- Read “Ender’s Game” during lunch and after dinner tonight. Not bad. It’s a well written book, but I’m not sure I liked it.
- With the attack on the mall in Nairobi, Kenya, how long will it be before gecko45 and his band of commerce conquistadors gain new life as quick reaction forces for places like Mall of America?
- I’m only half joking.
- Today, I used the term “psychic area network” to describe the communications pathways that allow me to not only intuitively know what someone needs, but also know before they do.
- Girlie Bear has now officially had more cell phones than I have.
Musings
Posted by daddybear71 on October 21, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/21/musings-18/
Coming Soon
Here are the previews that showed this afternoon when Boo and I went to the movies. If you’re looking for good family movies this holiday season, you might be a tad disappointed. Looks like pretty slim pickings.
- Ender’s Game – Boy genius saves the world and becomes a rebellious teenager when pushed around by Han Solo. (Or was that Jack Ryan? They look and act the same to me.) Looks interesting. I really ought to read this book someday. Probably go see it if I enjoy the book.
- Free Birds – Barnyard fowl go back in time to save their brethren from becoming feasting material for the Pilgrims. Meh. Looks like a real turkey.
- The Nut Job – Animated take off of “The Italian Job” and “Oceans 11” where a squirrel recruits a group of vermin misfits to raid a nut shop. Looks about as much fun as a root canal.
- Frozen – This holiday season’s Disney movie. An idyllic fairy-tale kingdom is under threat because someone shut off summer and started an ice age. The animation is reminiscent of Tangled. Will probably go see this one, but not dying to do so. Cue remarks from Irish Woman about why we will never move to North Dakota.
- The Lego Movie – Faux stop motion animation of Lego toys. Personally, I’d rather impale my ocular sockets on sharpened bamboo. However, Boo almost climbed over the row in front of us to get a better look, so something tells me I’ll be seeing this one. Hopefully I’ll be able to sneak in an e-reader to pass the time.
- Walking With Dinosaurs – A young ceratopsian dinosaur vies to find his way in the world. Title is stolen from a pretty decent British television show; storyline appears to be stolen from Disney’s Dinosaur and Bambi. Might be worth a rental, but not going to pay full price. The animation looks really good, though.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 20, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/20/coming-soon-9/
Movie Review – Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2
Sony and Columbia have decided to shake the money tree again and see what falls out. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 is the sequel to the pretty good 2009 original, and picks up about where the first one ended.
Plot Synopsis:
Flint Lockwood and Sam Sparks have disabled the infernal food machine, and are making plans for the future when Flint’s childhood hero, Chester V, appears. His Live Corp has been contracted by the U.N. to clean up the mess on the remote fishing island where the first movie was set, and instructs all of the inhabitants to leave for a little while. A little while apparently turns into months and months, as Flint, Sam, and the rest of the characters are all able to find jobs and get on with life in an over-crowded city setting. Little does Flint know that Chester V has nefarious plans for him and his invention. Chester V sends Flint back to his home to find the food machine, and Flint brings along the principle characters from the original movie. Chester V and some of his minions follow, and they all see wonderous food-animal creations that now inhabit the island. Flint eventually figures out that Chester V has been using him, and we all learn a deep lesson about family and trust.
Cloudy 2 reunites most of the cast from the original movie and adds a few new characters. Voicing is done extremely well for all of them, including Bill Hader (Flint Lockwood), Anna Faris (Sam Sparks), Will Forte (Chester V), and Neil Patrick Harris, who turns in an Oscar worthy performance as Steve, the monkey with the brain scanning headband. All of the characters were about as dimensional as the animation, but it’s a movie for children, so we’re not looking for Brando-esque acting. The great thing about the characters and actors was that not a single one of the voices isn’t perfect for the character, which is something I can rarely say.
The story arc is pretty much like a Jurassic Park sequel formatted for kindergarteners. There is a lot of physical humor and plays on words. The most blatant of these are the names given to the food-animal hybrids (Watermelephants, shrimpanzees), and while the first few of these were humorous, after five or six, they got tedious to me. Boo, on the other hand, was rolling in the aisles over them. Terry Crews turns in a great performance as Earl, the policeman, but a lot of his jokes are rehashed from the first movie. One interesting scene is where Earl is using his fingers to make a pistol as he “clears” an area, which surprised me. I’d have thought that the studio would have removes such a blatant example of violent, anti-social behavior from a children’s movie. \<\/sarcasm\>
The animation was pretty good. I’ve seen the original a few times, and the characters that appear in both movies don’t seem to have changed much at all. All of them and the new characters and animals all blend very well into the food jungle on the island.
Cloudy 2 clocks in at 95 minutes, and the pacing was, to me, a bit slow at times. However, my 5-year-old, after consuming fruit chewies and a small popcorn, sat quietly through the whole thing. Again, it’s a movie designed for young children, and while there are jokes and plot elements for adults, don’t go expecting that the 40-year-old will enjoy it as much as the five-year-old.
One theme that was put through it was mistrust of large businesses. Tim, Flint’s father, is a small business owner who is one of the heroes of the movie. Chester V, who appears to be modeled on Steve Jobs, is the oily, new-age hipster head of a mega-corporation. There’s even a sideways swipe at the U.N. at the beginning, in that they’ve contracted with LiveCorp to clean up the mess from the first movie, and by that authority all of the residents have to get off the island and into the urban refugee camp of SanFranJose.
Overall, I’d give this one a B or B-. It was enjoyable, but a lot of the plot elements and humor is rehashed from the first movie, and what is new is pretty heavy-handed and gets repeated a lot. Again, it’s a kids movie, so take that into account when going to see it. It’s definitely worth a rental fee, and if your kids liked the original, then might be worth a matinée. God willing, we’ll all be back here in four years to talk about the completion of the trilogy, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 3: The Search For More Money.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 20, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/20/movie-review-cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs-2/
Thoughts on the Day
- Irish Woman’s chicken and dumplings was exactly what I needed on a dreary, drippy day.
- I’m Scandinavian enough that when it’s mid-October, and the furnace isn’t working right, I will drop everything to get that piece of survival gear working.
- On a side note, LED Maglites are very bright, and will make it impossible to work in a dimly lit basement if you happen to shine one into your eyes.
- Moonshine survived the day, but he’s been giving me guilty looks all afternoon.
- The dog ate my banana bread, my coffee was cold, it rained all day, and I had to drive to my ex-wife’s house in a pickup truck. My life turned into a country-western song today.
- Once the rain stopped this afternoon, Irish Woman started putting up more Halloween decorations. Apparently Crash doesn’t know that it’s fruitless to bat at the spider and its web that are on the other side of the glass window.
- Not the sharpest tool in the shed, is he?
- Again, I think we’re doing the right things when it comes to raising the kids. Boo walked around the house today singing “Another One Bites The Dust”.
- There’s nothing I enjoy more than arthritis and a cold damp day. Thank goodness for good meds, warm drinks, and a fireplace.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 19, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/19/thoughts-on-the-day-178/
A Letter To My Dog
Dear Moonshine,
You’re a good dog, you really are. You are affectionate, playful, and gentle with the kids. You bark when people come to the house, but not when squirrels walk across the yard. You even know how to do a few tricks and do as you’re told, most of the time.
But we have a problem.
You’re addiction to baked goods, especially those that I have prepared from scratch, is getting to me. This morning, you ate half a 9×13 pan of banana spice bread, even though you’ve been fed and had several treats this morning. Instead of having banana bread for several days to be used as a side, dessert, or treat, I have enough for tomorrow morning’s breakfast and maybe lunch today.
You took advantage of my soft heart in keeping you indoors today when a hard, cold rain is falling, and my need to keep the baby gate on the kitchen open so that I could go back and forth while doing my weekend housework, to filch over a pound of homemade banana bread, and this isn’t the first time.
If you keep this up, you’re either going to find yourself as a permanent outside dog, regardless of weather, or you’re going to find yourself in a stew pot. Figure something out and change yourself, or I will change you myself.
We all love you, and want you to be a welcome member of our family, but the rule is that no-one but me touches my wife, my kids, my guns, my booze, or my banana bread. Learn to live by it.
DB
Posted by daddybear71 on October 19, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/19/a-letter-to-my-dog/
Musings
- It’s finally gotten chilly enough that we’ve shut all of the windows and can comfortably use the fireplace. It’s kind of nice.
- It’s officially fireplace and bourbon weather.
- Not sure what the trees are doing. Some have a bit of color, but for the most part, the leaves are going from bright green to dead brown and falling off within a day or two. A lot of them are still very green and full of leaves, and by now they should be colorful and dropping tons of foliage.
- Boo’s first parent-teacher conference at his new school went well. Academically, he’s mastering everything they throw at him, but we have a lot of work to do in the social skills area.
- Flirting outrageously with your wife at the department store is kind of fun.
- Bonus points if you can get the group of college age females to giggle because of your antics.
- I must be doing something right as a parent. When Girlie Bear found out that we’d bought a copy of “Beetlejuice” to add to our collection, she squealed in joy.
- I’m not a great master of time management, but it’s impressive how I will juggle things, shuck and jive, and negotiate in order to get a few hours at the range on a Saturday morning.
- I’m not exactly sure what they’re making good quality floating handguards for AR-15’s with these days, but they sure are proud of them.
- I don’t think it’s a good sign when I look at the shelves I built a decade ago and think “I need to rip the trim off of that and re-do it.”
- Irish Woman has begun her decoration rituals for Halloween. So far, nothing that will cause flashbacks among young children has been erected.
- I took a vacation day today, and Irish Woman didn’t. She slept in later than I did, which just seems wrong to me.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 18, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/18/musings-17/
Two Books
I’ve been lucky lately in that I’ve actually had time to read for pleasure. On recommendation from friends and family, I indulged my inner history geek and bought “Unbroken” and “With The Old Breed: At Okinawa and Peleliu”.
Unbroken, by Lauren Hillebrand, is primarily about the life of Louis Zamperini, a reformed juvenile menace, Olympic runner, World War II bombardier, and POW. The first part of the book deals with Zamperini’s childhood and adolescence, where he finds a way off the path to prison by becoming a track star. He does well enough that he becomes a member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic track team, and competes in Berlin. As it became more and more apparent that the United States would become involved in World War II, he joined the Army Air Force and became a bombardier on B-24 bombers. During a search and rescue mission over the Pacific, his airplane crashed. Zamperini and his pilot survive the crash and an almost 2000 mile trip drifting across the Pacific. The Japanese capture them, and they spend the rest of the war in Japanese prison camps, much of it without being declared as captured. After the war, Zamperini falls into depression and alcoholism, but eventually finds his way toward redemption and a good life through the love of his wife and an awakening of his relationship with God.
With The New Breed: At Okinawa and Peleliu, a memoir by E.B. Sledge, discusses his life as a Marine in the Pacific Theater of World War II. Sledge gave up a safe slot in college to join the Marines, and joined the 1st Marine Division as they prepared for the invasion of Peleliu. The book details his training and preparation for this campaign, as well as the campaign on Okinawa. He does an excellent job describing how Marine Corps training led to the excellent esprit de corps that has marked Marines for over two centuries, and how that spirit and dedication to each other kept men alive in the hard fighting of the Pacific island campaigns. Sledge also brings the horror, insanity, and fear that he faced in these two campaigns to vivid life as he describes both battles from the perspective of someone watching it over a gunsight.
While these two books deal with the same over-arching event, World War II in the Pacific, their over-arching messages are far apart. Unbroken, even though it deals with how inhumanely man can treat his fellow man, is a story of hope. Zamperini and his fellow prisoners lived through privation and abuse, but still kept up hope of deliverance. With The Old Breed, on the other hand, deals in detail with the tension of extended battle and the despair felt by Sledge as he survived it.
Both stories are important. Knowing the horrors of war and the impact that it has on those who carry it out, is of utmost importance. When we forget these things, sending our young men and women off to war becomes much easier, and the shock at the cost of such decisions is much worse. However, knowing that even in the worst of times that hope, along with a lot of hard work, can bring things to a good ending is just as important.
Both of these books are well worth your time, and I heartily suggest that you read them if you haven’t already. They will both lead you to think about war and how it affects human beings, but in different ways. These are definitely going on my list of books that I recommend to others and I will have them both available for my kids to read when they are ready.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 18, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/18/two-books/
Today’s Earworm
Posted by daddybear71 on October 17, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/17/todays-earworm-425/
Thought for the Day
A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything. — Malcolm X
Congratulations, Senator McConnell, you got me to re-register as a Republican. Of course, I did it so I can vote against you in the primary, but hey, every card carrying member helps, right?
Posted by daddybear71 on October 17, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/17/thought-for-the-day-205/
Thoughts on the Day
- I had to sit in my cube and keep my headphones on today. All of my brain to mouth filters were off-line, and I need the paycheck.
- Step 1 – Take steroids. Step 2 – Wait 2 hours. Step 3 – Eat all the things!
- When you try to instigate a political argument with me, and I don’t respond one way or another, it either means I don’t care much about the subject or I don’t care much about you. You make the call.
- Today, for the first time in a long time, I craved tobacco. That’s not a good sign.
- Apparently one of my daughter’s teachers is a confessed socialist.
- Well, nobody is perfect.
- I told Girlie Bear that the guy is an idiot, and that she is not to argue with him. Better to let him prove that he’s an idiot all by himself.
- Apparently he’s proud that the house he’s buying is right next to some Section 8 housing. Girlie Bear, who has lived in Section 8 housing with her mother, asked if he had a gun. Tovarisch’ Teacher responded that, yes he did, and a big dog too. So he’s proud of living next to the projects, but recognizes that the poor downtrodden proletariat might just decide that his stuff ought to be their stuff, and he’s not OK with that. I guess it’s only OK if the men with guns and badges take stuff.
- This all started with a conversation about food stamps, and Girlie Bear asserting that her teacher demonstrated that only about 10% of the federal budget goes to such programs. I then demonstrated that 10% of $4 trillion is $400 billion, and that a huge portion of that is spent on people who are perfectly capable of providing for themselves, but choose not to.
- I may or may not have used the term “starve to death in the cold” to describe my solution to that problem.
- Did I mention that my filters were off-line?
- Irish Woman is a bit miffed that I always miss the uncomfortable conversations with the kids.
- Boo said that he was growing up tonight, then said that his chest will be getting big like Mommy’s.
- Irish Woman then had to explain to him that only women get breasts, while men get chest muscles.
- I don’t think he’s buying it, but time should prove her right.
- Tomorrow I simply must have some coffee, for the sake of the children.
Posted by daddybear71 on October 15, 2013
https://daddybearsden.com/2013/10/15/thoughts-on-the-day-177/
DaddyBear
DaddyBear’s Den 