Ducky Momo

As my daughter gets a bit older, she is starting to develop some preferences of her own when it comes to cartoons and other television. One of her clear favorites to have emerged lately, one that she will actually ask for by name (thank goodness for On Demand) is Disney's Phineas and Ferb. Thankfully, this show is actually pretty fantastic, so I am more than okay with this. Recently, however, she started asking for a specific character from the show. She's been asking for Ducky Momo. Now, Ducky Momo is kind of just a running joke on the show, a toy that the title characters' big sister is in love with despite being a little too old for it. This video might give you something of an idea about the character:

My daughter, unlike Candace, is just about the perfect age for Ducky Momo, however, and she has latched on to him big time. So after she asked for him the umpteenth time, it dawned on me that maybe she needed a Ducky Momo of her own. I looked at a few pictures online and I thought that the character would lend itself pretty well to being an amigurumi (crocheted toy). I couldn't find any existing patterns, so I decided to just wing it. I have to say, I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Ducky Momo by Cori 2012

Side view. Note the toddler in the background to get an idea of scale.

I am kind of crazy proud of the little crown of feathers on top of his head. 

Yarn: Knit Picks Brava Worsted in Canary (one ball), Lion Brand Vanna's Choice Baby in Goldfish (one ball), some remnant worsted white and black for the eyes
Hook: US G

I knocked him out in a day and my daughter really seems to like him. She carries him around and shows him things and talks to him. It's really cute. Also, I think she was really just happy that finally she could actually play with one of the toys I made once it was done.

So, it was a bit of a sidetrack in my current blanket project, but definitely well worth my time, to be sure. Now I just have to find a window to make that Perry the Platypus I found a pattern for...

Are You Looking For Something To Do This Weekend?

If I might make a suggestion, I think you should go see John Carter.

Why, yes, that does mean that I liked it. Quite a bit, actually.

In fact, I thought it was a pretty darn fun movie. That seems to be a trend from the reviews and comments I've been seeing online as well. I suppose it could be selective reading. I mean, Flick Filosopher could not stand it, but while I can see where she is coming from and respect her point of view (unlike some of the insert-many-very-not-nice-words-here who decided to start a troll-fest in the comments section of her review), I do not agree with her overall takeaway. My experience with the film was quite positive, and it seems to me like the majority of the people who saw it enjoyed themselves.

Here are a few of the positive reviews I've come across:

io9: John Carter Will Dazzle You With the Best (and Worst) of Retro Futurism

Pink Raygun: John Carter Didn't Suck

Tor: Cynicism Aside, John Carter is a Charmer

Don't get me wrong, as a fan of the books, I had a few misgivings with some of the liberties they took, mostly because I thought they were either unnecessary or just weird choices. But if I'm being honest, I completely understand why either Disney or Andrew Stanton felt those changes needed to be made. In either case, the end result was, as I said, a very fun movie.

It's an adventure. It's a man who thinks he's lost everything struggling to accept an unexpected offer of new purpose. It's got aliens of many different shapes and sizes, ships that fly on light, some preposterous (yet fun) assumptions about how gravity affects a person from one planet to the next, and a woman who can hold her own with a sword and still do science better than the dudes. It's a real, honest-to-goodness, popcorn munching, laugh-out-loud, enjoy yourself movie. Completely worth the price of admission (though if you can find a 2D showing, I'd go for that unless you just really dig the whole experience of 3D).

Unless the negative hype you are hearing comes specifically from a person you know and who knows what you do or do not enjoy in a film, I advise you to make up your own mind. I think all of the negative press and poor marketing (and make no mistake, this film was marketed poorly when I look at the trailers and compare them to the actual movie) has set people up to expect it to fail miserably and therefore leads people to assume it is bad.

It's not. It turns out it is really kind of wonderful instead.

So, that's my two cents. If you're looking for a fun activity this weekend, good for pretty much everyone in the family, I vote John Carter.

It Keeps Me Young

I am by no means in the age range that most people would consider "old" but more and more lately I find myself reminded of the fact that I am in my thirties, and that isn't exactly young. As much as I know that I am a fundamentally different person than who I was a decade ago in a lot of ways, I don't really feel any different. Getting married and having a kid were both huge lifetime milestones that I felt should have changed everything about the way I look at the world and about how I perceive myself in relation to it. And yes, in some ways, they did, but throughout I still very much feel like me, like I haven't changed at all. It's funny that something so big just becomes your new normal so quickly and it becomes hard to remember just how different life really felt before it happened.

I mean, as much as my days revolve around my daughter and spending time with her and taking care of her, I don't ever really feel in my mind like what I expect a mom should feel like. Every once in a while I'll be doing something with Baby Girl, or I'll just get a glimpse of her making some face or discovering something new, and I'll be completely bowled over by the realization that this is my child. That my husband and I made her, that she wouldn't exist had my life not unfolded as it has. And that I am responsible for making sure she has every chance of growing up safely and happily and becoming a good person and a member of this crazy world we live in. It's a bizarre feeling. It's not like I ever forget that I'm a parent or anything, it's just that it's so much a part of my life I don't even ever think about it. So when I do, I am hit with a huge feeling of awe and wonder (and more than a little amazement that I've been entrusted with such a huge responsibility).

It seems like every day when I look in the mirror, the signs are there that I am getting older. More grey in my hair every day, and I've started to notice lines around my eyes and face. My body definitely doesn't have as much get-up-and-go as it did ten years ago. But none of that stuff bothers me. It surprises me from time to time, certainly, but I have no problem with aging naturally. I am not going to dye my hair to cover up the grey (I am actually kind of curious to see how long it takes to turn completely), and I won't be spending oodles of money on those expensive anti-wrinkle creams. I earned those laugh lines. I think that the biggest reason why I am not bothered by getting older is because in my heart and my mind, I am still a kid. 

As I grew up and my friends began to put away their childish toys and pursuits in favor of newer, more grown up, replacements, I only ever followed half-heartedly. I never let go of my love of toys and cartoons entirely, and while I did go through my party phase, I don't think there was ever a time I wouldn't have rather gone to see the new Disney movie (or stayed home to play with Legos while watching Powerpuff Girls) than to go out clubbing. I come by it honestly, I have grown to realize. I come from a long line of women capable of dealing with the responsibilities of adulthood while still holding on to "childish" pleasures. I think it lends us a little extra bit of happiness in our lives, to be honest. 

As I've grown up and moved even farther away from childhood, I've never stopped playing with and collecting toys or watching cartoons. My collection of Disney movies and other cartoons on DVD was quite impressive before my daughter came along, thank you very much. I have also, somehow, managed to seek out other people in my life who share the same outlook. All of my closest friends still embrace that "kid at heart" spirit to varying degrees. For a while I thought that everybody was like this, that everyone had some pursuit from childhood that they had kept with them when entering the realm of grownups. Sadly, I have learned that this just isn't so. There are a lot of people who frown on those of us who still play with toys or watch cartoons without the justification of entertaining a child in our care (and even quite a few who think that engaging in play with children is really just going overboard). I feel a little sorry for those people, to be honest. I am sure they have things that they take pleasure in, but no adult emotion can compare to that outright glee of childhood joy. It just can't. That's why you have to keep your inner kid alive in my opinion, because if you let her die, then you lose that sense of wonder about the world, and life is a lot less fun. There's enough doom and gloom out there for us grownups to deal with, if you ask me.

I also think that this outlook helps to make me a better parent (not than other people, but than I would be otherwise), because I can take just as much joy out of the things my daughter loves as she does. I can play with her and not be phoning it in. It gives us a chance to spend even more quality time together, which I am very thankful for, because, you guys, my daughter is awesome. And she's just going to keep getting even more awesome (then she'll become a teenager, but once she grows out of that, I fully expect her to be awesome again). We are standing here with all of the years to come spread out before us and the possibilities are endless. 

I used to worry that with her being a single child (we have no plans for more children) she would have difficulty learning some of the concepts that siblings are great at teaching--like sharing. But I don't so much worry about that anymore. For one thing, I am trying to remain mindful of those lessons and ensure that she gets to spend time around other kids so I can monitor her progress. For another, it never really dawned on me until recently that as much as I love to play with toys too, well, she's going to have to learn how to share with me. (Hey, there are plenty of ponies for both of us to play with.) As she starts to find all of my toys scattered around the house and claim them for her own, it's a good refresher in sharing for me as well, it turns out. Win-win.

I guess what it boils down to is that I would rather be young of heart than look young of body any day. As much responsibility as parenthood is, having my daughter around certainly keeps me young of heart. Now, if you need me, I'll be playing with my daughter...

Playing Kingdom Hearts (Again)

Well, I am a little over seven (game play) hours into Kingdom Hearts now.  I have finally beaten the boss in Wonderland and just dropped into the Deep Jungle to play with Tarzan for a while.  To be clear, I beat the Trickster (Wonderland boss) on my first attempt.  I just had to spend an hour running around a heartless infested level trying to figure out what bloody little step I had missed that was crucial to triggering the boss fight to actually start.  Sigh.

Already I am starting to remember some of the things that I love about this game.  I am also starting to remember some of the things that I absolutely loathe as well. Then, there are the truly bizarre aspects of this game that I had completely forgotten all about.  Guys, this is a seriously weird game.  Every time I don't play it for a while, I totally forget that fact, and then I start it back up and...wow.

Okay, let me backtrack a second.  First off.  This post is probably going to contain spoilers for the game if you have never played it before.  But, considering that it is around ten years old, well, I feel that spoilers are kind of moot at this point.  Also, bear in mind that I have never actually finished the game, so if there's any big huge reveal toward the end, then I can't spoil it for you because I haven't gotten there yet.  So, there's that.

Kingdom Hearts (henceforth to be known as KH) is a crazy blend of Final Fantasy-style characters (including a few actual FF characters) and random Disney franchises.  I have never played any FF (I know, I know, shocking, but way before my time, gaming-wise), but from what I can tell the game engine and game play are set up pretty much like a FF game.  I am still noob enough that I don't really know how to talk about that stuff in technical terms, so I am gonna mostly just leave it at that.

The story is this:  You play Sora, a 14 year-old boy who, along with his friends Riku (15) and Kairi (14, and his fervent crush), longs to explore worlds beyond his own.  One day, Sora gets his wish, though nothing like he had hoped or imagined it.  His world is overrun by a kind of foe known as the heartless and pretty much destroyed.  Sora somehow manages to wind up on another world, Traverse Town, after his own is destroyed.  He thinks Riku and Kairi got out too, but they are nowhere to be found.  So he decides to embark on a quest to find Riku and Kairi.  He also ends up with a weapon called the Keyblade (which actually is a giant key.  Yeah).  There is a lot of mumbo jumbo "You are The One" exposition.  Apparently the Keyblade is crucial to defeating the heartless and it has chosen Sora to carry out that work.  When Sora sets out, he teams up with Donald Duck (a magician) and Goofy (a knight).  They come from from the Disney Castle world and are looking for King Mickey, who has gone missing.  He left a note saying something strange was going on and they should find the one with the "key."  So, your party is formed.

The villains from various Disney films are the major villains throughout the game.  I'm talking about Ursula, Jafar, Hades, Captain Hook, and, of course, the biggest and baddest, Maleficent.  She is my favorite Disney villain of all time, so I love that she is the Big Bad of this game.  Anyway, the evil league of evil bad guys, for reasons I haven't quite determined yet, are kidnapping "princesses" from various worlds to do something with their hearts.  So along the way, part of your quest is to collect clues about what that is all about.  Since Donald and Goofy are looking for Mickey, so are you--and we learn early on that Mickey is looking for the research someone called Ansem did on the heartless, which has been scattered throughout all of the worlds, so you're also looking for that research.  And the final major plot-related quest (that I've stumbled across thus far) is that you are working to stop the heartless from getting to and destroying any more worlds.  So, with each world you go to, after you defeat the boss for that level, you have to use the Keyblade to lock off that world, closing off the heatless' avenue of access.  Phew.  That's a lot going on.

The first time I played this game, my husband (then boyfriend) and I rented it one New Year's weekend when his youngest brother (at the time still in high school) was spending the weekend with us.  The three of us played it together.  It is a single-player game, but we took turns on the different levels and stayed up all night for a few nights in a row playing.  We didn't get very far and then had to return the game, but I was hooked.  After my husband and I got married and had our own place, we used some of our wedding present cash to buy ourselves a Playstation 2 (that is the format on which I am playing this game, by the way).  We actually bought it on our wedding night--had an early morning wedding and didn't leave for our honeymoon 'till the next day so we opened gifts and went on a random shopping spree that evening, it was awesome.  I digress.  Anyhoo,, after we had the PS2, we bought a few games for it, including KH.  So then I started my first epic play through.  I played fairly steadily for a while and actually got pretty far in the game--I think I had cleared all of the worlds except for the final showdown on Maleficent's turf and was just running around trying to complete all of the side quests (I will find all 99 dalmatian puppies, dangit).  But then I got stuck trying to clear a tournament on the Coliseum level and walked away for a few days that turned into years.  There was no way I was going to pick it back up again and be able to remember enough to keep going against the Big Bad.  So last year I started playing again and got stuck in the Monstro level (yes, there is indeed a level where you get swallowed up by Monstro the whale.  It is frakkin' trippy because it looks like the inside of no whale I have ever seen, that's for dang sure) and walked away again.  

So.  Here I am now, on my fourth go through, and this time I am determined to finish it.   The obsession kicks in pretty quickly, and now that I've got a structured approach to playing video games, I find it a lot easier to break through those barriers that used to cause me to just walk away.  I am really not going for one hundred percent completion of all of the side quests or anything.  I just want to finish the main story line (and fine those darn dalmatians).  Then, finally, I can play the sequel that I bought ages ago and still haven't touched....and then I'll be done with KH and probably will be making a trip to Gamestop to trade them in, truth be told.  But still.  It is an unfinished chapter in my life, and I have really been motivated this year to clear some of those up.  I don't think I will finish the game before the year is out, sadly, but I do think I will finish it.

So, some of the things I love about the game:

The Disney Worlds:  As I said, each level is basically the world from a different Disney movie.  In the first KH you get to play through Wonderland, the Deep Jungle (Tarzan), the Coliseum (Hercules), Agrabah (Aladdin), Monstro (Pinocchio), Neverland, Halloween Town (The Nightmare Before Christmas), Atlantica (The Little Mermaid), and Hollow Bastion (Sleeping Beauty).  You do get to pick up a couple of characters from these worlds to join your party too (like Tarzan), though not a lot.  Mostly it's just you, Donald, and Goofy.  But it is really cool getting to run around in these worlds.  You are not by any means playing through the stories of the movies, though there are some elements from those that shape the goals of each level.  They are a lot of fun though, mostly.  I have to admit, both Wonderland and Atlantica annoyed the crap out of me.

Merlin and The Fairy Godmother:  They are your magic instructors.  How awesome is that?

The progression is not completely linear.  You get some wiggle-room in what order you get to do things, which I think is nice, especially for this type of game.  While there is kind of a story unfolding, it is hardly Mass Effect, so while there are some levels that are definitely easier than others, and some you should wait to do until you've done other specific levels (because of the loot or XP you pick up there), you still mostly get to have a say in where you go next.  Also, you can go back and revisit most worlds.  They are, in fact, set up so that you have to do this in some cases, if only to get all of the loot or fulfill all of the side quests, but that's okay.  It allows you (most of the time) to go back and check stuff out that you might have missed as well, or to hone skills you need to improve.

The puzzle-solving element:  Most of the console games I really enjoy all have a bit of a puzzle-solving element to them, and this is definitely no exception.   In order to get through some levels, or to find certain objects you need to examine everything around you and sometimes think outside of the box. 

I think really the big thing is the Disney characters and settings though.  I grew up on that stuff.  The release of The Little Mermaid was an epic life-changing event for me.  This takes those worlds and makes them interactive, which is really just cool.  Also, it gives you a variety of environments to play in, so there is a bit less monotony as well.

Before I get to the things I loathe section, I want to talk about some of the flat-out bizarre aspects of the game.

Monstro.  Okay, I mentioned earlier that I got stuck on Monstro during my third playing of this game.  At some point, you are traveling between worlds (in a spaceship, so presumably in space) and a big ol' whale comes along and swallows you up, a la Pinocchio.  There you run into the wooden boy himself, along with Geppetto, of course.  You get to rescue them from the whale, thankfully, but the doing so is...complicated.  The first part of the level, where Geppetto's got his ship, looks perfectly fine, it's what you'd expect the mouth of a whale to look like.  But then, to get out, you have to go run around in his innards (yeah, that's strange enough), which look like the inside of a black-lite riddled rave.  I am not kidding.  At all.  This is the part of the game where I always start to question the recreational habits of the art team, if you know what I mean.  It gives me a headache. 

Here is an image (found here) to demonstrate what I am talking about:

The whole frikkin' level looks like that.  It's freaky.

The Gummi Ship:  Okay, this, I just...do not get.  To travel from world to world (to start out) you have to use the Gummi Ship, which is piloted by Chip and Dale, of all people.  First off, I don't understand the name of the darn thing.  There is no reference or explanation.  Then, there is the artwork of the ship.  This whole game (even the Monstro section) is full of beautiful detailed graphics.  But the Gummi Ship?  Looks like a bunch of hastily assembled children's blocks.

Plus, you have to fight off rival Gummi Ships and wade through obstacle courses when you fly between worlds.  And you eventually unlock the ability to be able to make upgrades and customizations to the ship, or even build your own.  The ship that is only used to get from point A to point B.  Even more confusing to me is that by the time you learn to unlock the customization ability, you already have access to Warping, which allows you to avoid all of those in-between flight sequences in most cases.  I just don't get this.

The Magic System:  Oftentimes, it seems as if this game was designed so that your character has to be extremely proficient at magic.  But the system for using magic is clunky and inconvenient at best.  It's like the designers said, "Let's make magic the key to beating this game!" and then followed that up with, "But we don't want it to be too easy, so let's make it crazy difficult to actually use the magic."  You don't even start to learn how to use magic until just before you're off to your first quest world.  There are a lot of cool ideas in the magic system--you learn to summon various characters (Bambi, Simba, Dumbo, etc.) who will attack your enemies for you, for example--but they are just such a pain in the butt to use.  And your magic power runs out ridiculously quickly even if you make magic your character's focused strength, and doesn't replenish automatically over time.  You have to physically take a potion or collect dropped MP balls or go find a save point.  Grr. 

Okay then, now moving on to things I loathe about this game.

There is no exit.  The menu for this game contains no option to exit.  You have to save and then just turn the console off.  Not only is that annoying as heck, but it also makes me incredibly nervous that something will go wrong.  This...this was a horrible idea.  Whoever decided on that, or just forgot to build an exit command, needs a good kick in the shins.

The Gummi Ship:  I know, I know, this made two lists!  But here's why.  This is, to me, a primary example of RPG designers thinking that anyone anywhere playing a video game wants to drive something at some point in every game.  Okay, this is just not true.  Apart from Mario Kart I really totally hate driving games. If I am playing an RPG I want to run around with my character hitting stuff with a sword.  I don't want to be flying a space-ship through an obstacle course.

It is kind of too complicated.  Maybe convoluted would be a better term.  While I enjoy the puzzle-solving aspect of things, stuff is really not clearly spelled out and often hard to figure out.  And I'm not talking stuff for side quests.  I'm talking about key actions you need to take in order to trigger the next part of the plot and move the story (and game) forward.  I had initially thought that on this run-through I would try it without using a Walkthrough, because I have actually gotten pretty good at figuring stuff out, only needing to look up hints every now and again in games.  I quickly had to abandon that notion, however, and now have two Walkthroughs bookmarked on my toolbar.  And I often have to go do extra searches in the middle of playing when I get stuck.  And I am on the part of the game I have successfully played through four times already.  Come on folks.  Sadly, there is no easy setting on KH.  Just expert and normal.

Using items is a huge pain in the butt.  I don't know what else to say about this.  Your stock can hold a large (possibly unlimited, but I haven't tested that) amount of stuff, but you personally can only carry three items at a time, and once those items are used up, you have to stop and go to the menu to give yourself more, and the menu can't be accessed during battles.  You can equip items on the other members of your party, and you can configure their settings so they can use the potions on you during a battle, but that's tricky to find the right balance for.  Actually accessing an item you are carrying is a several step process, which is really freaking inconvenient if you are in the middle of a battle, need to drink a potion, and can't find a quiet corner to hide in while you do so, because there is no stopping the battle to issue commands or select items.  Sigh.

The camera.  Holy mother of God this thing blows big fat chunks.  That is all I am going to say about that.

So, I know that seems like there is a lot about this game that I don't like at all, and you're probably wondering why I am even still trying to play it.  Part of it is sheer stubbornness, I won't lie.  But it really is actually a fun game to play when everything is going smoothly and you aren't wandering around trying to figure out what to do next.  Also, now that I am coming at it with a slightly better understanding of basic game play (like leveling up, buying better equipment and weapons, and upgrading items), I am finding new aspects of it to enjoy.

It's going to be a long haul, but I am looking forward to that feeling of accomplishment once I finally put this sucker to rest.