This is the crux.

my sister will make her play those

Yeah, see, your sister is not going to enforce educational game time on Nintendo.

She'll make her read a book if she's going to be enforcing anything.

You know what's cool on DS? The Lego Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Batman games.

I concur. Fun games!

Frank, if he's headed to France, let me know. My friend have a place on the Channel that is right by the beach. They'd either let him stay for free or very close to it (they live in Oxfordshire, England; this is their vacation apartment I'm talking about). I am really sorry to hear the news.

Frank, I'm so sorry. That really sucks. I don't have a lot of peeps in places anyone would actually WANT to go right now, but if he needs anything while travelling let me know.

Hivemind help? I pulled a couple tags from the Salvation Army tree to buy gifts for. One of them is for an old man, who in addition to warm clothes (I know, it breaks my heart), requested "Bible things."

Any suggestions? Other than an actual Bible, passage markers, or a magnifying glass, I have no idea what "Bible things" might mean.

Other than an actual Bible, passage markers, or a magnifying glass, I have no idea what "Bible things" might mean.

A "Jesus is Coming....and he's pissed!" t-shirt?

There are entire Bible things stores. Go in and throw yourself on the mercy of the clerk.

If we can do anything to help, let us know. I mean, we have Buffistas everywhere and some of us have extra rooms for a guest or two.

What Nicole said. The Buffista world tour!

Bible things: A large-print Bible? A daily bible study book? Audio version? Illustrated Gospels? A bible cover?

eta: Do you have a Cokesbury store nearby? They're usually pretty helpful.

I'm sorry Frank, that's awful news.

(I have my drafting classes do Kakuro now, since they at least need to be able to add quickly.)

If you enjoy Kakuro, you might like to give Killer Sudoku a try. You're filling in a Sudoku box, under usual Sudoku rules, but instead of having starting numbers, you have the sums of disjoint sets of cells. (So, like Kakuro, if you are given that two cells sum to 4, you know that they're 1 and 3 in some order.) They have a strong Kakuro feel.

Incidentally, Kakuro originates from America. Dell Puzzle Books have been publishing them for decades as Cross Sums. (I used to love them growing up.)

Here is a book of daily devotional readings, about the length of those little Our Daily Bread devotionals, only about 10 times deeper, more Love-and-Grace and life-affirming than hellfire and brimstone, without being cloying, My Utmost for His Highest, by Oswald Chambers [link] that I would recommend as a gift for any Christian. As originally written, I find it quite readable, but the modern language updated edition would probably be good for people whose reading level is more USA Today than the King's English. If I could sum up what I took away from it, it would be this: "Ok, so you screwed up and sinned again and feel so guilty you are just going to give up - guess what, God knows all about our frailties, is not shocked in the least, and loves us anyway, so get off your pity party and love Him back by refusing to give up."

Fuck Cancer!

We too have a spare room, hell we might even make the bed if Redondo Beach (SW of LA) is on the world tour.