mixed feelings

I read this morning that Season 2 of Upright Citizens Brigade is finally coming out on DVD in September! Woo-hoo! I can't wait!

On the other hand, I also read that the world as we know it might be ending in five and a half years, so that kinda sucks.

Kings Dominion

What a tiring day. We got up and left town about 7am to get to Kings Dominion right as they opened. It was a pretty fun day! I was happy to get the chance to be present as the boy conquered his fear of roller coasters; we finally got to ride cool rides together instead of just the chairoplane and the bumper cars!

Did you know it was called a chairoplane?

So, coaster-wise, we rode the Shock Wave, the Volcano, the Ricochet, the Italian Job whatchamacalit, and the Anaconda, along with a few other smaller rides.

I drove us home without dozing off, and now I am having a beer.

quiet sunday so far

Well it's Sunday morning around 10am and the boy is still sleeping. I've already had time to do a load of dishes, update a website, and take some Los Santos territory from the Ballas.

Usually by the time I get up, he's already logged into his computer game. Since I tightened up yesterday on the time he is allowed to do that, I guess he must figure there's no reason to get out of bed.

For those who are following our exploits in these blog posts, I apologize for not posting much in the last few days. The main reason is that we're not doing anything very interesting. We did go to Pullen Park yesterday to play some Mille Bornes and chess while listening to the potentially madness-inducing carousel music. A lengthy walk to find a table at which to play means that he got some exercise perhaps without realizing it.

I've been walking pretty regularly at Lake Johnson, but the boy doesn't accompany me very often.

Tomorrow (provided the weather holds) we plan to drive up to Kings Dominion.

Bumper Stickers

From the "What Breed of Liberal Are You" quiz comes these humorous bumper sticker ideas:

• I'm Already Against the Next War
• Nice Hummer — Sorry About Your Penis
• America: One Nation Under Surveillance
• Of Course It Hurts, You're Getting Screwed by an Elephant
• Evolution Is Just a Theory . . . Kind of Like Gravity
• May the Fetus You Save Be Gay

tuesday report

Not much has been going on in terms of exciting adventures with the boy and me. I am working from home in the afternoons this week, and leaving him alone in the mornings while I go to the office.

In the afternoons when I'm there working, I've made a rule of "nothing with a screen" - so he's not allowed to use the computer, TV, DVD player, etc. It's not a punishment, it's just an effort to get him to do something -- anything -- different for a change.

Yesterday afternoon he walked to the coffee shop on his own and discovered the deliciousness of a strawberry and lime Italian soda. Today he spent some time drawing. So at least he's doing something besides hunching over a laptop collecting EXP.

Today when I came home for lunch, I decided to take us to the cafeteria instead of trying to scrape together something in the kitchen, even though I don't really have the money to take us out to eat at this point. But hunger and fatigue overruled frugality.

It turns out that the cafeteria is running a special promotion where certain napkins contain hidden gift cards, and the boy happened to pick up one of the lucky napkins, so we got a gift card worth $19.37, which paid for the lunch and left about $6 on the card that we can use in the future.

I guess sometimes things work out okay. Sa da tay.

We also watched Apocalypto last night, so the boy has survived (and enjoyed) another movie with subtitles.

RPG books for sale!

"What a bargain!"

thoughts on Fantastic Four (warning: maybe some spoilers)

So, the boy and I went to a matinee of the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer this afternoon. It wasn't horrible. I was really disappointed in the first movie in the series, and this one suffers from some of the same faults (such as an ineffective portrayal of Dr. Doom), but at least this one was better than the previous one. If the first movie was a 4 out of 10, this one was maybe a 6 out of 10. Certainly not the best superhero movie I've ever seen (and the really good ones are few and far between), but a step in the right direction.

My beefs: 1. I don't think The Human Torch should be able to match the speed of the Silver Surfer. 2. The power-switching gag gets old... if you want to do the Super Skrull, why not just do the Super Skrull? 3. Turns out the Fantasti-Car is a Dodge. WTF? Even when it splits into smaller cars, the smaller cars have a Dodge logo on the hood. Enough with the product placement. 4. The plot makes these wild quasi-logical leaps form one point to the next... seeing a video of the Surfer shoot an energy blast allows Reed and company to conclude that the Surfer will lose his powers if separated from his board. Huh? 5. Galactus is a cloud. 6. Galactus is a cloud. (Note: I realize that beefs 5 and 6 are the same, but it's such a huge point that I feel it deserves mentioning twice. Apologies to Kryten.)

The movie ends setting up a sequel, of course... the Surfer apparently survives (so how could Galactus not survive?). Maybe Galactus' true form will be revealed in the next movie... but if the X-Men films couldn't do Sentinels, how can I expect them to give me Galactus?

I want some giant magenta helmeted bad guys, dammit!

Yes Men sighting

Wired is reporting that The Yes Men have struck again, this time appearing at an oil industry conference to deliver a keynote address in which they proposed to keep fuel flowing in an oil shortage by transforming human corpses into oil.

I love these guys. Check out the Yes Men movie if you haven't seen it. The Yes Men should be watched, honored, and emulated by as many people as possible.

mid-week update

Wow, is it Thursday already? This week has been chugging along. I'm back in the office and the boy is spending the days at skate camp, so there's not a lot of free time (or energy!) for things like blogging. I'm taking a few minutes to post this on my lunch break.

Thankfully, he is really enjoying skate camp. Every night he talks about how much he is enjoying it and how he can't wait to go back the next day. He's pretty worn out at the end of the day, but a little exercise isn't going to kill him.

I have to admire the marketing savvy of the skate park operators, putting the park and the skate shop right there next to each other. After one day of camp, the boy needed a helmet of his own, so he wouldn't have to wear one of the smelly rental helmets... then after the second day, he had to have some new wheels, since his were worn out and not riding properly... then on the third day his board broke in half, so he needed a new deck. Sigh. I don't know what I'll find when I pick him up this afternoon, but I'm sure somehow it will cost me some money. Hopefully it won't be a broken bone to repair. :)

June mp3club!

This month's mp3 selections include two songs I first heard on Pandora, and one from way back in the day ("back in the day" in this case being 1979). Enjoy!

skate camp report

Today I'll let my houseguest speak for himself. Here's a report from the first day of skate camp:

The first day of camp my dad took me to this local skate park that was connected to a skate shop. When I first entered the park I didn’t know what to expect, but I thought, “Well what the heck ill give it a shot.” After I signed the waiver I went to go skate. Everyone was so good they could skate on just about everything. I noticed there was a small ramp off in a corner, which led up into a 3foot quarter pipe. Immediately I tried to rock to fakie, which I didn’t land. After that I tried to drop in on it and I landed it on my first try.

After we had a free skate we got into a huge group and did stretches. We had free skate just about all day. After a while I got enough guts to ride down the 5 foot roll in. Then I dropped in on the 5-foot quarter pipe, which was cool. A little later I went down this hill thing and hit a spine transfer, which was awesome. About this time I noticed that there was a bowl, which is like a swimming pool made out of wood without any water. I jumped in to the bowl and went down into the deeper part and went way up to the top and made a complete circle and back up to the top.

Later that day I went and skated on the stuff from before. Then I decided to drop into the bowl, which was insane. My worst and only fall to day was when I dropped into the bowl and went down and I turned wrong and I fell off my board at like a 3 foot drop then I landed on my arm and slid down, it was so painful. Then a sponsored skater helped me out of the bowl, and then I went down the biggest ramp there I got insane speed and went over the fun box and I went right up the 5-foot roll in.

That was my first day at skate camp.

(not) lazing on a sunday afternoon

So what's new since the last installment? Not too much, really. We spend a fair amount of time just chilling out and playing games and such. Yesterday morning (before it got too hot) we walked around the lake ... the boy needs to build up his endurance a little, I think. But we made it the whole three miles without too much pain or bitching, so I won't complain. At least I didn't have to carry him.

Last night we went to the NC Art Museum for the first in their summer outdoor film series. It's a really cool way to see a movie, sitting out on the lawn of the museum. I wanted to take him last year but we got rained out on the night I had planned for us to go. So last night we went, and saw about 15 minutes of Little Miss Sunshine before, you guessed it, they turned off the film due to an approaching thunderstorm.

Today will be dedicated to getting ready to go back to work, and the boy to skateboard camp, tomorrow: laundry, groceries, housework. Wheee!

these need better titles

We didn't do too much yesterday... went for a walk around Pullen Park but it was pretty hot out there. It's hot again today. We watched the 2005 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie when we got home. In terms of sci-fi cinema, that movie was one of the biggest disappointments I've experienced in recent years, but it was okay for a lazy afternoon with a kid who'd never seen it before.

Last night we played/worked on laptops with the NBA Finals in the background.

part three

Kind of a lazy day today... we played a little basketball and went swimming this morning, and then we just hung around the house this afternoon. I got a little work done while the boy played that ridiculous computer game. The computer game that I play, of course, is much more interesting. :)

This evening we ran some dad errands and went to a cafeteria for dinner. Hooray for vegetables. We also visited the skate park where he'll be attending camp next week.

Tonight I had another realization that he's a bit more grown up than he was the last time he visited. He can handle more mature (or is that immature?) movies now, apparently.

part two

Wow, I am tired. More tired than I thought I would be. This morning the boy and I walked around Lake Johnson on the unpaved trail. Then this afternoon we played a couple of games of Putt-Putt and had a slice of pizza. I could probably go to sleep right now if I tried.

Summer vacation, part 1

So maybe having the boy here, and being out of the office a fair amount, will provide an excuse for me to do a little blogging. I'm gonna switch to a more traditional journal-type presentation here for a while, to keep folks posted on what we're doing.

We drove back from Atlanta yesterday. The trip was pretty uneventful apart from the rain. We did stop for gas near Greensboro and were faced with a crazy line of cars. There must have been dozens of vehicles waiting at this one gas station to get gas. I was stumped as to the reason why. The gas was a little bit cheaper than the norm, but not that much.

The boy watched Pootie Tang on his DVD player and I listened to music on the iPod. The battery lasted all the way there and back (with some down time) - must have been 11 or 12 hours of playtime altogether. Hooray for shuffling. Sa da tay.

Today we played some video games (of course), and we walked up the street and played a little basketball. We had planned to go to the pool afterwards, but the pool was closed for some reason. We went to Target and I bought a toaster oven, so I will no longer have to deal with my previous toaster, which I am convinced is either evil or insane. Then we went to Ben and Jerry's for some ice cream, and the guy there was really insistent that I should try the Willie Nelson Peach Cobbler ice cream. He totally stopped being nice when I didn't get the Willie Nelson flavor.

We looked for a cheap movie to go to at the $1.50 cinema, and the only thing that caught the boy's eye was Norbit, so we went there to go see it, but the times were wrong in the paper and there was no showing of Norbit when we got there. What a pity (wink).

Then tonight after dinner we watched Brick (which may have won a Fisher Award, I can't remember for sure), and we both enjoyed it.

Oh, I also showed him Metalocalypse, which I'm not sure if I will regret or not. Doodily ding dong tick tock.