I'm writing this from the Portland International Airport, where I'm on standby for the next flight to Dallas / home.  β was admitted to the hospital around 3AM CDT today because she was having trouble breathing (she's been battling strep all week).  At last report she was doing much better, but she's still under observation.  Your thoughts and prayers for her speedy recovery (and my speedy return home) are greatly appreciated.  I promise I'll post about last night's roller derby in due time, but right now my brain is a little fried.  I hope you'll understand.

I'm writing this from the Portland International Airport, where I'm on standby for the next flight to Dallas / home.  Beta was admitted to the hospital around 3AM CDT today because she was having trouble breathing (she's been battling strep all week).  At last report she was doing much better, but she's still under observation.  Your thoughts and prayers for her speedy recovery (and my speedy return home) are greatly appreciated.  I promise I'll post about last night's roller derby in due time, but right now my brain is a little fried.  I hope you'll understand.

Children make memories as a river makes stones; what appears at first to be a swirling mass of chaos reveals, on closer examination, countless specimens of exquisite beauty.  The riverbed is our gold mine, each stone tumbled and polished to perfection.  We sift and examine, and eventually decide that we want to take the whole riverbed home.  We know that the river never stops moving, never stops changing, despite our wishes to the contrary.  The best we can do is to gather a handful of our favorites to take home.  I think I found a keeper this afternoon.  On arriving home from work, I found α at her desk.  I asked what she was up to, and she said, "I'm doing my work.  My homework."  Without missing a beat, she returned to her addition worksheets.  This is a child who was too sick to go to school today.  They don't even give her homework when she is at school, so she makes up her own assignments.  To quote Homestar Runner, "I know, can you believe it?"  A child doing homework by choice, for the sheer joy of learning; I think I'll hang onto that one.

Tags: river, parenting, homestar runner

Mice, apparently.  You see, it's 6:59AM and I'm sitting outside of our garage watching strangers peruse through our belongings (a fine Arkansas tradition).  As an added bonus, about fifteen minutes I noticed a small brown blur darting among some of our stored items.  Yep, a field mouse.  I hope (HOPE) he found his way inside the garage this morning as I was setting out stuff.  The alternative is too unpleasant to contemplate at such an early hour.

Rockstar Games Presents Table Tennis is the latest labor of love from the upstanding citizens that have brought you the Grand Theft Auto series, Serial Killer RPGs, and other assorted larceny simulators.  In this latest installment, you play a burned-out pimp who seeks to regain his empire... oh wait.  Wrong game.  You get to play ping pong in this one.
When I tell people about this game, the two most common responses I get are:

1. Why would I want to play ping pong?
2. Why wouldn't I just play the real thing?

Fair questions, both.  People who ask #1 usually haven't played table tennis in a long time (or ever), so they're not familiar with the current state of the sport.  Youtube has plenty of great videos, but I like two in particular that made my jaw drop.

As for #2, I think the guys at Penny Arcade said it all.

With all that outta the way, how is the game?  In two words, simply awesome.  In a whole bunch more words, it's easy to pick up and play, yet amazingly detailed both visually and in what you can do.  Like most modern sports games, it pushes the edge of game realism: players sweat, trip, taunt each other, and generally act pretty lifelike.  The physics of the ball movement are breathtaking -- put some heavy sidespin on a return, and watch it arc gracefully around the net.  The crowd effects are sparse (they're usually in the dark) but they do make noise when you're doing well.

I have to confess that I've never been much into sports video games (see objection #2 previously mentioned).  I also found that most of them were too complicated to pick up and play well.  Thankfully, such is not the case with this game.  The aiming and shot controls (left stick aims, right stick / buttons put on the spin) are very intuitive, and your player does a good job of making returns without excessive movement on your part.  Beyond that, the use of the bumpers for "soft" and "focus" shots is something I picked up in the general course of button-mashing.

With all that good stuff, the game does have a few thin spots that bear mentioning.  I've only spent about 90 minutes in the game, so I can't judge its long-term appeal yet.  Hopefully, the robust online play will keep it fresh for some time.  Others have commented on the lack of an RPG / character creation element as a minus -- I really don't miss it.  The one feature I do wish for is the ability to save a tournament in progress.  I don't always have a large uninterrupted block of time to play, so it would be nice to play a tournament in 2 or 3 sessions.

I'll probably hang onto this game for awhile, simply because it's an easy game for a newcomer to pick up.  Coupled with the hot graphics, I plan on making it my go-to title when someone asks, "So what can that 360 really do?"