Monday 26 July 2010

First: I must like having several projects going on at once, because it seems like I have had about four or five personal projects going on at any one time in my life during the past, oh, twenty years. By personal projects, I obviously don’t mean anything related to employment or schooling, but I also don’t mean home projects, either – like sheet-rocking a basement or tending to a garden.I mean honest-to-goodness personal projects that have no discernible value. Like this blog.

The annoying thing is setting aside time to work on a project, but then being unable to. Like today, I planned to finish up a video during my lunch break. An hour should’ve been enough time. I needed to find some royalty-free music, and then just use it as appropriate in this (supposedly) simple, short filmlet. But I couldn’t locate this great site, that offers easy downloads of royalty-free music. I’ve used that site before, but I couldn’t find it today. I found another site, but they charged for their music. Add to that the fact that about 75% of the sites I tried visiting were blocked thanks to my job’s Great Wall of Blocked Sites. So, not only did I not finish the filmlet during my lunch break, I made almost no progress at all. Bummer. Once this filmlet is finally wrapped up, I’m gonna dedicate that day’s blog post to telling the story of what should’ve been a quick video to create.

You’ve been warned.

Second: my wife requested that I put the day of the week at the start of each blog post. Her exact request was: “You should out the day at the top of each post.” So I said: “I do.” She said: “No you don’t.” Then I said: “Oh, you mean the day of the week?” And she said: “Yeah.” So that’s that. Behold: it is Monday.

Third: cool story.

Tuesday 27 July2010

And here’s part of the problem with trying to write something about each day: often times, the events of the day aren’t “ready” to talk about or show on that day. Here then, are some photos I took back on Sunday:

Last December, Owen and I went to a holiday pot luck organized by Happy Trails Nature Club. One of the activities there was to take a pine cone, tie some twine to it, smother it in peanut butter, then roll it in bird seed. It’s quite messy! We took our pine cone home and hung it out on our deck. I didn’t think any birds would eat from it but not only did they eat – they picked it totally clean. A couple of times now (when I’m in the mood), we’ve given the ol’ cone a refill.

Tonight we shared the movie The Princess Bride with Owen. He said he really liked it, being especially enraptured with the swordplay and the ‘holocaust cloak’ (that garment Fezzik wears when storming the castle). At one point, we paused the movie for some reason, and Owen summed up his critical analysis thusly: “This movie is a lot like Number Five, only there’s no robot. And they don’t have laser guns.” By ‘Number Five,’ Owen means Short Circuit.

A couple of weeks ago, we all sat and watched The Wizard of Oz. Owen enjoyed that one, too, as was especially evident by his non-stop questioning of everything in the movie.

I’m not sure this kid appreciates the kind of quality film we try to bring into his life. Maybe he will when he’s older. And I’ll be happy to watch those flicks with him again.

23 July 2010

A couple of days ago, I heard a quick snippet on Minnesota Classical Radio about a special production the Minnesota Orchestra was going to present in October. It was real quick, in between music sets, and the DJ only mentioned it to segue into the overture of Don Giovanni. It was an awkward segue; he only mentioned it because he felt it typified ‘scary’ and he felt the Giovanni Overture sounded scary as well.

I meant to look it up online as soon as I got home, but whenever I arrive home, I’m immediately bombarded by a cat and a five year old…so it left my mind.

But today I remembered to look it up: I’d really like to attend this event. Who’s with me?

Also: a great thing about today: A coupon arrived, via email, for Borders Books. I have already mentioned my desire for a certain book, but that I wasn’t about to spend thirty bucks on it. A 15% coupon actually arrived in my inbox last week, but I didn’t feel that was good enough. I held out – and it paid off – today I received a 40% off coupon that’s good until Monday. So I am <72 hours away from being the proud owner of THIS BOOK.

Anyway, I’m incredibly tired today. I’ve been getting up especially early, and staying at work a little late, trying to accumulate a stash of overtime. The way I see it, when I’m on paternity leave, I’ll still be getting a paycheck, but I won’t be getting any overtime on those checks, so they’ll be smaller than usual. Since I’m not sure how many days I’ll be at work this coming week, I figured I’d rack up a whole bunch of overtime during the first half of the pay period. Oh yeah!

24 July 2010

Today we went to the theater to see the film Babies. It’s a documentary my wife had wanted to see for some time now, and to our surprise it was still playing in big screen here in the cinematic wasteland we live in.

The documentary shows the lives of four babies, roughly from birth to their first birthday. Apart from brief shots of their mom’s swollen bellies and a couple of scenes at the births, there’s not too much about how the babies actually came into the world. Instead, the film-makers seemed more interested in showing how the babies fare during their first year.

It was a fun film, and I suppose “cute” would be an appropriate word to throw in here, too. It was somewhat dry, however, offering little in the way of commentary. There was no voice-over, no subtitles the non-English families, and no words on the screen to explain what was going on. In this way, it was closer to Cinéma vérité than just about any other film I’ve ever seen. The only commentary, or ‘angle,’ if you prefer, was in the way the film-makers would cut from one scene to another, such as when we see one baby playing in the mud, then cut to another baby laying around while dad vacuums the play area and uses a lint brush on his daughter.

There were four babies being tracked: a boy from a nomadic family in Mongolia, a girl who lived with her parents in a high-rise in Tokyo, a girl living with her parents in San Fransisco, and a boy from Namibia. In fact, this is really the only complaint I had about the film: the Tokyo and San Fransisco stories were too similar. Both lived in very large, very modern cities, both lived in English-speaking households, and both girls were the only children their parents had (apparently). When going from one family to another, it sometimes took me a minute to determine if we were back in Japan or back in California. Instead of the San Fransisco family, I would’ve preferred, for example, to have seen a baby born into a large family in small-town Alaska, or perhaps somewhere in South America. All in all, though, a pretty good flick – and the perfect film to see so soon before we have another child.

I should comment on the theater, too: we ventured to Riverview Theater in Minneapolis, as it was one of only two theaters within 25 miles that was showing Babies. We’ve been to several of these hole-in-the-wall theaters in the Twin Cities (’cause they’re the only ones that play consistently decent films), but I’m pretty certain this was my first time at Riverview. Thankfully, we were able to get there without having to use a highway or enter the downtown. It’s swanky theater, having been maintained in its original 1950s trendy decor. The lounge area was fun to sit in – amidst retro chairs, couches, tables and decorations, and the prices even harked back to an earlier (if not 1950s) time – $2 per person for a ticket, and a pop-corn and root beer for $5.

In another note, this was Owen’s 7th time at the movie theater – his list includes four Pixars and, after today, two documentaries. Lucky kid.

25 July 2010

After I stepped out of the shower this morning, Owen said he wanted to get in. I tried talking him into taking off his clothes, but he argued that he was going to have to take them off to get dressed later anyways, so he might as well leave them on now.

He thoroughly enjoyed standing in the shower stall. I’m not sure he’s ever been in the shower in my bathroom before – he’s generally prefers baths – but he just couldn’t stop laughing and saying how much he loved it. He used to take showers when he and I would go to the community center’s pool, but we haven’t done that in over two years. Still, he remembered having done that way back when he was two years old. He kept saying: “This is like the pool place, isn’t it?”

After a while, I told him: “Okay, buddy, just five more minutes.” He whined “no,” and continued to go on about how much fun it was in the shower. He gave me a moment-by-moment commentary: “Oohh, it’s getting hot now – I love hot,” and “I could just stand here for like, twenty ten hours!”

He finally did get out of the shower – after I shut off the water, and he let out the most disappointing “awww” in the history of disappointments.

We had a pretty good day after that, too, by the way – we biked to Trader Joe’s, then to Mississippi Market. We paged through my new book that I purchased for 60% of the retail cost, we played Mrs. Pac-man, and, in the evening, we even managed to get 39+ week pregnant Jennifer to join us on a walk to the park.

21 July 2010

Today I mentioned to my wife that I was thinking about the ratio of boys to girls in our families. I know this has little bearing on the gender of our baby-to-be, but it’s a fun exercise in thought.

So, first we have our siblings. Jennifer’s brother has a daughter, and Jennifer’s sister has a daughter, too. My sister has no kids, so that’s 2 out of 2. Of course, Jennifer’s sister is pregnant with a boy, so I guess I should say 2 out of 3.

Jennifer comes from a family of 3 girls and 1 boy, and I come from a family of one of each. So that’s 4 out of 6.

My mom comes from a family of 2 boys and 2 girls. My Dad comes from a family of 4 boys and 1 girl. My wife’s mom comes from a family of 3 boys and 1 girl, and her dad comes from a family of one of each.

What does all of this prove? Absolutely nothing.

On the other hand, the baby will be born under the astrological sign Leo, so I’m sure that counts for something!

22 July 2010

Did I ever tell you about the strange case of my silly filmlet vs. horrorcore hip-hop fans? Well, I’m gonna tell you know.

Back in, like, 1994, I had this great idea for a video: find a pregnant woman – a very pregnant woman – and show her taking a pregnancy test. Then, just for fun, have the test turn out negative. Ha! See? Isn’t that hilarious? The problem was, I was just a single teenage boy at the time, and I didn’t have too many pregnant women in my circle of friends. Sure, as the years went on, I knew a few pregnant ladies, but I never felt like saying: “Hey, know what? We could use that big belly to hilarious effect.”

But then, one day, I was living with a pregnant woman. So I talked her in to making this filmlet with me:

We decided to name this video “The ICP Pregnancy Test.” We chose that acronym for two reasons: first, it sounded ‘medical,’ and second, it’s a homophone for the phrase ‘I see pee.’ Get it?

This was the very first video I posted on YouTube and, by a wide margin, it’s the most watched video I’ve uploaded there.

One day, I received a friendly email from YouTube telling me a comment had been posted. It turns out, the comment was from a self-proclaimed Juggalo expressing his disdain for my choice in video titles. If you’re like most people, that last sentence made no sense to you, so let me explain: a Juggalo is a fan of the music act Insane Clown Posse, kind of like how Dead Heads are fans of The Grateful Dead.

Within a few days, my video had received a dozen comments, all from Juggalos in varying states of agitation at having found my video. At first, I wasn’t sure why they had even come across my video, but then I realized that ‘ICP’ is not just the name of my fictitious pregnancy test, it’s also the abbreviation for ‘Insane Clown Posse.’ So, essentially, these Juggalos were visiting YouTube, typing “ICP” in the search box, and finding my video.

I can understand that this is annoying. My wife tried repeatedly to find Muppets videos on YouTube for Owen to watch, only to discover videos of Kermit wherein the audio has been replaced with vulgar language. But what I don’t understand is why these Juggalos took the time to comment on the video. Why not just click to a different video?

Nearly every comment was abusive in its language – and most assumed that I was, in some way, trying to ‘diss’ their sacred music act. So, one day, I blocked all comments to the video (the comments are still blocked). Finally, one person, who was both an Insane Clown Posse connoisseur and able to construct a polite, intelligent comment, informed me – via private message – that I might be able to save myself the angry comments if I would just alter the name of my video. I responded thanking him, and immediately changed the title to “The I See Pee Pregnancy Test.”

For several months now, I’ve not heard a word from any Juggalo. But then, today, this comment showed up in my YouTube inbox:

Hey get this…. FUCK YOU ICP RULES….GO SUCK A DEAD MANS DICK BITCH

This is typical of the comments I used to get, but I was surprised to receive such a comment after altering the title of the video.

How do I respond to someone like this? My gut reaction is to reply with a similarly caustic message, but that’s just dumb. I could respond calmly, but sarcastically (my usual way of responding to any conversation), saying something like: “Hey, thanks for your comment. You certainly aren’t shattering any stereotypes I have of Insane Clown Posse aficionados.” Or maybe I should tell him that a caps lock key can be his friend, and that the apostrophe is located east of the semi-colon key, and that there are only three periods in an ellipsis, or that a corpse’s penis decomposes faster than nearly any other body part. But I think such nuanced sarcasm might be wasted on him – and I’m not sure it’s a ‘him,’ but I’m just determining the gender based on the violence implied.

20 July 2010

I was reading on a discussion board today, and someone asked people to post their favorite scenes from movies. I didn’t participate in that discussion. Instead, I’ll post some of my favorites here.

Here’s the problem, though: I think I’d have a tough time going through every film I’ve seen and selecting the best scenes of the bunch. Sometimes, there’s a really great film, but I can’t really think of one particular scene that stands out. Other times, there are really mediocre films that have one or two really awesome scenes. So here’s what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna open up my list of films, scan through it, and if a scene comes to my mind, I’ll see if it’s available on the inter-webs. Here are two disclaimers: These aren’t necessarily my favorites (there might be 20 scenes out there that are better than any of these), and I’m not gonna embed more than one scene for any given movie. True, some movies have lots of good scenes, but then maybe you should just go watch the whole movie. Therefore, in no particular order, here are 12 great scenes from motion pictures that I’ve watched:

1. Everything about this montage is phenomenal: the teacher’s advice, the boy’s acting, the grip the music has on his life, and, of course, the underlying score:

2. Hitchcock and Dali…together at last! Though not nearly as popular, Spellbound is a far better film than Vertigo, and it has a way better dream sequence, too:

3. This movie is pretty much just one hilarious bit after another, but this is the one that came to my mind first:

4. Here’s an example of a phenomenal scene in a deeply flawed, uneven film. This is a great first scene. Although, technically, it’s not the first scene. If memory serves, it’s the second scene, after an insanely pointless “present day” bit that bookends the movie. But on the subject of pointless, this scene, great as it is, is also pointless in relation to the rest of story (and unintelligible as a flashback):

5. And while we’re on the topic of Spielberg:

6. I thought this was a very moving moment in a very moving film:

7. Kirk & Co. certainly kicked ass many times before (and after) this, but somehow, totally owning a whaling vessel was exceptionally satisfying:

8. When I saw this at the theater, everyone in the audience was sniffling and crying. After so much laughter and mayhem, this scene was unexpected (for me). But I knew that even though little Goisue just thinks Papa is playing, for Papa, that wink is a good-bye (WARNING: Pregnant women might find this too emotional!):

9. This movie has several rather stellar scenes, but I’ve selected this one because, when I saw this movie for the first time, it was this scene that made me think, “Yes, this is an awesome flick.” And it’s also a truly dizzying intellect:

10. A great finale that I fear maybe isn’t so good by itself, but if you’ve seen the film, you know this was a fine four minutes:

11. A shout out to the silent era – just when you think the scene can’t get any sadder, you bust out laughing:

12. Brilliant! Ha!:

And here are some scenes that I tried to find, but that I couldn’t find an embeddable clip for: The final two minutes of The Iron Giant; the scene in The Godfather II where Vito becomes the Godfather, you know – when he’s hopping on the rooftops following the guy on the street below; the scene in Rope where Jimmy Stewart says: “Did you think you were God, Brandon?”; the final three minutes of Psycho; that part in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is running from a boulder; the first scene from Memento; the scene-within-a-scene-within-a-scene first six minutes of Serenity;and that awesome bit in Superman II where the Man of Steel tricks Zorg with that anti-superhero chamber.

18 July 2010

The word of the day is: Maintaining.

We tried to maintain the house in the clean, organized fashion in which it has been for the past few days. See, now that we’ve cleaned every room, scrubbed the bathrooms, done the dishes and the laundry, and gotten rid of things we don’t want anymore, we now have to try and keep that state going until the baby arrives. We’re working against thermodynamics here.

And that’s tough to do at the moment. Last night, my niece slept over, so she and Owen are trying their best to take apart his bedroom. I notice that about other kids when they visit: they pull out all Owen’s toys – even ones that I forgot he had. I guess that’s understandable; after all, those toys are new to them. I try to get Owen to put away one toy before taking out the next one, but somehow this falls apart when other kids are present. At least this is an improvement from last year when he and his niece would, for no apparent reason, take every single toy, game, article of clothing, and puzzle piece off the shelves and put them in a pile in his bedroom. Not sure what the appeal of that was.

By the time my niece left this evening, Owen’s room was the most disastrous one in the house. It took me a while, but I think it’s well-organized and clean once again.

19 July 2010

My awesome co-workers held a mini-shower for me this morning. I’m not exactly wide-eyed and happy to be around people on a Monday morning, but I tried my best to be amicable. There were store-bought donuts (these are definitely to be preferred over the cafeteria’s ‘donuts’), an array of drinks and, for the baby, a hand-made cap – made of 100% organic cotton – and a gift card.  What a great way to start off the week.

Later, during my lunch break, I stopped at the new and unimproved Maple Grove library. On my way back to my car, I looked down at (what I presume is) a man-made lake and saw a loon. A loon! In Maple Grove! I stopped and stared at it for nearly a minute before it dived down to look for some fish. What is a loon doing in Maple Grove? I don’t know. It’s kind of weird because, in the six years I’ve been driving to this suburb for work, I’ve noticed that the city is intense on driving out any vestiges of nature. So, to see a loon in that strip mall of a town is like seeing a deer walking through downtown Minneapolis.