Houseguests No More, Wii-Related Injuries, and Mr. Monocle's Malicious Money Mongering Machine

Birthdays are over, kids have finished their performances, extended families have left for home, life is good.

It was a hectic week for Stacy and I. Having her family in town was fun, but stressful. Sleeping on the constantly-deflating air mattress in the cold basement wasn't pleasant, but I can handle something like that for three nights. We got in a few good games of Wii Sports Tennis, enough to show me how out of shape I am. Did you know there is a medical condition that has been nick-named Wii Elbow? Yeah, apparently it strikes those that play a lot of high impact Wii games and adolescent boys. Not sure where the correlation is between those two groups.

We celebrated Scarlett's second birthday with some friends at Chuck E Cheese the week before last. She had so much of a blast that we thought we'd take her back along with her uncle, Ryan, and his son, Mason, since both of their birthdays are pretty close to the same time. We have a house of mouse near us, but since we don't enjoy skee ball games with one ball or driving games that run in circles, we opted to go to the one about 45 minutes north.

It's a good thing we don't live near a casino, because the light chase machines at those places taunt me until I dominate them with my superior light-stopping skillz, coaxing out the sweet stream of tickets like a soothing cascade of spring water to a desert nomad. I can usually master the infernal machines with a relatively low investment of tokens, but this particular location has one branded with a certain top-hat-wearing, monocled, mustached debonair that brings a little extra Atlantic City charm with him. Instead of a single token with a single progressive jackpot of tickets, he has three levels of payout with which to taunt me.

"Just one quarter?" he seems to say, "You know that will only get you 50 tickets if you win and three measly ones if you get close. C'mon, it's not worth it unless you drop in three. Just think, 200 tickets, imagine what you can buy with that!"

(For the record, that'll get you one bag of cotton candy and a couple of party favors, seriously.)

Mr. Monocle is devious. I won the jackpot on our first visit with a relatively small investment. He knows how to draw me in. I cashed in an undisclosed amount of money (I ain't tellin'!) and approached my nemesis, confident in my superiority, safe in the knowledge that I had mastered it before and it would do my bidding. Why, with as many tokens as I had, I could afford to hit the three-token bonus and then the two-token jackpot!

Oh, it's an evil little thing, that machine. It sucked the tokens out of my little cup like a kid gulping down water during a midnight potty break. The most insidious part of its little token-stealing plot is the payout for missing the jackpot by one light: 12 tickets. That piles up pretty quick. I look down at my feet and see the big stack of tickets and figure that even though I haven't hit the jackpot yet, I'm doing pretty good.

Then I look down and see the bottom of my cup through the few remaining tokens. I look up at the machine with dawning realization. Do you know what that fella with the monocle was doing?

He was smiling.

Oho! You're an evil, squat, ticket taunting devil, light chasing machine! I ripped out my tickets from its stingy innards and walked away with what little dignity I had left. I parceled out the remaining tokens to my kids and nephews and sent my tickets through the counter.

With the stack I had accumulated that night and the ones we had left over from the week before, I had enough to get five jeweled bracelets for all of the girls there, two sticky spiders for the two older boys, and a weird floppy-spiked little pair of eyes for the helluvit.

Who's smiling now, Mr. Monocle?

Happy Berfday to Me!

So, in case you don't read Jon's blog, it was my berfday yesterday. See, Jon made this!

It was in reference to his amusing question about whether or not I wanted Superman: Doomsday for Scott: Birthday, which I did, and I got. Thanks, Jon!

I also received a nostalgic scrapbook from Stacy. With the help of my mother, she crafted it using photos from my infancy until just before my mission to Ohio. It brought back a lot of great memories. Well, most of them. Seeing myself in my early teens reminds me of the one time in my life I was skinny. I lost the baby fat, stayed svelt for a few years, then started in on the pot belly that has since expanded to a spare 18-wheeler tire.

Man, I need to work out.

Anyway, Stacy and the girls also got me Metroid Prime 3 for the Wii (can't wait to try that out!) and a box of candy bars (cuz you know, I need the extra sugar to recuperate from the workout I'll be starting any day now...)

My mom, via my brother's shopping, sent me a Dungeons and Dragons book, The Book of Exalted Deeds. It should be interesting considering the current game we're playing has some part in the depths of hell. May come in handy there. Thanks mom!

Vince got me a CD I'd been thinking about getting for some time, Where's Neil When you Need Him? It's a compilation of tributes to and songs inspired by Neil Gaiman. I was going to listen to it at work today, but my Mac doesn't like it. It could be because the CD itself is black. It looks cool, but I have a feeling that the Mac can't handle it. It may have some weird pc app on it that is throwing the Mac for a loop too, either way, if I put this in my Windows machine at home and it works, then I don't think Apple has a leg to stand on when claiming that the Mac "just works". Either way, I will listen to it soon. Thanks Vince!

Stacy's grandparents, who I have adopted as my own, sent me the eminently useful gift of money. It came in very handy on a tight paycheck week. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa Frisby!

I got an e-card from my sis, Julia, a phone call from my sis Tamara, and an entire ensemble rendition of the Happy Birthday Song from my brother David's family. Thanks guys!

It was a good birthday.

Eeek! A dragon!

My birthday was a couple of days ago, but since my in-laws were leaving on the day, Stacy decided to celebrate the day before. I usually don’t go in for birthday parties. They make me uncomfortable for some reason. It was nice to have family and friends nearby, though. I also got some nice loot.

I used to make a mental list of my gifts the day after I got them, just to keep track. I figure now that I’ve got this here blog thingie, I can do the same thing here. So, for those of you not interested in my gift list, you can skip down to the geeky pictures I took of my new dragon.

Here they are, with gift givers and in no order whatsoever:

Rappan Athuk Reloaded numbered 456/1000 – Stacy

Races of Destiny and Races of the Wild– McCoards


Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf for Nintendo DS – Vincent


Star Wars Legos II for Gamecube – my girls


Mythology – Jon

High Anxiety – Jon


Fomorian Giant – Ryan & Katie

Papasan – Ryan & Katie

Sofa, Loveseat, & Tables – Frisbys, Ryan, & Katie


$25 – Frisbys


$40 – Mom




Keane, Switchfoot, & Jack Johnson CDs – Julia & Brad

Colossal Red Dragon – Neil & Jo

This is where I geek out. Stacy made me guess what was in the last present before I could open it. Judging by the overall theme of the gifts and the size of the box, I figured it out and I couldn’t have been more excited. Here is the Colossal Red Dragon in all its miniature glory.

Here you can see the full model

Ground level so you can get a feel for scale

This is my favorite shot. How would you like to be at the business end of this fireball?

Thank you to everyone that wished me a happy birthday and especially to those that gave me gifts!