Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Games: Just wrapped up Shatter on PSN. I’m in the middle of the review as I write this, but I will say that it's a fabulous little project and certainly one of the more desirable downloads on the service.
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It's basically Breakout or Arkanoid taken three or four levels higher thanks to razor-sharp graphics, game design that actually has strategy, layering, and nuance, and some absolutely kick-ass music. Seriously, those tunes are pumpin’. Recommended!
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TV: I loves me some Food Network, and I have to say that I'm diggin’ their latest show, What Would Brian Boitano Make? Starring the Olympic figure skater made even more famous by the infamous South Park ditty, he displays a highly irreverent sense of humor with an unorthodox, off-kilter style of production very similar to Alton Brown’s Good Eats.
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I cracked up several times during the first episode, and clearly Boitano has no problem making fun of himself. His recipes look great (although perhaps a tad too fatty for my taste) and he certainly knows how to entertain, even off the ice. Also Recommended!
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Misc: The wife and I have been looking for a new place to live recently. We really love the house we're in now, but the rent is going up and we already feel like we're paying more than we really want to. As a consequence, we're pulling up stakes but have been trying to stay in the immediate area. This is the first time either one of us has lived in a place where we have all necessary amenities within walking distance, and we've established a number of services (doctors, dentists, etc.) that we want to keep patronizing without having to drive across town.
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Last week, we did an intense grid-style search of the area, writing down phone numbers and calling every place that had a ‘For Rent’ sign in the window. We located a likely prospect almost immediately, went in and looked around the same day, and we both had decided that it was going to be a good thing. Afterwards, we gave notice to the current landlord and started making transition plans… we thought everything had been taken care of.
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Today when we went in to pick up the keys and sign the lease, one of the forms requiring a signature was a lead-based paint disclosure. It wouldn't have been a big deal since you usually find those required in a lot of older buildings, except for the fact that this particular one stated very clearly that the buildings had tested positive for lead. When I asked the leasing agent what had been done about the lead, she didn't have any information. I asked to see contaminant reports, or any paperwork the management might have had about abatement specialists coming in and cleaning the place up. She didn't have any, and wasn't able to produce any cogent responses.
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Granted, she told us up front that she wasn't the regular person in charge of the leasing paperwork, but alarms started going off in our heads and we had major second thoughts about our choice. With one young son in the house now and another that visits three times a year, the potential for lead exposure is nothing we want to gamble with, and doubly so if we ever decide to have another baby… instead of moving furniture in the afternoon like we had planned, we did another search and started calling more apartments.
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It wasn't exactly the way we had meant to spend the day and last-minute scrambling is never fun, but I think we have something workable and lead-free now… we'll see.
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