School Lunch

Sarah invited me to lunch today. This week her school is serving lunches to parents too. For two pounds I had a turkey roast: turkey with gravy, potatoes, carrots and cauliflower. It was as good as I'd expect from a cafeteria, and better than some pub lunches I've had.

I tricked her into looking away and swiped her lemon meringue. She always falls for that. But after retrieving it she still let me have a bite.

It was nicely organised. Parents were brought into the hallway, where Sarah met me and escorted me into the lunch line. We got our lunch scrips and got served. The queues were slow but thorough because kids often forget things or need help. We found a table. Each table had a pitcher of water. As we ate, aides in pink vests swept past to mop up spills and clear away dishes. There was a loud background din, but for a group of first and second graders, it was very civilised - I didn't notice fighting or yelling. Sarah and I parted on the way to her playground (no parents allowed).

Vintage Gaming

It's a rainy day and Sarah and I have spent some time playing games on our PlayStation. Last weekend I got a collection of classic Atari games: arcade originals like Asteroids, Battlezone, Missile Command and Space Invaders, plus dozens of games for the Atari 2600 console.

I was eager to introduce Sarah to Pong as one of the first video games ever, and then play 2600 games like Combat that I used to play as a kid (well, a teen). I wasn't sure what her reaction would be - maybe she'd dismiss these primitive blobs and squeaks, having mastered much more sophisticated gaming - but she enjoys them.

Vintage games actually have a few advantages over modern ones for family gaming. They're short, so there's no waiting for load times, and we get to start over every few minutes. And the games are much more likely to support two players, often at the same time instead of taking turns. This is rare in current games.

I think those first generation games will live forever. They're simple and easily adaptible to new technologies (my iPod shipped with Breakout, and many can be played on mobile phones). But they're also very well-designed and fun to play.

Doh!

This is my shaving lotion:



And this is my hair gel:



And that's how I got shaving lotion in my hair this morning. I knew it would only be a matter of time.