I noted the other day that me and my wife had been getting along better than average, for a couple of weeks. That is something you seriously should pay attention to and figure out exactly why. Happy wife, happy life, as the saying goes. She had made the same observation, and after some soul-searching we came to the same conclusion: Couch gaming.
Read MoreOne of the items on my bucket list this Christmas was to play Nintendo Wii with my boys. However, when you do not own a TV, it becomes a proper challenge. I did have a quick and dirty solution in my sleeve, though. In my drum rehearsal room, I have an old 37” TV mounted on a speaker stand with a VESA mount, to use as a practice teleprompter. This was a simple “drag and drop” operation and the couch gaming was on. But when the holidays ended, we realized that it is quite nice to have a big screen in the living room. We haven’t seen this many movies in ages, so there is a lot of catching up to do. The primary reason we do not own a TV is that our living room floor plan cannot provide a proper setup or placement of the TV/Sofa combination if you aren’t prepared to accept some feng shui from Hell. But we finally figured it out, by thinking outside the box.
Read MoreOne of the best things about kids is that you get an excuse to dust off your old Nintendo games and play together. Especially around Christmas when I have the time to do so. My boys have a couple of old Nintendo DS’s, and yesterday I was attending some online auctions to complete our game library with some mandatory classics for couch competition. My wife also wanted to complete her library but couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw that her desired game went for 1500-2500 SEK today. Consequently, she brought her Nintendo box and started to check online auctions to see if she had some desired and valuable game. Several of them were indeed quite valuable at around 700-1500 SEK. But the most inconspicuous game of all we found in the back of a drawer in an old cabinet. A mint condition Game and Watch, Mario the Juggler. Her reaction after searching for the title in some auctions was priceless.
Read MoreToday I got my ass handed to me in Mario Kart on the Nintendo DS by my 4-year-old son. I knew this milestone would come sooner or later, but honestly, I wasn’t expecting it so soon. Even though I had chosen Bowser, who´s kart was supposed to be the fastest one, I could only win one race out of five. And I won it by a tiny margin, courtesy of the almighty blue shell. I did not “play nice” either. I gave it all I had, but I just couldn’t keep up with the little guy. It was a weird and amazing feeling at the same time. I have never been so satisfied by losing at something.
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