is called “Secret Agent Chess”.

The reason it’s called that is because it’s built around the idea that you have “secret agents” among your opponent’s pieces that occasionally sabotage their game. At the start of every turn you flip a coin. If it’s heads, the turn is played like any normal turn. If it’s tails though, you have a choice — you can either play your turn as normal, or you can activate a “secret agent”, which means that instead of moving one of your pieces, you get to move one of your opponents pieces (any legal move, as if they were making it). If you choose to do this, on their next turn they have the limitation that they can not “reverse” the move you made. They can move the piece, but they can not (in that immediately following turn) move it back to the square it was on before you moved it. The game is also played “full board”, meaning that the goal is to take all of your opponent’s pieces, rather than to capture the king.

This chess variant is interesting because it adds a level of chaos and unpredictability to the game, giving your opponent the ability to mess slightly with your plans. Nefarious picked up on it well, way better than I did I suppose, as she beat me more soundly than I can recall… For the next hour I experienced an emotional state that encompassed both pride and shame.

We were up a little later than usual (late for a school night anyway) as we plowed through the last couple chapters of The Goblet of Fire — all 636 pages — finishing it up, which means that we can finally watch the short-falling film adaptation for Friday’s movie night. I expect Nefarious to be quite exhausted by the end of tomorrow, as she’s spending the day downhill skiing with her school, and then after school, gymnastics. The first time I went downhill skiing I couldn’t walk the next day — a memory which has me wondering whether the problems with my legs may go back further than I assumed, because now that I think about it, I can remember quite a few times where these specific muscles have caused problems.

PS. I just got a new Photoshop filter that I think must have some of the best painting simulation effects that I’ve seen yet. It’s called Virtual Painter and it does some really nice stuff just out of the box using defaults. Here’s a quick example taking the settings that it came with — I’m sure it can produce even nicer results with a bit of tweaking:

That said, today I was looking at the classic Photoshop filters — you know, embossing, charcoal, and so on — and was thinking how terrible and tacky they looked. When we first saw them, they seemed so cool, but now I have to wonder who in their right mind would ever use them. I’m sure things like this painting filter will go the same way with a short wait.

I absent mindedly made this little bowl last night by rolling lots of little balls and sticking them to a can of gingerale and then poking them in the middle with an oven thermometer spike to turn them into miniature donuts, and then cooked the whole thing. When it cooled down I pulled out the can and painted what was left, first with dark purple and then dry brushed in cyan and white. It’s nothing particularly impressive but I think it would make a fun craft project to do with Nefarious tomorrow since it’s a school holiday.

Oh yeah, and I wouldn’t recommend going to see The Wolfman. It’s got kind of a silly, campy ode to Lon Chaney going on, but I had the distinct impression that as silly as the movie was, it was taking itself quite seriously, resulting in being somewhat awkward, a la some hipster doing his best to be ironic but crossing the line into “going full retard” (sorry, I know that’s not PC and I apologize). Too bad, I really wanted to like this movie, but it was not meant to be.