My daughter was talking to me yesterday when, with a shock, I suddenly noticed something.

She’s eleven now.

She’s changing significantly. She’s growing up. In spite of her Aspie traits, she is becoming more responsible. She’s genuinely interested in more adult-oriented activities. Where in the past she’s actively avoided responsibility wherever and whenever she could, now she’s actively seeking it in many situations.

She still likes to do “kid stuff”. She still takes some things too far because she’s still a child at the core of her being (I actually hope she never loses that). But she isn’t a little girl any more.

I looked at my son, and the same thing is happening. He’s six – and yet, he WANTS to do chores. He wants to help out. He’s getting his mother to teach him how to do laundry because he sees it as a way he can assist with the house. He WANTS to do this.

I was suddenly overwhelmed with a flood of feelings about missed opportunities. All those things “normal” dads do with their kids, like playing catch and teaching them sports and games and running around having squirt-gun fights.

My kids are growing up, and I’m missing it.

AND I’VE BEEN RIGHT HERE THE WHOLE TIME.

I hate this illness.

Clickin’ embiggens.

One day last week, my dinosaur Blackberry was acting odd. It showed a screen with a battery with line through it. I took out the battery, left it to sit overnight, and when I put it back in the next day, it worked. So, I pretty much forgot about it.

This morning, when I powered it on, it did it again. No amount of battery pulling made any difference, it would just start and show the line-through-battery screen.

I have 5 bloody weeks left on my contract, and I will be damned if I am going to replace the phone. It doesn’t make sense to do so.

I assumed that the symbol showing on the screen was an indicator that there was no battery in the phone. Since the battery is virtually brand new (it and the trackball are the only things I have replaced in 3 years of ownership) and was holding a charge perfectly, I became concerned that something internal was wrong… maybe the OS was corrupted, or the contacts were bent. There is nothing visually wrong with the contacts, though… they are clean and in the positions they should be in. Unlike many BB users, I rarely do battery pulls, preferring instead to do the Ctrl-Alt-Del (well, Alt-RightShift-Del on the BB) to reboot it, so it isn’t like there has been a lot of wear-and-tear there. Still, I cleaned the connection areas with an eraser, made sure the contacts were up where they should be, poking them and lifting them with a toothpick.

Battery-with-a-line-through-it.

I’ve had 3 hours of sleep and had only noticed the phone problem because I woke up to pee. I’ve got a pounding migraine. I’m not firing on all cylinders – indeed, I’d call my condition substantially impaired right now. But, I turned on the computer and googled (and like an idiot, came here afterwards too).

The primary, most-recommended method to resolve this problem, according to BB forum users around the world? Read the rest of this entry »

It has come to pass recently that we’ve discovered that I may be a “supertaster“. I have almost all the hallmarks – cooked cabbage, brussels sprouts and kale make me gag (although I can eat raw cabbage). I dislike beer and several other forms of alcoholic beverages, eschewing them only for sweet mixed drinks. I can’t stand the taste of coffee. Soy products often give me a burning sensation in my mouth when I consume them. Although I love grapefruit juice and tonic water, it is the sheer intensity of the flavour that I like so much. I had no idea that three-quarters of the population didn’t drink grapefruit juice and go “OH YEAH… WHAT A RUSH!”

We’ve wondered if it was something that could be passed along to the kids. We thought perhaps my daughter was a supertaster, too, as she sometimes decides that a food she liked “tastes funny” and won’t eat it again. It’s hard to tell, though, as she seems to have some very mild Aspie traits she’s inherited from her mother (the discussion of mild Asperger’s/Autism probably could take a year of posts, so I won’t elaborate at the moment). So – it could be that she tastes things more intensely. Or it could be that she just simply has an internal on/off switch for certain foods when the mood strikes her.

A friend bought me a bottle of vitamin water today. I’ve had it before. I’ve never liked it. This was a different brand, so I decided to try it.

It tastes awful. HORRIBLE. It tastes like chemicals. I’m sure it tastes like the urine of someone who takes a lot of medications… that will surely be confirmed if I am ever inclined to taste urine. Read the rest of this entry »

2.5 stars out of 5.

I’ve loved playing The Sims for years, and I was delighted to find this social-networking version. I’ve been playing regularly since a few days after it went public. Sadly, as a “hard core” player, visiting many times a day has shown that many gameplay elements are severely broken.

As it’s a “social” game, you’re expected to share back-and-forth with your game “neighbours”. Unfortunately, the internal messaging/sharing system is severely broken. Your requests often won’t get to their recipients, and when they do your friends try responses frequently vanish. The game asks you to post your in-game milestones to your wall, yet it won’t let anyone CLAIM all the simoleons from those posts. There are situations where the integration with facebook’s messaging system causes the game to hang and other random crashes. Your sim’s condition completely unpredictable when you re-enter the game – I’ve left for 2 mins and found almost every stat red upon returning, while leaving for hours has left a virtually all-green sim. And I won’t even go into detail about the ridiculous real-money pricing on in-game items – to buy just a few of skill items, it costs more than it cost me to furnish my first real-life apartment! Considering there’s already sponsorship from Dunkin’ Donuts and other exceptional income opportunities from in-game product ads, EA is clearly being greedy, trying to make this a MAJOR cash cow (forget about the fact that it is an advertisement and gateway drug for their not-free-at-all-expansion-pack-ridden free-standing Sims games).

I don’t begrudge a business making money, but between the bugs and the outrageous SimCash store, I can’t endorse this at this time for anyone except those who may play for only a few minutes per week. Instead, buy The Sims 3 and ALL the expansions – it’ll be cheaper in the long run.