Babysitting

So family time on Saturday followed by babysitting the Bratii. I managed to keep them out of the way of the family by showing them that the normal human brain has difficulty counting above 6. Demonstrated by asking them to count various high and low figure objects around the room, there are two screws, three panels, four panels, two vases etc. Minor thought this silly until I asked him if he'd counted each of the vases "One, two?" he answered no, so I asked him how he knew there was two of them this caused an Oo moment.

Major impressed me by equating this 'instinctive' knowledge by how we raise out arms you just "Do it" I added how easy it is for us to walk and pointed out how difficult it has been to teach robots how to do the same.

In a continued effort to explain why it's important to understand how and why your brain works I explained why the human eye is wired backwards, the blind spot caused by this and tried to demonstrate saccadic masking with a mirror. Abit much for Minor, but Major seemed interested and called for Minor to stop interupting me.

Bratus Minor seemed interested in my Earth globe, he likes spinning it around and seeing the different minerals, but this time he was reading the countries. An aside to Major had him laughing because after reviewing the globe Minor attests that there's "at least 10 countries" on the planet. "I challenged him to name 10, then 5, then 1 - "America" [sigh] "Technically America is a continent not a country. I'd have thought you'd could have started with the country you live in" "I like America" came the response.

This prompted a game of find the country and we went through Egypt, Japan, Germany "I know that - it's in the sea" New Zealand and several others. Major was still laughing at this until I shut him up by asking him to name 10 countries that hadn't already been named. "England, Wales, Scotland..." "Nope I won't accept that I will accept United Kingdom as one though".

Minor rushed back to the globe to find some more while Major struggled "France, umm Iran" long pause "I thought you'd get the other one" I said. He looked puzzled. "Ends in a q" piped in his father. More puzzlement "Iraq" I said. "Oh... Afghanistan" nice train of thought there. I rattled of a couple more and he added Turkey after I'd mentioned Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. By this time the two had 8 apiece though Major complained that Minor was cheating by using the globe. "I'm just impressed he can read it" I countered. The contest wasn't aided as this time the entire family was joining in. "It's easier for you" cried Major."Why?" I asked, he didn't respond.

Anyway they both managed to get their 10, but I asked Major for one more and he stalked over to my globe and spun it "Madrid!" Oh dear. Having fun we carried on in this vein for a while working our way past Europe down into Africa and the South America. "Does Gibraltar class as a country?", "Hawaii is a state" etc.

Exhausting that Minor told me he was excited as he was inheriting Major's PS2. The reason for this is that he's getting an XBox360 for his birthday; I joked that he wouldn't be able to borrow my games, but I don't begrudge his choice as that's what his friends have got. He'd have liked a PS3, but recognised the fact that it's £150 more so out of range; though he did wistfully mention his friend who had both.

[Heh he also went into a lecture about all the things that the Xbox can do that the PS3 can't and asked for one thing the PS3 does that the XBox doesn't "Keeps working" I replied" much laughter as he admitted one of his friend's had red-ringed and that he would get frustrated and throw things at it every time it crashed]

Anyway he's very fond of Prototype which he'd tried out on his friend's XBox, but again recognised he wouldn't be allowed it as it's classified 18. To rub salt into the wound I told him InFamous was better and only a 16 (some of which he's allowed) but it's a PS3 exclusive. We then loaded up an Infamous save game so he could blast things to his delight and enjoyment.
Constant calls of "You can do that in Prototype". "Shame you can't just run up walls like you can in Prototype" etc.

Then loaded up a Hero save for Minor who wanted to be a goodie. Sadly he discovered that he could heal the accident-prone citizens and thus went on a healing rampage denying Major his next turn.

So in the middle of this spree I pointed out that "You can jump over that wall you know" he promptly jumped straight over into into the sea and died "But you probably shouldn't" I continued. Much laughter from both of them though Minor insisted he was trying to jump onto the wall not over it. Amusingly on his next go he proved better at Major at climbing and impress me twice - firstly by jumping from one rail to the other in the middle of a grind and secondly by managing to jump onto the train on the other track and clambering up to the roof just a few seconds before the other one hurtled past. We were all impressed by that feat of good timing.

Shutting down and plugging in "Kung Fu Panda" to watch, unfortunately Minor had seen it at the cinema and prompted the pair of us to calls of "Shut-up" when he decided to inform us what was about to happen.

Film over I realised my mother wanted a photo of the pair of them together so I fetched my camera and returned to find Minor in tears as Major had hit him. I lost my temper did a lot of swearing at Major then to take Minor's mind of things took him through a mission in InFamous before showing them the demo of Overlord II "yes this will be available on the XBox and the first game is at the moment" which cheered Major up as we went seal-clubbing.

Minor had forgotten his tears so I lined them up for some shots. Should have got the tripod down, but stuck with the flash instead making things a bit too bright. Some fun shots with Major looking goofy, Minor looking the wrong way and both Major and Minor with their eyes half-shut and Minor with a drunk grin on his face.

Then moments of chaos as they were picked up and left in peace I headed for the bottles of al-ki-hol and the 40% vodka I keep for these very occasions ;-)