You know you’re addicted to the internet when it interferes with bringing your wife a refreshing and well-deserved beverage

Ian once thought he’d get better 4G reception by riding a weather balloon up to 20,000 feet. Idiot.

This is Ian’s wife, the Missus. I’m afraid there’s been an intervention, and Ian will be away for a while.

Oh, it was long overdue.

You see, Ian is addicted to the internet.

Too long he has stumbled through the house, tripping over toddlers with sodden diapers dragging along the floor, his face glued to his smart phone.

Too often he has mumbled, “Yes, of course, Dear,” and yet failed to bring me the requested mimosa because he was so immersed in his blog that he didn’t actually hear me.

Too frequently did he ignore his children’s pleas and cries for his tablet and its entertaining games, so intent was he on his Tweeter feed, Facebook timeline, and Tumblr stream.

He was so completely focused on being online 24/7 that I can only wonder how he managed to drive to and from work without injuring people.

Well, more people.

I suspect much of his attention was spent on internet porn. Probably the hard-core stuff, you know, those reprehensible wet cement and weather balloon videos.

Oh, he has no secrets from me. No, sir!

So we, his family and friends, stepped in. Through a combination of Jungian psychoanalysis, aversion therapy, electro-shock treatment, and the application of swift, hard kicks to his junk every time an electronic device is turned on in his presence, we expect to have him cured in short order. Until then, however, we must keep him away from this blog until he has lost all desire to work on it.

But I must go. He’s chewed through the gag again and while his screams aren’t audible from the street, they can be heard inside.

And I do find they detract from my mimosa time.

 

The kids are fine. It’s me I’m worried about.

My kids can’t keep a promise.

“I promise I won’t jump on you anymore, Daddy!” they blubber through their timeout induced tears. They seem sincere, so I let them out.

And then, when they’re back in their room after another cackle-filled session of jumping on Daddy, it’s “I armor promise, because it can’t be broken.”

Followed by the “wooden” promise, the “golden” promise, the “blue” promise, and the inevitable “yellow” promise.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, thrice, and beyond, it’s a trip to the emergency room for Daddy.

I have to say, it’s unnerving how the attendants at the ER see my bruises and hear my plaintive cries not to be sent back to that hell hole, and their response is to look darkly at the Missus.

The kiddos, it seems, are above suspicion.

I did a lot of thinking during my last stay at the hospital, and came to the conclusion that I need to teach my kids the value of keeping their promises.

Then I remembered what my dear Mom told me at the end of a particularly tear-filled Mother’s Day.

What Mom told me, what changed my attitude about keeping promises and telling lies, was the story of the Little Bastard Who Cried Wolf.

Mom told me this story so many times, I actually have it memorized, etched into my psyche since I was two. This is the story I told my kiddos, in the hopes of putting them on a new path:

Once upon a time, there was a yelling, screaming, vile bastard of a hellspawn, masquerading as a member of our family. He used to have a room, but was so badly behaved Mommy and Daddy had to put him in a pen in the backyard.

This family lived in a rural area plagued by wolves. Mommy and Daddy warned the tiny monster of a brat that he’d better shut his trap and keep quiet, or the wolves would come and eat him.

The demonic kiddo didn’t believe them. He didn’t think there could possibly be something more evil than him in the world. So in the middle of the night, he’d start screaming, “Help! Help! Wolf!”

Mommy and Daddy eventually made their way out to check, only to find the kiddo sitting on his stump/bed, laughing like a madman. “Woke you up! Made you look! Stupid Mommy and Daddy! Hahahaha!”

Mommy and Daddy, being tired, screamed at the little bastard until he began to cry. Then he solemnly promised he wouldn’t cry wolf again if there wasn’t really a wolf.

This cycle repeated itself several times, with the kiddo laughing his head off, getting yelled at, crying, and promising not to lie again.

Finally, the full moon broke through the clouds. The hateful child noticed, in the bright light, several pairs of glowing eyes at the edge of his pen. Eyes set in shadows which slowly resolved into wolves. Hungry, slavering wolves all staring at him, licking their lips and smacking their chops. He couldn’t tell if the growls were from their throats or their bellies.

“Help! Help! Wolves!” he shouted.

Mommy and Daddy, having stuffed their ears with cotton, slept soundly through his terrified cries. In the morning, they woke up, refreshed, had breakfast, did some housecleaning, ran to the store, and then went to check on their unholy child.

All they found were a few bits and pieces, partially eaten, and three very full, sleeping wolves.

The wolves made great guard dogs, and the family lived happily ever after.

I told my kiddos this story during a tearful timeout triggered by them jumping on me yet again. We’d gotten to the ‘golden promise’ level of their duplicity, and frankly, I’d had just about enough. Certainly more than my doctor would recommend.

“So, do you understand now why it’s important not to break your promises?” I asked.

“Yes,” one said solemnly, sniffling as he eyed and edged towards the bedroom door.

“If we lie, we’ll be killed,” said the other.

“By wolves!” said the first. “Can we go now?”

“Yes,” I said, and they darted from the room, yelling “Help! Wolf!” as they ran down the hall.

I suspected they’d missed the point of the story.

This suspicion was confirmed in the middle of the night, when the kiddos woke us with their screams and pounding on their (locked from the outside) bedroom door. They were howling, “Help! It’s dark! We can’t see and there are wolves! Under our beds! Help!”

The Missus and I looked at each other through bleary eyes, then laughed.

“How can they know there are wolves if it’s too dark to see?” the Missus laughed.

“I know. Those kids must think we’re stupid!” I replied. Then we put in earplugs and went back to sleep.

And now it’s nearly lunch time, and I haven’t heard a sound from the kiddos’ room. I guess one of us should probably check on them.

That’s odd. The dog is still asleep too, and looking distinctly rounder. He’s usually up at first light, demanding to be fed.

Huh.

—

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Educational games: Boon to childhood learning, or gateway drug to delinquent truancy?

A lot of parents out there think educational games for their kids are great. That their children can have fun while learning at the same time.

These parents are idiots.

Educational games are not great. They are dangerous.

They are a gateway drug to pain and trouble.

How do I know this? Because I’m an idiot.

The Missus and I recently introduced our toddlers to computer games. This was done with no small amount of trepidation.

The Missus worried the kids would park themselves in front of the computer, never to move again, and just slowly grow larger and larger.

And I don’t mean in height.

She also had an irrational fear about moss accumulation, and how one could safely scrape it off skin, but I allayed that fear by saying we’d just keep the computer room too dark for moss to grow.

I’m a genius that way.

My worry was more practical. I was terrified they’d get into online gambling, incur huge debts, and one day I’d wake up in a bathtub full of ice with a note saying, “Sorry, Daddy, but it was your kidneys or our kneecaps. Hope you don’t mind. Also, get to a hospital ASAP.”

Some nights, the nightmare is even worse. I’m in the tub, but because my kids can’t read or write yet, there is no note prompting me to get to a hospital so I try to go into work instead.

The dream doesn’t end well.

The first mistake we made was underestimating the computer savvy of three year olds.

The second mistake we made was resurrecting an old computer for the exclusive, lightly supervised use of the kiddos.

As I set up the computer and searched the web for suitable educational games, my kids sat on either side of me, absorbing every move I made.

In hindsight, the furtive huddling and quiet whispering in the days that followed should have tipped me off that trouble was afoot.

Soon my novice hackers were clicking on links, adjusting Flash settings, and typing stuff into Google.

They even managed to install Chrome on the machine. One day, I walked up to the computer, and there it was on their desktop.

All this despite still being illiterate.

The educational games gave them a taste for electronic entertainment, and knowing that clicking on words that are a different color on the screen will take you to a new web page introduced them, with just a few clicks, to less educational games.

Far less educational games.

Colorful games.

Noisy games.

Violent games.

Shortly after the computer game experiment began, my kids were running around shouting “Ninja punch!” while slamming their fists in the air.

To be sure, not our original intention.

This led inevitably to them running up to me, pounding on my stomach, back, thighs, or whatever part of me was handy and facing them, then darting away while taunting, “It’s game over for you, Daddy!”

It was during the course of these attacks that they discovered Daddy’s weakness.

And once discovered, they exploited it ruthlessly, as only toddlers can.

They began punching me in the junk.

And headbutting me in the junk.

The only thoughts that could form in that hazy, red cloud of pain I endured while curled in a fetal position was, “Thank goodness they’re too short to kick me.”

Then they started climbing into my bed at first light and kicking me in the junk.

So heed this warning, written to you from a hospital bed as I recover from not one, but two ruptured testicles, and bruising in that region so severe that heretofore they were unknown to medical science:

Don’t get your kids started on educational games. Because corporal punishment is illegal in most states, and that’s really the only thing that might stop them once they’ve moved on to the harder stuff.

—

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For whom does the bell toll? It tolls for thee, mustache and goatee.

Today I announce the least sought after outcome from a game of Clue:

The Missus killed the mustache and goatee in the bathroom with an electric razor.

Oh sure, it wasn’t her hand that held the razor against my face and tore away my dear, treasured friends. But hers were the hands pulling the strings that lead to this sad act.

It all started a few months ago, when I stopped shaving.

Now many who know me would argue that given my utter inability to grow a proper beard, shaving is merely an act of wishful thinking, me play-acting at being all grown up and able to front thick, lustrous facial hair.

I can’t.

I freely admit this.

I can work up a good bristle after a few weeks, but even that is embarrassingly sparse.

But every few years, in a fit of deluded optimism and an over-developed sense of manliness (usually after partaking of too many Rocky Mountain oysters), I stop shaving in order to try, once more, to hide my weak chin.

It usually ends within a few weeks, when I have nothing to show for the effort except worried expressions from friends and coworkers who are wondering if I have some sort of skin disorder manifesting on my face.

Not so this time.

This time I endured the worried looks, and then, when the weeks passed into still more weeks, the derisive giggles and lopsided, poorly hidden grins every time someone saw me.

And then, when the still more weeks passed into months, something amazing happened.

Enough of my beard grew in that I could plausibly claim to have a goatee. And maybe, just maybe, if you squinted at my upper lip while passing me by at a sprint, a mustache.

Wasting no time, I began to stroke it thusly during meetings, usually immediately preceding a thoughtful comment or penetrating question asked by yours truly.

And lo, there was much rejoicing within the cramped confines of my ego.

The dearly departed: Had I waited an additional six months, the rest of the beard would probably have come in on my cheeks. Alas, it was not to be.

I was happy.

I felt manly.

I had attained completeness.

But the Missus, she was working against me the whole time.

Oh sure, at first she said nice things. And didn’t even giggle.

Much.

But then one night, as she rubbed her temples and complained yet again of her splitting headache, she asked that question so dreaded by any bearded man who has a spouse or significant other:

“As much as I’ve enjoyed dating the evil Ian, are you planning to keep that?”

Nothing so direct as, “Lose the beard or you’ll never get any ever again.” Now that I had a goatee and mustache, I was far too manly for such a tactic to work on me.

But the Missus, she is clever. With those little words, I began to have doubts.

Was there something wrong with my goatee?

Had she noticed what I always suspected about the mustache, that it was a mere wispy shadow of the thick, burly lip brow I imagined myself capable of?

If the Missus was willing to admit my facial hair fell short of her ideal be-bearded man, what about my other friends? Those who said it looked cool – were they just lying to spare my feelings?

And more importantly, were those really lice I saw climbing around in my goatee, or just a side effect of going off my meds for a month?

So, naturally, I was already in a fragile state this morning when one of my toddlers came up to me, no doubt at the Missus’ instigation, touched my mustache, then my goatee, and said, “Daddy, make that go away so you’ll be like the three of us.”

And by ‘three of us’, he mean himself, his brother, and his mother.

All three of whom have an alarmingly apparent lack of facial hair.

Actually, I worry about my sons. I don’t exactly have the ‘beard you can cut glass with’ gene, and assuming they get 50% of their facial hair genes from the Missus, they will be even less adept at growing the chin rug and cheeky carpet.

That thought keeps me up at night. The only way I can get to sleep is latching onto the hope that someday, within my kids’ lifetime, Science may perfect the beard transplant.

Until then, I will always fret.

But that comment, about being like them, was the nail in my beard’s coffin.

So, with a heavy heart, I poured myself a whiskey, my beard a last brandy snifter of Diet Tab, and then quietly, unassumingly, with nary a tear in my eye, made my way into the bathroom.

Yes, it was my heavy hand that raised the electric razor to my face, my quivering hand that shaved off the beloved, hard-fought for hairs, my shaking hand that lovingly gathered my fallen comrades into a warm, moist towel and buried them in the backyard.

But it was my puppet-master Missus pulling the strings.

I have to go now. The Missus has just informed me that her weeks-long splitting headache has finally lifted.

Suddenly, I don’t feel so bad about losing the beard. After all, it was awful itchy.
—

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When Laundry Day, Dishes Day, and Yardwork Day fall on the same day

Pictures don’t lie. Neither does this one. There IS a reasonable explanation.

Apparently my post of a few weeks ago about using games to get your kids to clean the house didn’t go over too well with a few readers.

Maybe more than a few of you. Child Protective Services wouldn’t tell me exactly how many complaints they got, but it was enough to trigger a warning letter and a visitation.

Nothing causes a pang of worry like reading a letter from CPS saying they have concerns about your children while said children are scrubbing the floors with toothbrushes under the impression that this will landsquid-proof your home.

Such correspondence makes you look around and see your home the way a stranger, a judgmental stranger with the power to take your kids away, might see it.

The interior, no big deal. Nothing a wad of cash thrown at a cleaning service can’t fix.

Yes, that wad of cash was earmarked for this month’s psychiatric medication, but I’m sure I can get by just fine without it for a while.

Turns out, actually, the wad of cash required to get the interior ship-shape is the size of all my money in one big pile.

In other words, EXPensive with a capital E, X, and P.

Leaving no wad of cash to throw at a landscaping service for the exterior.

This is a problem.

Now I don’t know about you, but during the winter, I don’t mow my lawn. The wet trimmings clog the inside of the mower and I have to keep reaching into it to clear them out.

Given that I’m allergic to grass and I’m also quite attached to my fingers (and want to stay that way), this can lead to unpleasant issues.

Besides, the lawn is getting constantly watered during the winter period, which encourages growth. If you come along and start mowing it, the grass is liable to get confused.

Does he want me to grow or not? Why water me if he’s gonna hack me up shortly thereafter? Is it possible we’ve been wrong all this time, and Ian’s a sadist?

That last question might be from the Missus – she talks in her sleep at the same time the blades of grass are conversing with each other. It’s very confusing.

So, during the rainy season, I adopt a live-and-let-live attitude towards the lawn, and maintain that attitude until summer.

Which means that right about when the weather is at its absolute, most unbearably hottest, I have to figure out how to cut down a lawn that looks more like an over-planted corn field bent on world domination than a suburban backyard.

If the corn stalks were twice their normal height and shockingly ignorant about personal space etiquette.

Given that it’s not quite summer yet, my backyard looks (or, I should say, looked) a mess.

Not something to make you all warm and tingly inside when you know CPS is coming over, no matter how many ASMR videos you watched before bed.

So this weekend I had to mow the lawn.

Lose my children, incur the wrath of the Missus, mow the lawn.

Unfortunately, I’d been a little lax on the laundry duty as well, and had been for over a week.

Well over a week.

Well over weeks might be more accurate.

Which means I’d already employed every stitch of clean clothing I owned at the office.

Except for my suit.

The one I was married in.

It hangs (or, I should say, hung) in a hermetically sealed case alongside the Missus’ wedding dress.

The case is made of gilded glass with bronze and gold trimming. We made it into a little shrine. With candles and incense and everything.

Well, until a friend said CPS might frown on that. Then we disposed of the candles and incense. But I drew the line at the spotlights. They stayed in place and on.

I’ve learned from past experience what a thirsty business lawn-mowing is. And being genetically disposed towards sunstroke and fainting, I knew I needed to stay hydrated for the colossal endeavor before me.

But the kitchen sink was full of dirty glasses and plates because I’d gotten a smidge behind on that too.

The only clean glass I could find was the last remaining clean brandy snifter.

I’d already used up all the paper cups in the house, as well as the wine glasses and coffee mugs, to support my Diet Tab soda addiction.

Hell, I’d even started drinking out of my cupped hands because the Missus had hidden that last snifter for an emergency.

Well, now we had an emergency.

On the plus side, I find the snifter lets my Diet Tab breathe, enhancing the flavor.

Why not drink it out of the can, you ask?

As if, heathen. But let me ask you this: just how am I supposed to get my frozen Diet Tab ice cubes into the can, eh?

Eh??

That’s what I thought.

Now I’ve already mentioned my grass allergy. Turns out it’s not just my skin that gets all scaly when in contact with grass. It’s my lungs too. Which is why I wear a respirator when I mow.

And I’m a formerly scrawny, still very white guy who burns all too easily, which means I also wear a hat.

At least it isn’t a fedora, dude.

I looked into a space suit to wear during yard work, but those things are bulky, uncomfortable, and heavy. Not ideal at all for taking care of business around the house.

Expensive, too. Fortunately, CostCo has a very generous return policy.

The CPS letter put me in a bit of a panic, so rather than wait for some laundry, I broke out the last clean outfit I had in my possession and got to work.

Yes, I cracked open the Shrine. May the Missus forgive me.

Which explains the photo at the top of this article.

Now many of you are asking, “Ian, I can see the slacks, but why the jacket with no shirt on underneath? Why not just mow the lawn topless?”

The CPS officials certainly asked that when they showed up, unannounced, a week early.

As I was mowing.

The jacket is to protect my arms and back from the sun. I already told you I burn easily.

And I could hardly go to the store to buy sunscreen dressed like that.

—

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ASMR Haul videos – how to make spine-tingling fashionable again

Look at this amazing haul…of books and shivers.

Being an avid reader and aspiring writer, I listen to NPR a lot.

Do I pledge?

That’s not important here. And it’s rude to ask.

My point is that by listening to NPR, I am often exposed to things I’ve never encountered before.

Like haul videos.

Who knew tweeners made videos about all the cheap, fashionable clothes they bought that week?

I sure didn’t know, and probably didn’t need to.

Thanks, NPR.

This weekend, the rerun of This American Life featured ASMR, or Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response, videos.

Basically, they’re videos that make you sort of shiver/tingle in your head.

Yeah, weird, so it caught my attention. And held it.

A common trigger is whispering. Based on the innocent presumption that was the only trigger, I started watching a few of these videos.

There are way more triggers out there than just whispering.

Let’s just say they involve role-playing.

Yes, role-playing.

They’re like phone sex without the sex.

Or two-way communication.

Or, technically speaking, phones. They usually use YouTube instead, which is notoriously one-way in real-time.

But while there are some really freaky-deaky triggers out there (I’m looking at you, ‘please stroke your hand with a makeup brush’ person), I can’t deny that they work.

OK, to be clear, the makeup brush one did not work for me. But the whispering ones do. It’s really trippy.

And addictive.

Not for me, of course, I’m far too socially well-adjusted to succumb to something as droll as internet addiction.

But some of these videos create the illusion of shared, casual intimacy. That you’ve just sat down with an old friend who is stroking your face with a makeup brush as you chat.

And that, despite being entirely illusory, is powerful stuff.

Being a man who likes to throw his power around, I just had to make my own ASMR video.

Put on your headphones (for best effect) and click below to learn deep, dark secrets of my book hauling that will make your brain tingle.

If you need me, I’ll be alone in my man cave, watching some ASM-, er, listening to an NPR stream. Yeah, that’s it. That’s the ticket.
—

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The Santa Claus Gang:

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Reflections on Easter as a Parent OR Something Hoppity This Way Comes

Contrary to my toddlers’ insistence, Easter is not about candy.

It is not about any one particular season either.

Or a religious holiday.

It is about home defense.

My parents introduced me to this special holiday by explaining how the Easter bunny would come to our house with a basket of candy that he’d prepared just for me.

To make it interesting, he hid the basket.

Some years they’d also throw in a comment about the effort of searching helping me burn through all the extra calories I’d be getting.

Those years, the basket was usually very hard to find and/or get to once found.

This all began when I was three. Here’s how my under-developed yet surprisingly sharp little brain processed this explanation:

Every year at Easter time, a giant magical rabbit will, while I am sleeping, break into my house – undetected by my parents - to leave me a special container of candy that It knew will appeal to me.

• Magic superpowers.
• Stalking, to determine at a minimum, my candy preferences.
• A veritable Raffles of the family Leporidae, able to break into any and every home inhabited by Christians. All in one night.
• Undetectable to those charged with keeping me safe.

And thus began the long chain of recurring nightmares wherein, every March or April, just as I’m getting over the whole Saint Nick trauma, a new terror that moves among us arises.

I was a stupid child. I understood that I was dealing with a very dark and powerful force, but I also didn’t fully grasp my own mortality.

In a misguided attempt to protect my younger sister from this Lagomorphic fiend, I took on a new mission in life:

To find and stop the Easter bunny.

And so the annual Spring tradition began:

• Act excited about Easter so my sister wouldn’t be afraid.
• Surreptitiously unpack the Xmas rubber sheets and install them on my bed to minimize the clean-up every morning in the week leading up to the horrific event.
• On Easter Eve, go to bed early, try to nap a little to build a reserve for the coming ordeal.
• Instead of napping, lie awake in bed, listening to every sound of that accursed house. Wait to hear my sister skip off to bed, and then, later, my parents knocking off. Mistake every groan of the house, every click and sputter of the refrigerator, as the sound of whiskered Death approaching.
• Creep out of bed with my talisman of protection, a stuffed animal we’ll refer to here as ‘Roosevelt’.
• Strain to stay awake despite my pounding heart burning through three days’ worth of calories in less than an hour.
• Fail to stay awake.
• Come to the next morning, somehow back in my bed, under the covers, still, amazingly, alive. Do a quick external inventory, making sure I’m still intact while checking for giveaway surgical scars suggesting organ removal.

This went on for some years. The night terrors became impossible to hide, and I was sent to a string of child psychologists. But the first one made a mistake that tipped me off to whose side they were all on – he had stuffed bunny rabbits in his waiting room.

Oh yes, the Bunny has his lucky paws in everything.

I tried to warn my peers in grade school, but they didn’t believe me.

The fools! They laughed at me! Laughed!

That’s when I started staying up with Roosevelt and my Spiderman camera. If I could obtain photographic evidence, then they’d have to listen.

They’d have to believe.

That came to an end when one Easter night, my mommy came downstairs after we’d all gone to bed. I had stationed myself on the sofa to await our midnight interloper, and only heard her in time to cram Mr. Spiderman under the sofa.

I survived that discovery by claiming to be sleepwalking.

Mr. Spiderman, however, and my faith and trust in my parents, were not so lucky.

For you see, two things were clear to me now. One, my Spiderman camera was not built with the act of cramming it under a sofa in mind. And two, Mr. Bunny, in stalking me to learn my candy predilections, had discovered my awareness of the threat It presented, and my efforts to stay up in order to confront It. And to stop me, It turned to Its well-placed, above-suspicion allies, a.k.a. my mommy and daddy.

I imagine the conversation went something like this:

(phone ringing)

MOM
(answering phone)
Hello?

BUNNY
It’s me.

MOM
Oh, yes, Sir.

BUNNY
We gots a problem, see? It’s that twerp kid of yours, see?

MOM
Ian? Oh yes, he is a very annoying twerp. Should I kill him, Sir?

BUNNY
No, no! That would draw too much suspicion, see? And he’s not ripe yet, see? I can’t eat human flesh that isn’t ripe yet, or fattened up properly with candy. Gives ‘em a bitter taste, see?

MOM
What would you have me do, oh Dark Lord and Master?

BUNNY
(sound of chomping on cigar)
He’s gonna try and stay up tonight, see? So youse is gonna come down from your room about 11:45, see, and ‘accidentally’ stumble across him. Get him back to bed, see? Slip him a mickey if ya have to, got it?

My parents’ ‘inability’ to detect the Easter Bunny’s intrusions made so much more sense after this realization.

So I had to up my game. In high school, I took up cricket just for the bat. I feigned obsession with the world’s most boring, confusing sport so no one would question why I kept the bat always at my side, why I slept with it under my pillow, why I walked in my sleep every other night with that bat in hand.

All to convince them I really was sleepwalking, and not just preparing for the coming Easter.

It took a lot out of me. My few friendships withered. My grades suffered. My health declined. Precipitously.

I learned more than it is safe for any one person to know about the game of cricket.

But it was necessary. Necessary to keep my sister safe.

And then, my first year back from college for Spring Break, something incredible happened.

The Easter Bunny lost interest in my family.

It didn’t come that Easter.

Or any Easter after that.

I asked my sister if the Easter Bunny had left her anything. She just snorted derisively and told me she hadn’t gotten a visit from the Easter Bunny since 8th grade.

I see it now. I see that It was playing the long game. But I admit, at the time, I was fooled.

I lowered my guard.

I desperately wanted to believe.

The AR-15 I’d planned to buy as soon as I turned 21? Unbought. By me, anyway. Given the current gun control climate, I’m sure someone bought it and has it safely tucked away in their rabbit-proof arsenal.

The cricket bat that had been my constant companion since freshman year in high school? Retired to the top shelf in the closet.

The windows that were nailed shut in my room? Pulled out with the back of a hammer.

The soul-consuming nightmares of whiskered, non-Euclidean horror that burned out most of my youth? I still have those, but only every other night or so now. I find getting blind drunk right before bed has a pleasant ‘black-out’ effect that diminishes the intensity of the nightmares significantly.

And then, out of the blue, the Missus turned to me last month after I’d tucked my toddlers into bed and said, “You know, the kids are old enough to appreciate it now. What should the Easter Bunny bring them this year?”

Her question came with just enough time for me to dust off the old cricket bat and fill out the paperwork to start the mandatory waiting period for a gun.

So if you’re wondering why this blog post is a little late, it’s because that paperwork is really complicated to fill out.

Oh, and I was up all night Easter Eve watching over my kiddos.

I love them too much to let that furry bastard harm a hair on their head.

 

How to turn raising kids into the best game ever (and circumvent child labor laws at the same time)!

Life with kids is hard.

You endure the morning commute, slog your way through work, and slow-motion dodge the traffic all the way home.

And what’s waiting for you there?

Hellions. Screaming, jumping, unreasonably happy to see you hellions.

So you have to hang out with them, make them feel loved and wanted until you can drop their sorry butts into bed.

Which takes an additional fifteen minutes because they expect you to hug them.

And kiss them.

And read to them.

Read to them! At night!

And then, once you’ve got the writhing monsters tucked in tight enough that it’ll take till morning for them to work their way loose, then the real work begins.

Laundry. Toy cleanup. Dish washing. Spousal attention paying.

This leaves very little time for Daddy to do what he wants.

Outrageous.

However, if my kids are any indicator, there is a sliver of hope.

Recently, I introduced my kids to computer games.

They became obsessed. To the point that getting home from work, they’d run to the door demanding I help them get to the next level.

Every night.

At first, the Missus and I thought this obsession meant we’d made a mistake.

The progression of their addiction only reinforced this concern.

The kiddos started running around the house, talking like this:

“Level 8! We’re at Level 8!”

“There are jumping cannonballs in the living room! Cannonballs!”

“Where’s Alex? Where’s Alex the Alligator now?”

“Watch out for the Daddy boss monster!”

“How do we get to the next level?”

It seems that exposure to video games has caused them to completely redefine their lives and surroundings in the context of a computer game.

At first, I was alarmed.

Alarmed and troubled. Troubled by the thought that, in addition to all the precious free time these kids suck up, they were now going to require expensive therapy too.

And then I hit upon the solution. If they think life is a game, I’m gonna make that game work. For me.

“You can only complete Level 4 on a full stomach. Eat all of your spinach if you want to beat Level 4. Mmm, yummy! Well done!”

“The only way past Level 5 is to brush your teeth. You have to get rid of that spinach somehow.”

“Very good! You’re at Level 6. Did you want to get to Level 7? To do that, you have to put away your toys. This is a hidden object game. You have to hide your toys in the toy box.”

“Oh no, you dropped the bowl you were drying and it broke. Back to the start of Level 7 with you! Stop crying! It’s just a game, dammit! If you keep it up, I’ll give you a real reason to cry!”

“Level 8 is the Festering Swamp Level. The only way out is to clean the clogged toilet. Put on these rubber gloves. The plunger is behind the toilet. That’s it. You know what to do from there.”

“Good job, kiddos, you made it to Level 9. How to get to Level 10? Simple. First, put the dirty clothes in the washing machine. No, not just your clothes. Mommy and Daddy’s clothes too while you’re at it.

“Then you add detergent and start the machine. Go on, you can do it.

“What are you whining about? Can’t I get a /moment’s/ peace around here? You can’t reach? Do I have to do /everything/ around here? Level 10 isn’t supposed to be easy. You have to solve the puzzle.

“Oh for the love of… Find the stool. No, the stool. Either one, it doesn’t matter. JUST PICK ONE, DAMMIT! OK. Push it over to the washing machine, like that, yes. Now put the clothes in. No, IN the washing machine. How else will it clean them? This isn’t rocket science!

“No, no! Close the lid. CLOSE it. You’re almost four years old, how hard can this be? That’s it. Now climb on top of the lid and grab the detergent package. No, that’s fabric softener. The one with the ‘D’ on the package, you illiterate…deep breaths, find my happy place. No, MY happy place, not yours!

“There. Finally. Now get back down on the stool, no, the STOOL, you’ll fall and hurt yourself climbing down the side. Yes, there. Geez. Now open the lid again. I know it was open and you just closed it, open it again. Trust me. JUST OPEN IT!

“There, see, that wasn’t so hard. Now put the detergent in, close the lid, don’t argue about opening and closing, just do it. No, DON’T GET INSIDE! You have to stay outside! Because the washing machine is for clothes only! To clean them! No. Because I SAID SO!

“No, I’m not showing you how to do this again. Weren’t you paying attention? See, you got it, yeah! That’s it. Now hit ‘Start’. No, I can’t help you. You can do it. It’s the bright red button with the ‘S’ on it. Just press the damn button already.

“Hurray, you did it! Welcome to level 11! This is the lawn mowing level. But watch out for the octogenarian vampire lawn gnomes – they spit.”

If you hadn’t guessed, Level 10 is the Boss level.

It’s the level that makes me question my whole approach to handling their gaming addiction.

That and the trouble the kiddos have pull-starting the lawn mower. I have to admit, even I have problems with that. I’m thinking an electric mower will fix that concern.

And I have to say, doubts aside, the house is looking pretty good.

Save for all the broken glass in the kitchen. Toddlers are clumsy oafs.

—

And now, a word from our sponsor: me! My books are available!

 

The Santa Claus Gang:

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Game Review: Hidden object games Letters from Nowhere and Special Enquiry Detail: The Hand that Feeds

So in my last blog post about hidden object games, I jokingly said that I’d approached and failed to get a response from a number of game vendors to see if I could get commercial consideration for featuring their games on my blog.

Obviously a joke, right? Because who, aside from myself, cares what appears on this blog?

And to be totally honest, there are days when even I don’t care.

But, lo and behold, a representative of a gaming company commented on that blog entry!

Either A) they have really good search bots combing the internet for references, any references, no matter how obscure, to tablet games, B) my reputation as a blogger is more impressive than I realized, or C) the rep being acquainted with my wife has something to do with this.

I prefer the middle option, but I’m not kidding myself.

So now that I have their attention, I feel like I should review some games.

I’m still fairly new to the hidden object game genre, but now that I’ve started a few and finished a couple, I think I can reasonably offer my opinions on the ones I finished.

First up, Letters from Nowhere.

I really liked this game. The description implied a supernatural element, which I admit didn’t excite me, but I downloaded the free trial anyway. And was hooked.

The hidden object puzzles were challenging. Objects are not always to scale, which means when you’re looking for a postage stamp, it could conceivably be the wall of that house in the distance. My first thought was, “Hey, that’s cheating!” but I quickly came to realize that it made for a more challenging, engaging game.

The game also makes good use of color as camouflage, blending hidden objects in with like-colored items and making finding everything a real exercise in concentration.

I’m a writer, so I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these games have a plot driving the action. Letters from Nowhere is no exception. The plot pushes you from search location to search location, and clues found in those searches open up additional levels.

That said, as a writer I don’t just want a plot, I want a good plot. The storyline in Letters to Nowhere isn’t going to win any literary awards, and there are events where, in the real world, the protagonist would say, “Huh, I appear to have a stalker. Time to call the police” instead of “Oh, I better go to the abandoned museum by myself and search in the dark, since my apparent stalker told me to.”

I understand why the plot has weak points – going to the police, for example,  would stop the game. You have to be a bit forgiving and remember this is a game, not a book, and let that sort of thing go. It’s just a bit harder for me.

Fortunately, the quality of the puzzles more than make up for any shortcomings in the plotting.

I will point out that this game is really Letters from Nowhere 1, and when you reach the end, you don’t get all the answers. For that, you need to play Letters from Nowhere 2. I enjoyed this game immensely, but was a little annoyed that I can’t have all my answers right now.

That said, I’ve started the sequel, and so far, it’s good too…

Special Enquiry Detail: The Hand that Feeds

I downloaded the trial for this game, and when I reached the end all too soon, I was all, “Nooo! Now I have to buy it!”

The first part plays very well, and the game expands on the hidden object genre by throwing in some forensics, interaction via email, and in general seemed like a game working ‘outside the box’.

The police procedural stuff seemed a bit light on authenticity, but there wasn’t enough for me to properly gauge it in the trial.

So I bought the game.

Things went downhill from there. If you read or watch police procedural shows, you will not like this game. The main protagonists are two detectives, and they keep doing things cops can’t do. Just involved in a shoot out? We’ll do the hidden object search rather than call for backup. In the middle of an interrogation and about to get an important disclosure from a suspect? Well, the Chief just called so never mind.

It drove me crazy. And yes, I said you have to be a bit forgiving of plot when reviewing Letters from Nowhere, but this was in-your-face wrong, and just booted me out of the game every time.

The quality of the puzzles was a bit of a letdown too. Sure, there were always one or two objects that were a (reasonable) challenge to find, but most were not. In some cases, the object would be on the floor, or on a table, surrounded by nothing else. And other objects were infuriatingly hard to find, because more than two-thirds were off the screen, and you couldn’t see the first third unless you zoomed in on that portion of the screen.

The game also has puzzles, including one mini-game where you have to sneak around an apartment building. It had a very PC game feel to it, and wasn’t what I was looking for. Watching the credits at the end confirmed that impression – Special Enquiry Detail was adapted from a PC game.

Another issue I had with this game was that sometimes the dialogue screens didn’t make sense – the words were all in English, but the order and choice of words just left me confused. This was fairly rare, but each time it happened, it pulled me out of the game.

I have to give the creators kudos for trying to expand the scope and feel of the hidden object game, but can’t help but feel let down by the poor attention to detail (some broken English, inauthentic police procedural, throwing in red herring suspects out of nowhere, some text scrolling off the screen so that the last letter or two of a word was missing).

Also, I found it disconcerting that while interviewing people, such as the murder victim’s parents and best friend, that the graphic of that person was smiling and not looking utterly crushed.

The trial portion of the game did a good job of hooking me, but the rest of the game disappointed. By the end, I didn’t care who the killer was. That said, I hope the developer continues to explore expanded the scope of the hidden object game as was done here, but while paying more attention to all the other details.

I have been comped some games, and once I’ve finished them, I’ll review them here as well.

 

Hidden object games – I can’t find them ANYWHERE!

The Missus recently introduced me to hidden object games.

These are games where you’re presented with a picture and have to find a list of objects. Often, the games have a story line and a series of related pictures.

It’s like someone turned a book or short story into a computer game. With pictures! Who knew you could do that?

The best part about these games is you can try them before you buy them.

The worst part is they are addictive, and you have to buy them to finish them.

I’ve maxed out two credit cards and gotten a loan from a very unsavory fellow with an ‘office’ in the alley behind the pawn shop in order to feed my habit.

Interestingly, the credit card interest rates are higher than the loan shark’s. Huh.

So while my children wallow in their own filth, wailing about how hungry and thirsty they are, I’ve been hiding from the credit card companies under the house, tablet in hand, playing these wonderful games.

Of course, I feel compelled to share the magic of these games with you.

But since none of the game publishers have responded to my proposal that they pay me to place their product in my blog, I was forced to make my own hidden object game.

Without the plotline or fancy UI.

I don’t have time for that sort of effort – I’ve got games to play.

It is starring the contents of my man cave, however, providing you with a peek into the murky depths of my subconscious.

(You can’t tell from the picture, but it smells like death in here. Or maybe that’s concentrated dog farts. I knew there was a reason the dog bolted so suddenly.)

Good luck finding the objects. I strongly recommend you click on the picture to get the full-size version.

C’mon, try it. It’ll make you feed so good. And the first taste is free.

Level 1 is free to try. Level 2 will set you back eleven thousand dollars.

At that price, I only have to sell ten copies to cover the principle I owe.

And if my experience is any guide, pretty soon you’ll be cursing hidden object games too.

(Or at least this one.)