What I've Been Watching

On a lighter note, here's a few movies that I've seen recently.

The Muppet Movie - Loved the songs, loved Kermit, thought Miss Piggy was mostly just annoying. Really didn't like the humans, except for Charles Durning, who was just right as Doc Hopper. The "comedians" were particularly unfunny. I was never much of a Mel Brooks fan, but Prof. Max Krassman was painfully bad. (I did like the part where Miss Piggy karate chops her way out of captivity.) And Steve Martin as the insolent waiter? I get how, in theory, it could be funny to have a waiter make fun of a frog and a pig on a date. ("Sparkling Muscatel, one of the finest wines of Idaho.") But it just didn't work for me.

Babel - I hated, hated, hated this movie. Not a single likable character.

Charlie Wilson's War - Based on the true story of a Democratic Congressman from Texas who led the effort to fund Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The movie stars Tom Hanks as Charlie Wilson, but Phillip Seymour Hoffman was brilliant as Gust Avrakotos, the caustic CIA operative who armed the mujahideen. Near the end of the movie, as they are celebrating the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Avrakotos foreshadows its rocky future by telling the famous Zen story about a farmer, his son, and a horse:

Gust Avrakotos: There's a little boy and on his 14th birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how wonderful. the boy got a horse" And the Zen master says, "we'll see." Two years later The boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and everyone in the village says, "how terrible." And the Zen master says, "We'll see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in the village says, "How wonderful."
Charlie Wilson: Now the Zen master says, "We'll see."

Update. It might not have been clear from the above that I liked the Muppet Movie. I have this occasional tendency to focus on what I don't like about something that I like.

Message to Congress

Drop Dead!

That's all I have to say about that.

Garlic Festival

Today we attended the Hudson Valley Garlic Festival in Saugerties, NY.


One thing I had to try was garlic ice cream.


It tasted a bit strange. (Note that Anna is not eating garlic ice cream: she wanted chocolate.)


We also had a great time visiting Aunt Mary, who provided a delicious lunch and dinner, tickets to the festival, and a shed full of toys for Anna to play with.


The first thing Anna noticed as we pulled into the steep driveway at Mary's house was a small wishing well. Right before we left to go home, each of us made a wish. As we headed to the Thruway, Anna told us her wish: "Mary should move closer to our house." (I guess she had a lot of fun.)

PS - All the bedrooms are finished. That's why I got a LEGO.

Dune Buggy

The latest prize:


It has rack and pinion steering, rear suspension, and the pistons in the engine move!

Mynocks

Chewing on the power cables. OK, actually it was squirrels.

We haven't had more than a few sporadic minutes of internet access since Wednesday. The cable guy showed up this morning (yes, on a Sunday), and determined that our signal was being degraded because a squirrel had chewed almost all the way through the woven outer conductor. He was surprised that our TV even worked. So, now we have a shiny new cable from the pole to the computer.

Having to rely on the TV for breaking news was painful. I don't know how anyone can stand it. They just show the same two or three stories over and over. At least with the internet you can move on to the next thing. I understand that Hurricane Ike was a big story, but come on! How many times do I have to watch Anderson Cooper standing by a seawall in Galveston saying, yup, it's windy. And wet. Oh, and everybody should get out of here. It's really dangerous to be standing in the path of a hurricane.

Surprisingly, I didn't watch any movies. But I did read a book. One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War. It was about... well, I guess the title kind of gives it away. It read like an early Tom Clancy novel, but with forty pages of footnotes. It's a good thing Curtis LeMay wasn't President!

Name Tags

This is amazing. If you use Picasa Web Albums, there's a new feature that looks for faces in your pictures and groups them together so they can easily be tagged with the name of the person. (I used to do this manually on my old computer, but it was pretty tedious. Plus, my old photo cataloging program doesn't work on my new computer.)

Home Inspection Redux

The roof doesn't look too bad from up here.


There was some concern that fixing the slate roof would cost as much as a brand new Subaru Outback, but now the price seems closer to that of a well-used 1995 Toyota Corolla.

So, that's one less obstacle preventing Mom & Dad from living within walking distance of their favorite son. (And least favorite son, but who's counting? Also, there are fewer obstacles, but one less obstacle? Usually, I'm a stickler for the "less/fewer" rule, but I find my ear failing me this time.)

In other news, I did not erase all of Dad's pictures today. Well, actually, I did — but at least this time I did it on purpose!

How do we protect our money from the government?

Tina related this anecdote to me.

Sunday morning, Anna turned on the TV to watch Curious George, but instead found Ed Slott. (Dad may have heard of him.) The program was called Stay Rich Forever & Ever, and was basically an infomercial for his upcoming book. After watching this guy go on about pensions and 401(k)s for about twenty minutes, Anna turned to her mother and asked, "How do we protect our money from the government?"

Now, this is not the first time she has expressed concern about paying taxes. A few weeks ago, I was grumbling about paying $93.50 to register our two cars. (I didn't realize it yet, but Anna was about to have a major breakdown.) She said that I should "send them to jail for trying to take our money." After I told her that it doesn't work that way, she burst into tears, sobbing that we wouldn't be able to buy her any more toys or clothes for Kindergarten. She was genuinely frantic about it.

Somehow, I managed to calm her down while giving what I hope was an age-appropriate dissertation on two tricky concepts: money and government.

Having successfully weathered that storm — but not desiring a repeat performance — when the school tax bill arrived yesterday, I decided not to mention it to Anna.

John Braxton Hicks

Ever wonder where the term "Braxton Hicks contractions" came from?

In 1872, an English gynecologist named John Braxton Hicks "discovered" them. (No doubt women noticed them at an earlier date.)

Thanks to a disambiguation link in Wikipedia, I also learned that there's an album named Braxton Hicks by a band called Jebediah.

Anna's First Day of Kindergarten

We were waiting a couple of hours for the bus to pick up Anna. Not because the bus was late — it was, but only by a few minutes, which is to be expected on the first day. No, we were waiting a couple of hours because Anna was SO EXCITED SHE COULDN'T WAIT FOR KINDERGARTEN!

Home Inspection

(oops, I forgot to publish this post...)

Today was the inspection of Grandma¹ and Grandpa's new house. (I'm crossing my fingers.)

Before they showed up, Anna and I went to her Kindergarten Orientation. Anna enjoyed meeting Mrs. Rogers. Then we went for a walk and talk to get food for lunch. And donuts, of course.

When Grandma and Grandpa showed up, Anna and I swarmed them with things to look at and anecdotes to exchange. There were more simultaneous conversations than seem mathematically possible:


For lunch, we had our usual — grilled cheese and turkey with macaroni and potato salads. We're already settling into a routine (although Dad and I haven't gone to Starbucks for a while). Then Tina came home to watch Anna, while the rest of us went to inspect the house.

A home inspection is when the reality of a real estate purchase starts to sink in. Mom and I were in charge of taking pictures and measurements, and trying to figure out how to arrange things. Dad looked at the house very carefully with the inspectors.

When we got home, I lost all of Dad's pictures. Apparently, some SanDisk SD cards are corrupted or erased by the Viking IntelliFlash USB 6 in 1 Flash Memory Reader. I didn't know about that.

1. There's this phenomenon, when you have children, of referring to your parents as "Grandma" and "Grandpa" (or "Nanny" and "Papa"). Does this happen to everyone?

And then, towards the end, I switched back to Mom and Dad. Weird.

My New PDA

I usually get a new PDA every 2—3 weeks. My favorite is the free-form organizer shown below. It accepts text and graphical input. It never needs batteries, it fits in my pocket, and it's unlikely to be stolen.


The downside—it can't be used to check the weather or surf the web.

Here's the old one.



Three for $1.99 at Target.

Patriotic Kitty

It occurs to me that I've never posted a picture of our cat. Isn't there some kind of rule that, eventually, every blog needs a cat photo? (Kind of like how, in every sci-fi series worth watching, eventually there needs to be a dance with vaguely Celtic music that portends bad things for our heroes? Oh, that only happens in Battlestar Galactica and Firefly? Well then, I think I've made my case.)

This is an old photo. It's from the time "BA" (Before Anna).

Cloverfield

I watched Cloverfield last night, and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. But here I am still thinking about it.

**** SPOILER ALERT ****

(Don't read any further if you don't want to know what happens in this movie.)

In many ways the movie isn't very good. The dialog is mostly uninspired, and the characters don't have much depth. But that's OK, because who has time for the luxury of whimsical bantering while their city is suddenly under attack by unknown forces? (Yeah, not very subtle 9/11 allusions.)

A group of pretty people are having a party to say goodbye to their friend Rob, who's leaving New York for a promotion in Japan (birthplace of Godzilla!). His dimwitted friend Hud is enlisted to tape the proceedings, a job he takes very seriously. The movie is presented as being shot through this video camera, which makes for a notoriously vertiginous experience. (Supposedly, some moviegoers became nauseous while watching the movie — and not from any gory special effects, because the movie is blessedly tame in that respect.)

And then there's Beth, a longtime friend of Rob. They recently became "more than friends," but since he's leaving anyway, Rob decided not to call Beth. (Rob, don't be a jerk!) Beth shows up at the party with her new boyfriend. They don't stay long.

At this point, I'm getting bored. What is this? Beverly Hills 90210, but in New York?

"Suddenly, a shot rang out!"

The building shakes, the lights go out, and the partygoers head to the roof to find out what's going on. They quickly head down into the streets after they start getting pummeled by debris. A large object flies through the air, crashes and rolls down the street. When it stops, we see ... the head of the Statue of Liberty! Commence taking pictures with cell phone cameras.

The people in the movie still don't realize that they're all going to die, but the collapse of the Woolworth building suggests that getting off of Manhattan might not be a bad idea. They debate various escape plans. (Come on, you're in a movie! Obviously you have to take the Brooklyn Bridge.)

After the monster takes out the bridge, killing at least one person whose name is in the credits, Rob decides to check his voice mail. Oh no! Beth is in trouble!

How would Jank Handey put it? "If the girl of your dreams is trapped in a toppled apartment building in midtown — and that's also where the rampaging fifty-story tall monster is — let her go, because man, she's gone."

(There's more, but I'm tired, so I'll finish later.)