Category: Entertainment

Temporarily Single Dad

SilentBen2 Comments

For the past 5 days, I’ve been Mr. Mom.  My wife went away to a blogging conference in Asheville, NC and left me in charge of managing our 2 kids.  Being actively involved with my kids on a regular basis, this was not a daunting task, per se.  The hard part was not paying attention to work for that period of time – especially since my shine, new iPhone would chirp every few minutes telling me I have some new email to read.  But eventually I turned off that notification and got to the serious business of responsibly entertaining my posse.

First priority – getting them to school on time.  Grasshopper only just started going to daycare (2 days a week) and already being without his Mommy, he was very reluctant to go (though apparently his tears ended within minutes of Cricket and I leaving him there).  Cricket just started Kindergarten this year and has been loving every minute of it, but with the possibility of being able to stay home and play Lego Star Wars with Daddy she suddenly was on the fence about going as well.  But I got them there, they did there time, and got them safely home (all perfectly according to schedule).  But outside of that, it was play time – we went to the park almost every day, we went to a play place for the better part of one cloudy afternoon, and we spent a fair share of time watching a couple of movies and playing Lego Star Wars.

By the end of the long weekend, I was ready for reinforcements.  I love my kids, but I can only be jumped on so many times before needing to tag out.  I only took advantage of the in-laws once for a break (which I spent cleaning).  And I actually made semi-nutritious meals for them for all but 2 meals (pancakes are good for you, right?).  So all in all I think I did okay.  And today it was back to work … to deal with my other batch of kids.  Maybe I should go to a conference.

P.S. – Mywife (who now has 2 blogs) went to a blogging conference, but didn’t post anything the entire time.  Ironic.

Flash Forward

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Off and on I’ve had conversations about this new show coming this fall and about how it could be the new Lost (which I’m somewhat ashamed that I never found the time to watch).  Well the premiere has arrived and I’m here to report on my thoughts.  In short, it has promise and I will be keeping my eye on it at least in the short term.

The basic premise of Flash Forward seems to be this:  one day, out of the blue, everyone on Earth blacks out at the same exact moment and all for a period of 137 seconds.  During this blackout period, everyone gets a glimpse at that slice of time some 6 months in the future (though some see nothing at all).  The immediate result is calamity – countless deaths and injuries due to various types of vehicular accidents or inopportune locales (e.g., surfing), followed by chaos of people looting and taking advantage of the confusion.  But as the dust settles, there is a sense of unification – everyone has a definitive fate to consider and certainly something in common with every fellow man that they can talk about.

The epicenter of the story is around an FBI team that seems to quickly coalesce as the goto team in figuring out what happened to the world and what the visions tell us about our fate.  While the show is a fast-paced drama and I was able to connect with many of the characters very quickly, I have to say that I was surprised by some of the casting – specifically the large number of comedic talent used in such a serious show.  Among the FBI investigative team, they have cast John Cho (popularly renown as Harold), Joseph Fiennes (ok, serious – but I can’t help but picture him in Shakespearian garb), and Seth MacFarlane.  I have no doubt that everyone will play their roles well, but I can’t help but feel that some of their better talents will remain untapped in such a series.

The real drama and intrigue is in finding out who saw what and the mosaic (to use their word) that slowly comes together from the individual fragments.  It will also be interesting to whether knowing the future will have any impact on it – whether any of the outcomes can be avoided because they have been revealed, or whether they are preordained.  I have a feeling that they picked 6 months as the flash date so that they can put a nice bow on the season if it doesn’t get renewed, but it is way to early to call anything right now.  Another angle that is arising is the idea that this may not have been an accident and that at least one individual has been identified as having not been effected.  So there are definitely some fascinating mysteries to be unraveled.

So to sum up, I’ll likely keep watching the show and see how deep the rabbit hole goes.  It has all of the right ingredients and a cast I can get into.  But the moment MacFarlane starts doing funny voices, I think I may have to change the channel.

Leaps and Bounds

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An exchange between myself and Cricket in the car this weekend while she was looking at a dinosaur book (keep in mind that she just started Kindergarten 2 weeks ago):

Cricket: What’s a quadriped, Daddy?
Me: A quadriped is any animal that walks on four legs.
Cricket: What about ones that walk on two legs?
Me: They would be called bipeds.
Cricket: Oh, okay.
[pause]
Cricket: I have a hypothesis that most dinosaurs were quadripeds.
Me: Okay.  What does the word hypothesis mean? [just testing her]
Cricket: Its an idea that I can test.
Me: And how do you plan to test this idea?
Cricket: By looking at pictures in my book, Daddy.

I cannot take full responsibility for this – I think she learned a number of these words from a new show she has been watching called Dinosaur Train.  But the extent to which her thirst for knowledge has been amped up recently is phenomenal.  Hopefully this will lead her toward learning to read more readily than her interest in it has betrayed recently.  Once that door is open to her, there is no telling where she’ll go next.  But it is an exciting journey to watch.

Virtual Road to Riches

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So one of my bonding activities that I developed as of late with my daughter is video gaming – specifically playing with the Wii (btw, thanks again Mom).  Initially it was all about Mario Party 8 since that was one of the first games we had with it.  But I, frankly, can only handle so much of that game (especially since the taunt feature has been unlocked).  So for my birthday, I got a couple of new games (thanks, Jesse) – Lego Batman and Lego Star Wars.  And loving the genre, my daughter wants to play it with me every day if she can – she will wake me up early on work days to play before I leave and will barter bedtime stories in exchange for another level in the evening before bed.  I try to keep the game-play time within reason, but she is legitimately getting better at playing and as such learning some good eye-hand coordination skills.  So if it is time that the TV would likely be on anyway, I’ll gladly play for a bit rather than vegging out to some show.

Anyway, she and I have managed to work through all 30 levels in Story mode and managed to get a good amount of the minikits and red bricks in Free-play mode (I think we are around 90% complete right now).  Once we get through all of it, we may move on to Lego Star Wars.  But we have discovered some interesting quirks in the game.  For one, we found that there are 5 different extras you can unlock that are score multipliers (scorex2, x4, x6, x8, x10) and it seems you can enable all 5 at the same time thus getting a score multiplier of x3840.  As a result, it has been cake to reach Super-Hero/Super-Villain mode in any levels we hadn’t before.  But also it has led to another discovery – it seems the game has a maximum allowable score of 4 billion studs (the currency of choice within the Lego realms).  So any studs accrued beyond this amount are simply lost in the ether (possibly garnished for Gotham City urban renewal programs?).  Granted, it is a ludicrously high number (though ludicrously easy to reach with all the sore multipliers on) and those studs will never get spent even if I never use the multipliers again.  But it is funny that a cap exists (probably a programmatic limitation).

So my daughter and I now moonlight as Lego billionaires.  It is a complex and lavish lifestyle, but we try not to let it go to our heads.  We try to keep our priorities straight – after all, we still do have a city to save.

Can I Get a Witness?

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The other night at 9:00pm, a pair of Mormons show up on my doorstep.  I had difficulty arguing the lateness since I was in the middle of playing Lego Batman with my daughter, though I managed to slip out of any lengthy conversation by stating that I was about to get the kids to bed (something I legitimately should have been doing).  A part of me secretly imagined what might ensue if a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses had happened upon my porch at the same time.  The following morning during my commute, I imagined myself playing devil’s advocate with them regarding their faith.  But really, who am I to throw stones – they are entitled to their beliefs.  Though I’d like to think that I’m equally entitled to my privacy.  If they return, it will likely be to square off with my better half – after which they won’t be back.  🙂