Probably the 2 most stupid messages sent to me were these:

“Hey what ya doing?

Well, lets see I am on the PS3 and were BOTH in the same lobby playing the same game. I’m flying a freaking plane idiot, what do you think I’m doing?

In all honesty boys, don’t send messages like this, more then likely it will get you blocked by any serious female gamer. It wont get my attention or any other female gamers, well maybe a 12 year old female gamer.

The second most irritating and stupid crap I hear OVER the internet on PS3, and I emphasize this, is:

“Hey you look hot”

Really? I look hot, its the internet, so you must have a font fetish?

First I close the letter then I re-open it, as no one could possibly be this stupid to send this.  Then when you dont reply, you idiots send another, like this:

“No really baby, you game and your a chick, you really are smokin”  This just leads me to hysterical laughter, and I block you.

Honestly guys, don’t ever send shit like this. Its seriously stupid. I know I know, people find love on the internet but think about what you just sent someone who you haven’t ever seen, or heard.

I can even understand the attraction you men have with gaming chicks, I kind of have the same thing with guy geeks, IT men who game as well. BUT I don’t send them messages saying how hot they are, especially when I have never seen them. If anything it would get me laughed at, because even though men think with their second head 70 percent of the time, most realized that kind of comment is a stupid one. Best bet for you is to add this gaming diva to your friends list, if she has a full roster, kindly request she add you as her list is full. NOTHING MORE. you men make the mistake of adding things like, because your hot, it turns me on, and another big fav, your all that and a bag of chips. Granted the last statement may be true, well shit, all of them may be true, but men for once keep it in your pants, because behind that gaming chick name may be a 5 feet 600 pound hairy backed old man with one tooth and crabs sitting behind that name, and every time you send him a message its another sock lost to foreplay.

So thought I would just give you men a heads up, insults and pick up lines, more often then not get you blocked, or mocked. The best thing you can say to a chick when gaming after a game is, “Good game.” It might even get her adding you.

I read it a couple times over, and well I finally started reading between the lines, it has to do with COD Black Ops coming out this November.  I  will first note that the article is not written by the charming men of NowGamer.com, they are just hosting it, but it amused me enough that I thought I would break down this spewing of hatred for a game still in the womb.Firstly the story in its entirety

http://www.nowgamer.com/columns/casual-games/490/black-ops-i-dont-give-a-damn-and-neither-should-you

Now after reading it, I will say he has some valid points, but if you read through all his well worded hatred, you come to find a scorned multiplayer gamer, who has felt the wrath of being sucky at a game.

This isn’t a statement made to draw criticism, it isn’t one made intentionally to upset people – as we all know ‘having an opinion on the internet’ tends to do. This is just a factual statement, pertinent because of the fact the marketing for Call Of Duty: Black Ops is ramping up. Before it completely engulfs us all and takes over every waking second of our discussions, online and off, I just wanted to get it out there: I do no like Call Of Duty.

Okay what he really means to say, he wants you to bash him, and to give him attention so he can reply some more points of why he hates this game so much

Probably the main reason I don’t get on with the series is its utterly bombastic nature

Really? you new it was a war game right? The wonderful thing that makes you human is your ability to not purchase something you know is going to be “bombastic” Its not like this is a huge surprise. Again, really?

It’s so overwhelmingly American teen it’s hard for me to see anything other than sheer ridiculousness when I play it

Okay agreed that its overwhelmingly American, and yet your so down on it, you play it. (psstt just read that last part again) let me point out what you just said “sheer ridiculousness when I play it” *crickets*

The storylines to the games are, frankly, poor –

Well that’s because you would have to of read them, skimming through and pressing the X button to bypass the intro isn’t really getting to know the storyline

the original Modern Warfare was probably the pinnacle, but it’s been downhill since.

good point… (yeah guys Im being sarcastic, because this statement is what he would call ridiculous)

To be fair, it’s not like COD 1-3 had to try, seeing as history had already written them a story to take inspiration from. It wouldn’t be so bad if this nonsensical bravado was encased in a genuinely thoughtful story shell, or even if there were – at some point, at least – a tongue lodged firmly in cheek. But there isn’t. It takes itself so seriously; thinks it has a message.

This just says that you your so literal that you couldn’t possibly enjoy a game, in any aspect, so enthralled with breaking down what you find are bad points, that you have killed whatever fun could possibly be had already, bet your a thrill on a first date.

And that insults my intelligence.

What he means to say is, it made his head hurt, BAD (to counter my point further I shall insert this “sheer ridiculousness when I play it” to sum up his intelligence)

Okay so what we know so far is he likes to use big words, he is a buzzkill and from a person who has played the COD (myself) games, he cant play them well, Now to save time I have skipped over some of his spewing, but note, I did not miss it.

From a gaming mechanics perspective Call Of Duty is unashamedly shallow, to the point that many skirmishes just feel like shooting galleries, or whack-a-terrorist. Walk, pop-up, shoot, continue, walk, pop-up, get shot, duck for a bit, shoot. Continue ad nauseam. This isn’t deep, clever or involving. It’s shallow, simplified and involves only the barest essence of strategy. Namely: duck. I want to be made to think at least a little bit – I’m well aware being taken for a ride, as you are with COD, is something that appeals to many. But I want to play the game: I don’t want it to play me.

What this really says is, I camp, and I camp hard, I like to use my grenade launcher and heartbeat sensor (baby monitor) and I really get pissed off when I get caught, the fact of the matter is, I cant play this game strategically, one I am calling a war game shallow. I don’t know how to play with a team, or possibly I have and they ended up disliking me because of the fact that i just merely bitched because I don’t play the game well. So they don’t play with me anymore.

Probably my main bugbear with the series, though, is multiplayer. You play Call Of Duty offline, fair enough – it’s shallow, but it’s decent fun. You take it online, you enter a world of hurt. And not in the good way. So much has been said about the online community for COD there’s no point in re-treading that ground. Safe to say, it’s not welcoming to newcomers.

you sucked at the game, got mad, yelled on mic and got bashed for it.
this is called getting a pair of balls, no offense, if your gonna be such a pussy playing a war game online then maybe a game more up your alley would be Cooking Mama. You are what I like to call a Mangina

There should be a healthy, competitive game for everyone – of all skill levels – to play.

In a Utopian world where there is no black and white, wrong or right, just peace love and happiness

I don’t think it’s a particularly bad game, I just don’t think it’s that special. It struck lucky when it took up the non-WWII mantle, doing something that hadn’t been done – not much, at least – before. It gave the guns-and-war-loving kids something to let off steam on, it gave the world of games a new blockbuster and it gave console gamers the kind of online play that had been enjoyed on PC for years before. None of this was completely new, it was just necessary at the time.

Im a PC gamer, and I suck at console games

For the Call Of Duty series to be hailed as ‘brilliant’ or a ‘game changer’ is folly. It’s a standard FPS with above-average production values and multiplayer that only happens to be popular seemingly because it’s popular.

I sucked at the game, I cant shoot a gun, I suck at camping even which is the easiest thing to do in this game, I was told I wear green well.
—————-

Okay to be honest, I feel for you, I really do. You have a lot of pent of anger for this game that is almost disturbing, as if it personally haunts your dreams.
I do like it, I am partial to it, I do know its faults, but to be this disturbed over a game is frightning, and your online experience must of been brutal, the good thing about these games online is you can choose to ignore people. Oddly you will get the same kind of people in life, and what do you do in life, you ignore them and move away from them. Something you can also do with a game and an online environment. shut it off.
The original post of his maybe wouldn’t of sounded like a bitchfest if…
Well no, I cant say there is anything that could of made this an article worth really reading and taking into play the good and bad points, its good this is just a blog post, and we can leave the real reviews up to guys at NowGamer.com

And thats a wrap.

• “I shot him first!” (as you die because you actually didnt shoot him first)
• “DID YOU SEE THAT! there is no way he killed me!” (as you die because he actually DID kill you”
• “Fucking claymore (fucking sticky grenade, fucking C4) I wasnt even near that! how the hell did I die?!(as you die because in fact you WERE running right over the fucking thing OR it stuck to your forehead)
• “Omfg I cant believe this shit!” (as you die when you are sniped, and yet you continue to run out of the same place, over and over, and over, so this person can continue to snipe you)
• “Fucking noob toobers!” (I too bitch about this, but I must throw it in here as instead of kicking this persons ass, you will use his noob toobing as an excuse to be an asshole and noob toob yourself, why because obviously you have no choice, but you do, but your a moron)
• “God Damn Campers!!!!!!” (again I bitch about this as well, but unlike yourself, I will change up my plan and go and find/kill/maim the person camping and find where his insertion is and wait for him to spawn and kill him again, you will run around the map bitching about the guy camping… )
• WHA?! How the hell?! ( common phrase heard when the other team captures one of your care packages, or emergency airdrops, please note you never told anyone to help you and you will now bitch to the rest of the team how we suck because you cant read a map and realize the red dots around you are not your team mates as you throw out your care package)
• “Whats wrong with my GUN!!!” (moron its the same gun the guy keeps killing you with from the other team, could it be you just suck at this game?)

Now I will move onto stupid things you do in games, more often then not you will get this with the more inexperienced male players, but you find it often enough in older more seasoned players as well.

• Sitting 4 or more in a building together and getting noob toobed by some kid with a grenade launcher  (really what is your thinking in this? Do you not think when your all huddled up in a circle jerk that no one will noob toob you because you are that great?)
• Putting your tactical insertion in the middle of a road, corner of a building everyone runs through then bitching when you spawn and they kill you (seriously your just stupid, I dont even know what to say captain obvious, if you dont know how to use them right, dont use them at all)
• Making up every excuse why you just went 4 and 23 as you sat in a corner, the entire game (strategy was what you called it) ( my gun didnt work right (refer to point above) I dont know what happened, I need some coffee/beer/red bull then Ill be okay (no you wont, you suck, period)
• Crawling around on maps as if no one will see you (idiot, I just saw you.. lets think)
• When people shoot you, you jump in air and then hit the ground and then get killed and bitch (you know all that time you spend jumping around like a monkey? if you spent that time shooting the person, you may not have gotten shot, your brilliant)
• When you have the brilliant idea to set you and another in a building with claymores all over, and the entire other team has sit rep pro (yeah i can hear you gigle like a school girl, but I can also see your claymores, i wont expand more on this moronic move)
• How you all find the enemy camping in one particular spot, and you ALL follow the other the same way to get to the enemy over and over and over again, and the enemy kills you over and over and over, with grenades.. ( your idiots and for some reason think you must hold hands to play this game)

Now I am sure this isnt going to make me many friends, good, Im not looking for them. I do see crying in all formats of gaming but it seems to me that men playing games like MW2, Socom, WaW, Battlefield tend to whine more when their skills arnt what they are, even if they have been playing the game for 5 years. No offense you just probably suck, and admitting it is the first step to being able to play this game well.

Also, outside of the console online environment, no one else but you gives a shit about your bitchings.  The guy at 7-11 could care less if you got noob toobed and the guy at the gas station could care less if an entire team camped on your sorry ass and you lost. The chick you think is hot at the clothing store, is not going to put out the first night because of the fact you got a nuke for the first time.  No one cares but you.

We all bitch and gripe, but men if you realize that your egos cannot be seen on the internet your whole gaming experience would be that much better.

I play with enough men and women that dont bitch or gripe to know it can be done, so try it.

I said to him let me pop on Ancestory.com and see what and if I can find anything on my father.

From as early as I can remember, my last name had been Marshall, my sisters last name, our fathers last name.  When I was 12 years old I went to get the mail. My mother being a single parent and out of work was on social services, and back then they had medical stickers for when you went to the doctors. I got the mail that day and was going through it, and saw my sisters, and then I saw mine. I stared at it for a moment and though they had made a mistake on the envelope, because my first and middle name were correct, but my last name wasn’t.

I questioned my mother, and thats when she told me that the man I had thought was my father for 12 years, was not. First I was pissed off at her, then him, then the world, then my Dad lol. I remember that day well. I asked my mother why she had lied to me, why she kept it a secret and had she ever intended on telling me. She told me she hadnt though too much of it, I had known my sisters father for most of my life so I never really new him. This was her reasoning.I called my sisters father and asked him why he agreed with my mother in lying to me all these years, he did state to me that he did it so he could see his daughter. I was a bit winded. At 12 I didnt understand how he could feel that way, as a parent now, even if it was wrong, I do understand.

So there Ihad it, the two people in my life I loved the most had lied to me about who I was, this was exactly how I felt.  I needed to find out more, but back then all I had was my mother, and my grandmother. There was no internet I could search, so everything that I know of my father was from Mom and Grandma.

On October 15, 1968 I was born, and my father, Leonard Martin Sellig Jr. aka Funny Sonny signed my birth certificate 5 days later.  My mother described him as the bad boy every good girl wanted, when she met him she was 19, he was 29 or 30. She said he had long red hair and tall and thin with a very commanding presence. She also said over and over he was very artistic and the funniest person she new. He would often sit me on the front of his bike and ride me around slowly, and scare the crap out of my mother. She told me he would give her a look and say in a very serious manner, There is no safer place for my child then with me.  My mother told me that he loved me like no other, but her relationship with him was volatile.  One night when he was working at some senior care facility ( I think thats what she said) him and a couple friends tried to steal the safe out of the office and got caught. He went to prison and my mother left him and went back to my Grandmas in California.   My Grandma was thrilled from what my mother told me as she loathed him. Funny thing is, she was the one who had the most info on him for me.  My mother told me that she new that I had one sister named Amber she believed to be 2 years older then me, my Grandma who she was scared of Nellie, and that my father had a brother and sister that she new of but never told me names. She also told me 27 years ago that my father rode with the first Chapter of a motercyle group. My mother wouldnt lie as she could of at that point in time given a shit about him. She said there was a falling out about a money issue and he left. I shall say no more about that.

I turned 21 and went back home from Jersey to Cali to see my Grandma with my oldest son who was my only child at the time.  She sat me down at her kitchen table and handed me 2 pictures. She said this is the best gift I can give you. It was 2 very old photos of my father. One of them he was holding me and my mother was to his right with her hair jet black and all piled up high on her head, and the other he was standing with me to his side holding my hand.  I cried. It was the first time I saw someone that looked like me. My Grandma told me she new there would come a day I would want to know and she also new my mother had thrown out all pics she ever had of him and her together.

Her first meeting of him was before I was born, my mother was about 8 months pregnant and very much a rebel, from what my Grandma stated. She had called my grandma and told her she was pregnant and was keeping the baby as she was due to have me the following month. My Grandma told me she was so upset, but Mom was a free spirit, always had been. She went home to discus things with my Grandma, and from what I remember being told it was the next day she met her new son in law.

My grandma said to me, “Ill never forget it, remember it as if it were yesterday. I hear this loud obnoxious motorcycle come driving up, and he revved the engine up, I went to look outside and he was on my lawn with tire tracks on it (my grandma always had a nice yard) She said he was wearing jeans, boots, no shirt and a leather vest and had tattoos! oh dear!

She told me she only hated him because he took my mother away, and me away as well. Her first grandchild.  Through the years it only made me want to find him more and more every time I would do things and my mother would say to me, your father liked that, your father did that, or.. my god you look just like your father.

On June 20th, 2010 my father passed away. I found out last night. I cant tell you how blown away I was, I sat there reading his Obituary online.  My Dad, there he was, finally! I missed him by a month, a fucking month. I was and am so pissed off right now.  The man I spent 22 years searching for, that I couldn’t  find a live, I found after he had passed away. What  a kick in the ass.  I think he would of liked me.  A lot in fact.

Dad

Hello Dad, its nice to meet you. I think we would of gotten along great.

Your loving and very proud daughter

Stephanie

RIP

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/heraldnet/obituary.aspx?n=leonard-martin-sellig&pid=143690359

On a terrific note, I met  my sister Jena, but thats a whole nother blog post!

I remember when I was about 9 years old, we went to visit my Uncle whom at the time lived in Silicon Valley, CA.  Basically that means it is  a metonym  for the American high-tech sector. My Uncle who is the most amazing man I have ever known in my life, always worked in the tech industry, and I loved going to his place. I mean where else could I sit and play pong that was build into a table in his living room! The knobs! turning quicker and faster as I moved the paddles up and down the screen!

Then came the joy stick and the button, and I mean on a huge level, the  arcade. Our hands could not get enough of the push of the button or the roll of the joystick as we moved and pounded our way to high scores. My point? Well we all grew up with controllers, from the get go to move these games along, even text based required your keyboard and at least the arrow keys and space bar. We moved on and upward with controllers, controllers led to secret codes from our controllers space arrow up R1 arrow down R2 arrow up arrow left ….

Dave  over at NowGamer gave great non partial reviews of both of these new marvels.  Reviews on games like  Eye Pet – Move , Dance Central – Kinect , The Shoot – Move and many more.  On the Move games Dave summarized some of them by saying:

“Great fun, but it remains to be seen if it has staying power”

“We’d like to see more, but Sports Champions has started strong”

“Casual fodder, but we reckon it will be a money spinner”

of some of the Kinect games:

“Another win for Harmonix, flying the Kinect flag high”

“It will be fun fodder for kids, but everyone else should avoid like hot, steaming roadkill”

Dave did agree with me while we were both tweeting of the fact Kinect will be more popular with the newer generation of gamers, who are not so geared on having a controller in their hand.

Kinect  and Move are gearing to suck the casual gamer in more and more. I dont think for hardcore gamers this will be a huge sell. I just cant see the guy or girl that gets a 2 liter of soda, chips and turns their phone off for gaming all night getting into  white water rafting or having a pet jump on a trampoline. I agree the technology behind them both is amazing, but for me I dont want to flail my arm or hand around looking for the right spot to hit something. Give me my controller! It feels more natural.

Whatever you say about the both of them, one thing is for sure, they both want to expand on the demographic of who is gaming on their systems. So which one will appeal more to the regular gamer, the casual pgamers who like to get together on game night? I will say Kinect.

Dont be shocked as most of you know I am card carrying PS3 fan. Most of the games seem fun and simple, and when played in short spurts, like once or twice a week, more tolerable then most.  Where does Sony rate in this, well they require a controller, and for the once in a while casual party gamer, this is a disadvantage for them, especially on game night.

Now dont worry, I think that with hardcore gamers Move will be a win.

There is not a lot of lag and with games like Socom 4 and Killzone 3, which already has a high user appeal rating this is key for them. Dont forget though that Move can be played with older titles, like Heavy Rain and Resident Evil 5. So clearly the win goes to the hardcore gamers for the Move, plus it is my opinion that hardcore gamers prefer the use of a controller, even if it is obnoxious looking.
Bang for the buck?  There doesnt seem to be anything official yet, but  word on the street is that the Kinect add on will be around  150 dollars. If you dont have a console already then you should just get the 360 slim and that will run you about 450 dollars.  The Move controller will cost you around 50 dollars and an optional navigation controller at around 30 dollars. There will be a bundle package that will come with a sports game for 100 dollars, but if you need a PS3 then the whole thing will be around 400 dollars.

Either way its money, thing is which one will be more for you? I think both of them have their good points and bad points. Xboxers will of course praise Kinect, PS3ers the Move. For this family it will come down to price and what they want, and right now Kinect and Move are not what they want. What does this family want that I think really outshines both of these

Nintendo 3DS

but that’s another blog post

Special thanks to Dave Cook from NowGamer.com

Our All Star Season ended early this year, for both boys. The 13 year old team didn’t have a big amount of other 13 year old teams in our area, so they had 3 games. He pitched, he played right field, my 12 year old, played, barely, 1st base and the outfield.
The 13 year old team was coached by a man who has no kids on any team at all, which is how it should be. there is no preference for him and he puts kids where he thinks they belong. they played hard but lost, but it was done fairly. Now, my 12 year old team is coached by 2 guys. One of the men has a son who is a terrific pitcher. The other coach, well if he didn’t coach his son wouldn’t play. Last nights game saw us losing 10-2. 6 of the runs were caused by errors from the coaches kid in center field, dropping balls that could of easily been caught, but point is, he sucks. I’m not being mean, I’m being honest. He sat kids that could of easily made these plays, and yet, when the errors were made he did nothing to change the roster so we would have a fighting chance.

My point? Well, I feel All-Star teams need to be picked by outside sources. The leagues should pick 3 people who have had some experience with baseball, be it college, coaching or what have you. They should have no child playing in the league at all, and they should hold tryouts for all age groups and pick the teams. The the coaches should be picked, and the head coach should not have any kid on the team at all, or at least the team he is coaching. Now I understand these people do this on a volunteer basis, but there is too much bias when it comes to these teams. An all star team is the best of the best, or at least its supposed to be, kids are played in positions because they are good there, if they mess up then you change the roster to benefit the team, not some kids ego.

It will surely be a surprise to most of these Daddy coached children when they try out for the school teams and wonder why in the world they didn’t make it when they made every all star team their daddy ever coached.

Ive bragged a bit, bitched a bit and rationalized a bit.
Enjoy

E3 had me giddy all over, like a school girl on a first date with her biggest crush, it gave me butterflies and everything, I shall soon be wrapping up my look at E3 and the games and my jealousy of everyone who was there and I wasnt.

I am finishing up a very overdue post about Evony, its not huge I cut it down from 3 pages to about 3 paragraphs, one reason only, clear the air on my part because Thirteen1.com didnt do it for me. Even though I love the guys there, I feel after the beating I took about the story I wrote, a follow up should of been done. So I shall be posting my own.

Gamers and their all dying love for the games they love, not even family will keep them away. A funny and truthful post about where gamers will draw the line.

Stay tuned!

They went down at 8 am Pacific Standard Time, and will be back up (we all hope) at 8:30 pm pst
Anyone that was online when they started their work can stay online and play, anyone not online will not be able to log in, or might have trouble logging in for this amount of time. the updates? Well all they say on their site is that you wont be able to access your Account and PSN store, lets hope they are giving us the new maps and a bigger server Also this month is is their big 3D update so maybe it has something to do with that, PS says its just routine maintenance

Although it would of been nice to have had some kind of mass notice in email

If your a fan of this series then this one has you as worked up as well. With all the controversy at Treyarch this is a much needed sigh of relief. This is the first title to go past World War II and set us into modern day. Giving Call of Duty fans something new to sink their teeth into. This game will have a cooperative mode for two to four players and of course the all popular mulitplayer mode.
Although there wasn’t a zombie mode which most of the Call of Duty fans were hoping to see, this is still something that could be revealed at E3. Without zombie mode black Ops takes us into the Cold War, back to when the Soviet Union were not worried about consequences to actions and where Ops would modify weapons to get their job done. Speaking of weapons, something everyone noticed in the trailer was the fantastic use of a crossbow.

It seems the boys at Treyarch really did their homework this time, consulting people like Sonny Puzikas, a former Soviet special forces operative and Maj. John Plaster, a veteran of the Studies and Observations Group (SOG), a multi-force black operations unit led by the Central Intelligence Agency during the Vietnam War.
From the initial piloting of a reconnaissance aircraft to on the ground combat in the Soviet Union — and several other examples of action in different settings — Black Ops seeks to push Treyarch’s Call of Duty missions to a new level. Im excited, how bout you?

I sat up last night, filling eggs with their favorite candies, their not so favorite candies (jelly beans) and money, making sure that the 5 dollar egg (only one) was in one of the clear eggs so I could hide it hard enough that it would take some time for the kids to find.  We dye eggs the night before, each kid does 18 eggs, and when they go to sleep the Easter Bunny takes those eggs and hides them in the house.  Little do the kids know, the younger ones at least, that this is the egg hunt to let Mommy sleep another 30 minutes. The older boys always let my daughter get the most and she is always so thrilled. Someday when they are adults, they will tell her that they let her, and I can hear the argument that will follow!  Ive given them this.

I hide about 100 or so plastic eggs filled with goodies in the yard, some more difficult for the boys, and easier ones for my daughter.  Now that the boys are older, I see them drop eggs back if they have money in them, making sure their sister gets them, she usually will take her money eggs and give some to her brothers if she sees they didn’t get any. going through their eggs, they trade for their favorite candies, getting rid of the stuff they don’t prefer all too much. I gave them that.

My childhood I dont remember too many holidays, the last birthday I remember as a child was when I was 4, I dont remember Easters, I remember early teen X mases with my sister because we would sneak and look through the heating vent to watch my mother put our gifts out. It bothered me for years I had nothing to share with my kids from my childhood, more so I think because I have blocked it from my mind. So a shrink once told me. (yes I went to one for a while)

In the oven is a ham and all the sides will be made to go with it. We will eat an early dinner and then track off to the beach or woods to hike. I’m a bit of a nature lover and so are my kids so we like to get outdoors when its my Easter to have them. One day they may take their kids to the beach or hiking on Easter, because of what we did together when they were kids. And again it is I whom gave this to them.

Dont get me wrong, I would love my family to be around and be close, and have certain things we do every year as a family. But its just not going to happen, and as estranged as my sister, my aunts and my uncle all are, I love them dearly. I have though realized that to have traditions within a family just means doing the things with my children that we love to do every year, and one day, hopefully they will pass that on to their kids.