Geek interests + Creativity = Ingenuity

So far the Dads of this site are boring you with philosophy.  Its now time for some good ol’ geekling fun!

As Misterbixby has stated, our daughters, Lana and Lois, are growing up along the path of the Geek.  Do not be mislead, though.  The way of the Geek is not their only interest.  They are also regular girls that like girl things.  Like arts and crafts.  Here is an example of when arts and crafts mixes with Geekdom:

Lana and Lois love video games.  They love to play them. They love to watch others play them.  It works well for Misterbixby – he can get in some game time and the kids just sit there and “help”.  (Ask him to tell you about the lesson he taught them of how “Three is the Magic Number” and how to “hitthething-hitthething-hitthething”)  There is one time this does NOT work well for Misterbixby, though. This would be when he plays on his DS.  You now have three heads trying to look at this little screen.  He gets quite frustrated.  I get enjoyment watching the three of them jockying for postion.  But I digress….  anyway, apparently Lana was tired of watching Daddy play on his DS.  What do you think a nearly-seven-year-old would do at a time like that?  Did she ask to use Daddy’s?  Did she ask for one for her birthday? for Christmas?  Nope.  She did the next best thing.  Lana made her own DS. 

Lana came home from school with her very own DS.  It was the “Guitar Hero” version.  This DS was made out of paper.  She hands me this red rectangle that has a guitar drawn on it.  I open it up it to discover Lana had drawn two screens and had every button inside of there too!  The screens both had a scene from Guitar Hero on it.  The best part – Lana rolled up some tape to make a stylus.  And she made two because they always get lost!  Her make-shift DS was such a hit that on Day Two, she made a new one – this one had upgrades.  We’ll call it a DS Lite.

The DS Lite was made at home, so she used Daddy’s DS Lite as her frame of reference.  Lana made her new DS to the exact manufacturing specifications as the Nintendo DS Lite… that is if it was made out of paper.  This new one was a “Guitar Hero 4″ version.  It was also red and had a guitar on the front.  The DS Lite went to Lana. The original DS went to Lois. (In the way of all hand-me-downs)

This is where this arts and crafts project gets good.

Lana and Lois were not happy just pretending to play a game.  They needed these DS’s to be more realistic. They made game cartridges!  The girls cut out a bunch of squares, grabbed their favorite Wii games, and decorated the squares to depict those games.  When the “crafty-dust” settled, Lana and Lois had made their own paper versions of Brain Age, Guitar Hero, Super Mario Galaxy, and Wario Ware Smooth Moves.  But then a dilemma arose: How does one make these cartridges work with a paper DS?  BatMom to the rescue!  To solve this problem, we put a paper clip on the bottom half of the DS.  Whenever they want to play a game, they slip it into the clip.  Viola!  They can now look at a “screen shot” of their game as they play.  Except, my design only lasted a day.  Lana and Lois are all about the realism.  On Day Three, they had an epiphany.  The girls cut another strip of paper which they taped to the back of their DS’s.  This was now the slot to stick the cartridges in.  Their systems were now complete.

Lana and Lois like to grab their paper DS and play games.  They will sit there and recall moments from the Wii versions: “Lois! I am in the kitchen now!” (from Super Mario Galaxy).  The girls feverishly tap away at the buttons and on the screens with their stylus.  On Day Two, I was showing the girls something online.  Lana is looking at the PC monitor as she is tapping like a mad woman on her DS.  She looks at me, and says:  “I’ve played this song so many times. I can play it without looking at the screen.”

Lana is 1337.