Today was Isla’s birthday party; or, as she calls it, her “Happy Birthday Party.”
This was a larger affair than her party last year, when she turned one. This time, she had her aunts, uncles, and cousins in attendance. She also knew exactly what was going on. I tried reinforcing it over the past few weeks by regularly asking her how old she was. She’d say “one,” and then I’d explain how on her birthday she would be two, and I displayed the appropriate number of fingers to demonstrate the change in number.
Also during the past week, Isla kept asking me, Jennifer, and Owen if we were coming to her party. We always said that yes, we would be there. She explained that she wanted cake, pizza, juice, M&Ms, and ice cream at her party.
She loved opening the gifts today, and gently opened up each envelope first, requesting that my wife read the card to her. I don’t think I’ve ever observed a child – especially one of pre-reading age – so interested in the cards that accompany gift. Yet she wanted to see the contents of each one. She loves books, and I think, to her, birthday cards are just really truncated books.
She had a big grin on her face as we sung “Happy Birthday To You” to her, and she knew to blow out the candles, too. She succeeded in blowing them out after a couple tries.
Owen left with his grandparents this evening, so Isla had a quiet evening playing with her toys and looking at her new books. We measured Isla on our 2×4 that we keep for just such a purpose. I set Owen’s 2×4 next to hers just for the heck of it, and it’s true: Isla is a little kid: her height measured exactly the same as Owen’s did when he was 18 months old. Jennifer said that there’s probably no reason for the 2×4 to be seven feet long; I can probably trim off at least 18 inches (thereby making it more manageable on days like today) to no ill effect. I told Jennifer I’m trying to give Isla something to reach for – but the reality is I don’t wish for my daughter to be 7 feet tall.
If you’re tired of hearing or reading stuff about the Witnesses, then you should probably just ignore this blog post altogether. If not, here we go…
First, the Humanists of Minnesota just uploaded their June episode to YouTube. That, as you may recall, was the episode in which I was the guest. Here it is:
Don’t be freaked out by the unfortunate still image. Mr. Lohman’s hands are not, in reality, smeary blurs.
Second, my wife pointed me to THIS WEBSITE TODAY. Until this morning, I’d never heard of this website, or the woman who maintains it. She’s an author, so that’s cool (wink). The blog post I link to here is her argument that the Watchtower Society is having a bad year. I agree. The first two items she discusses are nothing new. First is a well-written rehash of the Sparlock idiocy. I wrote about Sparlock back in June. However, I hadn’t realized the extent to which loyal Witnesses were proclaiming that Sparlock was merely a fake to make the Watchtower Society look bad. For examples of loyal Witnesses denying thevalidity of Sparlock, check out the screen shots at Atheist Geek News. When the Witnesses learned it was real, the cognitive dissonance, as the blog says, “was deafening. Many rank-and-file JWs had declared the video to be a fake full of lies about their faith…and then it turned out that it was OFFICIAL JW TRAINING MATERIAL, and they didn’t know how to reverse gears and defend it without making themselves look absolutely asinine. ”
Ha. Pretty funny. For those who don’t know, the Watchtower Society generally releases two or three new books, brochures, or videos every year. They release them at their conventions, which take place worldwide over the course of a year. The conventions are held first in the US and Canada, beginning in May. Here in Minnesota, the conventions are held in mid-summer. The Witnesses don’t share the info even with fellow Witnesses. So, what happens is, a new book, brochure, or video is released at one of the first conventions, then some closet non-believer posts it online, making it available to everyone…but Witnesses (who, of course, refuse to look at such things). So, the Sparlock video has been available and talked about since mid-May, but most American Witnesses are only finding out about it now.
Friday, 27 July 2012
My wife and I finally know the answer to the question: “How long does it take for Witnesses in our area to come around and knock on our door?”
The answer is: 11 months and 1 day.
They came a-knocking this morning. I of course, was busy multi-tasking and otherwise kicking butt at work. My wife was home; she answered the door and discovered they were offering the brochure “Was Life Created?”
Oh man, I wish I had been home. That is pretty much the exact brochure I was hoping they’d offer me. My wife took the brochure…so now we have two. I, in fact, have owned a copy longer than probably anyone else in the state, having been sent a copy back in May 2010, about two months before the local-JWs got their very own (see above for an explanation on that). In fact, I even made a video about it:
Oh – wait! I actually made THREE videos about it. Here are the other two:
and…
When Jennifer told them she doesn’t beleive in creationism, they said, “Oh, well you might not want to show this brochure to your kids, then.” This, of course, is hilarious for two very excellent reasons, and I’ll break them down for you…
1) What sort of seriously inept Jehovah’s Witness succeeds in placing a brochure with someone, but then suggests they not share it with the others in their home? Ha!
2) Um…don’t they know we’re not Witnesses? So we don’t have this terrifying fear of exposing our kids to differing opinions and belief systems. In fact, while my wife was on the phone speaking with me about her visitors, Owen was in the other room reading the brochure. Oh my god! He’s going to become a Witness now! Aaaaaaaaaaagh!
I won’t provide an entire transcript of the conversation. I’ll leave that too my wife, if she’d like to. But I will mention one other thing: My wife asked the two Witnesses how long they thought humans had been on the earth. They two women pussyfooted around, dodging the question, and didn’t really give an answer (they said something about the “six creative days” of Genesis, which doesn’t answer the question at all).
Why didn’t they answer my wife like good Witnesses? I suppose it’s possible that, when faced with a non-believer, stating the answer would be too embarrassing. Or, it could be that they don’t agree with their religion’s doctrines on this point, in which case they should confess their “sin” of dissenting to the elders. Or maybe they just didn’t know the answer.
Here, let me help you Witnesses out with that: You believe – or at least you better say you believe – that humans have been on the earth for 6,036 years. And I’ll go ahead and back that up for you with documentation from your literature:
“According to reliable Bible chronology Adam was created in the year 4026 B.C.E., likely in the autumn of the year, at the end of the sixth day of creation.” (that’s from the April 1, 1968, Watchtower).
Anyway, congratulations to my wife on being a return visit now. I hope her friends come back and show us the truth some more. I mean, if there’s time. I know Armageddon will be here any minute.
In other Witness news, while searching for something completely different, I discovered that my acquaintance and fellow ex-Witness Anthony Mathenia is releasing a romance novel online. I’ve read exactly zero e-books, and I don’t expect that total to change anytime soon, but if it tickles your fancy, go ahead and read Happiness – How to Find It.
I love, love, LOVE when I’m reading a book that’s so awesome, I look for every opportunity I can to sneak in just one more paragraph before I have to go to work, or to bed, or whereever.
Ready Player One is such a book. I should mention, however, that I didn’t read the book, I listened to it on CD. After two ho-hum books, it was great to have a book that left me excited to make my daily commute. The audio book is read by Wil Weaton, who performed remarkably well. His reading was especially fun because he – the real Wil Weaton – is a minor character in the book.
The science fiction tale takes place in the 2040s, by which time humans have used up most of their cheap fuel, meaning that things like airplanes and cars are prohibitively expensive for most people. Online gaming has surged in popularity, with a game called The Oasis taking up the day for many disenchanted earthlings. The Oasis is kind of a glorified version of The Sims, if you can imagine actually being one of the avatars. The online world is so vast and so big, that many people go to school, work, and create long-term relationships with people they’ve never even met all online. And why not? The world sucks. The virtual schools are pristine, well-maintained “facilities,” so they’ve far superior to the crumbling, underfunded physical schools. And why stay in your own world when you can design your avatar to look like whatever you want – there’s no need to be fat, old, or handicapped online. Heck, you can even change your ethnicity or gender, if that’s your sort of thing. This leads to the weird situation where your best friend might be someone you’ve never actually met and don’t know what they really look like.
Many reviews online refer to the book as “nostalgia porm.” That’s true, it is. The designers of The Oasis grew up in the 1980s, and loved all the music, movies, TV show and – especially – the video games of that era. This led to other people complaining two things:
1) The book ties in all sorts of stuff from the 80s, often for no reason.
2) It’s unbelieveable that people in the 2040s would care that much about the 1980s and act as if there was no pop culture between then and “now.”
Both of these complaints are wrong.
For one thing, the book ties in all sorts of stuff from the videogame designers’ childhoods and young adulthoods. That’s because those guys made the game, and that’s the era they liked. The book isn’t slavish about the decade – Rush’s album 2112 features heavily in the story, and that’s from the 1970s. And there are several references to the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which both arrived about a decade after the 1980s were over. And, yes, it’s true, one character does fly around the Oasis in his x-wing fighter and his Delorean, but, again, the game was designed by people who loved the 80s, so they incorporated those items into the game.
Oh – and that brings up another point – just like with the Sims, users are free to wander around, go to school, chat with others players, whatever they like. But the main point of the game is to find a hidden treasure. This leads the characters on all sorts of quests, deciphering puzzles, and participating in interactive games. The clues are all based on pop culture from around the 1980s, so the users who are hardcore about finding the treasure have made it their aim to learn as much as they can about the 1980s. So, when one character says that he’s seen every episode of Family Ties, and another character admits to having War Games memorized, it’s not because they don’t think any thing worth their time has been created in the past 50 years, it’s because they are trying to put themselves in a better position to play and win the game.
Anyway, I loved this book. I often laughed out loud at the developments and even smiled with delight as certain events unfolded. I remember Entertainment Weeklyonce described the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Descent, part I” as “orgasmic Trekking.” Ready Player One is orgasmic geekdom. I easily grant this book an A on my list. In fact, as I told my wife this evening after listening to the final chapters in the book, Ready Player Onebelongs on my list of Top Ten Best Novel Ever. Go read it. Or listen to it.
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After mulling over the thoughts of my last post (see: MY LAST POST), I realized there must be more mini-series on my motion pictures list besides just Roots. So I opened up my list of every motion picture I’ve seen, and sorted them by catergory. This collected all the made-for-TV movies together, allowing me to scan through that relatively short selection and see which ones are mini-series.
Turns out, I had forgotten about V, both the original series, and The Final Battle. So I deleted those from my list, too. Then there was Tin Man, a mini-series my wife and I just watched a couple of years ago. It stars Zooey Deschanel, too, so shame on me for forgetting about it. Also in the mini-series catergory was Alice in Wonderland, a 1985 series I watched as a kid and, pretty much have completely forgotten about.
Besides these mini-series, the only other possible contender on my list was Anne of Green Gables. But then I looked it up at IMDb, and realized that both it and the sequel were not mini-series but were, in fact, really long movies. So Anne stays.
Naturally, I figured I now needed to have a separate list of mini-series that I’ve seen, so I whipped me up a new list. Then I thought, hey – if I’m gonna have a list of mini-series I’ve seen, then I also need a list of maxi-series…you know, regular TV shows? So I made that list, too.
Here they are:
You may be surprised to note that Survivor and The Amazing Race are not on this list. That’s because there are a few seasons I have not watched, and everyonce in a while, I miss an episode. I’m currently ploughing through Better Off Ted, Seinfeld, The Sopranos, and Modern Family, so I’ll be adding those soon, too. If I was to expand this list to “Series I’ve seen loads of,” then I’d have to add in all sorts of embarrassing stuff I watched as a kid, such as Diff’rent Strokes, The Facts of Life, Golden Girls, Happy Days, Family Ties, Gilligan’s Island, Bewitch, I Dream of Jeannie, Macgyver, as well as some long-standing shows I couldn’t possibly catch in their entirety, like The Simpsons and Saturday Night Live.
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Last night, my wife and I finished watching the last part of Mildred Pierce, a 2011 five-part miniseries from HBO starring Kate Winslet.
Jennifer put this one on the Netflix queueueu, and I figured I’d watch it with her because it starred Kate Winslet. Did I mention Kate Winslet is in it? She’s one of a few actors or actresses where I’ll actually watch the movie just because they’re in it. Obviously, the best way to get me to see a movie is if I’ve heard good things about it’s story, but I am often a sucker for a film if I like the director (e.g., Tim Burton) or if I like the studio (e.g., PIXAR) or if it’s won an Oscar for best picture. But, there are a few cases where I am willing to sit through a film because of who stars in it. Or, put another way, there are a few times when I sit down to watch a movie, and the credits begin, and I see so-and-so is in it, and I think, “Hey, so-and-so is in this! That’s great! I love so-and-so.”
Besides Kate, I also like James Cromwell, Helena Bonham Carter, Jodie Foster, Steve Buscemi, Patrick Stewart, Johnny Depp, and probably a few others I can’t think of right now. I’ve seen at least 13 movies in which Kate has either acted or voiced, including, as of last night, Mildred Pierce. And that brings me to my main topic:
Do miniseries count as motion pictures?
See, it’s an important question because I keep a listing of every feature length motion picture I’ve ever seen. My list contains a couple dozen made-for-TV movies, so I’m not trying to slight Mildred Pierce because it was “only” on TV and not on the silver screen.
I scrolled through my list of motion pictures, and the only other miniseries on the list was Roots. By a long shot, this is (was) the longest motion picture on my list. But then I got to thinking: Roots and Mildred Pierce aren’t movies…they’re TV shows. After all, they’re not called “Maxi-movies,” they’re called “Mini-series,” indicating they’re not incredibly long movies, but incredibly short TV series.
“Wait,” you say, “Don’t think of Mildred Pierce as one long movie, think of it as five movies, kind of like Star Wars, only with five instead of six.”
“Nah,” I say, dispensing with the quotation marks from here on out, it seems each part is an episode, just as HBO used to have a series called The Sopranos, and each of those parts was an episode. If I include each part of Mildred Pierce, then I should include every episode of every TV show I’ve ever seen. Which would be both impossible and embarrassing.
So, today, I made a thoughtful decision and, instead of adding Mildred Pierce to the list of motion pictures I’ve seen, I deleted Roots, bringing my total number of films down (wow, that’s the first time the total’s gone down) to 1,322.
Anyway…Mildred Pierce. I’m gonna go ahead and say skip it. Unless you really like Kate Winslet. Did I mention Kate Winslet is in it?
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