Future Poltergeist

Tonight, after we put Relia down to sleep we settled in on the couch and watched a movie. Instead of something new (and risky) we went with an old favorite, 'Amelie'. I've mentioned it here on the blog a couple of times but I don't think I've ever really reviewed it. So here goes... Amelie is a waitress in the Paris neighborhood of Montmarte. Her parents were distant and she has great difficulty allowing anyone close to her. Her life has been taken over by quirks and stratagems. By chance she uncovers a long lost cache of childhood memories. She decides to return them to the long lost owner and see if she has an effect on his life. If it works out, she will become a hidden do-gooder. This sets up a plot where this very clever (and adorable) young woman goes to further and more distant ends to help others. Add in a mysterious man who just might be quirkier enough to make a match with her. Do they share an affinity? And can she overcome her own barriers lo...

(Via Megan McArdle) Here are some pictures of unsold cars from around the world. There are quite a few of them out there. I wonder when the prices come waaaay down?

When I came home last night I found that the FP Gal is missing her voice. She can only speak in a whisper. It's kind of like this . She says that she feels fine, maybe a little tired but there is no voice there. Maybe it will come back soon. Our little girl is doing fine. She might be getting a little of the cold herself but nothing serious. Her only real problem is what seems to be more teething. This has meant that when she wakes up at night it's a little tough for her to get back to sleep. (That's what knocked out my blogging time last.) Today we colored and ran around the house. She played the piano for a good hour this morning. In all, it was a good day. Me? Work has been busy and tiring. We're still shaking out the staffing levels. To make things 'shakier' they just announced that we're going to a 35 hour workweek in a month or so. When it's busy, they'll offer those five hours back. I'm confident that my department will hav...

This year for lent, I'm giving up french fries (again). It's not so much a spiritual thing as I'm not donating McDonald's lost funds to the church or anything like that. It's more of a test of will. You should test that will every once in a while just to prove that you can, right? Btw, my sister has been off of french fries for many years now. Because she's crazy.

We're in the midst of an eight inch snowstorm. Well, we'll see. I'm putting my guess right at five inches. Again, I don't mind the snow but I can't stand the cold. Update: Just back in from shoveling and I was wrong. We're past five inches already. And it's a heart attack snow so be careful out there.

During the Oscar broadcast the other night Hugh Jackman (who I liked) very proudly said that the musical is back. He said it in the conjunction of 'Mama Mia' setting some kind of box office record in the UK. While I think he might be overstating things (to put it lightly), I think it's interesting to look at the connection between musicals and movies today. Now, I don't live in New York and I don't follow Broadway closely so I'm open to correction here, but my sense is that the creative well for musicals is kind of running dry. It seems that the high profile shows are all reworkings of other movies with a little song and dance thrown in. 'Legally Blond' was a fun little movie but who really thought it needed to be sung? The only way that musicals will really be 'back' is if they drive the process, not end up as a campy dumping ground for second hand stories. Thinking about this made me wonder about the pipeline back during the golden age of ...

Just pulled herself up on the piano bench so she could play some more music. Mom, how soon before you can start giving her lessons?

So I finally decided that I'd go with French. I'm just working with so many French speakers that it makes more sense to brush up on my skills so that I can keep up with them. Not that I have any real hope of being able to take complicated phone reservations or anything, my language ear is just not that good. Still, it will help with hotels in Quebec and that type of thing. The site that I'm working with is here , and it's free. As a bonus, the FP Gal kind of seems excited to do this too. She took the appraisal test and did much better than I did. Apparently Mme Asper taught us some 'regionalisms' or something. (Meigan, you could use this to keep up with your daughter if you'd like.) Wish me bon chance!

Are to appear at least once in every Relia video .

Sorry, the internet was down most of the day as we rewired our home entertainment pieces again. I'll let the FP Gal explain but one day into going 'live' and we discovered some flaws in our plan. In short, we've officially joined the Tivo world. I'll put up an Amazing Race recap at some point. Now I'm watching the Oscars and following Carries liveblog . Update: Man, Kate Winslet gets me every time. That was a speech that they'll cut excepts from for years. Update again: Yay, Slumdog! It's nice to see a movie that you have some emotional investment in win the prize.

In the spring of 1895 a man named Joshua Slocum decided to sail all the way around the world by himself. He was a man in his early fifties who had worked as a sailor for most of his life. While looking for a job on a ship a captain offered him the remains of a small boat that he could fix up if he wanted to. Over the next thirteen months or so he worked on it until it was was seaworthy. He named it 'the Spray'. After a season of fishing he decided that he would try the longer voyage. Most everyone thought he was crazy but he trusted the ship and decided to go any way. This book is the memoir that he wrote of the entire voyage. He stopped often for supplies and the story of his voyage began to precede him, giving him social connections and allowing him to lecture for money. He writes about each stop and the long sailing legs between them. The entire book is very entertaining. One of my favorite episodes of the book takes place early, just after sailing from the Azores. ...

I should mention that we got about four inches of snow overnight. For the first time this winter I was able to shove the steps before anyone walked on them. This means that the dreaded ice patches won't be there. Temps are in the high teens and it really only feels cold during wind gusts. We're almost to March and even though there will be more snow, it won't be so cruelly cold. Only six more weeks until Opening Day and all the other signs of spring. Today it feels like the end is in sight!

Or at least of an expanded cable package. If you've been reading the FP Gal you know that we're downgrading to basic cable. This has been in discussion for a long time and I'm fine with it, though I'll some of the channels. My TV watching revolves around four or five network shows, baseball and football. Add in 'The Soup' and 'Doctor Who' and I'm pretty well covered. The rest is mostly filler (old sit-coms, some documentaries, movies and the music channels). To watch the cable shows we're paying something like $65 extra dollars a month. That's a pretty high price and not one that we're willing to pay anymore. I bet this same type of calculation is going on all over the country. I wonder what a comparison of Comcast customers between June 2008 and June 2009 would look like. Watching sports is a biggie for me and we'll no longer have ESPN. I haven't watched as much of them in the past few years because I get usually get mu...

I'm drooling over this house .

Relia was up around 430a this morning. Which is at least an hour earlier than normal. She didn't eat many fish sticks last night and was probably hungry. I gave her some animal crackers and rocked her for awhile but as soon as it came time to lay down in the crib, she woke back up and started yelling. Then the FP Gal took over and rocked her for awhile before taking her down for breakfast. (In retrospect, I probably should have just brought her into bed with us...) This morning she has responded by walking around putting all of her dolls to bed. That means laying them down (sometimes gently, other times...) and saying 'night-night' while smothering them a blanket. I wonder if she's regretting that early morning.

Cool gallery here . For the record, I think Ozzie would love the 'Field of Flowers' rug but it would become a pain to deal with. The FP Gal would like the 'Black River Stone Doormat'. Sadly, I'd have to look at this store . My favorite rug description: Following the age-old tradition of using rugs as a means for communication and a cultural record, this rug is portraying global warming in a scene that invites us to reflect on our impact on today’s world. [ link ] When was the last time you saw a rug that meant as commuication or a cultural record? I've seen that with tapestries and (in our culture) quilts but never with rugs. And holy cats, what a pretentious bit of cloth! It says, "Come on over and now that you're here, just remember that your car is killing Mother Earth". I bet the owners are a real riot at parties. (The same company makes this rug , and it would be the second favorite of the cats. I have no doubt they would demilitari...

Well, there was the hat thing from this morning, that was a definite highlight. A minor highlight that followed was that her overnight diaper was only wet . First highlight at work, I had to call Bearskin Airlines . They might be the only commercial air carrier to service Flin Flon . Who knew? Second highlight, I found the book I'm reading online and was able to finish it between calls and while on hold. The link is to a project that is putting old books online so that everyone can read them. It's a different feel but there are times when it really makes sense. Third work highlight? Someone on the phone called me 'doc'. I wasn't sure if it was more of a Bugs Bunny thing or possibly little Danny from 'The Shining'. Either way it was, well, different. And final highlight, I got to watch another new episode of 'Lost'. Soon, off to bed.

Either Relia wanted to look like the FP Gal this morning or we're keeping the house too cold. She found her hat and (after a few minutes of fiddling around) got it on her head. She looks good in big hats doesn't she? We'll have to remember that come Derby time.

As much as I complain about winter, I do need to admit that it can have it's own beauty. Tonight we're enjoying some big fat fluffy wet snowflakes gently floating down from the sky. And it's very beautiful.

Well, kind of. It did totally slip my mind that my adorable niece Annika's birthday was yesterday. I wish you would have gotten a cake like this (but with a different message). Cake picture found here . And Hans and Rachel, if you add to your brood, this is totally the way you should go. And yesterday was the fifth anniversary of my first meeting with the FP Gal. We talked about it and hugged and smooched and everything but I didn't mention it here on the blog and somehow that makes it seem like it went unacknowledged. Even worse, I missed that she posted about it until I did my morning blog jog today. Whoops!

Relia just discovered that if she leaves her waffles unattended that the kitties go after them. She wasn't happy about that. I wonder if she'll protect them better from now on?

So we just got done watching the first episode of the latest season of Amazing Race and I thought I'd share my thoughts. (This might become a regular feature if it's popular.) Introducing the pairs and it's obvious that they look for certain types. They always have a pair of blondes that say something like 'our looks will help us overseas'. These girls always struggle and are quickly eliminated. The first race to the airport always seems overhyped. This time they did the clever thing by making the two plane choices a true toss-up because of the train time on the European end. That's right, the first leg involved flying to either Zurich or Milan and then taking a train further into the Alps. Who wouldn't want to do this? First challenge is a bungee jump. The FP Gal said she wouldn't do it. Might not even let me do it. Second biggest jump in Europe? No problem. Another stereotypical pairing is the 'couple destined for Dr Phil'. These are...

This was the first novel awarded a Hugo award (the past two being retroactively awarded). Alfred Bester is a writer I'd never even heard of much less read before. The whole point of this project was to read some books that were new to me and stretch my horizons a bit. This was my first chance to actually do so and man did I enjoy it! Bester has created a world some few hundred years in the future in which a small portion of mankind has varying degrees of telepathy. They are called 'espers' or 'peepers'. Premeditated murder is a thing of the past. Not only could the peepers sense the murderous intent beforehand but no one could possibly get away with the crime afterwards. Or could they? One of the richest men on the planet is being haunted in his dreams and he thinks his only solution is to kill one of his rivals. But how can he possibly get away with it? That's the riddle that Bester creates and the whole thing is rather clever. This book is written in ...

Jorge Garcia, better known as Hurley on 'Lost' has a blog . I had no idea. Also, Probst sighting, he's recapping the shows again this season starting here . Now I just need Phil from 'Amazing Race' and I'll have the whole set...

A friend of mine posted this on his Facebook page. It's quite beautiful and I thought I'd share it here.

I'm a big fan of a good love story. I've heard gobs of praise for this movie, the Notebook. People talked about crying and crying. We settled in with anticipation to watch a nice romantic movie on Valentines day. Holy cats, what a stinker! (Spoilers follow.) The story flips back and forth in time between an older couple and a younger one. The older couple features James Garner, who is virtually the only bright spot in the movie. The young couple is Ryan Gosling ( moonface ) and Rachael McAdams (the B from 'Meangirls'). Frankly, they're terrible. Neither one acts like they know that their part of the movie takes place in the 40's. At no point did we care about their characters. Maybe even worse than the bad acting was the poor movie design. Every plot surprise is telegraphed well before it arrives. Once it arrives, they find a way to reinforce what happened in case the slowest member of the audience somehow missed it. At the end we felt not only disa...

My dear mother gave us a wonderful Valentines treat this weekend. She took Relia overnight on Friday and most of today. I had the day off yesterday so the FP Gal and I loaded up Relia and took her over when Mom was done with work. We showed her how to install the car seat and helped her put away her snowman. And then we were off! Off for a night of adventure, the kind of night that only two suddenly free parents can really enjoy! A night without responsibility or restraint! That's right, we got two orders of Noodles Inc and settled down in front of the TV. The FP Gal went to bed before ten and I only made it until eleven or so. But today was the real treat. We could get up when we wanted without Relia calling the shots. That's right, sleep in as late as we could. For the FP Gal that was almost seven am. For me, it was closer to eight. Unfortunately for both of us, for the cats it was closer to five. They caused such a ruckus trying to get us up to feed them that a...

While I was picking out a black shirt for Relia: Me: You look like a litte existentialist. Do you want to be an existentialist? Relia: No! Take that Sartre.

Girona Baths, Spain

That's the baby word for 'baby'. And no I don't understand it, but I've heard it from more than just my child. Today for instance. My dad was up from Austin to spend some time with Relia and I. We took her out to the MOA so that she could run around and see some of the outside world. Longtime readers might remember that a trip to the Mall was a mainstay of Thursdays with dad last year. I'd strap her into her stroller and do the three main levels. Most times she'd conk out by the third one. Not anymore. Now when we go she wants to run and run. And then stop outside of various stores and look at things through the window. (Fortunately, she rarely wants to go inside and pull things off of shelves. I'm not sure that she understands that she can yet. Please let that day not come soon!) When the FP Gal and I go there on Sunday mornings it's not a problem because there aren't many people in the place and we outnumber her. Someone pushes th...

Sorry folks, the blog quality has been low lately and I don't know when it's going to improve. Work has been very tiring. There is some free time coming up this weekend, hopefully I'll have some vim after that.

For all of those who care: 'Survivor' starts again this Thursday. New 'Amazing Race' starts this Sunday. Pitchers and catchers report on the 15th. And today, for the first time in many long months, we had some drizzly rain. Ahhhhh.

We went out today and the FP Gal blogged about it here (with pictures) . It was fun watching her looking for fish and other animals. But again the real treat for me was watching her with other children. We ran into at least two other little girls that were also right around a year and a half old. They regard each other intently, sizing each other up. Then one of them tries out the word 'hi' and the other one responds...eventually. They have some inkling of personal space but it's not quite the same rules that adults use. The science part of parenthood shouldn't be underestimated.

I mentioned this series of books the other day and I thought I'd review them with a little more depth. As I mentioned, Heinlein wrote one of these books every year from '47 to '58. The books were very popular and had a huge influence on a generation of sci-fi readers. Most of the men involved in NASA in the '60's had been turned onto rocket science after reading Heinlein. He was so well respected there that he was invited to join them in Houston during the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The books are all stand alone stories and can be read in any order. The characters don't overlap although the universe they inhabit has a consistent logic to it. There are common characteristics involved in most of the books: Each one is about a boy in his mid to late teens. They come from different types of families, many of them broken due to losing a parent. Most of them come from poorer families and the need to work to succeed is there for all of them. Most of them struggle wit...

The next entry in the Hugo award series is one of Robert Heinlein's juvenile series. It was another one of the retro-Hugos and wasn't awarded until 50 years after it was published. Much like I thought ' The Mule ' was awarded a Hugo more for it's series than for it as an individual story, I think this book was awarded for Heinlein's juveniles. Every year from '47 to '58 he wrote a book that was pitched at young readers. Someone asked me for a suggestion for a series of books for 10 year old boys (don't remember who) and I wish I'd remembered this set. Each story is a stand alone, without overlapping characters or anything like that, but their is a uniform style that ties them together. (Er, I should probably just do a blog post on the series and get on with the review for this one.) 'Farmer in the Sky' was serialized for the Boy Scouts and the entire book is peppered liberally with scouting and and the way that scouts should act. T...

Overheard at the house: Me: What does the cow say? Relia: Moooo! Me: What does the sheep say? Relia: Baaaa! Me: What does a pig say? Relia: La la la! Link . Relatedly, if you start this series of questions and ask what mommy or daddy says, you often get "Neigh!".

Ok, so tallying up the comments from yesterday... Here's an online Hittite course . Hans, I think you should test-drive it for me. Also here is a YouTube clip I love that it's a response video to 'The Amorites Part1: From Hejaz to the Levant 2500BC-1200BC'. Isn't the internet fun? Tagalog? Hmmm, not tempting. Sorry. And now I'm thinking maybe I should run a poll on which language is sexier... FP Gal? Can you set that up for me? I've thought of Latin and I even have some of the materials, but I need a little bit of structure and I haven't found any good courses. True story, I signed up for Latin in high school and they never had enough people to justify the class. Kate, you must have gotten it right at the end. For those wondering about the Italian word for spoon, it looks like 'cucchiaio'. Isn't that fun? Carrie, I want to hear if your Swedish studies help you with the Swedish chef. After watching tonight's episode of 'Lo...

You might remember that one of my New Year's resolutions was to learn Italian this year. The BBC has an online course that will teach you conversational Italian in six weeks. I haven't started yet and now I'm wondering if Italian is really the way to go. They also offer a course on French and I'm trying to decide if that would be better. I thought I'd offer a list of pros and cons and open the comments to suggestions. Italian pros and cons: The pronunciation rules are simple to understand and to hear. It is closer to classical Latin, making it an easier crossover. It would make traveling in Italy (a dream of mine) easier. It's one of the sexier languages and I think the FP gal would agree. I can teach Relia and then she and I will have a 'private' language. French: I took it in high school some twenty years ago. So did the FP Gal, so we could speak with each other to some extent. Maybe it would be our private language from Relia. It's spoken b...

I did find this analysis interesting about the difference between Coke advertising and Pepsi: A Coca-Cola spot shows a young man walking through a town populated solely by online avatars. These fantastical creatures, taking over the real world, represent the idea that people now conduct much of their social interaction over the Internet. At the end of the spot, a shared bottle of Coke helps a young gentleman realize that the jumbo-sized ogre sitting next to him is actually the avatar of a cute girl. This is the eternal message of the Coke brand: Pausing for a moment to enjoy our fizzy beverage will help you remember the simple, classic pleasures of life. Two thoughts: 1) I like online avatars and hope one day to achieve immortality by downloading my brain into the body of a computer-generated elf character. 2) This is the opposite of Pepsi's branding approach, which always rushes to embrace the newest fad (see, e.g., will.i.am). Pepsi would have happily shown two avatars enjoying...

This is one of those David and Goliath type games. The Steelers are one of the NFL's best franchises. The Cardinals are one of the worst. The Steelers were a better team in the regular season, and beat better teams in the playoffs. Their fans travel well. In fact, the total number of Steelers fans probably outnumber the total Cardinals fanbase by a factor of 20. The fans at the game will be heavily pro-Pittsburgh. All that Arizona has going for it is the natural love that America has for an underdog. Well, that and the best WR in the game. I don't think that's enough. The line on this game is 7 points. I think this will be more of a breakout game where one team gets up big and the scoring just keeps going. Something like Steelers 44-17. I'll cheer for Arizona but I don't have any confidence in them.