Star Trek: Legacy (Xbox 360)

Posted on December 22, 2006 by Jason

Since Enterprise was canceled last season it’s been a pretty empty year for Star Trek fans. It’s been the first TV season since 1988 since there hasn’t been any new Star Trek on the air. Well, Bethesda Software has put together a Star Trek ship battle game which has the voice talent of all five Star Trek captains. The campaign starts in the Enterprise era and then goes into the Original Series and then the Next Generation era. I’ve been pretty frustrated with the game in the first day of play. I was getting a crash in the fourth mission, but it’s been pretty fun otherwise. It’s cool to hear Scott Bakula‘s voice as Captain Archer once again.

Nana and Poppy Visit

Posted on December 21, 2006 by Jason

The past month has been pretty much a big preparation for Christmas. We’ve been shopping, going to the EA Holiday party, and shopping. This all lead up to Nana and Poppy flying in last Saturday. Allegiant Air now has a direct flight from Shreveport, LA to Orlando-Sanford, a smaller airport which is only about 15 minutes away from our house.

Abby was excited when Poppy said he was coming because she had a long list of movies for them to see. So, on Saturday, Poppy took Abby and Emily to see Flushed Away. They had a great time, even though there were no Nerds on a Rope at that movie theater. They came out of the movie singing “Roddie got flushed down the potty.”

On Sunday, we went out to eat at Peach Valley Cafe and took a tour of Baldwin Park, a nice neighborhood which is closer to downtown. We’ve been thinking about moving closer to downtown so that my commute times to work would be less. Also, Jennifer and I went to see the musical The Lion King, which was playing at the Bob Carr. It was okay, not stupendous. Jennifer said that she knew all the funny lines because she’s seen the movie a thousand times.

On Monday, we took Nana and Poppy to our new favorite pizza place, American Pie Pizza Company. We played video games and ate very good pizza. When we got home we decided to go ahead and open our Christmas presents so that we could share Christmas with Nana and Poppy. The girls got a whole lot of new toys and were running around playing with them the rest of the day.

On Tuesday, Abby, Emily, and Poppy went to see Happy Feet. While Jennifer and I escaped to go out and see The Holiday and then go out to eat with the kids in tow.

Early this morning it was time for Nana and Poppy to catch their flight home. We had to leave the house at 6:30 a.m. so that they could make their 8:30 a.m. flight. The girls enjoyed having them and Emily gave Poppy her ceramic hippo that she made at Abby’s birthday party. Poppy wrapped it tight so that it wouldn’t break and told her he would put it in his bike room.

The Holiday

Posted on December 19, 2006 by Jason

Since my parents are in town only one more night, we took them up on their offer to watch the kids while we went out to see a movie. After going through a long list of movies, Jennifer and I settled on The Holiday starring Cameron Diaz, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Jack Black. It’s a romantic comedy and the main reason I agreed to see it was that Jack Black was in it. I offered to make it a Jack Black double feature with Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, but was turned down. In the movie, Cameron Diaz, who lives in Los Angeles and Kate Winslet, who lives in the small town outside of London, decide to switch houses for two weeks. Both are trying to getÂ over break ups withÂ their boy friends. Overall the movie was actually pretty good. Both of us liked it quite a bit.

Guitar Hero II (PS2)

Posted on December 18, 2006 by Jason

I was such a fan of the first Guitar Hero, I just had to get this. However, Activision announced that this game is also going to be coming out for the Xbox 360, but not until 2007. So, a big problem. Do I go ahead and get Guitar Hero II now for the PS2 or do I wait for the Xbox 360, which will have songs available to purchase in the Xbox Live Marketplace. The compromise was to put it on my Christmas List and if I got it for Christmas, then bonus, otherwise I would wait until it came out for the Xbox 360. Well, my parents got the game for me and it’s pretty good. I was able to pick up the game and get back it to it easily. It only took me a couple of hours to complete the game on the medium difficulty level. Now, I’m going back through and trying to complete it on the hard level.

Gears of War (Xbox 360)

Posted on December 14, 2006 by Jason

Everyone up at work has been talking about Gears of War and how great it is. The commercial looks great, but I never judge a game on a video, I judge it on gameplay. When a friend who has a friend who works at Microsoft offered to get it for me at a discount, I had to go for it. My first impression is that the game is very unique. It’s a third person shooter, but they’ve made ducking for cover the big gameplay difference for the game. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s pretty fun.

Abby’s Sixth Birthday

Posted on November 19, 2006 by Jason

It’s hard to believe I have a daughter who is six years old, but it happened today. It was also a long day. With Abby’s Sunday School class, we boxed up Thanksgiving dinners for the Greater Orlando Food Bank. It was mass chaos as around 100 kids kindergarten through fourth grade walked in a line with boxes and put canned goods, stuffing, and other non-perishable food into card board boxes. They were taped up and will be sent to the food bank for distribution to the needy.

After Sunday school we headed into church where Abby sang in a kindergarten and first grade choir. Her group blew away the second through fourth graders, who you could barely hear. Abby’s group knew their song well and you could actually understand what they were singing as opposed to the other group. Sorry, older group, but the younger kids out sang you.

After Church we headed to the Cheesecake Factory for a birthday lunch for Abby. Abby went for the French Toast and bacon, while Emily went for the grilled cheese which was bigger than her head. I wish I would have taken a picture of it, but we didn’t think of taking the camera into the restaurant.

Finally, we celebrated Abby’s birthday at All Fired Up, a pottery painting place in Winter Park. Abby invited some of her friends from school. Abby painted a mermaid statue and Emily painted a hippo. Emily’s statue started out multi-color, but ended up gray as she kept adding multiple colors one right on top of the other. It will be interesting to see what color it comes out as once it’s gone through the oven. Abby had fun with all of her friends as we had cupcakes and sang Happy Birthday.

She opened up her presents when she got home and Nana and Poppy gave her a digital camera. This last picture is one Abby took of Isabelle with her new camera.

Texans are now 3-0…

Posted on November 12, 2006 by Jason

…against Florida teams. They are 0-6 against non-Florida teams, but that’s besides the point. Unfortunately, they didn’t give tickets out to any of the games at work this week. I was hoping to win tickets to the Texans–Jaguars game since it was only about an hour and a half drive away up in Jacksonville. Texans were up early and held strong winning 13-10, despite missing two field goals. This was their first road win since December 2004.

You may be saying to yourself that I haven’t commented on another game which happened yesterday. Well, here at Frenchville, we only talk about positive sports events. We don’t talk about how the Longhorns choked away their chance at a rematch against Ohio State in the National Championship. We don’t talk about how Colt McCoy’s collar bone isn’t broken and he’s questionable in the game against A&M. And, we definitely don’t talk about they now must beat the Aggies in order to have a rematch against Nebraska in the Big XII Championship.

Report Card brought to you by Pizza Hut

Posted on November 11, 2006 by Jason

I took Abby and Emily to Pizza Hut for lunch today. Apparently Pizza Hut is a big sponsor of my child’s education. They have a “Book It” program where if you read 200 hours to your child per month, they will get a free personal pan pizza. We accomplished that for October, so we had to go and redeem our free pizza.

Abby also received her first report card this week. I thought it was funny that it had a big Pizza Hut logo on the sleeve the report card came in. Apparently if you child has good grades, you can take the report card in and get a free personal pan pizza for that as well. I just thought is seemed kind of weird to have a Pizza Hut logo on a report card, but oh well.

On a whole different subject, we’ve been gettingÂ a lot of questions about what we (especially the girls) want for Christmas. I’ve setup a gift list at WishBin.com. I’ve put stuff in there for the girls which I think they will like and I’ve put their clothes and shoe sizes in there as well. You can mark things as bought in there as well, so that multiple people don’t by the same thing.

Frenchville Down

Posted on November 10, 2006 by Jason

The service provider which hosts Frenchville was down Wednesday and Thursday. We tried to call the customer support number, but there was no answer. Jennifer and I feared the worst: they went out of business. The wost part of it was that I was stupid enough not to have a backup of all the text from two years of Frenchville (I have all the pictures backed up). We breathed a big sigh of relief when it all came back up today. I also immediately backed up all the text.

Our e-mail was down for two days as well, so if any of you sent us an e-mail you might want to re-send it, but it appears we didn’t miss any.

We are going to stick with this provider for now since we have a year contract, but if this happens again we are just going to cut our losses and go with another one. But one the contract is over, we are definitely going to be switching.

My Poor Xbox

Posted on November 4, 2006 by Jason

Today my Xbox died. The past couple of days it’s been locking up randomly and today it finally gave up and just flashed some red lights on the front when I tried to turn it on. I called customer support and they had me send it back in to get repaired. I heard a rumor on the Internet that some of the early Xbox 360 models were overheating because a heat sync on the graphics chip wasn’t installed properly. Oh well, it’s coming up on a year, so I was afraid that my warranty was going to expire soon. So, I made sure and called them today.

Today Abby went on a field trip with Jennifer for Jennifer’s photography class. They went to Rollins College to take some pictures of their unique architecture. Jennifer had been enjoying the class and has learned a lot. Her ultimate goal is to start her own business taking children’s photographs. Today’s picture is one of Abby posing for Jennifer while on their field trip.

The Longhorns rolled all over Oklahoma State tonight. Winning easily: 36-10. I was worried more about this game than I was against Texas Tech. Fortunately, Texas didn’t let OSU get ahead like they did Nebraska and Tech. They started out strong and kept it up the whole game.