It’s been exactly one year since I wrote a post about my worries of losing Sierra to her biological mother. I’m happy to say that my fears never came to light. In fact, in some respects, it’s been the complete opposite: we’re adopting Sierra, and her mother hasn’t been heard from since that fateful court appearance.

Becoming a parent - an adoptive and biological parent - is finally starting to kick in. As the due date for our new baby comes closer, in addition to the date (still undetermined) for Sierra’s adoption ceremony, the words “daddy” and “mommy” are becoming more common, yet are still a bit unfamiliar. Sierra is becoming more confident in calling us by our respective parental identities, but one area that Christina and I need to work on is referring to each other by the same.

One of the goals I set for myself this summer was to get Sierra to read a book, without help, before she starts 1st grade on Sept 4th. She’s not quite at the level where she can read a book completely by herself yet, but I’m pretty sure that we’ll be able to get her there by the time school starts.

It’s funny to think that we’ve had Sierra for a year and a half. In some ways it seems like she just came to live with us; in other ways it feels like she’s been with us all along.

As gaming evolves, complexity and emotion become the name of the game. This game, BioShock, puts you in a role of (potentially) tremendous guilt - do you save the little girls to be the hero, or kill them to take their power for your own gain? Sick, yes, but also extremely interesting.

I’m really looking forward to the openness of the game, including how you want to upgrade yourself. As you go through the game, defending yourself against (or savagely attacking) both machine and man, you can biologically modify your character to grow magical abilities like command lightning bolts and shoot bees out of your veins. Seriously - bees. You can even alchemize your own bullets and hack into security systems to make enemy machines your ally.

I was really looking forward to Metroid: Prime 3, which comes out just a week after BioShock. Unfortunately, I can’t afford both, so I need to make a choice. They’re both in the first-person shooter genre, but never before has a shoot-em-up offered so much open-ended freedom as BioShock. For that reason, BioShock is sitting at the top of my wishlist right now. (Plus, I can always rent Metroid: Prime 3 and buy it once I’m done with BioShock; it’s much harder [dare I say, practically impossible?] to rent PC games.)

BioShock comes out on August 21 for both PC and Xbox 360.

Here’s some gameplay footage:

Fuel, with new lead singer Eric Draven. Er, Toryn Green, as he’s known to his parents.

(for comparison)

Thanks to Dré - the idea was all his.

Practically anything can be appraised as art; it is the audience’s reaction to a particular thing that makes it so. No one can legitimately say that something is or isn’t art without turning the conversation into an argument; realistically, there’s no sense in arguing about art because there is not one true answer with which it can be defined. However, as human nature begs us to explain the inexplicable such as moths driven to fly to the flame, in an attempt to vaguely create a feeble finite formalization for art in the loosest of limitations: art is, simply, subjectivity at its finest.

We considered it all month long, but there’s nothing quite like waiting until the last possible moment to plop down a significant chunk of change on a new vehicular device. Considering the interest on our previous loan, we decided to take advantage of a great interest rate from our credit union on a vehicle that would do us well in fuel economy and cargo room. With those criterions in mind, the Pontiac Vibe was the perfect fit for us.

I’ve always had a particular liking for the Vibe (which, by the way, is practically exactly the same as the Toyota Matrix - they’re made in the same factory - but the Vibe is priced better). It’s sporty, extremely fuel efficient (about 34 MPG), and practical. We ended up with a 2006 Vibe Sport, complete with a sunroof, alloy wheels, and a 6 disc CD changer. I actually use my MP3 player combo’d with an FM transmitter, so the CD changer really doesn’t do me much good, but at least it’ll add to the resale value. What’s more, there’s still the original factory warranty remaining, AND our new Vibe is certified so the warranty is actually better than the standard factory warranty.

All of the seats, except the driver’s seat, fold completely flat. That’s really going to rock for those rare times when we actually need to lug something around but don’t have a truck to do it with. The Vibe is really easy to drive - so much so that, after a full day, I’m still adjusting to the anti-lead-foot mentality that I had with the Bonneville (our previous vehicle). All in all, I am very pleased with this purchase so far. Here’s to many years of good times with this vehicle.

I also got a new betta fish that I named Spiderpig, but that’s not nearly as cool as a new car. Sorry PETA, but it’s true.