3:30am local time. I've been up since about 2:30, which is not bad, considering. We want to be at the bus stop around 7, and the hotel room is a disaster area, so this will give me plenty of time to pack up while Rhon and Clark sleep some more. After this weblog update, anyway.

Rewind. Being up so early yesterday morning, we figured we might as well hit the shops early. Rhonda had picked out a grocery store and a department store that she wanted to see. Planned to hit a coffee shop first, then stop by the gamestore for those Wario toys. On the streets by 7am.

Problem: nothing was open. Not even the Dunkin Donuts.

At the hotel, we winged it. We had a pretty good idea of his feeding and eating schedule, thanks to the info from his foster mom. So we fed him for the first time, played with him for the first time, walked around the room bouncing him for the first time. Changed his diaper for the first time, during which he peed on the hotel bed. Even though we have been working for this for years, it still felt an awful lot like we were a couple of first-time babysitters.

After a couple hours, we appraised him worthy of a quick trip to the Seoul Pizza Hut. Hold your complaints, it's only two storefronts down from the hotel, in the same block. He was fine during the entire jaunt, sitting open-eyed in the carrier watching his countrymen zip about. The manager at the Pizza Hut did some cutesy baby stuff with him while we waited for the take out. Had the same clerk girl who was so nice to us on our first visit. I don't know if this is Korean standard service orientation or just how they treat the illiterate Americans, but the clerks at both Pizza Hut and Outback reviewed our order with us after we placed it. To get through the language barrier, the pacing was not unlike how you'd talk to a two year old. "Large? Pan? Cheese? No drink. Take out." It was a fun little interaction.

OK, this is in the gift shop of the ANA Narita Hotel in Tokyo. This is precisely how I've always imagined Japan.

It's only been one week since Clark first touched US soil, and already we can't imagine life without him. It's a strange adjustment. Of course, pre-baby you have a cognitive idea of what baby life will be like - and every parent you see chortles and tells you how different your life will become - but there's always little things that you didn't see coming. We're not idiots. We knew there would less time to do X, Y and Z and more time devoted to Clark's well-being. The game now is to see how well we can integrate the people we used to be with the family we want to be.

Mike - always with the probing questions - asked me if there was anything about "Surprise! Parent!" that I didn't expect. I have to say, not a lot. Even at four months old, babies are a lot like the worst pet you ever had... always either sleeping, eating, whining or pooping. Laughing if you manage to debase yourself enough to amuse them. What I told Mike was, the biggest surprise was the amount of time Clark needs to be held and rocked. And always while standing; the lad won't accept any weak-kneed sitting. I had sorta assumed we could lay him on a playmat or sit him in a swing to calm him down... so that's really been the biggest unexpected requirement of parenthood so far.

The Nintendo DS rack is currently victim of diminished standards. There is nothing out there that is as novel, as playable, or as unique as it should be. Right now, if a DS game isn't an out-and-out GBA/N64 port with tacked-on stylus control, then you can bet it is under-developed, too short, yet speckled with flashes of brilliance.

Ah, the first 12 months of a brand new platform!

Every new first-party release has been hailed as the New Dawn of gameplay. Kirby Canvas Curse is the latest and the most well received DS title to date. (In my opinion, WarioWare: Touched is the more engaging game.) But that's what I mean about diminished standards. If Canvas Curse is your big triple-A game, you've got problems.

Is it a bad game? Not at all. It is an inventive combination of 2D platforming and quick-action stylus control with plenty of unlockables and a trio of completely different bonus games. But it is also entirely forgettable: filled with unusable power-ups, some downright frustrating levels, and an embarrassing stab at a storyline that I couldn't even call half-assed. As fun as it is while it lasts, it is not a game for the ages. Overall, the presentation is underwhelming, lacking the visual charm of Pac-Pix, the glib intensity of WarioWare, or the replay depth of Mario 64DS.

I think I played Paper Mario for about 7 hours today. Initially, it was while Clark was napping... then when he woke up but Rhonda didn't. Then the game endured some lengthy pauses while I fed and played with him. He seemed fairly entertained by it, during a couple sessions where he was calm enough to sit and watch the TV. Bright colors, little moving things, soft happy music. I wish Nintendo was more aggressive with soundtrack albums, because the various musics of Paper Mario are all great.

I only have one star to go before (I assume) the game ends. One thing I remember about the N64 Paper Mario: when the plot ended, the game ended. That's a huge problem in a wonderful little world like this one, full of sidequests and collectibles. So I'm trying to complete as much of the extra stuff as I can, just in case this Paper Mario also bails out on me.

Lately my Animal Crossing Log has generated a few nice emails, from people who are new to the game and perhaps looking for trustworthy non-cheaters with which to trade. When one kind soul (Hey Simon!) offered up a Basic Painting, I knew it was time to play again.

I was walking out of the local EB the other day and fell in line right behind a normal, everyday family. Middle-aged mom and dad / pre-teen kid, maybe 8 or 10. The dad had spotted the big Grand Theft Auto placard and sort of sniffed at it. Then - while holding his kid's hand, remember - started telling his wife about the Hot Coffee issue. His monologue started out like this:

"Grand Theft Auto. Pfft. Have you heard, kids can do something in that game that shows all kinds of pornographic content."

At that point, I wanted to jump in and ask for his definition of "kids" and "all kinds." I mean, "kids" to him could have meant "college kids" or even "teens", but I doubt it... the wife was already shaking her head in that frustrated disapproval common to these sorts of conversations. This is exactly how the Hot Coffee thing is getting parsed by well-meaning, confused parents. It's another black eye for Rockstar, another black eye for video games in general.

I certainly wasn't expecting much, but the Fantastic Four movie was much better than I would have guessed. As a fan of the comics, I thought it did a fine job of presenting the characters' personalities and it hit most of the hallmarks of the team - the in-fighting, the lack of secret identities, the sugary science. But what kind of weblog entry talks about things I liked? So...

Thing was comically, tragically short. Stupidly short. I think the Thing suit was actually shorter than Thing actor Michael Chiklis. The Thing looked great in the close-ups, when they used the much more animated and expressive face mask... but whenever he had to stand beside somebody else (somebody human), he was invariably shorter. They should have pulled some Frodo-and-Gandalf effects on the guy and made Thing at least a foot taller and broader than anybody else in the movie. Forgetting about his height (which the crowd scenes make impossible) he was very true to the books.

Since video games are now expected to be judged based on ancillary content that was developed but never included in the game as sold, I feel it is my duty to point out some distressing similarities between the All Ages Nintendo GameCube game Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door and the Mature rated Nintendo GameCube game Resident Evil 4. I offer no judgements, explanations or apologies for the screens below, I just present the data. Is it a coincidence that Nintendo's family-friendly Mario brand should dovetail with the bloody action and adult themes of the latest entry in the core Resident Evil series (or, "Resident of Evil Creek" if you work in politics)? Or is it part of Nintendo's new secret strategy to court older, more mature gamers with Xbox Live accounts who hang out at the mall on Friday nights until Mom swings by the food court entrance to pick them up?

Day of Vengeance #3. This is a fun one. First, some great voiceover by Blue Devil. I love his thought captions. Then a little journey towards a plot point with Detective Chimp, who I just realized I hear in my head talking like Lancelot Link. Who was voiced in homage to Humphrey Bogart.

There are some padded spots: an entire page devoted to BD dressing down a quailing Ragman, for one. Also, an uncomfortable exchange between the Chimp and Nightshade where he questions her magic ability. There's something not right about that entire conversation. It makes you feel like they scripted something else altogether, changed their minds after the art came back, and got stuck filling the word balloons with anything... almost like the speech stretching that goes on when they dub anime to make the English dialogue fit the Japanese mouthwork. I don't know, it just seems like something that should have been cut. Part of the fun of reading comics is the visual language of panels and layouts, obvious clues to important action and sequences... and the layout of this particular conversation makes it very important (there's a massive rendering of a skeptical Detective Chimp that takes up almost an entire page, a very dramatic shot), yet the actual verbiage comes off like reality TV contestant sniping.

Usually all of my tabletop gaming comes from my comic store with impulse booster pickups at Target etc. This month I bought a pair of new games from Toys R Us, one of which I'm actually pretty interested in. The other is just meh.

The good one is the Zatch Bell card game, which is something I bet you'll never hear again. These are relative terms. Zatch Bell wins because it has a gameplay hook that fascinates me. Now, I know almost squat about the TV show; I've seen it once or twice on Cartoon Network and it seems benign enough. Another Pokemon variant with DBZ action. I wasn't heading out looking for Zatch Bell merch. So me snapping up the card game went something like this:

We walk into Toys R Us and one of their ad flyers catches my eye. It has the Zatch Bell logo and the phrase "THE HOTTEST GAME OF THE YEAR HAS ARRIVED!" Remember, I'm in a TRU so naturally I'm thinking "video games" and I am highly amused to see somebody call a Zatch Bell video game the Hottest. The video game industry is prone to hyperbole, but with big titles like Zelda and GTA around, it would take extreme balls to call a licensed anime game the Hottest of the Year. So I pick up the flyer.

Really?

Doctor Octopus?! Who is posed caught in his fury against the Public Works Department, destroying a fire hydrant? Maybe he's fighting a reformed Wild Pack or Avengers-era Sandman and he plans to turn Sandy into that mud creature like when Sandman fought Hydro-Man. Gad, that was an awful time in comics.

We stopped by Toys R Us today (Clark's fourth visit! He's averaging one a week) and I picked up another Marvel Figure Factory set. The selection looked like the same packs that were there last time when I pulled Storm out of the Mystery Figure box. So, with 12 Mystery Figures, I estimated the odds of getting another Storm out of the same rack seemed awfully low.