Well, I'm Officially Disqualified Now...

No Father-of-the-Year Awards for me.

True Story.

Just finished watching a youtube video of a comedy bit enacted with Legos, and since this particular video featured Star Wars Legos, it grabbed the attention of the Offspring. Sadly, the clip ended up featuring a certain expletive a couple times before it was over. Didn't want to draw undo attention to it so I just played on and we all enjoyed the bit. So much so, that the Offspring wanted to watch it again.

"Uh," I stammered, "I don't think so. Pretty sure we've had more than our daily allotment of the 'F-word.'"

Samwise shoots me a confused look, "The 'F-word'?"

For crying out loud, this isn't the convo I'd intended on...I just wanted to watch a silly Lego video. "Yeah, we've talked about this before. You know, the 'F-word'..." I get a blank stare in return. "Oh, come on! Okay, like in the video, 'This isn't the who the [bleep] are you game.'"

"Oh! [Bleep]?"

"Right."

"[Bleep] [bleep]" he was getting on a roll, and clearly enjoying it.

"Allright, you're done with that word. Next time you get to say it is when you're over 18 and living on your own."

"But I can still say it in my head, though, right?"

This is the point where if it were functioning properly, my brain would simply stop my heart and I wouldn't have to deal with this anymore. Sadly, the neurons kept firing, blood kept pumping and whatnot, so we got to have a nice little conversation on appropriate words. Not a complete one, mind you, because I'd have to teach him an entire vocabulary he just doesn't posses just to get the job done properly. And yeah, I know the day is coming when he'll need to have a better grasp of it than he does now.

Hmmm, it occurs to me, when that day comes, I should have Uncle Bluewoad pitch in...am sure there's nothing like a lesson on the development of the English language to suck the fun out of cussing...

My tongue can't multitask

Just finished giving a spelling test (while grading a grammar test) with one child demanding I start his spelling test and another semi-patiently waiting expectantly to me to dictate a literature passage to him.

As Butters recently said, "Ow! That hurt my brains! Ow!"

Big City, Bad Blood by Sean Chercover

Somewhere, maybe it was a Robert Crais discussion list, I saw the debut novel of Sean Chercover mentioned in the same breath as Michael Koryta, so I instantly got it put on hold for me at the library. Kortya's debut (and two follow-ups) was one of the best reads I had last year and I relished the idea of having a similar experience with another first novel.

I almost did, but not quite.

Don't get me wrong--Big City, Bad Blood rocked. A really good--maybe great--first novel. I just didn't connect with Ray Dudgeon and his friends and clients the way I did with Lincoln Perry and his crew.

Big City is the story of a movie location manager stumbling into an Organized Crime operation--one that seems pretty minor at the beginning, but doesn't stay that way for long. He comes to former journalist, now P.I. Dudgeon for protection. After some slow establishing chapters, the action picks up and doesn't slow down until the end. I don't think Chercover missed a beat or hit one false note--it's a great read, leaving me checking his website for details on his next book.

Bringin' Da Funny

I read and watch a lot of things considered comedic, humorous, funny, etc. but it's not often that I'll find something that his worth more than a handful of laughs--recently, I've stumbled onto a few things that are laugh out loud funny from beginning to end. Been meaning to talk about them for awhile, might as well get to it now, 3 books and 3 movies that I still laugh at weeks after finishing

Books:

• The Rabbit Factory by Marshall Karp - This is the first installment of what I hope is many in the adventures of two LA Homicide Detectives, Mike Lomax and Terry Biggs. The detective story is solid--a serial killer(killers?) is attacking people associated with a Disney-like company (complete with theme park), leading the detectives through both the messy world of the animation industry and its even messier history. At the same time, Lomax is dealing with the recent death of his wife and some other family issues. BUT the story is told with flair, heart and a lot of laughs. This isn't one of those books where the serious or violent aspects of the events are played for laughs. It's like Harry Bosch having a great day ('tho I don't know if Harry could handle such an eventuality). Better yet, it's like those 'comic relief' episodes of The Closer where Detectives Flynn and Provenza get themselves in the middle of some silly situation (like "To Protect & To Serve" or "Saving Face")--the murder stuff is serious, but everything around it is hilarious. It was touching, it was hysterically funny, with a dead-on mystery. Probably the best book I've read this year.


• Bloodthirsty by Marshall Karp Naturally, after The Rabbit Factory I rushed out to get the next Lomax and Biggs case. Thankfully, it was almost as good as the first. The humor still crackled, the insider's view of Hollywood again felt genuine, the crimes...well, they were more violent, more gruesome. Sadly, I could see the solution to the mystery a few miles away, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment watching the heroes get there themselves. Honestly, I can't really see the events of the first book happening in the real world--but this one? I'm surprised we don't hear about that kind of thing every day. A solid sequel that leaves you wanting more, I can't wait for the next thing Karp brings out.


• I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle Take the ultimate Teen Movie in the vein of Better Off Dead, Say Anything, or Can't Buy Me Love, make it funnier yet more heartfelt, and then commit it to print rather than film, and you've got this novel. Denis Cooverman, alpha-geek, uses his valedictorian speech at graduation to announce to the world--including Beth Cooper--his love for the titular character, the requisite gorgeous, rich, blonde cheerleader. There are a few problems with this...1. Beth is barely aware Denis exists; 2. Beth has a boyfriend with a nasty jealous streak; 3. Boyfriend is an Army soldier--with Special Forces training--on leave. Hilarity ensues. The novel is a chronicle of the day that follows graduation, that one last night of revelry. Well, revelry, violence, and young love. I wasn't reading it long before Samwise started saying, "you're about to start laughing" when I'd pick up the book (he was right).

Movies:

• Shaun of the Dead I finally gave into all the buzz I've heard over this and was delighted. This zombie flick had my coworker and I in stitches. Simon Pegg was fantastic as a beta male trying to win back his girlfriend (Studio 60's Lucy Davis) while trying to save her, his friends and mother (Penelope Wilton, Doctor Who's Harriet Jones) while the undead are conquering England. Sure, it's a story we've all seen a million times, but this time it was special. :)


• Hot Fuzz Simon Pegg does it again--and better! His character is 180 degrees different from Shaun, Type A over-achiever all the way, but just as funny--scratch that, even more laugh-inducing. This time out, Pegg's London's top cop (think Billy Rosewood in Beverly Hills Cop II), transferred to a small town. The culture-clash is a great setup and somehow doesn't become battle of the cliches. This was simply a perfect comedy. Again, my coworker and I were on the floor, and were afraid we were going to wake the clients.


• Death at a FuneralA dutiful son and his wife conduct a dignified funeral for his father, hosting many relatives (including other son, the celebrity author just flown in from the States), friends, and coworkers. And the laughs start coming. Typical comedic fare, right? This is an ensemble comedy, I only recognized two of the actors--Alan Tudyk (Wash!) and Peter Dinklage. It starts off pretty slow...set-up/punchline, set-up/punchline, and so on, slowly building up steam and then ka-pow! it takes off and you barely get a chance to catch your breath between punchlines. I can't really say more without giving away some of the plot, just trust me...you'll laugh a lot. This time at work, we didn't care if we woke anyone up--we just had to laugh--we had tears in our eyes. I watched this two times back-to-back and was in stitches both times. Can't say enough about this one.

"Their Best Game Ever"

A minor family emergency gave me an unexpected and unwelcome night-off last night, which took away my prime-blogging hours, no time to get anything real posted today--but am sticking with my at least one post a day for April target...

via HotAir, another Improv Everywhere video--if this one doesn't make you smile, there's something wrong with you. Frankly, I needed it--one van in the shop for transmission work, another van (which we haven't even made our first payment on!) in the shop for some body work thanks to some possibly un-insured dope with a slippery brake pedal...well, let's just say it does not make for a happy Hobster (or any other member of the clan).

No Matter How Small...

Well, once again, I went against my better judgment a few days back to see a kid's movie that I fully expected to be disappointed in, and was proven wrong. Although, this time my reluctance wasn't without merit--Defense Exhibit A, Defense Exhibit B. I knew, I just knew that this would be another example of the filmmakers getting the Seuss-portion right--and then all 60 or so minutes worth of filler would be dreadful.

But, I'll admit it, the non-Seuss stuff was seamlessly integrated with the original. The whole thing worked in a way that rivals the best of Pixar's works.

The animation was perfect--you know, you just know if he was alive and working today this is the kind of thing Seuss'd be producing. The characters--major and minor were fun, interesting, clever. The character voices were great--was very impressed with Will Arnett's work--making me regret his being replaced as KITT. The story was intact, especially the moral--a person's a person, no matter how small. (or big, or blue, or Whovillian, or whatever).

The way that the kangaroo provoked the mob mentality was brilliant. "It's for the children. It's for the children." How many ridiculous, criminal, and out right bad movements/ideas/policies have been rammed down our throats from all ends of the political spectrum by that mantra? If only real people were able cajoled out of following that Pied Piper of a slogan the way they were in the movie.

Shockingly, there's a little controversy around the film, first was the the way Carol Burnett's kangaroo states with aplomb, "that's why we Pouch School." I found (find, actually) that line hilarious. There are a few tight-shoed homeschool bloggers who are up in arms over this line, but most of those I've talked to/read actually have a sense of humor about it--some have even embraced it. (if I was more energetic, I'd go see how many homeschool bloggers have complained about the depiction of homeschooler Mama Boucher in the Adam Sandler classic)

The second comes from the Pro-Life movement's embrace of the line "A person's a person, no matter how small" (despite the widow Geisel's objections). This led to quite the tacky protest interrupting the Hollywood premier. How stupid. Great way to create ill-will for the movement.

Thankfully, that nonsense doesn't interfere with the movie (unless you happen to be reading blogs while watching it or were at the premier)--which was a real pleasure to watch, through and through.

The Doctor Is In...

Just caught the season premier of Doctor Who--loved it! Tennant scores again as the Doctor, and I didn't hate Donna this time out. Thankfully, her initial contact with the Time Lord had a positive impact on her and she's likable now. Still, I miss Martha (esp. after SciFi showed "Smith and Jones" last week), not as much as Rose, mind you. Can't wait to see the two of them again...

Best moment: when the Doctor realizes he's talking to himself while starting to explain the alien technology. Hard to feel bad for someone who can say, "I'm the Doctor. I'm a Time Lord. I'm from the planet Gallifrey of the constellation Kasterborous. I'm 903 years old, and I'm the man who is going to save your lives and the six billion people on the planet below. Do you have a problem with that?" But Tennant makes you do just that.

Maybe this ep was a little long on the comedy, short on the thrills. But hey, I'll take the good Doctor in any way they give it to me. I trust they'll get the balance right in the weeks to come.

For girlfriday's sake, I won't talk about the jaw-dropping bit. Can't wait to hear what she has to say about it...

Upcoming Events

Be sure to mark your calendars:

Ides of April - just in case you forgot--Tax Day. [sigh].
April 23 - Tax Freedom Day. Early this year. But don't worry, Obama and/or Clinton have plans to move this to later in the year.
May 3 (a.k.a. Day After Iron Man's premier) - Free Comic Book Day
May 8 - No Socks Day (name pretty much says it all)
May 9 - Lost Sock Memorial Day, not really sure what it is with May and Socks...
May 16 - National Sea Monkey Day. Frodo will be celebrating this one for sure...
May 24 - International Talk Like Bob Dylan Day
May 25 - Towel Day

Hope you appreciate this bit of public service, now back to obsessively focusing on myself.

Meet the Family

Ack! I can't believe I forgot to watch/record the first Walken-hosted SNL in five years. He has got to be one of the all-time greatest hosts. Thankfully, NBC's put a good chunk of the episode on hulu.com, including this bit of impression-y goodness: Meet the Family.

Postscript

Calvin and Hobbes doesn't corner the market on comic strip government school critiques, go Frazz!

Thought for the Lord's Day #20

The Tamed Lion

1 A Lion, though by nature wild,
The art of man can tame;
He stands before his keeper, mild,
And gentle as a lamb.

2 He watches, with submissive eye,
The hand that gives him food,
As if he meant to testify
A sense of gratitude.

3 But man himself, who thus subdues
The fiercest beast of prey,
A nature more unfeeling shows,
And far more fierce than they.

4 Though by the Lord preserv'd and fed,
He proves rebellious still;
And while he eats his Maker's bread,
Resists his holy will.

5 Alike in vain, of grace that saves,
Or threat'ning law, he hears;
The savage scorns, blasphemes, and raves,
But neither loves nor fears.

6 O Saviour! how thy wondrous pow'r
By angels is proclaim'd,
When in thine own appointed hour,
They see this lion tam'd.

7 The love thy bleeding cross displays,
The hardest heart subdues;
Here furious lions while they gaze,
Their rage and fierceness lose.

8 Yet we are but renew'd in part,
The lion still remains;
Lord, drive him wholly from my heart,
Or keep him fast in chains.

- John Newton

Demons can charm you with a smile, for a while

So I watched Sweeney Todd the other night, and it was about what you'd expect for a Tim Burton musical: dark, cool sets, twisted, lots of strange hair, and Johnny Depp. While I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone based on the content, it's one of the better musicals I've seen on film (right up there with Grease 2).

Everything I know about Sondheim, I learned from Mandy Patinkin CDs, so I wasn't too sure what to expect from this story outside the trailers. It was a decent story as far as revenge flicks about wronged barbers go (so glad I've given up the whole shaving thing...would have a hard time using the ol' Mach 3 for awhile), the use of the word macabre to describe this hardly seems fair to such a fun word to say. There are some truly great moments--mostly due to the music. The songs were great--it's like the Broadway success that Sondheim's had was deserved or something (yeah, I'm talking about you, Lloyd Webber).

Who knew these people could sing? The always reliable villian, Alan Rickman, Johnny Depp, and the proto-Goth Chick Helena Bonham Carter all made their singing debuts here. Who knew Sacha Baron Cohen could do something worth watching? What is with Timothy Spall showing up everywhere now?

I thought this was some of Burton's more creative uses of color--and was tempted to hang on to the DVD for a few more days to study it, but in the end I decided I'd find a decent discussion on-line or in the comments of this post.

I didn't have to see his face to reflexively shout "Giles!" during a certain actors' uncredited appearance. Anyone else do that? (my bad coffee-making coworker did, so I'm not the biggest geek I know).

Really can't think of anything else to say about this flick at the moment, so off to eat a couple of meat pies...

P.S. So TLomL doesn't hyperventilate, I should probably say that the Grease 2 thing was a joke. "Grease 2? What will people think? You know people don't always know when you're joking..."

Ah-hey ma ma ma

Been awhile since I did a Music Video Friday Post, and I can't seem to get enough of this cover of Dream Academy's "Life in a Northern Town" by Sugarland, Little Big Town and Jake Owen (who better to sing of life in 1960's England than circa-2007 American Country Music artists?).

Following some of the "Related Video" links, it looks like if this whole Country Music thing doesn't work out for Sugarland, they've got a future as an 80's cover band. See also: "Where The Streets Have No Name", "Pour Some Sugar on Me".

Meanwhile, am thinking of starting a charity organization: The Buy Jennifer Nettles a Sandwich Foundation.

Learning from that Kid and His (Imaginary?) Friend

I've been reading lately about comic strips helping kids become better readers (if for no other reason, they'll invest more effort into understanding unfamiliar words/phrases/ideas so they can get the joke), so last week I plunked down a few bucks for a Calvin and Hobbes collection. It's truly the rare moment over the last five days when that book has not been open in someone's hands (except for school or dining time...pretty much).

Of course, the downside to this is that Samwise is taking Calvin as a role-model.

So getting a link to this article in the mail this week was quite well-timed, "Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Public School...I Learned in Calvin & Hobbes Comic Books" by B.R. Merrick. Now, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't sign on to everything Mr. Merrick says about Calvin, Hobbes or Public School--but as I read over it again, I can't think of a single thing he gets wrong.

Particularly worth your time is "list, in order of importance from worse to worst, the life lessons I, and all the other non-fictional Calvins out there, learned from former-factory/now-corporate government schools."

Sadly, not so sure those strips are that funny anymore.

A quick grumble

Steve Taylor's first film, Second Chance was almost a paint-by-numbers Evangelical movie, but it was good enough to be enjoyable--and I was eager to see more.

But to follow it up with Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz? Ugh.

First time since my initial exposure to Steve that I'm not eagerly anticipating, nay, am dreading, his next project.

Talkin' Baseball

Not only was Monday Opening Day for MLB, it was the start of another season of Little League for the Offspring. Frodo's elected to not play this Spring--which is both sad and understandable (and hey...makes things a lot easier on his parents--we'd have had 3 kids in 3 different leagues and would've had to clone one of us to cover everything).

Samwise has his first game of the year tonight, the Princess has hers tomorrow (immediately following Sam's second game). Arnold desperately wants to play this year, and is counting down the days 'til next season. I'm very impressed with Sam's coach--not sure what kind of results he'll get out of the kid, but am sure he'll get good stuff out of the team as a whole (and vice versa). Not as impressed with Princess' coach--seems to put a great emphasis on quantity of practice over quality.

On the professional side, looks like Torre's getting off to a good start in LA. Beckett and Schilling started the season on the DL. The Girardi-era Yanks got off to a decent start in their opener--the Melk-man doing most of the splashy stuff, but the pitching was as good as it needed to be. Like Patrick over at Yanksblog said, "You're not going to beat the Yankees very often when the only pitchers you see are Chien-Ming Wang, Joba Chamberlain and Mariano Rivera."

Someone asked me why I'm so obsessed with baseball when it's so "boring" compared to say football or basketball. Here's a snippet from Chabon's Summerland to give part of the explanation:

"I hate it that they even count errors," Ethan said..."What kind of game is that? No other sport do they do that, Dad. There's no other sport where they put the errors on the freaking scoreboard for everybody to look at. They don't even have errors in other sports. They have fouls. They have penalties. Those are things that players could get on purpose, you know. But in baseball they keep track of how many accidents you have."

[snip]
"Ethan," Mr. Feld said, shaking his head in sorrow.... "Errors . . . Well, they are a part of life, Ethan," he tried to explain. "Fouls and penalties, generally speaking, are not. That's why baseball is more like life than other games.

Am I the Only One Who Does This?

Driving into work tonight, "Bohemian Rhapsody" comes on the radio, which is a rare enough event to warrant me staying on the channel without looking around to see what else was playing.

Somewhere between "spit in my eye" and "leave me to die" I realize that I'm doing the whole lip-synch, air band thing right out of Wayne's World--minus the DeLuise kid in the back and with greater accuracy than Dana Carvey.

Torn between being embarassed despite the fact that I was alone in the van and knowing I was alone in the van so I didn't need to care, I admit I faltered a bit there. But figured hey, the song was almost over, so I might as well finish.

Anyway the wind blows, anyone else do this?

Templatey Goodness and the like

Those of you who checked this space Tuesday evening may have noticed the presence of a couple of names rather than my avatar and e-bumper sticker over to your right. That's because I added TLomL as an author to this here blog, and it threw my template into a tizzy.

Now, she was an author here before...well, as far as the permissions and whatnot were concerned, she was an author, she just never contributed anything. Which was okay, because she started her own blog. She closed that one down awhile ago, and hasn't really wanted to get back to trying to keep up a blog of her own--which is a shame, but, hopefully, hopefully, she'll throw something in here from time to time.

I should mention that it took me an hour (in retrospect, it should've taken 5 minutes) to fix the template after adding her as an author. I would like to think, if nothing else, she'd feel obligated to post a few things because of the trouble I went to just to add her. You'd agree, readers, wouldn't you? Leave a comment, pour on the guilt encouragement.

Before I started dealing with the template, I installed the new Microsoft video software MLB is using so I could watch some highlights of last night's Yankee game. I'm not sure why/how, but after doing so, I lost about 25% of my Firefox window to a large toolbar that doesn't seem to include any content. I've uninstalled that software, restarted the computer, played with my Firefox theme...and nothing. Still have this large ugly grayish-brown rectangle at the bottom of my screen. Which really has nothing to do with anything but is just my way of saying that I"m apparently spending my down-time at work tonight on cosmetic troubleshooting. Not really what I had in mind, but what're ya gonna do, eh?

Dialogue Snippet of the Moment

Ben: I mean, they're like our cool, fun uncles.
Sock: Benji, have you ever had a cool, fun uncle?
Ben: Uncle Hector.
Sock: Uncles are creepy by definition, okay? Have you not been watching your SVU?

Reaper

Quote of the Moment

I guess one of the drawbacks to doing nothing with your life is that you're never quite sure when you've accomplished it.

- Jonathan Tropper
Plan B