Scribbly Doodle Game

from Jake, 28 Jun 2009 0 comments

April and Anne played this game quite a bit while Anne was here and invited me to a few of their sessions. Here are some doodles. The game: A person draws a scribble in one line on the page and hands it off to someone who completes the line into some drawing. The drawings that came out of it are really fun!

A Week With Anne

from Jake, 28 Jun 2009 0 comments

Anne was here for a week after a brief stay from my parents as well. We had fun, with most entertainment focused around the little boy Dallin. We are all obviously enthralled by every little thing he does.

Anne, it was way fun to have you here. Come back for another stay sometime!

Game Night With Shelleys

from Jake, 28 Jun 2009 1 comment

Grandma and Grandpa Shelley came over, plus Alinda, whom you won't see in the pictures because she took them all. It was fun to see them all! We played "girl games", as Craig liked to put it. I'd have to agree. They all have a certain feel to them. Why don't we play Bang! next time instead. :)

Dawn of Discovery Intro

from Jake, 26 Jun 2009 0 comments

This intro movie has a cool blend of 2D and 3D art that makes it very fun. I like the bg music too!

Time Machine

from April & Jake, 22 Jun 2009 2 comments

Dude, life is a highway, and we're traveling thru time like a machine, er something. Well, we're just having a lot of fun here, and what's FHE is for, anyway. So, here's the latest installment. The Shadow knows... Mwahahah ha ha ...

Get the full podcast...

Loom Child

from Jake, 21 Jun 2009 0 comments

Loom is a fabulous Lucasarts adventure game from 1990, sporting the then-awesome scumm game engine for which their games were famous for. I just played the VGA/voice version, gifted to me almost unwittingly by my friend Josh. It was fun to see it again and play it for the first time with the voices.

Being sick does have its advantages... among them, even more pampering from a loving wife and having some r&r time for an old classic.

Uppity

from Jake, 21 Jun 2009 0 comments

We just went and saw Pixar's "Up" the other day. "Up" seems to be a kind of weird title for a movie, because I can imagine how using that word w/o a lot of context would lead to many questions and confusing conversation to follow.

Up did not disappoint. Pixar is very consistent in producing good films, so I felt quite sure that I would enjoy the piece, Wall-e notwithstanding. The short film preceding the feature film, called Partly Cloudy, got us in the mood for clouds, cute characters, and a bit of emotion. Just as with most all their animated shorts, the back story shown at the beginning of the show was artfully portrayed without many words at all. I think Pixar is so masterful at this. Emotion, subtlety of thought, and insight into character is given very eloquently through their careful animation and great story sequences. Haha, I'm also surprised at the reiterative use of the old-fashioned television story used in several of the past Pixar films in order to help create the domain of topics for the film. I think it's a great strategy, and I enjoy it; Incredibles and Ratatouille both use it.

Anyways, the film was very well done. Most Pixar films seemed to be based around a good moral or principle. This one did as well, but I was surprised at the seriousness of the story line in general. Many points in the story were pretty sad, but it was all in favor of the moral of the story and a happy ending.

All in all, and not wanting to spoil any of the plot, I'd say in general that the animation was crisp, wonderful, and playful, the story telling was very well done, the story was entertaining, and the moral was appreciated. My wife is awesome! We have and will continue to have many great adventures together. We probably won't be going to another new release movie in 3D for some time, however, because our gift certificate has been drained and the $10 entrance fee is horrendous.

Let us be men!

from Jake, 16 Jun 2009 2 comments

Excerpt from a great talk by Elder D. Todd Christofferson.

Prophecy

from Jake, 14 Jun 2009 1 comment
"Life is fragile, peace is fragile, civilization itself is fragile. The economy is particularly vulnerable. We have been counseled again and again concerning self-reliance, concerning debt, concerning thrift. ... I urge you as members of this Church to get free of debt where possible and to have a little laid aside against a rainy day."
President Gordon B. Hinckley
Oct 2001 General Conference

So, code to a standard!

from Jake, 14 Jun 2009 0 comments
"Designers who don't know -- or care -- about the implications of proprietary extensions to HTML spew out Web sites that work only in Internet Explorer for Windows."
Mike Fratto