Looper

Joseph Gordon Levitt + Bruce Willis impressions + science fiction = ???

Pac-Man Championship Edition DX

The best part of paying the 50 bucks a year for PlayStation Plus service is the plethora of free games that you can download.  Though I came for the Just Cause 2, Infamous 2, and Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One, I figured it wouldn't hurt to fill my PlayStation 3 hard drive with the Pac-Man Championship Edition DX game which I'd seen was good in some magazine or on the Inter-webs.  And that Inter-web was right.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese!

Must everything in this season be pumpkin-related? Though I wasn't particularly hungry when I pulled into the Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee yesterday morning, the sight of a bagel with pumpkin cream cheese snapped me to attention.  "Better give it a try," I thought, ordering the spread on a toasted cinnamon raisin bagel.  And it was Really Good: nice and creamy like a pumpkin pie pressed between two bagel slices.  I wonder if it would be better or worse given a different bagel type...

Para-Norman

My family saw "Coraline" following my son's fabulous vomit explosion at my birthday dinner almost two years ago. And while we ate our fancy reheated dinner out of styrofoam take-out boxes, the film's charmingly grotesque stop-motion figures carried out their retelling of Neil Gaiman's macabre Alice in Wonderland riff. So, I was initially very excited to check out Studio Laika's follow-up, "ParaNorman", especially after seeing the slightly creepy, stylish trailer. But, as reviews came in with a slight "meh" tinge (especially from my favorite movie podcast) and my fears mounted that my oldest son would be too scared to go with me, I decided to take a pass on the theatrical release. Then I got a day off.

Since the only movie playing was "ParaNorman" and my son swore that it wouldn't be too scary for him, I figured we'd give it a shot. And I am really glad we did!

IHOP in Northborough, MA

I love breakfast food so very very much.  I also love lots of food for low prices.  If you could somehow combine these two loves, I'd be looking at one hour of bliss.  

As part of my day off, my son and I decided to start at the newly opened IHOP in Northborough, MA.  Our current closest IHOP is a bit older and run down with an open kitchen taking up most of the space.  Thus when I can convince my wife to join me for a Sunday breakfast there (or a breakfast for dinner) the place is completely crowded.  Fine when its just us, disaster with two small children.  So given an early morning on a Monday in a new location, I figured that there would be no way we'd have to wait for a table.

Dead Space iOS

I haven't been the hugest supporter of mobile games, though I have enjoyed my share of them ("Angry Birds", I heart thee).  Add that to being someone who frequently falls down the rabbit hole of franchise churnouts and we lead back to "Dead Space" (or "Dead Space iOS" to prevent confusion with the Xbox 360/PS3 game).  Having two kids leaves me very little time to focus on any given hobby so, sometimes, picking up my phone and plowing through a few minutes of handheld fun is all I can hope for, but can an iPhone game deliver the same scares as its console cousin?

Part of the "Kiss Me, I'm a Mutated Corpse" line.

Well, maybe not scares but it can definitely capture the action and fun weapon grind of the original.  "Dead Space iOS" deals with a saboteur on the Sprawl space station, duped into releasing hordes of necromorphs upon the general population and the attempt to fight them back, and so on, and so forth.  As far as story goes, you're either a "Dead Space" player interested in the Church of Unitology or someone interested in an action/adventure game to play on your phone.  Either way, this is probably worth your time.

While the controls take some time to get used to, given some time any player will be able to figure out the two-finger mechanics, though Dead Space iOS takes more dexterity than the average phone game.  Stick with it and, by the end, you'll be running circles around monsters.  I noticed a weird tendency of my character to do a sort of diagonal run which made navigation during intense battles a bit wonky but never so much that I became frustrated.

If you're here, you're tripping balls.

And that constant push for upgrades is the most enjoyable part of the game.  Much like the original, you'll delight in finding cash or power nodes to fill out the specs of your various tools of dismemberment, fighting a little farther to fill in the maze of incremental improvements until you're ready to decimate every oncomer.  Which leaves many of the battles by the end of the game feeling overly repetitive and far from challenging; as fights become increasingly rote, the shortcomings of the platform and the scope of the game become more and more apparent.  Still, some cool third act story twists and the ease of the final fights make finishing Dead Space iOS a worthwhile way to spend an evening.  It's a fun addition to the Dead Space franchise but only players seeking a slightly more robust game for their phones would consider it Really Good.  For a bonus, play it on the iPad in magnified mode to actually see what you're doing!

The End of Summer: The Black Dog

Might I be one of the special breed of people who have been to the Black Dog restaurant? Long (incorrectly?) perceived as a status symbol akin to driving a sports car, the ubiquitous Black Dog shirts that my friends at school wore spoke to me of the far off land of Martha's Vineyard, a summer place where only the richest of us could go.  And, finally, this hoi polloi received the golden ticket and was able to dine at the mythical establishment.  Following our trip, my kids both have Black Dog shirts meaning that, someday, my family will be mistaken for wealthy people and spit upon by the unwashed masses.  Go ahead, 99%; I savor every bit of your misdirected hatred!

I started the meal with a bang, ordering the Black Dog sangria followed by the Hungarian mushroom soup and the lobster roll.  Lobster may not be my favorite, but I wanted to look both classy and have fries.

Ignore the vomit-look.

The Hungarian mushroom soup (named after the source of the paprika used in it) was a solid, creamy concoction with some nice big chunks of mushrooms.  I didn't taste the paprika so perhaps this soup only exists as a normal ol' mushroom soup.  But I'm a sucker for a fungi-related soup so I enjoyed it a lot.

Normally when I order something at a well-known restaurant, I expect to pay premium prices, assuming that the big bucks pay more for the name than the quality of the food.  But when I pay 25 bucks for a lobster roll that is hefted upon the table and has, literally, exploded the bun on which it sits, that's a freakin' value! I'm no seafood expert so I will intelligently refer to it as "lobstery" and "not too mayonaissey".  And it came with big honkin' fries and slaw! Combined together, my Black Dog experience rates a Really Good.

Happy Birthday, Lola!

Becoming a new tradition, our trip to Martha's Vineyard also commemorates when we remember my son's teddy bear, Lola's, birthday.  Not her actual birthday which I believe is in July but when we always remember that it has happened and should probably be celebrated.  Unlike last year we weren't able to fake out the waitress into believing that one of the paying customers had a birthday so we had to settle for special desserts instead.  My son wanted to eat chocolate cake but kindly asked for apple crisp since that's what Lola would want.  We reminded him she would want him to eat what he wanted and should have the cake; he took little convincing.

Happy birthday, Lola! You may be worn for an eight-year-old teddy bear but you are very loved.

The End of Summer: Kite-tastrophy!

The spot on the picture is a ghost.  Or black hole.

For the 2nd year we attended the kite festival in Owen Park. My son was willing to try our fabulous frog kite for a few minutes, though was a bit freaked out by the unwinding spool.

I attempted to break my record for kite distance; it amazes me how high these things can get. Most kites I've flown on the mainland have crashed and burned, strange considering the non-combustible nature of their fuel source. But next to the ocean, the wind blows so strongly that kites fly with no effort.

Sadly, the wind blew in the direction of the sun and I had to abandon the effort before melting my retinas.

Pictured: new Robot kite, not superior to frog kite in anyway.

The day ended when my youngest decided that the spool of string was both his and the greatest toy of all time. Still, a fine end to a really good day.