Kieran

Oct 30

The Life of Toonami!

By Kieran Kieran 2 Comments »

Hey Otakus, I thought I’d Break away from video games and talk about something even better, Anime. I’ m gonna talk about the one thing that truly enlightened everyone in America to Japanese Cartoons.

In 1997, Cartoon Network replaced it’s old 2 hour block of shows with a new one entitled Toonami. It was hosted by the cartoon character Moltar, of Space Ghost fame. When It began, there was little Anime, but that would soon change. In 1998 was when actual Anime like Robotech and Sailor Moon started airing. The next year, Toonami would get a new look and host. This is the Toonami everyone remembers. The Host’s name was Tom, and everything takes place on a giant ship called the Absolution. Toonami would have Tom introducing the next show in the Absolution, and then you get your Anime action. Tom was a small robot who was tasked with transmitting Toonami to kids all over America. Toonami had many little specials like the Toonami Midnight Run, which would show unedited Anime at, of course, Midnight. Toonami’s golden age was great.

For a minute, I want to talk about the evolution of Tom.

As I said before, he began as a small blue and white robot aboard the Absolution. In 2000, Tom became a star in miniseries’ you could watch on tv, or on the internet. They were called Total Immersion Events. The first event, called The Intruder, featured two important storyline additions to Toonami as a whole. One, it introduced SARA, the AI matrix in charge of the Absolution, and two, TOM DIES! Kind of. The titular Intruder, a big red blob, destroys the original Tom unit, so SARA transfers Tom’s data to a new and improved Tom 2.0, a sleeker, darker looking model. A few years later Tom got another upgrade, an even more mature, tall and dark suit. Sadly, the more mature Toonami and Tom didn’t last long. Cartoon Network was worried that “mature” Anime was on at a time younger kids could watch them, so Toonami was pushed until later at night, and the 4 hour time slot of Toonami was replaced with Miguzi, which was really, really bad. As for Toonami,they replaced the good shows with younger aimed shows for “kids my age”, but I’m sure everyone liked the older aimed version better. I mean what kid my age wants to watch Bo-Bo-Bo-BoBoBo, Zatch Bell,Prince of Tennis, Blue Dragon, Noir, and the 4kids dub of One Piece that I despise with a passion! Oh 4kids, I’LL GET TO YOU LATER!! So anyway, Tom was turned into a mix of Thomas the Train and a Gundam with a dopey expression on his face. After the change in Toonami, all the good Anime was moved to Adult Swim… Anime being shown on Adult Swim usually was and still is rated TVPG!

Toonami didn’t just have Total Immersion Events,or TIEs, and The Midnight Run. They had crazy sneak peeks into upcoming shows, music videos, and Anime montages. The narrator for some montages was even Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime (No I don’t mean from the horrible movie)! They later even did Game Reviews! Some you can tell are totally biased though (Super Mario Sunshine 10 out of 10). Toonami was great! Why am I speaking about it in past tense now you ask? Well…

The truth is, licensing Anime can be expensive, and if ratings aren’t high enough, networks will stop showing them. Adult Swim stopped airing Family Guy on Saturdays and just aired Anime all night. Ratings TANKED! That was the point where Cartoon Network held back on it’s Anime. They just didn’t see the profit in it. Still trying the waters, Cartoon Network did something truly genius on Toonami in March 2006. Month of Miazaki. Toonami aired an entire month of films by the acclaimed Anime director, Hayao Miyazaki, the master of Anime movies. This really helped establish Toonami as the go-to place for Anime. Toonami Jetstream also started that year, giving you Anime online, but sadly, it seemed to be too little, too late. Slowly but surely, Toonami began to strip away. Going from a 4 hour block at 2pm to a 2 hour block at 9pm. On Saturday September 20, 2008, Cartoon Network canceled Toonami and replaced it with CN Real (LAME!!!!!). Toonami Jetstream lasted until January 2009. At the end of Toonami’s final airing, Tom left the Absolution with one final monologue. “Well, this is the end beautiful friends. After more than eleven years, this is Toonami’s final broadcast. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’d like to thank each and every one of you who’ve made this journey with us. Toonami wouldn’t have been anything without you. Hopefully we’ve left you with some good memories. So, until we meet again, stay gold. Bang.”

I’ll miss you Tom.

Hey, I think I’m Forgetting something. Let me think… Oh! I think it has something to do with this.

Next Time…

Tagged with: Anime

Oct 02

Ludington Labor Day

By Brian Brian, Declan, Kieran, Linda, Owen, Vacations 1 Comment »

We took a little vacation to Ludington over the Labor Day weekend. Linda and I used to visit Ludington quite a bit. Even after Kieran was born we went a number of times. We even camped in the state park back then. However, we haven’t been back to Ludington for a stay since we became a family of five. It was nice to be back!

We surrounded our one night in Ludington with nights in Reed City. So we headed up to Reed City on Friday night. We had dinner at home and then hit the road. We thought maybe Declan and Owen would sleep in the car if we got a later start. That didn’t work all that well, but it was worth a try. Saturday we got ourselves over to Wrights Bake Shop for breakfast. We got enough to take with us for the next day too. It’s always great to visit Wrights!

We made the hour drive to Ludington and got there around lunch time. What to do for lunch?! Linda got a brilliant idea. She suggested we got to Bortell’s. If you ever go to Ludington during the Summer you must eat at Bortells. We were introduced to it by the proprietors of Bed and Breakfast at Ludington where we used to stay. It’s a little way out of town, but quite popular. They do seafood. You pick what you want from their display case, then they take it out and fry it up right in front of you. Oh it is good!

Bortells is on South Lakeshore Drive along Lake Michigan outside Ludington. There isn't much parking in the lot.

Because Bortells is so popular, there are usually cars parked along the road.

There is no inside seating at Bortells. If you want to sit down and eat, there are picnic tables outside.

We got two orders of whitefish, an order of shrimp, an order of fried mushrooms, and an order of fries. Yum!

Something's fishy

Since there are five of us these days, our favorite B&B isn’t as good an option any more. So we opted to rent a cottage for the night. The Lakeview Cottages owners were nice enough to rent to us for a single night at the last minute. It was the end of the season so they helped us out. Our cottage (#3) was nice. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but inside it’s good. The kids weren’t sure about the lack of TV, but that’s just fine for Linda and I. It does have Wifi which works for the two of us.

Our cottage was actually the back portion of this corner building.

Here are the boys outside our cottage door.

After we got our stuff unloaded we walked a couple of blocks down to Stearns Park. That’s the city’s lakefront park. The wind was pretty strong, and it had been for a while. It had blown lots of sand off the beach across the parking lot into the grassy part of the park. It was also causing big waves that were crashing up over the north breakwater. We thought it was crazy that there were actually people out on the breakwater while those waves were present. Our common sense was right. On Monday, after we’d returned home, a tourist was out on the breakwater and a big wave swept him right off into the lake and he drowned. You should never underestimate the power of the lake!

Waves Over the Ludington North Breakwater

The waves are crashing over the breakwater and common sense is apparently absent.

I thought the sky was amazing.

Just a small sample of the sand blown off the beach. The city spent the next week putting it back.

After we walked the length of the park we were at Ludington Avenue. So we headed up the street and checked out some of the shops. It didn’t take long for the kids to get bored with that. We had dinner at the Jamesport Brewing Company. A walk in the dark back to our cottage was fun. When the kids weren’t being raucous we could hear Lake Michigan a couple of blocks away.

Sunday was Big Sable Point day. We had the Wrights goodies that we brought with us for breakfast, picked up some lunch at Subway, and then drove out to Ludington State Park. We parked at the Lake Michigan beach and started our walk to the Big Sable Point Lighthouse. To get to the light you either have to walk along the beach or a state park road. You cannot drive out to it. The walk along the beach is much more fun so we do that. On the way out there was much “I cannot walk one more step” heard from the children. It got better once we walked far enough for the top of the lighthouse to come into view.

Kieran and Mom had lots to talk about on the way to the lighthouse. You can just see the top of it over the grass.

A little further down the beach, now it looks like a lighthouse.

Now the color bands are more visible. The kids were getting more excited at this point.

The fog signal is visible on the left now.

Keepers quarters starting to rise out of the grass.

This view gives quite a different perspective. I didn't realize somebody was looking down at me until after I took the picture.

We paid the keepers and climbed those stairs to the top of the tower.

Hold on to your hats! It's windy up at the top of the lighthouse.

Looking toward the lake from the top of the lighthouse. The replica fog signal structure doesn't actually have a fog signal in it.

This is the view behind the lighthouse from up top.

Looking down at the Keepers Quarters from the top of the lighthouse.

Looking Back Where We Came From Atop Lighthouse

This is the view back in the direction we came from.

Ludington State Park Beach Near Lighthouse

Looking down the beach we walk to get to the lighthouse.

We sat down for lunch in the shadow of the tower, but the shadow moved.

From the shadow of the tower the sun cast a bright glow from behind the top of the tower.

There's no bathroom in the Keeper's Quarters, but there is a very fancy outhouse.

This huge tree stump is between the lighthouse and the outhouse

As we started to walk back from Big Sable Lighthouse I spotted this out on the lake.

On the way back from the lighthouse everybody eventually removed their shoes and walked close along the water.

Just can't resist the sand.

One of us was holding this kite for our walk out and back to the lighthouse. There's no better place to fly a kite.

It was a beautiful day to walk along the water. The sun was shining and it wasn’t too hot or cold.

We made it back to Reed City for dinner with Grandma and Grandpa who came up that day. After a nice evening with them the kids slept well. The fresh air and walking helps with that. Monday it was time to head home. It was a short vacation, but a great end to the Summer.

Tagged with: Big Sable Point Lighthouse • Bortells • fb • Lakeview Cottages • Ludington • Reed City • Wrights Bake Shop

Sep 25

First Day of School

By Brian Declan, Kieran, Owen, School No Comments »

Kieran about to walk out the door to catch the bus.

The Summer has come to an end. How can that be?! I’ve got pictures from our Labor Day vacation in Ludington to post, but I thought I’d get the boys first day of school pictures up first. It’s only two weeks since they started. That’s not so bad for me.

I can hardly believe that Kieran is now a Middle Schooler! He has been really happy with the change of schools. He’s meeting new people that came from the other elementary schools, he’s got a good groups of teachers, and he’s got many more options in the cafeteria for lunch! He’s already been placed into the advanced Language Arts and Math classes.

It has been a little weird around the house in the morning. Up until this year nobody else has been awake when I’m leaving for work. Because the Middle School bus is much earlier than the ones for elementary school, Kieran and Linda are now up with me. It’s nice to have the company, even if it’s only for a few minutes before I go out the door.

Declan and Owen First Day of Kindergarten Outfits

Declan and Owen got all buttoned down for their first day of Kindergarten

At the same time that Kieran is starting a new school, Declan and Owen are starting school for the first time! They are now in Kindergarten. Even after a couple of weeks, I still can’t believe that.

The first day of Kindergarten was only an hour long. Linda and I took them to school to meet their teacher and get to know their classroom. They went from station to station on a scavenger hunt. It was fun, and I enjoyed getting to see things too.

The second day was the first time that they rode the bus. Their bus comes about an hour and a half after Kieran’s. I went in to work late so I could go with them to the bus for the first time. They were very excited! It was a nice day outside too. After we got them on the bus and it pulled away, Linda and I were both amazed that this day had come. They aren’t old enough for this already are they?!

Declan and Owen First Day of Kindergarten Backpacks

The boys and their new backpacks are ready to go

It was a little hard for the two of them to adjust to their new schedule. They are full day kindergarteners. So they are getting up earlier than they used to, and spending quite a lot of time away from home five days a week. There have been a few emotional moments as they get used to things, but I think they’re doing fine. During the first week both of them said they wished school wasn’t full day, but I haven’t heard that much lately.

Those last two stars say Declan and Owen

So new schools all around this year. So far so good. Happy learning guys!

Tagged with: Childs Elementary School • fb • Lincoln Middle School

Sep 13

Visiting Grandpa Harrie

By Brian Brian, Declan, Kieran, Linda, Owen, Vacations No Comments »

Our big Summer vacation was a trip down to Tennessee to spend a week with Grandpa Harrie. It was the first time in Tennessee for Declan and Owen. Everybody had a great time. Amazingly, nothing got broken in Grandpa’s house!

We made sure to get a picture with Grandpa before the week was over. Amazing that everybody smiled!

Owen and Declan spent a lot of time doing dances like this. They were having fun!

We didn’t go on the trip with any plans as to what we would do while we were there. That’s pretty typical for us. Trying to stick to a schedule just seems like work. Where’s the vacation in that?

Grandpa’s house is a short walk away from a place called the Custard Cabin. It’s pretty good stuff. Since the weather was extremely hot while we were there we thought it would be great to walk up there in the evening when it started to cool off.

There's a big valley followed by a big hill in the road out of the neighborhood.

Walk up the big hill, turn left, and just a short way up the main road is that big cone calling you toward it.

They have a table just the right size for Declan and Owen out on the porch.

Kieran sat with us at the porch counter.

One day we stopped at a road side stand selling peaches. The peaches were very good, but the reason I mention it is that the woman running the stand asked us “Have you been to the tree house?” Huh? What tree house? She told us there was a local minister that was building a huge tree house because God told him to. She said it’s open for people to climb though for no charge. When we got back to Grandpa’s house we looked it up on the Internet. It looked really impressive so we decided to check it out the next day. It’s called The Minister’s Tree House. Here are some pictures.

There's a chapel inside where they hold church services some Sundays.

Minister's Tree House - The Main Stairway

This is the main stairway that spirals all the way up to the top. That's 10 levels up. Other stairs are located on various levels.

Most of the structure has walkways around the various levels like this one.

Minister's Tree House - Looking Down at Owen & Mom

Declan and I were not all the way to the top, but we were looking down at Owen and his Mom.

Minister's Tree House - Family at the Top

If you look real close you can see Linda, Kieran, Declan, and Owen looking out from the top floor window.

Minister's Tree House - Closeup on Family at the Top

Add a little zoom and you can see them all looking down at me.

Minister's Tree House - View Through the Trees

I tried to capture the whole thing, but it's hard to see it through the trees from this side.

Minister's Tree House - View From The Front

When you go around to the front (or is it the back) you can stand back and really get blown away by the size of this tree house.

If you get the chance to visit Crossville, it’s worth a stop at the tree house. You’ll be impressed.

They recently opened a brand new public library in Crossville. We like libraries so, of course, we had to check it out. It’s a really nice place.

The new Crossville Public Library

You can sit out on that balcony and read in a rocking chair. At least if it’s cooler than it was when we were there. The children’s department has a round area where they’ve setup former carousel animals and carts and things that the kids thought was great.

Declan on the carousel pig

Owen on the carousel horse

Cumberland Mountain State Park isn’t too far from Grandpa’s house so we decided to go hiking one day.

Cumberland Mountain State Park Byrd Lake

This is the lake created by the bridge/dam in the park.

This is the bridge/dam that creates the lake.

Cumberland Mountain State Park - Hiking 1

Setting out on our hike.

Cumberland Mountain State Park - Hiking 2

The boys stopping at the stream on the trail.

Cumberland Mountain State Park - Hiking Cable Bridge

There's a cable bridge at the far end of the trail that we hiked. The twins were a little freaked out by this.

Cumberland Mountain State Park - Hiking Rock Outcropping

There were several of these large overhanging rock formations along the trail. The Tennessee rocks are just amazing.

We have cousins that live closer to Nashville and we decided that we needed to get over to visit them on this trip. We spent the day with them and their new baby. It’s the third girl for them.

Visiting Sarah and Justin - Linda and Makenzie

Linda got her baby fix with Makenzie

Visiting Sarah and Justin - Kieran and Makenzie

Kieran wanted to hold Makenzie as much as possible

Visiting Sarah and Justin - Proud Parents

Had to get a shot of the proud parents with the new little one

We had a lot of fun on our trip. The drive there and back got a little long at times, but everybody survived. Grandpa was happy to have us and it sure was nice getting to see him for an extended time. Hopefully t won’t be so long before the next trip!

Tagged with: Crossville • Crossville Public LIbrary • Cumberland Mountain State Park • Custard Cabin • fb • Grandpa Harrie • Minister's Tree House • Tennessee

Aug 27

Top 5 Best and Worst Comic Book Super-Hero Games Ever!

By Kieran Kieran, Video Games No Comments »

Hey Koopalings! I just thought I’d share my thoughts about what the best and worst comic book games are.

Best 5

Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction for PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox

X-Men the arcade game

Spider-Man for PS, N64, PC, Game boy Color, and Dreamcast

Spider-Man 2 for PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox

Marvel Vs Capcom 2 for Dreamcast, Xbox, PS2 and arcade

Now for the Worst 5

Spider-man 2 Enter Electro for PS

X-men for NES

Spider-Man for Atari 2600

Catwoman for Xbox, Gamecube, PC, and PS2

And here it is, the most abysmal super-hero game ever…

Super-Man 64

Tagged with: Comic Book • Superhero

Aug 21

Mountain Dew Taste Test

By Brian Brian, Declan, Kieran, Owen No Comments »

Going through the checkout lane today we spotted individual 20 ounce bottles of Mountain Dew Throwback. When the inevitable “Can we get some?!” was uttered, I decided it might be fun to do a little taste test. So we got a bottle of the throwback formula and a bottle of the current day formula.

Original Recipe Throwback on the left. Current day recipe on the right.

The label on the throwback bottle is certainly more interesting than the new one. The main difference between the two drinks is how they’re sweetened. The current day recipe uses high fructose corn syrup, the ubiquitous, highly processed goo that seems to be everywhere today. The throwback recipe uses sugar. Imagine that!

All three boys took part in the test along with me. Everybody got a couple of ounces of each of the drinks placed in front of them. I probably shouldn’t have told them which was which, but they knew. In the picture the throwback is in the red cup. The modern formula is in whatever the other cup is.

Owen, Declan, and Kieran are ready for the taste test

Everybody drank the throwback first. The feeling among the boys was that the throwback was sweeter. It was their unanimous choice. I really couldn’t tell the difference between the two. After the first couple of drinks I just sensed no difference. After another try of each I finally noticed a subtle difference. For me, as soon as I swallowed the current formula the flavor was pretty much done. With the throwback formula it seemed that the flavor stayed with me longer. The sugar must do a better job of coating the tongue. That’s my theory.

Can you tell which Mountain Dew is which?

So there you have it. The four of us all felt that Mountain Dew Throwback is better than the modern formula. However, I still prefer Diet Mountain Dew to both of them.

Tagged with: fb • Goo • Mountain Dew • Sugar • Taste Test

Aug 21

Cousins At An Engagement

By Brian Declan, Family, Kieran, Owen No Comments »

On July 31st we headed over to Northville. The occasion was an engagement party for my cousin Carissa. I’ve sent the pictures I took of the happy couple and the games that were played during the party off to them. What I’d like to share here is a couple of pictures of the younger cousins.

Lauren and Kieran are the oldest in the back. Megan, Owen, Declan, Rachael, and Logan are on the bench.

I tried to get a couple of pictures. By this one the squirmies had already begun

It was fun watching them play together. If you are in the Northville area and you need a park for an outdoor party, you should look into ITC Community Sports Park. It’s a Novi park with a Northville address. I’m confused.

Tagged with: fb • party • Playground

Aug 19

The Zelda Zone: Ocarina Of Time Review

By Kieran Kieran, Reviews, Video Games No Comments »

Hey Koopalings, I’m happy to say that my first game review will be The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time for the Nintendo 64 I’m not going to spoil anything for those who haven’t played it.

You know something's gonna happen when you open this box

First off, Let’s think back to what games were like in 1998, There were pretty big games back then, like Super Mario 64, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Goldeneye 007, but this game blew those away with it’s complete non- linearity, tons of side-quests and just overall amount of content.

I wonder if I can go through that waterfall?

Now lets think about the music. The composer of this game is a legend! This game features the greatest song I’ve ever heard. If you want to hear the music, go here. Some tracks have been in Zelda games ever since. Tracks like Gerudo Valley and Zelda’s theme music are just so good. And let’s not forget, this game’s music is not just a background thing. You do a vast majority of things by playing an OCARINA. It’s such a good idea! Playing the ocarina in this game feels great as well. When you really think about it, using an instrument in a full roaming action-adventure game may sound weird, but Nintendo made it work extremely well, and using it actually feels great.

Adult Link and the Ocarina of Time

Now for the main characters. Link: The hero forest boy who does not talk, Saria: Link’s friend from the forest, Princess Zelda: the princess of Hyrule that sends you on your quest. Ganondorf: Evil Gerudo wizard. Epona: Link’s horse.

Up next, the controls. I really want to, but I have not played this game with the original Nintendo 64 controller,

Just look at this weirdo

I’ve played it with this,

Much more modern!

on the Wii’s virtual console, which, as you can probably tell, makes gameplay much different. In this game,the A button makes you roll, read, get someone to tell you stuff, and a lot of other stuff. the B button swings your sword, the analog stick (left on the Wii Classic Controller Pro) Moves Link, the C buttons (right analog stick for Wii) selects items, the Start button (the + button for Wii) brings up the menu subscreens. I’m not sure how comfortable the original N64 controller is to play with this game, but the Classic Controller Pro works great.

Like all other Zelda games, there are lots of hard puzzles in temples and even towns and Hyrule field! Using your ocarina to reveal a hidden hole in the ground is really cool. The ocarina songs will be drilled into your head by the end of the game because you use them a lot. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though because they’re good songs. This game is also pretty hard. Bosses can get really hard especially PHANTOM GANON!!!

The almighty epicness of the Triforce cannot be matched

To wrap it up, everything in this game is amazing. The music, the action, the story, the overall amount of content.

This game gets a 10 out of 10 and completely deserves the accolade Masterful.

Tagged with: Zelda

Aug 19

Reviews are back!

By Kieran Kieran, Video Games No Comments »

Hey Koopalings! I’m back and ready to review things on a much larger scale. This time, I’m reviewing video games. I’m a huge Legend of Zelda fan, so naturally I’ll review those games pretty soon. Hope you like the reviews, I’m trying hard to get them out as fast as I can.

Jun 24

Dexter Day

By Brian Brian, Declan, Holidays, Kieran, Linda, Owen, Work No Comments »

Last Saturday, the day before Father’s Day, Linda worked all day. So the boys and I went into Dexter to visit her in the late afternoon. We finally got a chance to visit Warrior Creek Park which is right behind the Dexter District Library. After that we went to the Dexter Pub for a Father’s Day dinner, just a little early. A nice day in a nice place with the family!