it…out

And it appears to be the tank from Heavy Weapon, which we’ve played a couple times on XBLA. He’s quite fond of the Mega Laser.

and here’s the real deal:

We’d have had to kick him out of the house eventually if he hadn’t turned out to be a Popcap fan, so this is good news all around.

Kind of reminds me of that painting of the creation of Adam…

Except Thea isn’t a middle-aged, naked, man. And Tommy, despite his best efforts, is not God.

I remember reading a headline online a few months ago about a “dying professor giving his last lecture.” It seemed like a pretty noble thing to do, and I pictured an old sickly man speaking to a lecture hall about important life lessons.

What I saw when I finally watched the video this weekend was a man in his 40s doing push-ups on stage and describing the tumors in his liver, all in the first few minutes, and then going on to completely blow my mind by explaining what’s really important in life. What’s more — this guy is a Computer Science (a field I happen to enjoy) professor. I naturally became even more interested and eventually watched the entire video.

This talk is inspiring, maybe –hopefully– even life-changing. My favorite quote was when he described the importance of always having fun in everything you do: “I don’t know how to not have fun. I’m dying, and I’m having fun, and I’m going to keep having fun every day I have left because there’s no other way to play it.”

He spoke of the importance of letting your children paint their bedroom walls with whatever they want and showed pictures of his own childhood bedroom. The man had the damn quadratic formula written on his wall! I hope I can inspire one tenth of that kind of creativity and drive in my own children.

I discovered that Dr. Pausch should not have been a complete stranger to me. It turns out he is the Computer Science professor from CMU that created Alice, a instructional 3D programming environment that I’ve used for teaching a programming class for junior high students at the South Dakota Governor’s Camp for Gifted Children (of which Lindsey is an alum).

I later discovered that after giving the talk linked above, he also spoke about the importance of time management, being somewhat of an authority on the subject as he has less than a year to live. It was also a great video.

I’m off to buy Tommy some paint. Now go watch the video.

Lindsey and I had both signed up for a 5k run/walk for this morning. I was going to take Tommy in the jogging stroller, and L was going to walk with Thea in a carrier. As it turns out Thea woke up with a fever and I’ve lost most of my voice, and it’s snowing outside, so we decided to bail (again). We’re planning on doing the same route early next week when it’s warm. Maybe next year we’ll finally complete the run with the rest of the group.

Tommy recently discovered one of my valve-store purchases.

T: What’s this, daddy?
Me: That’s a Cube.
T: What kind of cube?
Me: A Companion Cube.
T: What does it do?
Me: It loves you. See? It has hearts on it. It cannot speak.
T: Cool.

I remember when the iPhone came out there were complaints that it was a bad idea to put so much power into a device that people regularly lose or break, and the example I heard over and over again was “what happens when I drop my $600 iPhone in the toilet?” It was said that people wouldn’t spend a pile of money on a device that could so easily become useless. I on the other hand thought it was a great step forward to have so much power at your fingertips all the time. I suppose you might lose your phone in a cab or something, but I seriously doubt anyone could drop their phone in a toilet.

I’ve had four cell phones, and none of them has ever broken or gotten (permanently) lost. Lindsey on the other hand has broken her last two cell phones. The last one had a smashed in button from being dropped and eventually died when she dropped it (again) in a rain puddle in the street. Loving husband that I am, I ridiculed her for not being more careful with her phone and pointed out my own unblemished record of cellular stewardship. I’ve always thought that if you take care of your things, especially electronic things that cost a lot of money and can text and play pac-man at the same time, you’ll have no problems and your devices will serve you for years to come.

And then I realized what a bullshit-spouting hypocrite I am when I dropped my cellphone into a urinal this afternoon.

The splash was loud, and my cursing was louder. How about that smart phone, dear?

Lindsey was taking some artsy naked-baby pictures of Thea because that’s what moms do, when this happened.

L: I need to take these quickly, before she pees on the blanket.
T: Yeah, and — wait a minute! She doesn’t have a peepee! Mommy, why doesn’t she have a peepee?
L: Well…daddy,why is that?
Me: …….
Me: Thea is a baby girl, and girls don’t have peepees.
T: Does she pee out of her bottom?
Me: Nope.
T: Oh……….Daddy?
Me: Yes?
T: Do you want to play legos with me?
Me: Absolutely.

Lemon Battery

Originally uploaded by djennewe

Tommy and I built a lemon battery today. With mixed success.

I came home last week to this conversation:

L: Tommy, you should show daddy what you’ve made.
Me: What did you make, Tommy?
T: It’s a computer with buttons and pbskids.org!
Me: That’s a nice computer!
T: Yeah, and do you know what else I made?
Me: What?
T: This!
Me: What is that, Tommy?
T: It’s poop going in the toilet, and here is the bottom.
Me: Uhh…
T: And this is pee going in the toilet, and here is the pee-pee.
Me: *blinks*

I guess the toilet training has made an impression.

I particularly like their attention to detail with “Availability: Hai.”

Thank you, ThinkGeek.