Halloween

Halloween was great. The kids were a Dementor and Padme respectively. I went as a comic character, if you can guess it you win super dork of the year!

Eating and Playing

I spent two weeks in Vancouver with my wife, (well Vancouver for 8-9 days and 3 days in Seattle.) I had to attend a conference in Vancouver and we decided to make a vacation out of it. Had a great time, great restaurants, incredibly kind and hospitable people in Vancouver. The food highlights were the fresh markets, Joe Fortes Rest, Dim Sum at The Imperial, and breakfast at Cafe Artigiano. I don't think we had a bad meal though. In Seattle we love The Pink Door and were greatly impressed with the wait staff there. We also liked Serious Pie a relatively new pizza place.

I haven't finished Halo 3 yet as real life interferes. Having said that I have managed to play and finish Portal, and I think I am close to the end in Halflife ep2. Portal by far has caused the biggest commotion in my house, my kids think the commentary is hilarious, and the lines have made their way into our daily vocabulary. The game itself is fresh and fun. I hope they plan on expanding it and I look forward to user mods on the PC.

Halo 3 playing

OK, I've played through the first three levels of H3 the first two in coop mode with my 10 year old son and the third level all by my lonesome. My impressions are positive, not disappointed in the derivative H2 game play as some are... hey I enjoyed H2. The game itself looks great, even on my regular old CRT TV. It is hard to adjust at the beginning to the split screen as my TV is relatively small for that. The brutes AI is better, but still limited (try sniping from longer distance... and they don't return fire) There are still tons of nuances I haven't played with, specifically the shields, disruptors etc, not to mention the flamethrower. I have been so far extremely successful in avoiding the finally spoilers so don't screw me here. I am very interested in going back and finding the skulls and consoles though so a second and third play through are guaranteed.
In other console news, the DS kicks ass. I've known that for some time, as both my kids have their own. (check out the Flickr) I recently bought the crush DS Lite special edition with Brain Age 2 and am totally hooked. Need some more game recomendations (I'm playing BA2 and my kids have Super Mario Bros DS which I'm borrowing)