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I have a sourdough starter in my refrigerator. It’s been there for months. When I first made the starter, I had grand visions of delicious sourdough bread. However, life happens and before too long it was placed into the back of the fridge on the shelf of forgottenness. Back when I started the starter (heh!) I named it Goob, after the adorable character from Disney‘s “Meet the Robinson’s.” If you’ve seen the movie, the rest of this post will make sense to you. If you (by random chance) haven’t seen it, drop everything and go watch it. Seriously. It’s amazing.
So at any rate: Goob was good to me, and then I abandoned him, and now he stinks.
I opened the fridge today to put away some pizza, and there sat Goob. My failure out front, in the open, for all to see. I turned to my husband and sighed.
“I’ve got to take care of poor Goob. I’ll try to look it up tomorrow and see if there’s anything I can do to save him.”
My husband immediately pops up with: “Go back in time, don’t neglect him so much.”
I love my husband.
One of the joys of parenting is watching my son discover how he fits into the world.
I have, in my opinion, a highly articulate 2.5 year old. He speaks in full sentences most of the time, although his standard answer is very 2-year-old-esque: “Because I can” or “Because I can’t.” Occasionally we’re able to get better sentences out of him. He has two new things. One of them is to tell us about something he wants to do, or something he wants to happen, and then end it with, “That will be a good idea.” The other new thing is to “match” things.
For example: “I wanna go see Skye and Brian and Papa and Nanny and then play with my race cars and then pet Lucky and that will be a good idea!”
He was laying on his Nanny’s bed, watching Dumbo with her. I brought him Friend-Ent, his favorite stuffed animal, a very tired Dumbo that has been with him almost every night since his birth. He held up his stuffed animal to the TV screen. “Look Nanny, it matches!”
“I want chocolate milk. That will be a good idea, Mommy!” To really feel the genius of this one, you have to mispronounce chocolate – think “cschok-lit.” He pronounces other C-words correctly, but Cschok-lit? I’m not correcting that one until he graduates high school.
For Christmas, his cousins Teresa, James and Mandy gifted him 2 really awesome Dr. Seuss puzzles. When he unwrapped it he got very excited. We asked him what it was and he said, “It’s Dr. Whouss!” Hmm. That’s another thing I’m not correcting. He thinks Dr. Who and Dr. Seuss are the same, and who am I to argue?!
He’s already put both puzzles together and taken them apart multiple times. One of the puzzles is from his favorite book, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go!“ The night he put it together for the first time we read that book at bedtime. He paused on the page that the puzzle is inspired by and said, “Look Mommy! It matches my puzzle! Let’s go put it together. That will be a good idea.”
Some days are crazy and insane. But some days end with him snuggled in my arms, and especially on days like those I find myself unable to articulate how lucky I am to be his Mommy.
I’m a picky person when it comes to paying to see a movie on the big screen. Generally it has to be something that will be significantly improved by seeing it on a huge screen for me to spend the money. There are three movies coming out soon (two tomorrow!) that I am really looking forward to watching on the big screen. Here’s why.
Reasons for wanting to watch A-Team:
- It has Liam Neeson in it and he gets to whoop up on people.
- It doesn’t look like it takes itself seriously. I can appreciate that; it shouldn’t! It’s the A-Team!
- It will probably make me laugh.
- The number one reason? It has a guy, in a tank, falling from the sky while shooting at planes. I mean, come on!! How awesome is that?!
Reasons for wanting to watch the new Karate Kid:
- It has Will Smith’s son in it, and I have not-so-secretly loved Will Smith’s work since Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I can’t WAIT to see some good stuff with his son.
- I love the kid-out-of-his-element scenario.
- Jackie Chan makes me smile.
- Everything is kung-fu.
Reasons for wanting to watch The Last Airbender:
- Appa and Momo!!!
- I’m desperately hoping that M. Night will rebound his career.
- If the fight scenes are half as cool as they look in the previews and somewhere close to as cool as they were in cartoon, this movie is going to freaking rock.
- Shaun Toub as Uncle Iroh. He played Yinsen in Iron Man (the guy in the cave with Tony) and was great and I think he is PERFECT for the part of Uncle Iroh.
- I have seriously been looking forward to this movie since I watched the series back when it was still new on Nickelodeon. I remember reading the interview back in 2007 or 2008 when M. Night was talking about how much his daughters loved the show and how he was talking to the original writers about doing a live action movie. I remember being skeptical and hesitantly excited back then, and now? Now I’m really trying hard not to get my hopes up, but that’s failing miserably. I can’t wait to see it on the big screen.
It’s going to be tough to see Airbender as soon as I want to since it comes out July 2 and I’ll have a newborn. But I will make it happen, even if I have to bring the baby with me to the first showing on a Tuesday morning at the Drafthouse. But A-Team and Karate Kid both come out tomorrow; perhaps I’ll be able to see one before Benjamin gets here!
While trying to convince a coworker on the merits of WALL-E and her need to see it, the topic of Pixar came up. As the topic of Pixar came up, I accidentally managed to mention to her that I had been surprised to learn that George Lucas owned Pixar back in its inception. Really, she tells me? Really, I tell her back.
She then inquires as to how I learned such a thing. My response went something like this:
“Oh after Justin and I watched the original Star Wars DVDs, because I just bought them and I was so excited! I got them in New York for only 30 dollars! Anyways they had the three or four hour “Making of” with it so we went ahead and watched it, it was a lot longer than we thought it was going to be but we really enjoyed it… and maybe I shouldn’t be admitting this in public…“
She just kind of stared at me for a few minutes, shook her head, and went back to work.
Oh well.
At least I enjoyed the DVD!
Yesterday I was engrossed in a fabulous conversation with one of my officers and we were talking about the new Star Trek. He said that it was the first Star Trek movie that was absolutely BETTER than any of the Star Wars movies.
Now, you can agree or disagree with that as you see fit, but I think there are three major things you have to consider when comparing the two.
1. Time lapse– The first Star Wars movie came out May 25th, 1977 – tomorrow will be its 32nd birthday. Thirty years is a long time in the world of sci-fi/fantasy. Since 1977 we’ve gotten great movies like Predator, Back to the future, Blade Runner, Fifth Element, Gattaca, Contact, the Matrix… granted, not all high grossing movies but through these examples you can certainly see the technological advances made and that’s part of this point. There is a significant time lapse as far as technology is concerned between Star Wars and this particular Star Trek and that has to be taken into consideration.
2. Maturity level & age – Star Wars was intended to be a family-friendly movie for everyone to enjoy. It didn’t have a lot of “adult” jokes that went over the kid’s heads so the adults could get a laugh… it was genuine entertainment suitable for all ages. It was somewhat aimed at kids but not so shallow that adults couldn’t enjoy it. Some of the people that loved Star Wars the most when it came out were those kids the movie was aimed at, most of which are now adults with children or grandchildren of their own. One of the joys of parenthood (as I understand it) is exposing your children to wonderful things, such as your favorite movies. So those people that watched and loved Star Wars before are now introducing their children and grandchildren to Star Wars as soon as they’re old enough to enjoy it.
I fondly recall sitting with my father watching Star Wars for the first time. He was so happy to show it to me that I think he spent more time watching my reactions than he did actually watching the movie.
I was about 8 years old… and it was incredible.
The story, the shiny C-3PO, the adorable R2-D2, the handsome Luke, the story, the action and… I could go on. I had a bit of love affair with Star Wars as a child. I still make references to the force being strong in people.
Now I’m an adult. My reasoning and observation skills are completely different than they were 16 years ago. And that works out perfectly because the new Star Trek is not necessarily intended to be a kid movie. The first few moments of the movie are incredibly emotional and powerful. There are plenty of laughs, but not necessarily laughs involving cute or adorable machines. I’m not saying that kids wouldn’t enjoy it, but it’s an adult movie aimed at adults. Each movie had different (but similar) target audiences, and you can’t expect them to compete on the same level as each other in that respect.
3. 1977 vs. 2009– If we’re going to compare Star Wars to anything, we should compare it to other movies that came out in the 70s. Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Saturday Night Fever, Freaky Friday, Logan’s Run, Taxi Driver. Reasonably good movies. But Star Wars really pushed the envelope then and produced something that went far and above anything else that was coming out at the time. George Lucas was seen as revolutionary. Star Wars wasn’t just a great movie, it was (arguably) the best film to come out in 1977 and unarguably the film that had the most staying power as far as influence is concerned. Consider this: it’s 32 years later and I’m blogging about it!
Now, consider the new Star Trek. Yes, it’s fantastic. But how does it compare to other movies that have come out in the past year? We have had movies like Wolverine, Watchmen, Dark Knight, Iron Man, Wall-E and Quantum of Solace. It compares well, but does it go far and above and beyond what all those other movies are? Does it push the envelope like Star Wars did? I don’t think so. How will we view it in 32 years?
Conclusions:
There is no way I can legitimately (at this point) compare the two movies and determine the better one. I can’t view Star Wars for the first time ever again as an adult. Likewise, I can’t watch Star Trek through the eyes of my 8 year old self.
Unlike Star Wars, most of the die-hard or even casual fans of Star Trek grew up on tv shows like Enterprise, DS9, and cheese-ball movies. They have years and years of Star Trek history to compare this movie to. And since it’s the same story – idealized by Gene Roddenberry – we canmake comparisons to those tv shows and movies in regards to this new movie. And in that respect, the new Star Trek is absolutely amazing. It has real emotion and power along with amazing fight scenes and a realistic future to dream about. It sucks you in and steals you away for a few hours of your life… which is EXACTLY what Gene Roddenberry and George Lucas wanted to do with their unique stories.
No, I don’t think you can compare the two movies without taking all this (and more) into consideration. IF I were to try, I would simply say that watching Star Wars as a child helped me appreciate Star Trek more as an adult. They can happily coexist in my world as excellent movies in their own right, and that’s good enough for me.
The new Dragonball: Evolution movie came out today and the reviews are exactly as we expected: lame, lame, lame. Justin and I will still probably go see it for several reasons. We often disagree with reviewers, and we want to support the franchise. But I’m a little scared. Dragonball was Justin’s favorite show growing up, and he’s more than a little like the main character Goku. So he might cry if it’s as bad as they say.
Also, for those of you who are baseball fans: DUDE. The Texas Rangers totally spanked my Indians. I’m really heartbroken, but happy for the Rangers fans. The Indians play the Bluejays today who have won most of their games so far so…. I’m hopeful. Maybe they just needed to get their game faces on. I’d love to see them do good this season!
And the Astros… who knows? They can never make up their mind how they want to do 
But they’ve actually won a few… so we’ll see. It’s early yet.
Next week I get to go to 2 baseball games. 2!! Both RR Express games… one is compliments of my wonderful employer, the other is compliments of the local group that takes care of our 911 equipment.. we are being honored with free baseball tickets for our service to the community via 911. It’s pretty cool we get to go out on the field and everything. I always look forward to it.
</baseball nerd>
