Some Other Political Agenda

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Judgebrix

Not too sure what happened here, but someone have censored my post!

Hopefully SOPA doesn’t see the light of day!

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Home of the Lakers

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Judgebrix

Ever since moving to the US, my daughter has been very keen on trying new sports.  Sports she’s seen in the movies such as baseball (softball) and basketball are ranking highest on her list.

Luckily its pretty easy to get involved with those activities.  They are as common in schools here as hurling is a national sport in Ireland and sailing is almost the national sport in Denmark.

Every school has their own basketball team, and so does our daughters school.  What’s even cooler, our team is called Lakers – nothing to do with LA Lakers, but it still sounds awesome when you scream “goooooo Lakers” from the stands, much to the embarrassment of my daughter.

Practice is every Saturday morning, thankfully at a decent time, and it’s packed with girls from her class – practically all the girls.  I at first thought it was going to be no more than 10-12 girls, but the place was packed with almost 30 girls, and their parents, running around like little Mexican jumping beans.

I was amazed to see how professional the training is run.  There are several coaches, all of them volunteers, making sure the players warm up.  I would probably have been used to just running around with the ball for a few minutes and then play some practice games.

But no, these dudes do all the stretches, dribbles, movements, shooting and game drills the pro’s would do. What’s even better, all the girls were focused and participated

I think it’s cool to see how the coaches tries to teach the girls how to shoot hoops … pushing the ball with one hand/arm and steering it with the other hand, all while jumping and flicking the wrist just as the ball leaves the hand.  Pretty awesome!

Mayhem starts when they have to play games. The girls are only getting to terms with the dribbling bit, and now they are being told to play as a team and different tactics. That’s totally against their religion.  They would rather tackle, dribble, run and score all by themselves, so often the “game” turns into a screaming and frantically running match.

On the sidelines you have the coaches trying to out scream the girls, shouting instructions “defense”, “pass it”, “offense”.  They have obviously not hosted a birthday party with 26+ kids or a Christmas baking event for 10 girls!

My little Rebecca Lobo wannabe, works hard on learning these new moves.  Not easy when you’ve only played camogie in Ireland or Gaelic football.  These are completely different sports and have different moves, so learning new ones can prove to be very challenging.  However, she LOVES basketball, to the extend where she’s started to dribbled in the house, at all hours of the day. It’s the first sport or hobby that she has been so in to.  I think we need to get a hoop installed outside, so we can play together.

My wife has according to her played basketball a lot when she was a kid too, but I’m still not convinced about that, given she has difficulties at times catching  kitchen tea towels or toilet rolls.  Also, she’s not exactly slam dunk height either, but I’m sure she was fast as Speedy Gonzales on the court.

Our son starts basketball tomorrow, so it’ll be cool to see how he likes it.

We strongly encourage the kids to do sports, but only if they really want to.  it can be expensive to get all the right gear, so we let them play for a few months and then we make a decision.  If they keep up the interest and motivation, then we might get some of the gear.

However, I think it would be cool with a basketball hoop in the driveway :-)

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Holiday is over

Posted on January 5, 2012 by Judgebrix

As the new year emerged, greeting us with a touch of frost, we knew the hours were numbered and that we had to go back to our usual routines – school and work.

  • wake up early and bring the kids back from Narnia
  • get the kids ready for school, which includes clothes and hair don
  • invent new lunch menu hoping they would eat it
  • wash and brush teeth against their will
  • drink a gallon of coffee
  • drag the kids out the door screaming, pushing them onto the school bus
  • drive to work – hopefully fully dressed and awake

It’s never easy to get back to the routines after a very nice and long break. It’s so easy to get use to sleep in, in the mornings, and stay in the pajamas all day.  And, that quickly became the standard outfit in our house.

We had our usual battles the first school day morning of 2012, see above, but managed to get the kids off to school, and me off to work.  A few tears were shed and in the end we had to run to the bus.

One of the regular challenges we have as parents, is getting our kids to do their homework.  In hind-side, it’s funny to see how strict I’ve become when it comes to getting the kids to do their homework, considering that I was notorious for not doing my homework when I was a kid.  But, there’s no need to share that with my kids.

After the first day back, it’s fairly normal to be a bit exhausted.  The body and mind has to get into gear too, which might take a few days – especially for me.

My daughter surprisingly finished her homework in somewhat good time, and with a lot less arguments that usual.  Unfortunately the brain had forgotten some of the math skills, so her results weren’t as good as normal.  Nevertheless, homework was done.

As for my son.  That didn’t go as well as we had hoped.  Once he realised that it was homework time, his temper went into Hulk overdrive.  He was not going to surrender without a fight.

He gnawed on the table, held on to the sofa with his hands, spitting like the anti-Christ, screaming loudly and hitting anybody getting near him … or anybody mentioning homework.  Something told me he was not planning on doing his homework.

My wife (bless her patience) calmly kept at it and in the end she managed to get him somewhat engaged, resulting in him finishing his homework.  Funnily enough, he actually smiled at me, or rather smirked at me, as if saying to me “you didn’t make me do it, I did it myself”.

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2012 – Happy New Year

Posted on December 31, 2011 by Judgebrix

I would honestly prefer to have a BIG party with all my family and friends, but given the distances everybody would have to travel, we have to settle with a ginormous virtual hug n’ kiss.

I hope you all have a wonderful (and safe) New Year, with health, happiness and wealth for 2012 – 99% of us would be very happy with such a bright future.

Turn around and wish people peace for 2012 and hopefully they’ll do the same in return to their friends, and so on. Spread the best wishes.

Let’s hope the Mayan calendar is slightly wrong and that 2012 will be a happy year.

Happy New Year  :-)

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Kiddie Paleontology

Posted on December 27, 2011 by Judgebrix

I rarely write toy reviews, mainly because there are people who are really good at it and also because I don’t know where to start.  So, this will be my first proper toy review.

Smithsonian Diggin’ Up Dinosaurs T-Rex

I know it says age 8+ on the box, but we still gave it to our daughter for Christmas.  She is getting a lot more into science and exploring, and had expressed an interest in this kit.  Time to let her become a paleontologist … at least for a short while.

So, what is this dinosaur kit?

In short, it’s a small T-Rex skeleton split into 8 pieces, and placed in a brick of solidified sand – almost the same size as a normal brick.  Yes, we all know it’s not a real skeleton, as T-Rex dinosaurs are not that small (not even their babies) as we’ve seen in “Lost World: Jurassic Park” and dinosaur skeletons are rare.

Despite that, my daughter was thrilled and excited about having to unearth a small skeleton; skeleton or not.

The box comes with the necessary tools to excavate the T-Rex; wooden hammer, chisel, brush and of course protective goggles.

The aim of the ‘toy’ is to gently use the tools to unearth the plastic skeleton.

Piece by piece, my daughter chiseled and brushed the sand away and slowly discovered the hidden skeleton pieces.  She screamed loudly every-time she saw pieces of the skeleton in the sand, and got encouraged to continue to find the remaining pieces.

I would say it took her about 40 minutes to finally uncover the T-Rex and she REALLY loved it.

What amazed me was to see how patient she was throughout the excavation.  Personally, I would have taken a much bigger hammer and smashed the brick into atoms quickly, to get to the pieces, but I was not in charge of this excavation.

This is probably the best $13 my wife and I have spent on a Christmas present in a long time.  The joy and excitement expressed by our daughter was priceless.

Negatives?  Not many really, other than it gets pretty dusty during the excavation, but nothing a vacuum cleaner can’t handle.  The wooden hammer and chisel were a little fragile, but I can understand why you wouldn’t put in more durable tools.  One might just get injured.

It would be cool if you somehow could collect all the sand and remake the brick, but I don’t think the excitement would be as high the 2nd time around.

All in all, my daughter loved the toy and gives it 9 out of 10 - the reduction in points is simply due to the low quality tools.  We highly recommend this toy :-)

You can get it some toy shops or online at both Barnes & Noble and Amazon.

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Merry Christmas

Posted on December 26, 2011 by Judgebrix

This is really just a short message (I pinkie swear) to all you guys out there, wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

I sincerely hope you had a wonderful time, celebrating and feasting with the family, and getting a little rounder around the hips – just like me.

Not too sure why, but most people tend to eat double food during Christmas, as if we weren’t going to have food for another lifetime.  I can’t help it.  I love to make the Christmas dinner and I ALWAYS make too much duck, potatoes, gravy and desserts.  Deep inside I know the dinner I’ve just made is for 16 persons, and we are only six for dinner, but I also know that most of it will be consumed during the feeding frenzy.

After dinner, we open presents.  The smiles, laughs, screams and excitement by the kids is priceless.  Sometimes even the adults participate in the unwrapping adventure, much to the annoyance of the kids.

As a parent, the time of blisters starts as soon as the first toy is unwrapped, as we have to open and assemble all the toys.  Whoever invented the metal tie-ons for the toys, had the bright idea to place small invisible plastic bands or strings in the doll’s hair or screw on plastic holders should be punished by thousand paper cuts.

  • Do you have any idea of how long it takes to open and free a doll from it’s box?
  • The painful paper cuts and actually finding a phillips head screwdriver small enough to fit the screws
  • Do you know how quickly a normally calm kid can turn impatient and at times evil, just but the mere waiting of these decking ties to be removed?

Hours later when the final metal wrapper untangled and we can play with the toys, the kids have fallen asleep waiting.  Oh well, we can always play in the morning!

Exhausted from all the unwrapping, still full of food borderline congestion, we the parents jump into the sofa with a cup of coffee.  Feet up, TV on and asleep in less than 4 minutes.

Merry Christmas people!

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The Everlasting Christmas

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Judgebrix

The problem all families are facing when the Christmas season knocks on the door, can be more overwhelming than the financial burden of the festive season.

We are of course talking about something more hard hitting and frustrating, especially if the timing is off.  Missing the timing can make you stand out (literally) if you are not tuned in to the jingles.

If you are caught slacking off or not taking this seriously, your reputation in the neighborhood is tarnished for at least 12 months, or perhaps until the next festive event; New Year, Easter, Paddy Day, Halloween – you name it.

Every year we go through the same challenges.  Christmas is here and we need to decorate the house, AND get a real Christmas tree.

I know all the shops around town start decorating from 1 November onwards, which is extremely frustrating – especially to see and listen to Christmas themed music two months prior to the eevnt.  Any excuse to milk the pundits of hard earned cash!

The question is, when do you actually start to decorate for Christmas, and when do you go Christmas tree hunting?

  • If you buy the tree to early, real trees that is, then it will dry out and die.  You then have to explain to your kids why the tree looks like match-stick men.  The other problem is that you’ll end up with a carpet full of pine needles, which can be very uncomfortable for both your pets and when walking bare-feet.
  • If you put up the Christmas decoration, after having dug it out from the attic or shed storage, the novelty might wear off quickly for the kids.  Imagine looking at the same decorations week in and week out, and Christmas Eve is nowhere nearer.

The problems you’ll experience in your neighborhood, if you get the timing wrong, is either like the wraith of God or become the laughing stock.

  • Too early; they will think you’ve lost the plot completely and you have now shown your ignorance on the neighboring families, as their kids are demanding to decorate too.  This results in the neighborhood being lit up early November.   Good thing is that you can always find your street.
  • Too late; your so-called friendly neighbors will smile affectionately at you, while shaking their heads.  You’ve just messed up the most sacred events for the kids, by decorating 3 days before Christmas Eve.  Good thing is that you have just saved yourself a fortune in electricity charges

The choice is yours!  Friend or Foe – Hero or Loser

Well, you could of course set some rules within your street / neighborhood that Christmas decorations are put the first weekend of December.  At least then you’ll all be heroes.

The flip-side of Christmas is, when do you take the Christmas decoration down?

There are apparently some golden rules around this too.  Some people say leave until Easter, whereas other people say first week of February.  I say, screw it, Christmas finishes after New Year’s Eve, so that’s when we’ll take down the decorations.

At that point, people just want Christmas to be over, as we all suffer from financial hangovers, and are now coping with the longest month of the year.

BTW, why does ALL bills arrive the 1st of January, just when you recover from your hangover from the New Year celebrations?  Some sick bastard decided that it would be better to start where we left off, pretending everything is business as usual.

I utterly dislike seeing Christmas decorations well into February.  Come on people!  Take down the lights and decorations.  If you leave it up too much longer, you might as well leave it up all year.

All that said, I love Christmas and think it’s the best time of the year.  Kids are happy. Kids are excited.  Kids want loads of presents.  Parents want a new credit card!

Bring it on!

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You Got Game?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Judgebrix

The other day, I hooked up with an old friend for lunch.  Normally these random meetings allow me to catch up with what has happened in their secret lives. It’s also an opportunity for me to share some of my recent adventures.

Honestly, it gives me the chance of getting out of the office for an hour, breathe some fresh air and get something nice to eat.

The latter can be difficult at times, when you work in an area that’s primarily office buildings, but if you drive a bit then you can find some wonderful places … anyways, this is not a food blog :-)

So, we were chatting quietly about our wives, kids, work, cars, movies, sports – the usual man stuff.  Well, I have no fecking clue about cars, other than what I’ve seen on Top Gear and Fast & Furious.

The topic suddenly changed to games.  Not board games, but console games.

I’m the proud owner of a Wii console, which has been a brilliant investment for the family.  These days, an XBox or Playstation is too selfish.  You get more advanced games for these consoles, but they are often for older kids and some games are very violent.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to kill the bad guys in Call of Duty MW3, score some goals in FIFA ’12, kick some arse in fighting games and slash some zombies in Black Ops.

BUT, somehow I don’t think the South American flower will let me build a man-dungeon, for all the guy stuff; soccer, NFL, blood, gore mini-bar, 50″ TV and surround sound.

OK, back to the story.  My mate picked up a game for his kids and then he suddenly stated that he loves martial art games.  I can see how they can be attractive, especially after a long day at work and you need to let off some steam.  My strategy is simple when playing martial art games. I hit all the controller buttons as quickly and random as possible, hoping to knock out the opponent.

What freaked me out a little was my mate’s response.  He explained that he gets into the game by utilizing his knowledge of martial arts and how to move to beat the opponent!

So, it’s a bit like Karate Kid … wax on, wax off!  He observes the ‘enemy’ and strikes like a dragon.  Once the attack starts, he normally releases a powerful combination of punches and kicks, stunning the other player.  Something tells me it’s a random sequence of frantic punching the buttons on the controller – similar to my approach.

I must admit.  I had no idea how to respond to his in depth explanation of how he develops the fighting mentality and strategy to kick his kids’ arses in Mortal Kombat.  All I could say was ‘cool’!

Imagine if his kids bring home their friends.  They see this older guy in the corner, dressed in his gi, suddenly jumping up challenging the newcomers to a battle for life or death.  He will not rest until he has beaten them and probably humiliated them verbally too.  The coldest and most competitive parent in the hood.

After that brief insight into his gamer mentality, I decided to head back to the office, somewhat shell-shocked.  Not too sure I’ll fancy meeting him for lunch, alone that is, for some time.  Next time I might just change the subject to something less violent, such as curling or cricket.

But, I did enjoy the food immensely :-)

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Back and kicking

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Judgebrix

It has been a few weeks since I wrote on my blog.  Well, I haven’t really contributed to my blogroll since our little unfortunate family adventures.  My mind has been somewhat pre-occupied with some more important events, and the homecoming of our son has been a priority.

Our son thankfully returned home from hospital just before Thanksgiving, so the family was reunited and all was going well.

The good news is all is progressing very well since returning from the comfortable “bed” in the luxurious hospital.  The little dude has recovered remarkably and has rediscovered his appetite.

My wife and I have found it difficult to adjust and pretend all was ok.  I’ve been sleeping with one eye open, and ran to his bed side when he farted, coughed or moved in his bed.  If he had a new look on his face, when eating, we moved the food and gave him juice.  Always trying to reduce the risk of another incident to occur.

However, moving on and relaxing again is proving to be a bit of a challenge, as every little cough or new sound triggers memories of what happened some weeks ago.   But, the fact is, we have to move on and put this behind us, no matter if it’s difficult or not.

But, the little midget is sleeping perfectly.  No more pain.  No more strange cough. Just back to normal – without the bits that were removed of course.

He had his first meal at Thanksgiving, and by God did he munch.   It was as if he hadn’t eaten for days, which he hadn’t, and anything that resemble solid food went straight into his mouth and down the drain.  I honestly don’t think he tasted much of it, it was just a matter of filling his stomach with solid food.

So, it’s time to start writing again.  This is just a short post, just to let you know that we’re back in business.  Hope you understand the gap in publishing new entries and I hope you’ll continue to read my posts, despite the recent blip.

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Feast of Feasts

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Judgebrix

We only arrived to the East coast of the US a few months ago and were not really accustomed with all the traditions being celebrated and observed here.  One of the biggest rituals was about to hit us, which basically focuses on eating all day, watching football (NFL) and spend time with the family – yep, you guessed it it.  It’s of course Thanksgiving.

Sure, we’ve seen plenty of movies to know that 90% of the American population participates in this event, and that turkey is the prime victim of these festivities, but we had never participated in such a feast.

We weren’t really too sure how we would celebrate our first Thanksgiving, but we were invited to attend a family dinner with some great new friends.

That’s fairly special, being invited to another family’s Thanksgiving dinner, so we were looking forward this day – embracing the American culture and traditions … and all in the name of eating loads of food.

The family who opened their doors to my family informed us to only bring a few things; the family and smiles.  Pretty easy.

On the day, the country went into standstill.  Well, everything closed at midday and the only thing that moved was the long tails of traffic as it snarled up/down the interstate highway, all “rushing” home to join their families.

As we arrived, we were greeted by smiles and hugs, dragging us into their home and we instantly felt welcome and part of something special.  The kids quickly found a corner in the sofa and started to watch TV or play games.  All the adults started to chat and laugh.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a large item.  I should rather say, a huge beast lying on it’s back and squeezed into a tiny tray.  It was of course the guest of honor; the turkey itself.

But, this was no ordinary turkey.  Before it’s faith ended on this tray, it was probably roaming the woods at night, preying on smaller birds.  This thing was enormous.  Easily the size of a medium sized dog.  In fact, it was a 21 lbs (9.5 kg) beast, stuffed full of spices and stuffing.

Looking around, I started to wonder if we would be able to even eat half this thing, considering we only were 11 people; 3 kids and 8 adults, hereof two vegetarians.  A quick calculation revealed that we had to eat 2.6 lbs (1.2 kg) each, which didn’t include any sides!

Well, bring it on!

To build up a hunger, which was clearly needed, we went for a short 1 hour walk around the village, sucking up the nice brisk air of the mountains and enjoying the cool (but yet warm) autumn sun.

As we arrived back to the family mansion, it was time to take out the bird-thingy and set the table, all while NFL was taking up the TV and the sofa was occupied by most of the hungry squad.

The table was set and all the various dishes we strategically placed in the middle.  It was soon clear that we needed more table space, especially considering that the turkey was going to take up half the available space and we still have to fit in 7-9 side dishes; bean bake, mash, sweet potato mash, rice, salad, gravy, corn, dressings and chips.

My son, who hadn’t eaten a proper solid meal for 2 weeks, was anxiously sitting in his chair, watching as the food was placed on the table.  I swear, he was drooling and looking VERY much forward to the meal.

I prepared his plate and filled it with all the delicious food, sampling every dish. Something changed in his normally calm appearance, and he grabbed the plate furiously and started to eat before the plate had even touched the table.  Wow!  Haven’t seen him eat like this EVER.

The rest of the group started to gather around the table.  We held hands and thanked the big Dude for the meal and for being together.  Then – carnage – food everywhere.  People munching and nobody talking.  Just focused on the meal.

For the next 13 minutes, the table was in euphoria.  We did what we do best – eat.

After the lovely food had been consumed, we sat back and let the belly breath.  Just sitting there enjoying the feeling of your body digesting the food.

Bring on the dessert!

Round two was almost as good as round 1.  The desserts were sampled and accompanied by tea or coffee.  It was amazing how much my tummy could hold and even the kids kept going.

Hands up.  I couldn’t eat anymore.  But it was a fantastic way to celebrate thanksgiving.

Based on our first experience of Thanksgiving, we are absolutely going to participate in this food celebration next year … and the next year … and the next … and the next.

Happy Thanksgiving

Prepare the feast

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