DarthClem's blog

My 5 year old daughter, 6 year old son and I played some more Viva Piñata this afternoon.  We decided that since Billbofett just got this game, we would send him a Piñata as a little "housewarming" gift.  The kids had a lot of fun dolling up a Bunnycomb with accessories.  Unfortunately, the game doesn't pause while you are typing (via the controller) the message that goes along with your packed up piñata.

I took today off as a vacation day, thinking the kids will be in school and the wifey will be out running errands -- and leaving me to get in several hours of Viva Piñata, Madden 360 Superstar mode, and some Wii.

Well, now we're expected to have 10" of snow by noon.  Schools and businesses are closed.  So much for my great plan....

Hopefully, I'll still get in some Viva Piñata today and will have a blog-worthy experience.

I took today off as a vacation day, thinking the kids will be in school and the wifey will be out running errands -- and leaving me to get in several hours of Viva Piñata, Madden 360 Superstar mode, and some Wii.

Well, now we're expected to have 10" of snow by noon.  Schools and businesses are closed.  So much for my great plan....

Hopefully, I'll still get in some Viva Piñata today and will have a blog-worthy experience.

What a week it's been.  I took the whole of last week off of work.  I got in a decent amount of Madden superstar mode, a lot of Gears, and a lot of Rainbow Six Vegas.  I also really made some progress on Viva Piñata and that was pretty rewarding.  I've realized that I can fill a 40 hour work week with gaming and not get bored.

What a week it's been.  I took the whole of last week off of work.  I got in a decent amount of Madden superstar mode, a lot of Gears, and a lot of Rainbow Six Vegas.  I also really made some progress on Viva Piñata and that was pretty rewarding.  I've realized that I can fill a 40 hour work week with gaming and not get bored.

I figured out how to get my buzzlegums to make honey in their hive.  I had to look up how to do it, and once I did, I immediately thought "duh, that was so obvious."  A lot of the discovery in this game comes down to common sense.  Apparently, the accessories you outfit your pinatas with can determine some of their actions in the garden.

I've achieved what appears to be a comfortable balance in my garden.  All of my pinatas seem to be getting along just swimmingly.  Wirlms, sparrowmints, buzzlegums, squazzils, bunnycombs, pretztails, and doenuts are living together.  The only time I have any fights is when some other creature wanders into the garden.

I also bought a pair of barkbarks and had them make a puppy.  I'm not sure what purpose barkbarks serve in the grand scheme.  They don't protect my garden from Sours -- I had to hire some "muscle" in the form of a nightwatcher and a daywatcher to help out with that.

I saw Happy Feet today. I wanted to see Casino Royale, but got out-voted by my 6 year old son and 5 year old daughter.

So how is it? Well, that depends on how many minutes you think singing and dancing penguins are funny and adorable. For me, that amount of time is exactly the length of the the theatrical trailer for Happy Feet. Seriously, this movie is pretty much 90 minutes of tech demo showing penguins singing and dancing.

I received my first Pinata challenge earlier today.  My mission: get 3 Sparrowmints bred in time for a party.  I'd been keeping my animals from getting out of control, so I only had 2 Sparrowmints to breed with and 2 days to create 3 offspring.

I took Ebin Flow's advice and restarted my garden.  I was about level 10 at the time and my garden was nothing but a big cage match to the death.  I was spending all my time either trying to break up fights or healing my creatures.