You gotta admire his dedication….
Month: October 2008
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The Octobox
Politics for me is something of a love/hate thing. I really want the election to be over, but at the same time, it’s fodder for so much bullshit, some of it occasionally amusing. Especially news. Most of the people don’t know what they’re talking about anyway, just repeating other people’s opinions and talking points (just like me actually), but somehow they end up on the news expressing those opinions, talking and shouting over each other.
That’s why I love shows like The Daily Show, that calls people out on their bullshit. Below is a clip where one of the news channels had eight people, in eight different boxes on the screen at the same time, hence the name Octobox (at least that’s what The Daily Show calls it). They have since aired a newscast with 10 people simultaneously. Where does it end and how is this useful to me as a viewer when all I hear is noise? Maybe I’m just particularly bad at multitasking, but I usually understand best when listening to one person talking at a time.
For the last year or so we’ve been waiting for the right moment to introduce Star Wars to our kids. About a month or so ago, we decided it was time. Both my wife and I prepped them a lot, talking about all the characters, before we attempted watching the first movie. My wife even went ahead and told Linnea the plot of the entire first film. And by the first, I mean the fourth, A New Hope.
I came home from work one day and our daughter was retelling the story to me, now wanting to watch the movie. We figured that she, being younger than our son, needed more prep to understand the story.
We made our way through the original trilogy and the kids wanted more. They were totally into it. Talking about all the characters, occasionally confusing Han Solo with Luke Skywalker, but ok, no big deal. They were, to both of our surprise, really consumed by story. Our daughter even more than our son. There was of course frequent pausing of the movies to explain key plot points that might have gone over their heads, which wasn’t too surprising considering their age.
I recall seeing Return of the Jedi myself, in a movie theater in Warsaw sometime in the mid to late 80’s. And I remember being completely mesmerized. I’m hoping our kids will have similar experience with watching the movies as well.
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The Switch
Yesterday, in my book anyway, was the first official day of fall. This is the day when we had to, for the first time this fall, switch on the heater in the morning. The leafs are slowly starting to turn yellow on some trees and it’s no longer nice and toasty outside. Although the forecast is showing temperatures of around 25 degrees C next week, we’ve officially entered the fall season.
Time to get the winter clothing out of the garage…
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Cartoon of the day
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Space lady
Just remembered a funny little exchange we had with our son on our way up to Tahoe last weekend.
We’re driving along, with our GPS turned on for directions. A female voice keeps telling us where to turn and how far it is till the next whatever….. All of a sudden our son starts asking about how the GPS works. We’ve had the thing for almost a year now, not sure why he felt like he needed to know this stuff now. I’m driving, so my wife tries explaining. She goes on with quite an elaborate explanation about how there is a satellite in outer space that sends coordinates to our little GPS unit, and that the unit then translates those coordinates and shows them to us on a map, etc, etc.
We could hear cogs turning in his head at this point, and after a moment of silence, he finally asks:
– So, Is there a lady up there in space, in that satellite, talking to us?
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Latest obsession
Both my wife and I have lately been pretty obsessed with the band Fleet Foxes. And since they’re so great, I thought I’d share this with you as well. They’re too good to be kept a secret (not that they are… a secret that is). With a sound that mixes 70’s folk and country as well as a little spaghetti western themes as well now and again, they’re part of the new Seattle movement and well worth the listen.
Below is their appearance on Letterman. Check them out.
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A trip to Tahoe
We decided to take a trip up to Lake Tahoe this weekend with my in laws. My wife’s aunt has a place up there on the California side, not too far from Meek’s Bay. It’s really nice and it’s great to be able to stay there once in a while, especially in the winter, since it’s really close to great skiing such as Squaw Valley and Heavenly. I keep kicking myself that I haven’t been able to go there for skiing yet, even though I’ve lived in California for over 4 years now. One of these days I’ll go. Maybe even this year. The excuse so far has been that the kids have been too young, but that’s not the case anymore. I think it would help if my wife liked skiing as well, which she unfortunately doesn’t. I’m hoping that the kids don’t follow her footsteps. Indoctrination to follow.
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Constant gardener
I never thought these words would ever leave my mouth, but I think I’m actually starting to like gardening. All my life I’ve looked at this as something only old people do. People with no lives who lost their minds to some kind of mental illness, walking around and talking to plants as if they were their friends.
Well, I’m not quite there yet. Fortunately. But I do have a new appreciation of making things grow. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m getting older or loosing my mind. Or just simply because I like eating food I grow myself. It might just be because I like seeing the results, or “fruit” if you will, of my own labor. Another reason might be because, it’s really hard to fail to grow pretty much anything in this climate. Just stick it in, make sure it’s watered, and watch it grow. Pretty simple really.
Not sure how many of you are interested in watching some of the latest television shows over the internet. Anyone? Well, if you live in the US you can basically watch it all on Hulu. Legally. If you’re outside the US however, you’re out of luck.
Well, that’s unless you do some tweaking of course. Below is an easy way of setting it up. And when it’s done, you can enjoy shows like Lost, Heros, The Daily Show, etc just as we do over here in the US.
Let me know if this works…… I’m curious…