Thursday, January 01, 2009

Wii Updatery

Well, the Rock Band software arrived, and John and Hannah broke out the instruments and started jamming. Only, the microphone didn’t work, so I should be hearing from the store where I bought the Instrument Edition when their shipment of replacement microphones comes in. From what I read online, the microphone is the weak link in the kit.

Hannah, as drummer, insisted on being the leader of the band, and she took her responsibility very seriously. Here is the contract she forced John to sign:

“I, (your name there ->) Mickey Mouse, do promise my Soul, my heart and my Music to the band leader and manager, Hannah S.”

He knew she meant business when she booted him out of the band until he signed. She had stored the contract in the box the instruments came in, but John went crazy straightening up before our company came over yesterday and burned up all the cardboard packaging that was still lying around, so now we have to find a different place to put it.

First we need to get rid of our ridiculously big xmas tree that is taking up a sizable chunk of the floor space in our living room so we have space to store the drum kit, etc. The volunteer fire department won’t come until Jan. 10, though, to tote it off, and I don’t know what other alternatives there are, so I guess we’ll have to tough it out for about 8 more days until we can take it down.

Hannah seems to like the Mii part of the Wii better than the actual games. She has made about 40 avatars, covering the 3 of us, several alternate personalities, and at least one avatar per letter of the alphabet, giving us Zoey and Xena to pick from. I did not appreciate her creating an alternate for me with my real name, gray hair, lots of wrinkles, and short and squat. She may think it is a good likeness, but I pay out the allowance around here, and she would do well to remember that.

She claimed when she started adding all the extras that she would rather have avatars of her own making as opponents in the various Wii Sports games, and not just the random Wii figures. But I know that she totally digs anything resembling Sims. She even used part of her xmas money from Gwamma to buy Sims 2 for her Nintendo DS. Five minutes into her first time on it, she was getting a shake-down from the Mafia in the hotel she was running. Who designs these games?

Since then, she has been making pictures for an art gallery inside her hotel. The people who have been buying her pictures include one fan (a crazy pirate) and one hater (who calls her work vulgar and buys it to prevent it from coming to the attention of the public at large). Like I already said, who designs this stuff?

Maybe the new DS Sims will keep her off my laptop and her old Sims game so I can get more of my own stuff done.

A Rockin’ Chocolate New Year’s Eve

We spent New Year’s Eve with our friends down the street, bringing along some friends from Sweden. Not wanting to overload our hosts, we offered to bring some of the food and the dessert. I baked some yummy cupcakes and chopped about 5 pounds of fruit to dip in the chocolate fountain John gave me for xmas. But first Hannah and I hit the marked-down xmas candy.

Here you see the half-price chocolate Santas marching to their doom.

Santas marching to certain death

Here Hannah prepares the sacrifices.

crushing chocolate Santas

And here are the happy celebrants.

chocolate fountain!

Finally, here are some tips on using the chocolate fountain, if you are ever so decadent as to purchase one, like us:
1. Make sure your chocolate is broken into very small pieces. Letting the children smash the chocolate Santas does not lead to very small pieces. Large pieces take forever to melt directly in the fountain, and you will end up getting a heat-gun out of your tool shed to speed the process up. As our friend said, it is part of the modern woman’s kitchen.
2. Even faster is melting the chocolate in the microwave first. Then you don’t have kids popping in every 30 seconds to pester you about the state of the fountain.
3. Cover everything in a 5-foot radius of the fountain in plastic. There will be drips, drops, and splats. The fountain really should come packaged with stain remover.
4. Fondue forks work pretty well for dipping fruit into hot (well, warm), melted chocolate without suffering burns, but some fruit is a bit too soft to dip well without breakage/smushing, like kiwi. Cupcake bites are right out.
5. Hot water does wonders in cleaning solidified milk chocolate off stainless steel if you don’t have a 9-year-old with a turbo-metabolism and a sweet tooth at hand.