Weekly Update

Hey Folks!

Oh my god, it's Friday and thank god. It's been a week, lemme tell ya.

Of course, the week started off fairly well. Sunday The Gentlemen went off to camp at the beach with the grandmother, giving The Librarian and I some alone time, which is something we always like to have. Yes, we dig having the boys around, but it's nice to be "just us." Most of the time was spent with The Librarian playing some Sims 2 and us exploring the site Handipoints.com.

For those without kids, or who just don't know, Handipoints is a website that allows parents to set up chore lists and also dole out rewards for those chores. The site is absolutely massive in scope and includes a ton of regular and rather interesting "chore" ideas. There are the usual, like "clean your room," "clean the catbox," "make your beds" and so on. But there's also some rather interesting "chores" such as "be nice to your brother," "try a new food," "say please and thank you," and others. Of course, you also have the ability to create your own chores as well. It's a great concept since it's not just lists of things to do, but it's also a listing of good behavioral concepts.

And that's another facet of the site, behavior. The site assigns awards in two ways. You have gold stars, which convert to points (more on that in a moment) and also purple stars which convert into site rewards. Which is a great feature of the site. It allows children who are logged on to interract with each other. You can move your avatar around the site and meet other kids and talk to them. You can also make your avatar emote and act. Of course, the stars come in handy in case you want to buy new things (clothes, backgrounds, etc) for your avatar, as well as playing games on the site. It's a great concept. The flip side is the gold stars, which translate into cold, hard cash... well, digitally speaking of course. The conversion ratio is absolutely arbitrary and the site offers ideas for incentives. Kids can save points and earn laptops, toys, additional upgrades to the site, and other things. The site seems to default to around 25 cents a point or so. So we told The Gentlemen that they can work towards actual rewards. As an example, we told Brother J that he can have a Nintendol DS with a game if he earns 2600 points, which breaks out to something like 5 cents a point. Of course, they also can choose other rewards, even opting to cash their points out. It's a great site and offers a LOT of options to parents. So if you're a parent looking for a way to help kids learn some good behaviors, this might be a way to go.

Tuesday was spent at Portland's Street of Dreams expo. This reminds me a lot of the Brady Mansion tours back home, but these houses are worth considerably more... like in the million(s) of dollars. And these houses are absolutely opulent in every way. The house we liked most was called Cherith Brook and it was mind-blowing. 11,000+ square feet on 3 levels and virtually ever ammenity you can imagine. The house absoutely stuns and there's no way I could do it justice in print. Of course, we took very few pictures of this opulent abode, so I can't even share those with you. Needless to say, The Librarian and I were counting our pennies and realizing we're slightly short of the $2.1 million asking price. So if anyone's got a few million lying around and wouldn't mind parting with a couple... well, you know the drill. :)

Of course, our week alone was cut slightly short as horrible weather at the beach put a premature end on The Gentlemen's camping trip. Overall they did have fun, but I think it owes more to the fact that their grandmother bought them new bikes. I'm pretty sure it could have rained fire from the sky and they wouldn't have cared less. So yes, they came home wednesday evening instead of Thursday. We didn't mind at all however and were glad to have them back. Of course, the next night they ended up going to their Dad's, so we still had a bit of alone time and it was nice.

Thursday was spent with us just getting some ice cream and The Librarian trying out the Spore Creature Creator that we picked up. I first read about Spore years ago in Wired and, being a slight fan of Sid Myer, was eagerly anticipating it. Of course, the innumerous delays pretty much dulled my opinion of it, but The Librarian is pretty jazzed about it, so looks like we'll be dropping $50 when it comes out. Not that I mind since, if the creature creator is any indication, this game is going to be interesting. Of course, it appears that it will be an online game and The Librarian isn't terribly keen on that. However, I don't mind so much since I occasionally decide to drop $15 a month for a few months to renew my World of Warcraft addiction. So I'm sure another fee won't be that big a deal.

And that's about it so far. I'm about to start working on my Endless Monkeys projects, which mostly consist of Deviant Advice and a new blog idea I have, but won't talk about just yet. All you need to know is that, once it goes live, your reaction will mostly be "yes, this is what he should do." :)

BTW, social networking is starting to absolutely rule my world. Over the coming days, keep an eye on my blog for some network info, including my Profilactic account info, Ping.fm info, and numerous other things. Needless to say, my ability to live a somewhat public life has gotten much easier in the past 72 hours.

See y'all on Monday with a weekend wrapup. Be good!