Happy Birthday, Naomi!
You are six months old today, and no bars can hold you!
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe
I haven’t yet read the series, but I could tell the story was was cut too short. The only interesting character was the sullen Edmund, though the familial bickering between the kids felt spot-on. Terrific creature animation by Weta – especially the lion and minotaurs. Call it: Lion of the Rings.
Waiting for Les McCann
Remember my post on mixed tapes and that jazz song I couldn’t identify? Well, the intrepid Guislaine worked her powers of Google-fu and determined that the song is All Strung Out on You by Les McCann and His Magic Band.
Thanks, Guislaine!
I worked my own eBay magic and looked for a CD containing that song. The Les McCann CDs that were available didn’t have the song, but I did find a VCD video disc of a live performance by Mr. McCann and his band at a low, low price. So I ordered it, figuring that it was worth a shot.
Alas, the performance on the VCD only contained an instrumental version of the song, not the performance that I recalled from the broadcast of Jazz Beat lo these eighteen-odd years ago.
Further research reveals that All Strung Out on you is from his album The Longer You Wait. That’s great, except that this an actual record. On vinyl. And I haven’t owned a record player since 1992.
Harrumpf.
Still, as my weird nostalgia obsessions go, it’s a heck of a lot closer than I managed to get with my hunt for the Caramilk devil commercial.
Blarg
Ben has recovered from his flu, which is great, but he’s also given it to me, which is less great.
Ah, the contagious joy of daycare!
Mirrormask
Beautiful, but boring. On the night of her mother’s surgery, a rebellious teen finds herself trapped in a Dave McKean-designed dreamscape caught between the Light and Shadow Queens that both represent her mother. The stellar visuals and charm of the principal actresses are undermined by the featherweight plot and dialogue.
The Next Step in the Evolution of Darwin Fish
Maggie’s post about her Darwin fish inspired me to look up other oddball variants on the popular Christian fish symbol.
May I present the Flying Spaghetti Monster fish emblem…
…and the Cthulhu fish emblem:
I’ve never been much for for bumper stickers (not having had a car before 2005 will do that), butI tell you, I’m sorely tempted to put one of these on my car. Or at least put them in the same box as my Cthulhu for President bumper sticker.
Hazy Shade of Spring
This was a weekend filled with April showers, or the threat of same. We spent as much time as possible indoors.
There was no yoga on Friday, but Dina had alternate plans: she had a scrapbooking party to attend with some of her friends from the St. Monica Playgroup. So, after a leisurely dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches that marked Ben’s first enjoyment of that culinary delight, Dina printed out some photos of the kids and went out for the evening.
I played with the kids for about an hour, and then began the process of getting them down to sleep. Naomi rolled around in the crib while I read Ben his bedtime story, and then devoured a second after-dinner bottle before falling asleep on her own. I was feeling too pooped to handle chores, and too tired to get a riled up finishing the same boss fight I’d left hanging for two weeks on Ultimate Spider-Man, so instead I popped a movie into the DVD player and settled in for the evening.
The movie? The Wrath of Khan. It gets better (and funnier) every time I see it. The actors clearly thought this was their last hurrah, and made the most of it. Once again, I got something in my eye right from the time Kirk bade farewell to Spock, right until the eulogy. No wonder this is the best of all the Trek films. No wonder one of the first reviews of the film began with the line “Now that’s more like it.”
Dina came just after Kirk’s immortal line, told me about her evening, and then ran off before Spock’s death. No fair!
On Saturday, both Ben and Naomi woke up at six o’clock. Dina and I could do nothing against such a concerted onslaught of cuteness, so we got up too.
By eleven, Naomi was asleep for her first nap of the day, and Dina looked ready to follow suit, so I took Ben out for a walk to our favourite gaming store and back. The sky was gray, and it rained a light drizzle, but Ben and I both had on our yellow rain jackets, so we were as happy as a pair of giant ducks.
Dina and Naomi were still asleep when we returned, but we had to rush things along and get lunch ready. And then I left to head downtown for the first of many More Than Words sessions at the Montreal Children’s Hospital.
In this study, parents of kids in the autism spectrum are taught new techniques for developing interactive communication skills in their kids. More Than Words is an element of the Hanen approach, which contrasts with the traditional behavioural approaches followed at the rehabilitation centers, but doesn’t conflict. In other words, Ben can follow both treatment approaches and benefit from both.
So, every Saturday afternoon, I meet with the speech therapist along with nine other parents of autistic children, and we go through a huge textbook, work on exercises to help us understand how communication and learning can be scary processes for 2-3 year-old kids, and figure out how we can give them a boost. It’s a very interesting (and exhausting) way to spend your Saturday afternoons.
Once I returned, I fired up the barbecue, despite the rain, and made the first batch of hamburgers of the season. Delicious.
After chasing the kids to bed, Dina and I made a valiant effort to watch The Chronicles of Narnia, but Dina fell asleep on the couch after an hour. I think catching movies in shifts is going to be part of our regular routine.
The kids let us sleep in a whole extra hour on Sunday, and we were grateful for the rest. It turns out that we needed it.
We were all in the car, driving out to the mall on a rainy Sunday morning when Ben got carsick. Dina immediately turned the car around and headed home, where we assessed the damage. Ben was running a fever as well, and we remembered warnings from the daycare that there was a 24-hour bug going around. We thought Ben had missed it, but we were obviously wrong.
The mall errands couldn’t wait, so I stayed home while Dina went out. Ben and Naomi napped a little, but not enough, but Ben was really only interested in lying on the couch, so I kept giving him fluids and Tempra to keep his fever down.
Dina came home with new clothes for the kids, we fed them supper, put them to bed, and watched the end of Narnia. (It’s funny how I can’t say the title without thinking of that Saturday Night Live sketch).
Ben had a decent night’s sleep, but he’ll still need a couple of days to get back to his normal self. We’re just hoping that Naomi doesn’t catch the same bug.
Or us, for that matter!
Best Movie Adaptations of Books
Kottke linked to the Evening Standard’s list of the 50 Best Book-to-Movie Adaptations. As always, the contents of the list are dodgy and controversial (they seem to evaluate the quality of the movie itself in addition to the quality of the adaptation. Populist fare like Lord of the Rings didn’t make the cut.), so I’ll limit myself to noted which stories I’ve seen in bold, and adding any comments as appropriate.
I’m Gonna Be a Pope!
Wolfgang Baur is experimenting with patronage-based RPG design and publishing at Open Design/Custom Adventure blog.
In short, you pay the money, and he writes the adventure. Different membership rates allow you a different level of input into the creation of the adventure, ranging from choosing the style and title to actually proposing characters, villains and locations. Pretty cool.
In his own words:
I’m returning to an old, old model for writers with the next adventure I write: patronage. In the medieval age and in the Renaissance, patrons were the ones who commissioned artists and writers. There was no such thing as a “publisher”. People who wanted books paid someone directly to write them.
The OpenDesign blog is about applying that strategy to RPG adventures. It’s a both a publishing experiment and a design experiment.
What’s good about this approach?
Patrons have significant say about the content: the people who commission the text will also choose the adventure style, title, level, monsters and so forth. They become, effectively, patrons of the arts. I feel all feudal just proposing it.
For the rest of article, follow this link: Open Design – Patronage as a Publishing Strategy, and then be sure to check out First Patrons and Pricing.
In short, think of Wolfgang as Michelangelo, and you’re the Pope who commissioned the Sistine Chapel artwork…except, you’re one of fifty-odd popes, and you might not get your own way in every particular.
Naturally, I signed up. I’ve enjoyed Wolfgang’s work on Dataware for the Alternity RPG system, and I’d love to sneak a peek behind the curtain and see how RPG adventures can be designed. Even if my first choices aren’t selected, I’ll have read through all the design notes, and I’ll be getting a limited-release product that’s a huge bargain for the price. It’s a win-win situation.
If you’re interested, you should drop Wolfgang a line, and sign up.
Swinging with Momma
As soon as the city workers installed the swings at the kids’ park across the street, Dina was out there with the kids. I took pictures.
Click the picture below to see the photo album:
