Sunday, 24 October 2010

Today we ran all over town – Halloween costumes, groceries, and art supplies all took up our time. The highlight of the day, though, was probably joining the Happy Trails Nature Club on a bog walk at the Harriet Alexander Nature Center.

Here are the ladies in my family out enjoying the fall day:

While the highlight for Isla, evidently, was sleeping through the entire event, the highlight for Owen and me was the Nature Center’s indoor apiary.

The bees all live in this skinny hive that allows viewing on either side. It was fascinating to watch them going about their tasks. Owen, actually was so engrossed that he refused to come on over and listen to the story time. Here’s the apiary itself (with Owen’s head just visible):

The upturned jar to the right, incidentally, is filled with sugar water. “Sugar water” is just a chemist’s fancy terminology for “a solution of water in which sugar has been dissolved.”

You can just barely see it on the left of the picture, but the insects gain access to the great outdoors via a hard plastic tube. There were often four or five bees at a time marching back and forth through the tube to carry on their business. Here’s a close-up of the tube:

It’s probably difficult to see, but there is one bee making his way through the tube in this photo.

You’d think these bees would have life pretty easy, but it turns out they die every winter and need to be replaced with new Borg drones.

Pretty cool.

Monday, 25 October 2010

Today I watched a movie that has to be one of the most difficult movies for me to rate (I keep a list of every movie I’ve ever seen, along with a rating from 0-10). I watched the Van Sant 1998 remake of Psycho.

I try to rate flicks based on when they were released, ergo – I don’t hold it against a film if it’s a silent film, or if it’s special effects aren’t as awesome as more recent films. I also try to ignore outside influences – if a historical picture isn’t entirely historically accurate, I’m okay with that. And if a movie is adapted from a book, I try not to judge the former based on the latter. Indeed, the only time I purposely allow my judgment of a film to be colored by another work is in the case of sequels.

But what about Psycho?

Hmm… a shot-by-shot remake, with identical dialog of my all-time favorite film. Weird.

First off, the dialog is not identical. The writer’s wisely updated a couple of lines. For example, Marion doesn’t steal $40,000 as she does in the original, she steals $400,000 (makes sense). And Detective Arbogast doesn’t reference aspic (what the hell is aspic, anyway?), he references Jell-O, a brand name far more people would recognize.

But overall, this is a film from 1960, even if the opening credits insist it’s 1998. Would Sam really place his engagement on hold just to pay off his debts? In 1960, sure. But in 1998, no, I don’t think so. And would a finance office really keep their back offices air conditioned, but their front offices in sweltering heat? Again, in 1960, sure. But not in 1998. Worst, though, is when Sheriff Chambers’ wife calls the Bates Motel. She picks up the phone and asks that the operator connect her with the motel. Um…sorry, but in 1998, you can just go ahead and call people directly.

But while the film-makers stupidly didn’t update some dialog, they made some changes that were equally stupid. For one thing, Marion Crane is played by Anne Heche. I swear, you could see her thinking in her head “Okay, here’s the part where I need to blink nervously.” It’s like she was just walking through the role, making sure she pantomimed the expressions that were so natural with Janet Leigh.

Also, Heche is a diminutive Pixie of a woman. When she fist interacts with Norman (portrayed by Vince Vaughan), it just doesn’t work. Vaughan looks and acts sinister. He’s a foot taller than Heche and at least twice her weigh. They also appear to be matched in age. In short, he gave off every signal in the world that she should be scared, and that just ruined it. In the original, Leigh and Anthony Perkins are close in height and weight. She seems older, more self-assured, and Perkins’ Norman comes across as an awkward man-boy in his early 20s who doesn’t know how to hurt a fly.

But there’s more bad casting: the psychiatrist’s monologue at the film’s end was made interesting in the original by the way he spoke. It was as if he was at a loss for words, and was trying to think up how to explain Mrs. Bates’ condition as he spoke. But in the remake, the psychiatrist simply parrots the words, quickly and meaninglessly, as if he’s a politician giving a well-rehearsed speech.

And on the subject of bad casting: Julianne Moore plays Marion’s sister Lila. Though obviously in her 30s, she dresses like a teenager, complete with a Walkman and headphones. And it’s not only her rebellious teenager clothing: she also acts like a hormonal bitch. When Sam tries to show her support by putting his hand on her shoulder, she pointlessly shrugs it off. Later, he puts his hand on her shoulder again, this time to complete the illusion that he and Lila are married. But she shrugs him off again! Nice going Lila, now Norman knows you’re lying.

And here’s a weird thing: When Marion is killed in the shower, we are shown quick shots of thunderclouds. Weird…but okay, because it was a stormy night and I can see the connect between the storm outside and the storm inside. But later, when Mrs. Bates kills Arbogast, we also see two quick shots: one of a woman’s silhouette, and one of a cow standing on a road. Again, weird. But this time: stupid.

And speaking of Marion’s murder: the film-makers decided to show her pupils dilating. I appreciated that, because her pupils did not dilate in the original – and that was a mistake. Unfortunately, mere moments after watching her pupils dilate, we see her eyes again and they’re no longer dilated. Sloppy.

Maybe they forgot to keep her eyes dilated because they were too busy setting up an overhead shot of a dead Marion spread-eagled over the tub ledge. She’s face-down, of course, so we just see a very weird angle of her butt crack. Silly…at a time when silliness should not come into play.

But here are the two worst moves (and don’t read on if you’ve never seen the original, or if you’re squeamish):

1) While spying on Marion through the hole in the wall, Norman masturbates – to the point of ejaculation. I’m sorry, but besides detracting from the story, that just ruins the psychology of the next ten minutes. In the original, he simply watches her silently. He is aroused, but he gets no release. His conversation with his mother, and the ensuing stabbing don’t make any sense if Norman is not in a state of agitated arousal.

2) The original film closes with a brilliant triple-exposure of Norman/his mom’s skull/ a chain being pulled out of his heart cross-dissolving into the car being pulled out of the swamp. Then the credits immediately begin – literally chopping away at the scene of the car. It’s as if Hitchcock was saying, “Yeah, remember that money that you cared so much about? Well, here it is…but so what? Movie over!” In the remake, the triple-exposure is still there, but the camera lingers on the car. We are not left with Norman’s demented grin, but with the car being hoisted out of the water. And the shot doesn’t end there: the camera pans up and lets us watch the car being completed extracted and towed away. The scene continues through the entire closing credits, and even for over a minute after the credits end. It’s all useless, and it diminishes the impact.

But I digress. All my nitpicks serve, overall, to just compare the remake with the original. Had there never been an original, I would’ve watched this 1998 flick and found it very admirable. Unfortunately for that film’s creators, though, there was an original.

When asked why he remade a classic in a shot-for-shot manner, director Van Sant said: “So no one else would have to.”

Sorry, Van Sant – that answer is as silly and pointless as your film.

Bottom line:

Psycho (1960): A

Psycho (1998): C

Saturday, 23 October 2010

Today was another “Family Day” with my wife’s family. As is the norm, we converged upon their cabin in Wisconsin. I had a good time, hanging out by the bonfire and eating lots of food. I even helped pull the dock up out of the lake for the year.

A few people in the family were in hopeful expectation that my wife’s sister – the estranged, Christian one named Kara – would be there. To absolutely no surprise to me, she was not there. This was just fine by me, as she has chosen to make any contact I do have with her quite awkward, but many other relatives seem positively aching to see her. Her own mother, for one thing, hasn’t seen or heard from her in at least 6 months. Same goes for her grandma, her sisters, and nearly all of her aunts, uncles, and cousins.

She does, however, maintain some modicum of contact with her brother Les (who, if you’re slightly confused here, is also my wife’s brother). Les self-identifies as a Jehovah’s Witness and so, even though he’s probably considered ‘inactive’ by Witness standards, is just fine in Kara’s book.

Les seems to be trying to maintain peace with both sides – his devout Witness sister on the one side, and his other 20+ relatives on the other side. See, even though he identifies as a Witness, he doesn’t do any Witness activities, such as regularly attending their meetings or going door-to-door or refraining from saying things like “fuck.”

I completely understand his predicament, as I was in much the same situation for years, too. On the one hand, I had a strong feeling that the Witnesses were incorrect about a great many things. Indeed, I had proof that they were wrong about some things, and strong reasons to believe they were wrong about a bunch of other things. And, like Les, I wasn’t feeling satisfied by participation in the religion. Knocking on doors didn’t bring happiness, praying didn’t put my mind at ease or make me feel like some all-knowing deity was watching over me, and many of the people in the religion caused me frustration and grief.So, like Les, I didn’t mind missing meetings, slacking on my ‘theocratic duties,’ or hanging out with my wife’s non-Witness relatives (even if my religion did teach they were all gonna die in Armageddon real soon).

Still, there were people in the religion that I genuinely loved. Les and Kara are prime examples, but then there were my parents and grandparents, my mom’s siblings, and my Dad’s sister and youngest brother. I didn’t want to leave the religion because I didn’t want to lose their friendship; their love. Additionally, and I am sure Les feels similarly, I wanted the religion to be true. Or, at least, I wanted the good parts – such as living in a paradise earth free from crime and pollution – to be true.

And therein lied the problem: I wanted to best of both worlds, but I ended up just having the worst of both worlds.

I saw a vivid example of this a few weeks ago, at another family gathering. My wife’s dad, uncle, aunt, and brother-in-law were all discussing the fact that they hadn’t seen Kara in many months. Her aunt said it’s too bad, and she wondered aloud what it would take to get Kara to stop hating the family. Les, standing around and listening to all of this, couldn’t keep silent, he defended Kara by saying she’s been busy. “You know how people get with their lives,” he said casually.

I appreciate Les trying to defend his sister, but his argument was simply not true. Kara might have been too busy to have attended the family gathering that one night, but her reason for not attending Isla’s baby shower, a couple of visits to the cabin, her grandmother’s 80th birthday party, and even her own parents’ 40th wedding anniversary celebration is no secret. She has clearly made it known to her own mother, and to my wife, that she feels they are fighting against her religion, and that they are bad association. She fears that being in contact with them will upset her god and that she could get into trouble with her elders for being around ex-Witnesses. The entire family knows this, and the only reason why no one aired this on that night was out of respect for Les. I, for one, wanted to blurt out, “Sorry Les, but we all know that’s not true,” but I didn’t want to make Les feel bad.

At some point in the last few weeks, I’m sure Les told Kara about how the family feels about her continued absence (after all, it gives a lousy Witness). This probably got Kara’s conscience nagging her and, although it’s always uncomfortable when one’s conscience goes against one’s religion, Kara evidently said she might attend the family day today. Les told his mother this news, along with his fret that Jennifer or I might talk about her religion while she’s there. As you can imagine, this particularly scares Kara, as she knows she would be unable to logically defend her religion. Thus the shunning. See? It’s not a cult.

Anyway, Kara didn’t show up. But Les did. I had a great time talking with Les; he was once one of my best friends, and I hope he will be again someday. Les also brought his daughter along, and Owen had fun playing with his cousin. So the day was just great as far as I am concerned.

Before leaving for the day, Jennifer’s great-aunt took a look at Jennifer holding Isla, and her sister Roberta holding her new son. “Some people in our family just don’t know what they’re missing,” she said tearfully.

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

Today marks one of the few days that I have neither seen nor heard from Owen all day (since his birth). He slept over at his grandparents’ house last night, and he’s doing it again tonight.

It’s quite peaceful in our home tonight. It’s also a great day to spend some time with Isla. Typically, whenever I pay any attention to Isla whatsoever, Owen insists on getting in on the fun or work. For example, Isla might be sitting on my lap, and then I look down at her and say: “Hello, pretty girl! Are you my baby?” (Hey, I didn’t say my conversations with her were very interesting.) And then, suddenly, Owen comes scrambling over from wherever he is and gets his head in between mine and Isla’s and begins talking to her. This usually means he’s way too close for Isla’s liking, and it also means I get annoyed.

I should probably mention that whenever I say something to Isla, Owen repeats the exact same words. If I say four or five sentences in a row, Owen parrots them back with a slight delay, as if there’s a very clear echo in our house. I’m not sure why he does this, but if there was an icon underneath that said ‘LIKE,’ I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t press it. Sometimes I think I should just speak to Isla in phrases Owen would be unable to repeat, such as saying: “expiratory distribution of partially ignited hydrocarbons into the immediate atmosphere disallowed,” but there seems little point in telling my daughter not to smoke and, anyways, Owen still makes an attempt to repeat such thing, mimicking the duration and intonation, if not the exact wording.

If I ask him nicely to back down, he does not comply. If I ask him more sternly, he might comply, but he also snaps back a guttural moan, collapses on the floor and often begins faux-crying.

Anyway…not to complain about my kids, but I’m not sure how to deal with that.

Thursday, 21 October 2010

In just over two weeks, my company will be holding their annual “6K Run and Walk.” They’ve done this every years that I’ve been employed here and, despite the lateness of the season, the first Friday in November has actually turned out to have pretty decent weather. Last year it was a bit cold, but in all other years it was a very pleasant day to be outside running.

This year will be my sixth time participating. I did not participate in 2004; I assumed I would finish last and be the laughing stock of the company. After the race, however, I learned that people more than twice my age participated, many didn’t even run, and several people took over an hour to complete the race. “At least I can do better than them, though I with all due arrogance.

In 2005, I finished the race in 39 minutes and 21 seconds. I placed 118th out of 230. My goal for the following year was to both beat my time and finish in the top half.

In 2006, I finished in 36 minutes and 16 seconds. Coincidentally, I again placed 118th, but this time there were 284 participants, so I easily finished in the top half.

And that’s the best I’ve ever done.

In 2009, as I was approaching the finish line, I saw that the clock said 36 minutes. I thought for sure I would beat my best time, but I ended up finishing in 36 minutes and 25 seconds, a mere 9 seconds off from my best.

So this year I’m determined to make a new personal best. Back in June, I decided that I would run the 6K every Tuesday. But, um, it turned out that it was either raining or 95 degrees every Tuesday. It wasn’t until July 20th that I finally did run the 6K for the first time this year. I repeated that feat again on July 22nd. I was going to run it again on the 27th but that was Isla’s due date, and I didn’t want Jennifer to call telling me she was in labor when I was halfway around the path. It would’ve taken me 15 more minutes to finish, then another 15 minutes to shower and another 35-40 minutes to get home. By that time, I surely would’ve missed Isla’s supersonic delivery.

But now I’ve decided to run the course 9 times before the race. I plan on running it every Tuesday and Thursday. So far, I’ve run the course on October 5th, 7th, 12th, 14th, 19th and today. I’m gonna run it twice next week, too. Then, the week of the race, I plan to run the course on Monday the first. Today I came within seconds of besting my time, so I’m feeling pretty confident, especially since the presence of other runners will give me the push to keep going.

I’ll update you soon…

Friday, 22 October 2010

For pretty much no reason, I decided to sort my lists by last-updated date. Turns out, the list that has gone the longest without being altered is my “States I Have Been To” list. I haven’t changed it since 1998. Here’s the list:

1.  Minnesota                       1975

2.  New York –                      1975

3.  Wisconsin –                     1976

4.  Illinois –                            1976

5.  Indiana –                            1976

6.  Ohio –                                1976

7.  Pennsylvania –                  1976

8.  Massachusetts –            1976

9.  Michigan –                       1978

10. Iowa –                              1984

11. Nebraska –                     1984

12. Colorado –                      1984

13. South Dakota –             1987

14. Florida –                          1987

15. Kentucky –                     1991

16. Tennessee –                    1991

17. Georgia –                        1991

18. New Jersey –                 1993

19. Texas –                            1998

The year next to each state is the year in which I first entered that state. As you can see, I haven’t been to any new states since 1998. Wow. The entire ’00 decade (yeah, I don’t know how to say that decade, either) passed by without me visiting one new state. Conversely, in the ’70s – a decade in which I was only alive for the second half – I visited nine new states.

But perhaps that’s not too surprising. After all, when I was first born, I hadn’t been anywhere but Minnesota. Any sort of travel was bound to afford me new states.

Now that I’m adult, however, I actually go on more vacations than I did when I was a kid. (Fun fact: I went on three vacations in the 1980s. Okay, so I guess that fact is not so fun. Sorry.) The problem is, I just continue to visit states I’ve already been to. In ’09, for example, I went on vacation to Iowa and Illinois – two states I’d been to plenty of times. Those were two firsts for Owen, though. And this year alone I think I’ve been to Wisconsin 3 or 4 times, and I’ll be there again tomorrow.

Oh well. If anyone is planning a trip to Vermont or Montana or Alaska anytime soon, let me know. I may tag along just so my poor list gets some attention.

Monday, 18 October 2010

I am happy to report that I have completed that wedding video that I was working on. I’m done with the editing of it, at least. It still needs to be dropped into a DVD burning program, a title page needs to be designed, I need to burn the disks and create and print a cover for the DVD packaging…but all in all, the toughest part is done.

So today  I have decided to immediately plunge back in to working on some videos I had been working on way back in July. I think I’ve complained about this before, but I swear there is never a time when I don’t have at least one video under construction. So, you know, I’m gonna finish up these three so that I can work on another video.

I actually have a few ideas for videos, too. One of them involves discussing some beautiful (or a better word) pieces of popular culture from the past decade. I want to basically just talk to the camera and say: “Hey, listed below are 11 magnificent (or a better word) creations from this millennium. Give them a thumbs up or a thumbs down depending on if you feel they’re worthy of the moniker “Modern Classic.”

So, how about some help with this one: Is there any book, film, song, album, play, painting, photograph, short story, or TV show from the past ten years that you think ranks among the best of the best?

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

On Monday, August 2nd, I called the Minnesota Department of Health requesting the necessary paperwork to get a birth certificate for Isla. I don’t really care about ‘registering’ my kid with the government, but I wanted her registered somewhere so that I could count her as a dependent on my insurance, and so that I could add her as a tax write-off this spring.

No one answered the phone, but I left a message. I called the next day, and left another message. I called again on Friday (Aug. 6th) and left another message.

On Monday the 9th, I decided I would just call there every hour until I got an answer. So, I called at 8:00, and left a message. Then I called again at 9:00, and a woman named Roxanne said: “Oh, yes, I have your paperwork right here, I just need to ask you a few questions.” (Not sure why she didn’t call to ask, but whatever…) She said she’d send the papers out right away.

On Monday the 23rd, I called asking why I hadn’t received the papers yet. Since they only had to travel about 3 miles, I felt for sure it wasn’t the postal service’s fault. No one answered, so I left a message.

On Wednesday, the 25th, the papers arrived. There were five sheets of paper: one gave instructions, two were to be filled out to register Isla so that she had a birth certificate on file, and two were to be filled out if I wanted a copy of the certificate. I filled out as much as I could, but I needed the midwife for some of the info, such as her license number.

Incidentally – the papers also asked for a lot of ridiculous things, such as if the mother had ever had an abortion (they didn’t have a box for “none of your goddam business,” so I left it blank). Another box asked if the child was still alive (not to be crass but, if she had died, why would I need a birth certificate?). They also wanted to know if Isla had any birth defects; I guess because cleft-palate kids must get a ‘special’ certificate. They also asked if Isla had any mental deficiencies. Well, I suppose there’s a chance that she won’t be a genius, but Jennifer and I prefer not to think of that as a deficiency.

Anyway, after our next midwife appointment, I dropped the papers in the mail. This was on Wednesday, September 15th.

This past Saturday – over a month later – we received a letter in the mail telling us that, though they searched high and low, they could find no record of anyone with our daughter’s name being born in Minnesota in July 2010. They charged our credit card $16.

Since phone calls don’t do any good with these nimwits, my wife drove down to their office today. Her 75 cents only gave her 30 minutes on the meter, so she knew she’d be worrying about that the whole time.

The front desk receptionist first took about five minutes just to locate the correct individual, and then she handed the phone to Jennifer. Not sure why Roxanne couldn’t just come downstairs, but there was my wife: speaking on the phone to someone in the same building. Finally, Roxanne said she’d come down. So Jennifer sat there and waited another 15 minutes, during which time the receptionist apologized for the bureaucracy and said: “No wonder why we have such a bad reputation.”

Then a police officer walked in a said he needed to deliver a summons to one of the employees, so Jennifer got to sit and watch as the receptionist spent another 10 minutes tracking down another employee.

Finally, Roxanne came down and said she would straighten everything out. She asked if Jennifer wanted to wait, but she said she couldn’t as the meter was running out.

This afternoon, I got a call from Roxanne, who thought she was calling Jennifer. She needed our credit card number again, and explained that she couldn’t read the number we had written down, as “it gets blacked out.” Oh, that’s brilliant.

Anyway, Isla is nearly three months old now and we’re still waiting on a birth certificate to be generated from a state agency that resides in the very same city that we do.

Go tax dollars, go!

Saturday, 16 October 2010

Today we visited an Apple Orchard.

We made a return visit to Apple Jack Orchards after a five-year absence. Yes, yes, I realize it is an hour away from our house, but we knew we’d have a good time there.

See, we first visited there in 2004, looking for an orchard near our home in Big Lake. We returned there in 2005, with a four-month old son, and took his picture amidst the pumpkins and fall leaves.

The next few years, we searched out other orchards, just for a change of pace. Living in St. Paul, we tried some that were closer, including last year, when we went to Aamodt’s Apple Farm, possibly the lamest orchard I’d ever visited.

A couple of weeks ago, Jennifer said: “I want to go back to that orchard where we went when Owen was a little baby. Which one was that?” Well, it wasn’t hard to figure out – we just had to open up the photo album and look at the picture of baby Owen sitting by the Orchard’s sign.

Here’s the problem, though: I hate traffic, I hate long drives, and I hate crowds. So…I didn’t want to go mid-week (too much traffic), and I was worried about the weekend (crowds!). But Saturday won out.

Well, we didn’t really have a good time. I mean, yes, there was plenty to do, but there were too many people, it was windy, you couldn’t pick the apples (due to an early frost last spring), and we showed up with exactly $2 in cash. Worst, Isla was cranky the whole time. Jennifer finally got her to calm down in the moby, and then we boarded a big wagon for a tractor ride. As soon as the tractor started going, Isla started screaming. This was totally unexpected because she’s almost never like this, particularly early in the day. Jennifer could do nothing to calm her down. I offered to take Isla, but Jennifer pointed out that Isla “doesn’t like me as much.” Later she explained that she didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but she was exasperated. Then Owen said something like “Maybe she just wants to flop down to your boob.” Which – bravo to Owen – was precisely what she wanted, but sitting knee-to-knee with a bunch of strangers on a rocky wagon isn’t really the best time to accommodate the baby. His comment made everyone laugh nervously, so that drew even more attention to our train wreck of a day.

Isla cried for most of the way home. There was traffic on 394 (is there ever not?). This evening, we discovered Isla has a hives-like rash on her cheeks and chin. Jennifer has a corresponding rash about an inch down from her neck – right where Isla was snuggled for most of the day.

So, yeah…just gonna go ahead and put this day behind me.

Sunday, 17 October 2010

Owen’s been very concerned with the Lego Imagination Center at the Mall of America. They closed up shop over a month ago. When we first saw this, we were both somewhat distraught. Alas, a quick check online revealed that a smaller, temporary store had opened at the other end of the Mall, and that a bigger, stronger, store would be opening later in the year. I saw advertised on the store’s walls that they will be giving out Lego prizes to people who come on opening day. Needless to say, Owen is very concerned that we make it there on opening day.

Well, this morning he asked me to check online again to see if opening day has been announced yet. It hasn’t – ETA is late November. However, the good folks at Lego said they’d be building two murals for the new store today and everyone was invited to come help.

So, after having lunch with my sister, brother-in-law, and dad (yep, he’s back in town again…long story), we sped on over to the Mall of Hysteria and located the Lego booth. Owen was handed a 6×6 flat piece with a number printed on the back and a color-coding on the front. We then went over to a table featuring ~20 buckets of variously colored 1×1 bricks. Owen had to assemble the correct bricks onto his flat piece.

There were two murals, incidentally. One looked to be a Minnesotan landscape, featuring hills and a lake. That mural was over 99% completed by the time we arrived. The other, smaller mural was of a moose. Or, at least, we were told that it would be a moose; it was only about 20% done when were were there.

When Owen finished, he took his piece (#107)over to the moose mural, handed it to a giant of a man (the guy was at least 6 foot 7). That man took the piece, fitted it into the corresponding slot – 5 rows down and 11 columns across. After pushing it on with his hands, he wielded a rubber mallet and secured it into place.

So, if you happen to pass by the Lego Imagination Center at the Mall of America sometime in December or afterwards, find the moose mural, count down 5 rows of 6, and count over 11 rows of 6. Owen made that piece.