While I’m waiting for that Millennium Falcon pool to come out (and for the weather to be warm enough to use it), I guess I’ll just have to spend Spring with the boys flying some Star Wars kites.

An old Rob Hubbard tune just came up on my Zune - Crazy Comets - and it reminded me of the old (1986) Thrust Concert demo on the C=64 as they used Hubbard’s song in it.

That prompted me to search for info on Thrust Concert, which ultimately took me to Press Play On Tape.  I’m gonna have to check this out later.

We’re in furniture renewal mode these days. A new sofa and love seat were delivered this afternoon. Since they clash with our current living room furnishings, we’ve also purchased a new TV stand and end tables.

This means that it was time to clear some items out of the basement to make room for our old sofa. Mostly, I dumped three chairs that I had acquired from Target a year ago.  My goal at the time was to populate the room with enough chairs to enjoy killer games of Amplitude, but my largely anti-social nature kept such gatherings from ever happening.

Those chairs are on their way out, having been sold to a co-worker.  But I still craved a gaming chair.  My desk chair is not comfortable enough for long periods of time, and I’ve never been a fan of gaming from a couch (no idea why).  So it was time to find some new furniture.  I looked around at several local stores and did research online before ultimately purchasing the horrifically named X-Rocker Pedestal Wireless chair.  

Recliners are just too big, and typical game rockers are just too low.  This one looked like it would hit my Goldilocks sweet spot.  I didn’t really care about the wireless sound, but the swivel action, the recline, and the arms were all enticing features.  And Wal-Mart had a ton of them.

Got it home, busted it out, and had it put together in just a few minutes.  Taking it for a test drive with an episode of Doctor Who and a game of Viking proved it to be a very comfortable seat for my 209lb 5′8″ mass.  The only thing I didn’t like was that my head actually rested too far back, driving my line of sight to the top of my projector screen instead of holding it to the middle.  Backing off on the recline or getting a pillow will easily fix that.

The sound was something I had prepared to dismiss out of hand, but I actually do enjoy having it on.  A nice feature of the Xbox 360 is that it will simultaneously output digital and analog audio, so I was able to pump digital to my surround system while outputting analog to the chair, giving me a nice bit of added sound detail right in my earholes.

Now all I need to do is figure out how I can attach my Ace Combat flight stick to the chair arms, though for the sake of authenticity, I guess I should be figuring out how to mount the joystick between my legs.  I don’t think I could get used to that lack of symmetry.

I recently dumped a few photos of Collin on Flickr and have looked at them a number of times.  They’re insanely cute shots of him wearing a cowboy hat and themed shirt.  But as much as they make me smile, they also make me a bit sad.

Seeing Collin smiling, sitting up, rolling over, reaching, standing, eating, laughing, and babbling has been great fun.  There’s no denying that.  The problem is that I then contrast that with our experiences in Gareth’s infancy.  Doctors, nurses, therapists, monitors, mist tubing… unable to sit, stand, roll over, eat. 

At the time, I was so shellshocked by the whole situation that I don’t think I ever stopped to consider what we weren’t experiencing.  And, with time, I grew comfortable with the realization that I should just enjoy the things Gareth could do instead of wishing for the things he couldn’t.  

Now we have a kid who can do all those things, and I feel guilty taking pleasure in them.  I feel like every time I enjoy Collin’s development, I’m somehow discounting Gareth’s.  Every time I play with Collin, I have to wonder if I played the same with Gare.  And every time I take Collin’s picture, I feel like I need to swing around and snap a few of Gare to maintain balance in the universe.

At some point, soon, Collin will surpass Gareth physically.  It’s going to be a challenge finding a way to keep Gareth encouraged to work hard at achieving the things that will come easily to his little brother.

But I love both my boys.  We’ll figure it out.

Truly, my wife will miss David Tennant.  I never imagined her becoming a Doctor Who fan, but Tennant pulled her in and kept her there long enough for her to get hooked.

But he is bowing out, soon to be replaced by Matt Smith.  If you’ve not heard of Matt Smith, no worries, looks like he hasn’t done much TV work just yet, though he does have a bit of a stage career.  Coincidentally, he appeared on Secret Diary of a Call Girl.  Perhaps an encounter with Billie Piper led him to helm the TARDIS.

Knowing nothing of his work, I can’t speculate on how he’ll be as the Doctor.  Guess we’ll find out in 2010.

We are getting closer to seeing how they’re going to get around the 12 regenerations limit, though circumventing it seems a mere plot point.