Gamers

HAWKISH: This weekend, the Seattle Seahawks were on the top of the minds of a lot of Pacific Northwest people - including us! They were playing in the first round of the playoffs, at Washington, against the Redskins.

We'd volunteered to host a party during the game on Sunday, so Friday and Saturday meant some pre-party hunting and gathering for us. For the big game we make three kids of cookies, we bought Skittles (as a nod to star running back Marshawn Lynch, whose mom used to give him that candy for energy when he played youth football). We made a variety of appetizers, stocked coolers, decorated the house, and even painted faces. Here, Annabelle's sportin' some Seahawk blue on her cheeks and lips.

I'd show you a photo of CJ in his facepaint, but it didn't last long. Within a few minutes he complained that it itched, so off it came. At least he tried. ;)

We had about 15 people here watching the game and it was great fun - except for the first quarter, when the 'Hawks quickly got down by two touchdowns. Fortunately, before the second half, the real Seahawks showed up, and by the third quarter they were cruising. It's so unusual for a team I'm rooting for to win in the playoffs, I'm not quite sure how to act. ...

Of course we're having another party for next Sunday's playoff game. And hopefully two more parties beyond that! Go Hawks!

BRUSH OFF: Big news from the planet Mars. Curiosity used its Dust Removal Tool for the first time, on Jan. 6. The DRT is a motorized, wire-bristled brush at the end of the rover's arm.

Below, you see the spot DRT brushed on rock target Ekwir 1. It's about 1.85 inches by 2.44 inches.

IMAGE CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS 

Wonder if I could get NASA to give me a rover to sweep the dust off our floors. ...

LIGHTS, CAMERA: Annabelle has been busy in her room over the past couple of days. She's been trying to film a "documentary" of sorts - a film about one of her stuffed animals, Bunnybelle, playing an online game on the laptop.

So far all of the footage has wound up on the cutting room floor for one reason or another. Hopefully in the next day or two, we'll have something to post here.

BYE, BYE, LOVE: The kids' homework for guitar this week has been practicing plucking out the notes for "Bye, Bye, Love." I listened in as I painted ponies, and they were plucking out notes, alright, but it sounded nothing like the oh-so-familiar-to-me song.

I told the kids I thought it would be lots easier for them to play the song if they heard what it sounded like, and so we found a version of it by the VERY young Everly Brothers.

CJ wanted to know what year the show was made. I told him I had no idea, but that he and Annabelle could do some math detective work and figure it out.

I asked them what they *did* know from the clip that could be used as a clue. After about 15 seconds, Annabelle struck upon the fact that the eldest of the brothers, Don, said he was 20. And so I asked them how they could use that info to find out what year the show was filmed. CJ correctly figured out if they looked up Don's birth year and added 20, that should give them the show date.

We turned to Wikipedia and learned that was born in 1937. The kids quickly figured out that the show was taped in 1957. Gotta love math.

REDISCOVERY: Over the past couple of days, CJ has rediscovered all of his vintage games and gaming systems. I think perhaps us getting the Famicom up and running a few days ago spurred that.

And so, he's been playing Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Sega, Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom, Super Famicom, Super Nintendo and I'm sure there are some I've left out. And when he's not playing the games, he's researching them and the consoles. He's quite the repository of retro game information. Maybe someday he'll be curator at the Videogame History Museum.