Really short update tonight. I finally pulled some recent pics off the camera and found this one of Catherine with her new Strawberry Shortcake ornament she got last weekend. Turned out better than I was expecting.
And a big jeers to blogger on their recent bug making it so that clicked through images end up getting a download prompt. It was bad enough they made the image file load html which then loaded the image, but this one's worse. At least there's a possible workaround for it.
I borrowed My Super Ex-Girlfriend from KennyG (who apparently watched while writing his great American novel). It was highly entertaining. Now take that with a grain of salt since I'm a comic book aficionado. But takes nice little subtle digs ("Jenny Jones, you have that whole alliteration thing going") at the whole super hero genre while throwing in lots of jokes at the same time. What makes this different than a normal super hero tale is the hero (heroine actually) is a portrayed as, well, let's be generous and just say slightly emotionally unstable. It made for an interesting movie with lots of subtle sarcasm jokes. And the fact that the guy that plays Dwight in The Office is here as the main guy's friend makes it even better. Maybe it's the fact that I went into the movie with fairly low expectations, but the movie worked for me and was entertaining. Props to Kennyg for letting me borrow it and saving one of my Netflix rentals (which sadly I still haven't watched my last rental Ocean's Thirteen and I got it before Thanksgiving).
Ginger went to the doctor today to check on her cough which she has had for four plus weeks now (and that she subsequently gave to me). Turns out she has bronchitis. Yikes. She's on antibiotics now so hopefully she'll get better soon. Whatever this cough I've got is isn't showing any signs of abating. And cough suppressants seem to do absolutely nothing for me.
Other news from today included Quinn going to take piano lessons. We won a couple hours of piano lessons at the school's auction back in March and we're just now getting around to redeeming them. I doubt we'll have him continue going (unless he decides he really likes it).
When I got home tonight the Snowman had been completely taken down. Turns out the lawn service we have came by today to mow the yard one last time for the year and pick up leaves (or as I might cynically think make a grab at getting paid one more time). But since they couldn't mow with the Snowman up, they completely dismantled him. That means at some point in the future we may have another shot at the ever popular erection of the snowman joke.
And hey, why not throw up yet another shot of the frost from last weekend (up above). It's like the gift that just keeps on giving.
Bought a new Wii game today. It was Mario and Sonic Olympics. Ok, I didn't buy it. A co-worker bought it and I got it from him, but it's mine now (and it only cost $35 instead of $50). Ginger's brother owns this game already and had brought it up over Thanksgiving. The kids seemed to like it, but maybe even more importantly Ginger liked it. Hopefully the "try new foods to play the Wii" bribing will continue to motivate Quinn to broaden his eating habits. This morning he tried and ate toaster strudel (he did complain about the filling part, but eventually ate it) and tonight he tried a banana so he could play. So for now, the bribing is working, and that's good news. The only problem came when I got home and they wanted to play the game then, but I had accidentally left it at work. So the kids sent me back to work to get it. Can't you just feel the love? I should mention they did offer and went back with me, but they were insistent that I go back and get it.
And surprise surprise, I have yet another picture of frost I can put up. I did mention I took a lot of pictures of the frost this past weekend, right?
Man, I've contracted this death rattle that Ginger has had for almost a month now. It's this stupid cough. So far there's really no other symptoms other than this chest cough that just keep going and going and going, but it's annoying as all get out and keeps me up throughout the night. And Ginger's had four weeks of this thing, and I'm pretty sure I won't survive a month of this so I'm thinking I may want to hit a doctor and get some meds. Have them hook me up with steroids (ROIDS!) or something because not being able to sleep at night is a pain the butt, especially when you have to get up the next morning. Right now I'm at the point where I can sleep for an hour or two when I've reached the point of physical exhaustion. I'm pretty sure getting less sleep than I normally do (which isn't a lot to start with) can't be good for me.
And looking through the archives it appears I recently pasted the blog's two year anniversary and didn't even realize it. And suddenly here it is two years and 760+ posts later. Despite the picture up above, it wasn't overly cold today (it was raining, and leaves are all over the roads, so it's a bit treacherous, but not cold at least). The picture above is one from the numerous frost pictures I took over the weekend.
So recently Catherine has been really into Strawberry Shortcake. Which I know sounds so 80s, but I do think the brand is trying to make a comeback. Anyway, Ginger found a Strawberry Shortcake ornament, but they aren't at Hallmark stores, but rather at Carlton Cards (Hallmark store's illegitimate little brother). There aren't a lot of Carlton Cards in the area anymore. They seem to be a dying breed. The closest on is at Dulles Town Center, which is a good 15 miles away. So after church we started on a road trip to Dulles Town Center.
We we ate at Red Robin before heading to the mall. The mall wasn't anywhere near as crowded as I thought it would be. I think I can probably thank the Redskins for that. They were playing between 1 and 4 which meant the mall probably had a lot less people than might have been there. Quinn has really developed a fondness for the Redskins. It's not something I've encouraged, but it's there. When we were at Red Robin, the game was on, and Tampa scored and touchdown and Quinn kept telling me "They cheated." When I asked how they cheated he said they got the ball really close to the goal. I had to explain that was because of a fumble, and the guys in the black and white uniforms were out there to make sure that no one was cheating. To be honest, this didn't really change his opinion any and he's convinced they cheated and that's why they were winning.
The one thing I didn't know was that the mall had a small train that runs around through the mall. And somehow the kids convinced us we needed to go ride it.
Once we got home the kids wanted to put up Frosty. In fact Quinn told us as we were approaching home that I could help the kids put up Frosty and Ginger could go cook dinner. Somehow we've ended up raising a kid with gender role expectations (I can't help but think that's partly my fault). We decided we would all put up the outside decorations, so being of sound mind (i.e. not drunk nor hopped up on meth, see the last comment here to understand that) we acquiesced and erected the inflatable Frosty and our outside lights (recycling a joke from last year in the process). We were apparently the slowpokes in our little cul de sac neighborhood seeing as how both of our neighbors had their holiday stuff up on Friday.
Where's his head? It's the headless snowman!
Oh wait, there it is.
Ta dah! The finished product.
Catherine had a birthday party this morning that started at ten. That's way too early. It was for a classmate of Catherine's at school, and it just so happens that girl's older brother is in Quinn's class, so Quinn got invited at the last minute also. Which would have meant lots of extra sleep for me, except this morning my alarm went off at seven. I didn't hear it, but Ginger did as she punched me to take care of it. After that I had a hard time getting back to sleep. So I wandered around outside for a bit and took pictures of the morning frost. A lot of pictures. The problem is I only liked how a few of the pictures turned out.
Once the kids returned home from the brithday party and we had some lunch and then Nana left. So now all of our Thanksgiving visitors have been given the boot (uhhh, I mean have left peacefully of their own accord). After that we went ahead and decorated the Christmas tree upstairs. The kids got new ornaments. Quinn got a Lowe's NASCAR ornament while Catherine got a set with Dora, Boots and Diego. No time lapsed video of the event this year like the one I made last year. Although that was for the kids tree, so maybe once we put that one up I might do that again.
From an artist point of view, I think I like the shots of the kids in front of the tree without the flash better than the ones with the flash. But at the same time, I'm glad to have the shots with the flash also for posterity.
At one point I set up the camera on the tripod and put it into remote mode. I then let Quinn have the remote and had him take his own picture. Most of the shots looked a lot of like the one above. With him striking some action shot usually.
Finally, got a shot of the tree with all the ornaments on it (minus the dove / star). Ginger and I finished putting our ornaments on after the kids went to bed. When we first started putting ornaments on the tree, I foolishly thought with a nine foot tree we would have more than enough room for all of our ornaments. That theory quickly got put to bed though as we still managed to run out of room. I suspect if we had the tree in the middle of the room and put ornaments all the way around it instead of just half of it, then maybe there would be room for all of our ornaments. And in case I'm being too subtle, I'm trying to say we have a lot of Christmas ornaments.
Today was not spent shopping. Ginger did make one trip to a store, but it was to return / exchange a pair of pants. Nothing 'new' was acquired today. We were not up and at the stores at 4 am (I'm curious to hear if anyone was, and whether they'll continue this trend). Nana and Quinn had tried playing outside some this morning, but it was pretty cold. Stark contrast from yesterday and the hydrangeas that started budding yesterday are already wilting in the cold. Quinn actually accompanied Ginger to the store (as did Grammy, Pop Pop, Grandmaw and Nana). From what I heard after they had been at the store for a while Quinn made the comment "How long does it take to get a new pair of pants anyway?"
We did put up the new Christmas tree today. We didn't decorate it. And this was the first time we had put it up, so it was all new to us. And new to the cats too as Cynthia had to come check it out.
Catherine was helping us put the tree up until she discovered the bubble wrap the tree was packaged in. After she found that she was pretty much entranced by that for a while.
It'll feel weird not having a live tree this year, but the live tree presents other problems. Like it dies because I can never remember to keep it watered. And then it sheds it's dead needles everywhere. While we were putting up the tree, the kids had a field day playing in the boxes (this was after Quinn came in from playing outside and Catherine had exhausted the bubble wrap). I'm thinking of just getting them a refrigerator box for Christmas and wrapping that, they would probably play with it as much as they would any other toy we could get, and it would give their imaginations a workout.
We did venture out for lunch. But that was the extent of today's excitement outside. Grammy, Pop Pop, JJ, Grandmaw and Joey headed back to Richmond today after our lunch. It'll be sad not having them around as much anymore. Oh yea, and I beat Super Mario Galaxy today (at least phase one of the game). It was very addictive and I give a huge thumbs up. The only nitpick I had with the game was the automatic camera angles would mess up motion sometimes as the camera would swing underneath and your controls would suddenly reverse. Even so, the game was (is) great.
Man, Ginger went all out today. We had thirteen people here today. The usual crew (Ginger's parent's, her grandmother, her brother, my Mom) and this year we added in Susan (Ginger's cousin), Peter (Susan's brother), Peter (Susan's Dad) and Betty (Susan's Mom). Needless to say the house was full and standing room only. I could kick myself that I didn't move that chair out of the way before taking the pictures. And I took like 10 pictures, but with 13 people there never seems to be a shot where everyone looks good (and I don't feel like spending the time to photoshop together one good shot).
We also decided today we would have the big meal at lunchtime instead of dinner like we normally do. This meant Ginger was up and cooking at 7 am this morning. Ginger and her Mom were cooking non stop all morning until 1. But in the end, it was worth it. The meal was excellent and it was a great day. After the meal we all headed down to play the Wii. We started out with Wii Sports to show all the newbs how to play. Thought we would start them on something easy, so we went with bowling. Quinn ended up crushing them. He also managed to achieve PRO status on bowling by shattering his previous high score of 180+ with a 233 (which might be better than I've done in the game). After that we had people playing tennis which resulted in three more dings in the ceiling (we really need to move this game to some place with higher ceilings).
And what a difference a day makes. Remember yesterday I put up that photo from the back yard, with all the leaves. Well, yesterday and today it has been kind of windy (and warm, but more on that in a sec). And here's the same shot today. The tree is practically devoid of leaves now.
The ground is literally covered with leaves. Even the creek is covered in a layer of leaves. All day long I could hear the buzzing sound of neighbors using their leave blowers. Which I thought was premature since there would still be gusts of wind causing it to look as if it was snowing, but the 'snow' were leaves falling. And just like that I suspect that's the end of taking pictures of the fall foliage. And the warm weather we've had recently has fooled our hydrangeas. We had trimmed them back, but with the warmer weather for the past couple of days they started having new leaves budding.
And what's with Black Friday this year? Stores opening at 4am? Seriously? Why? So they can sell out of their limited quantity items by 4:10 am? Who wants to get up that early? Heck, I've only been in bed a couple of hours by that point. It just seems crazy to me.
Ginger's parents, her grandmother, her brother and her parent's dog all arrived today. Since we have people up we may want to grill out. As you may recall a while back when we were grilling out we ran out of propane, so I had to go swap the tank. I went by Wal-Mart to simply swap the tank. I've done it before and it was a fairly painless process. The sign above shows exactly how easy the process should be. The last time I did it was over a year ago and it was during the summer when I assume more people swap tanks.
So when I went to swap the tanks, I got sent from the Lawn and Garden section (where the tanks are) up to the front of the store. There was a cash register in the Lawn and Garden section, but the lady manning it didn't want to open the register. Fine, no problem. I walk across the store, stand in line, buy my refill and walk all the way back. The lady behind the Lawn and Garden register walks me out to the tanks. After fumbling around for a bit she tels me it's locked and they need to get a manager to open it. Ok, guess that's fine. Not like I have a choice in the matter. Five minutes drag by, then ten, then fifteen and finally the manager guy shows up. We walk out and he spends about three minutes trying all his keys on the lock and none of them work. Now I get told to hold on and he'll go find the key. Five minutes later he comes back with the lady from the register and it turns out she's had the key at her register the entire time. *sigh*
So in light of my wonderful experience I have reworked their sign for replacing a tank as it should be. I think mine's much more reflective of reality.
So early last week I watched Pan's Labyrinth (this isn't about that movie, I might chat that one up later) and prior to that movie there was a preview for The Fountain. The preview looked like it might be interesting, so I added it to my Netflix queue and moved it to the top (I never seem to decrease the size of my Netflix queue, it only seems to grow larger and larger as I add more stuff than I watch). So "The Fountain" shows up and I watch that. Let me just say what a complete waste of my time. I normally don't do spoilers when talking about movies, but if you plan on watching The Fountain stop reading now, because I'm seriously going to spoil some stuff.
The Fountain is all over the place. It takes place in three different time periods. The past, the present and future. Here's the thing though. In the movie the future is actually the present the our present is the past and our past is actually a book. Make sense? No? It just barely makes sense to me and I watched the movie. How they conned Hugh Jackman into doing this movie I'll never know. I get how they got Rachel Weisz, she's apparently married to the director or something and probably felt like she had to take one for the team.
Let's see, where to start with the absurdity. So the guy in the future is in a space ship. And it's a big glass ball with a small plot of land (looks to be about 50 feet in diameter)which has a tree in it and Hugh Jackman. Evidently some places within the big glass ball have no gravity and other parts (like where the ground and tree are) do. Nothing about the "space ship" makes sense. Someone obviously thought this would make for some cool imagery and went with it. After watching the movie I was so confused about what I just watched that I watched the hour of special features on the disc. Too bad they don't actually explain much during this, but they do explain why they choose a see through space ship. And it's because "there's nothing that says it can't be like that." Uhh, great guys. What makes it go? I don't see any engines. It's a big see through ball. I don't see any air recyclers. I don't see any lights although there's always enough light somehow, which I guess we're suppose to believe this bright light is coming from the nebula he's flying through. And where's his food come from, oh wait, we see him eating bark from the tree every so often.
So how nuts is this movie? Hugh Jackman is Tomas, the guy in the future in the bubble (they don't mention what year it is in the future, you just get the impression it's a good while into the future). Anyway, Tomas in the past (our present) was married to Izzy (Rachel) who is dying of a brain tumor that's evidently inoperable. Tomas works in some facility studying ways to cure brain tumors. The wife meanwhile is writing a book about a dude in the past from Spain that went looking for the "Tree of Life" (a.k.a. the fountain of youth). This guy in the flashbacks of the past looks amazingly like Tomas. And the queen that sends him on the mission looks amazingly like Izzy.
When Tomas experiments on a monkey with a brain tumor (our present), he concocts a formula that just happens to reverse the aging effect. The tumor though is unaffected so Tomas discards this incredible discovery to continue looking for something to save his wife (later we find out it does decrease the tumor, but by that point it's too late for Izzy). All through the movie it's jumping around in time, showing bits and pieces from all three time periods. Here's where it gets weird. A lot of stuff is left out and you have to put together the pieces of what happens yourself, but the gist is Izzy dies, is buried out in the country, and Tomas plants a seed where she died. At some point Tomas must invoke the procedure that reverses the aging process, because that's supposedly him in the future in the bubble. Then we're suppose to believe that the tree in the space ship contains the essence of Izzy, and that's the tree that grew from the seed he planted at her grave. Did I mention that he eats part of the bark from the tree daily? The movie tries to explore this this whole idea that through death we transform into something else "amazing". And we eventually learn Tomas is taking the tree to a dying star so that when it goes nova he and the tree will be together and become part of the new galaxy / life that comes from that star.
What's wrong with the movie besides the obvious? Well, the budget is lower than they wanted, so it's sparse. There aren't a lot of different sets shown. And the stuff in the past is always in the dark. In fact, in the beginning of the movie it's almost impossible to make out what's going on because it's so dark. And if I hadn't had subtitles on I wouldn't have been able to make out what anyone was saying. I will say this. Take out all the bad crap and the execution, and I have to admit I at least liked the idea for the story. Didn't like how they executed it, where they went with the story, or what they were selling as the message though. It would have been better in my mind to have the story focus on him realizing that without the possibility of dying that he can never really live. I can't believe I wasted my time watching it and I can't believe I wasted this much time writing about how much I disliked it. But if this saves anyone else from making the mistake I did in watching it, it'll be worth it.
Bought a new Wii game today. It was Mario and Sonic Olympics. Ok, I didn't buy it. A co-worker bought it and I got it from him, but it's mine now (and it only cost $35 instead of $50). Ginger's brother owns this game already and had brought it up over Thanksgiving. The kids seemed to like it, but maybe even more importantly Ginger liked it. Hopefully the "try new foods to play the Wii" bribing will continue to motivate Quinn to broaden his eating habits. This morning he tried and ate toaster strudel (he did complain about the filling part, but eventually ate it) and tonight he tried a banana so he could play. So for now, the bribing is working, and that's good news. The only problem came when I got home and they wanted to play the game then, but I had accidentally left it at work. So the kids sent me back to work to get it. Can't you just feel the love? I should mention they did offer and went back with me, but they were insistent that I go back and get it.
