I'm now Mario's dad

Sorry for the lack of blog updates lately. It's been pretty busy this week, with various deadlines and milestones coming up at work, and a few brushfires that had to be extinguished along the way.

To make up a little for things, here's an amusing slice-of-life anecdote for all the gamer geeks out there...

My son had his last day of school the other day, which made a perfect excuse to reward him with a brand-spankin' new Nintendo DS Lite as a reward for good behavior (and yes, it is as sexy as all get out). He also got copies of Nintendogs and New Super Mario Bros., so he could actually do something with it.

As I expected, he went for Nintendogs right away, which allowed me to perfectly deflect all of his recent "I want a pet" requests with a painless way to sample the responsibilities of dog ownership. When he finally came up for air, he was curious about NSMB; I'm not sure if the game is intimidating him, but he prefers to watch me play it than to try it himself.

Anyway, after a half-hour of NSMB, it was almost time for bed, so we turned off the DS and packed it up. Before I could corral him to the bathroom for a session with the toothbrush, though, he insisted on playing "a little more."

When I reluctantly agreed, he went to get his stash of Chuck E. Cheese tokens, then proceeded to lay them out on the floor in a dotted line towards his bedroom. Once he had that set up, he went to the start of the line, picking each one up with a *ding!* *ding!* *ding!* sound -- recreating Mario's collection of gold coins.

Like father, like son...