Future Poltergeist

You may not know this but movie trailers rarely feature music that will actually be in that particular movie. I think this is because the music is one of the last things finished so they have to go with something else. This is both irritating and fascinating to me. It's irritating because a movie's score does quite a bit for me and more than once I've been sold by a trailer only to be let down by the actual score (see 'Legends of the Fall'). On the other hand, it's kind of interesting to track down the actual piece. Today I put on 'Finding Nemo' to see if Relia cares about cartoons yet. The first trailer is for 'The Incredibles'. Can you name the movie that they stole this from? Andrew, I expect you to know this even if no one else does...

Answers for round three are here: 11 Potola Palace, Lhasa Tibet 12 Yu Yuan Garden, Shanghai China 13 Forbidden City, Bejing (or Peking) China 14 Golden Pavilion, Kyoto Japan 15 Mt Fuji, Japan That means that the scoreboard reads: Michelle 9 Hans 4 Jen 2 and picture 6 is still out there waiting to be identified . And Michelle correctly identified number 6 as Table Rock near Capetown.

Ok, so I'm going back to the whole best Police song debate from a couple of weeks ago. It occurred to me that there is one more easy way to add some judgment here. Go to YouTube! More specifically, I'm going to type in 'police' into the search window and see which video is most popular. And the winner is: Roxanne . This isn't a perfect method of course. It gives a major boost to singles and people could be watching for the video rather than the song, though probably not with that video. Out of curiosity, I decided to see how some other groups stack up. Sting - Shape of My Heart U2 - One Beatles - Hey Jude REM - Losing My Religion Elvis - Always on My Mind Um, after seeing those results I'm thinking that this method must be truly flawed.

After months and months of coercion, Relia finally decided to count to three today. Well, kind of. We're under no illusion that she understands the concept of 'a single thing', 'two things' or 'three things' but at least she's saying them in the proper order. For some unknown reason she also adds "oh no!" at the end and then laughs hysterically.

Went into the doctor's office today about the cold that's been wiping me out since Saturday. Turns out that it's not swine flu, it's just a regular sinus problem. They suggested some different allergy medicine than I usually take and some sinus rinsing. As a bonus they told me that I should stay away from work at least another day. Now if only I could sleep...

Round three, hope you're enjoying this... 11 12 13 14 15 See rules here before commenting.

( Via John Scalzi ) Here is a 30's nightclub version of 'Tainted Love' and yes, that's as strange as it sounds. He got the list here and it includes 'Mambo No 5'. Very strange.

We need some advice. Summer is coming up and that means that soon the yard will need mowing. And not just once, but probably several times. And both of us hate doing it. Well, the money isn't too bad for us now so I suggested that we hire someone to mow for us. I had in mind some young teenager who could come over once a week (or every other or something like that) and mow the durn thing. We could give them a dollar or something and everyone would be happy. But there are problems with that approach (and apparently inflation means that $1 is out of the question). We have an electric mower with a long extension cord. The FP Gal is afraid that a young mower would run over the cord and ruin it. Also, we are surrounded by renal properties and don't know many of our neighbors. So we need advice. How do we find someone to help us out?

The big idea behind this book is simple enough. In the near future the human race discovers an inhabited planet. A Jesuit priest is on the initial expedition and has to help decide what kind of contact man should have with the aliens, called Lithians. He takes the opportunity to find out what kind religious beliefs they have and the answer will necessarily have a big impact on religious beliefs back on Earth. (Spoilers.) He discovers a) that they have no religion and b) they don't seem to be able to sin. He has to decide whether that means that they are still in a state of grace or, more dangerously, if the entire planet was a satanic trap meant to lure humanity away from Christianity. Throw in a set of pupal stages that seem to confirm evolution and the priest has no choice but to condemn the place. That's the first half of the book and it was very interesting. Blish creates an interesting world and race with the Lithians. He also has a compelling four cornered convers...

With two rounds out there the score is: Michelle 5 Hans 2 Jen 2 From this weeks answers: 6 7 Buddha Park, Vientiane Laos 8 Grand Palace, Bangkok Thailand 9 Angkor Wat, Cambodia 10 Village of Hoi An, Vietnam Number 10 was one of the hardest ones for me to find in the whole set. Not the hardest, that's number 18. The next set has some easier pictures in it so don't despair. Use of the internet to find the answers is not only allowed but encouraged. There are still two answers out there right now. Per usual, the next set will pop on Monday at noon. Update: Another point for Jen, for number seven. The scoreboard has been updated.

So we've been watching reruns of 'Two and a Half Men' (thank you Tivo!). It's fun and the writing is crisp and we're enjoying it. And...the themes are quite adult so we have to watch it now before Relia understands what they're talking about. Anyway, as the show changes from scene to scene they use a simple croon of 'men...'. Relia has taken to imitating it. Which could hardly be cuter. Relatedly, this afternoon while driving her home she was singing the 'Mommy, Mommy' song. I told the FP Gal and she said that it sounded quite a bit like the 'Nana, Nana' song. I'm hoping for my own song soon. I've got my fingers crossed!

Here we are almost three weeks into the season and MLB is opening up online All-Star balloting . How does that possibly make sense? They have only played 10% of the season so far. What genius thought this up?

I enjoyed this post from Shysterball about his letting his boy pick out his first baseball cap. Stopping by Lids at the mall, I pointed him towards the kids' hat rack. Though Wahoo [Cleveland's controversial cartoonish Indian mascot] was well-represented, there were multiple options available, so I liked my chances. And thankfully he didn't pick Wahoo. He picked Spongebob Squarepants. The next day he narrowed the choices to baseball caps. The choice was...unfortunate. You'll have to read the piece to find out why. Still, I can't help but wonder when we're going to go through this process on our own. I'm kind of assuming that my zealous fandom will bleed over but I could be wrong. If we stay here in Minneyota my children could very well be Twins fans. I hope they'll cheer for the Vikes with me. If they go Cubs or Packers they are dead to me and that's all there is to that. Um, I'm not the only one who thinks about this stuff, am I?

Second round, here we go. 6 7 8 9 10 See rules here before commenting.

Relia has covered all of her little dolls with blankets, put them 'night-night' and left them on the floor of the living room. It makes the place look like the morgue for 'CSI Nursery'.

Ugh, I could use another day off. Today I drove down to Austin to surprise Dad and spend a little time with him. Was only down for a couple of hours and then buzzed back up here and helped move a bed. That's right, we got a toddler bed for Relia. She won't be in it yet and I'm not sure what the schedule is but it'll be cute when it's done. (The FP Gal is overhead right now doing a practice construction. Only a few loud crashes and no loud cursing yet. I take that as a good sign.) We picked the bed up in the small town of Hugo. The development was laid out with a Victor Hugo theme and the streets were named after characters from 'Les Miserables'. I liked it. We discussed other towns for which that would work and now I fervently hope that if someone creates a development in Austin that they name the streets after Jane Austen novels. Speaking of Hugo (the town) we were curious if it was named after Victor Hugo or not. I suggested that it could have b...

of my mother finally joining the 21st century and getting high speed internet, I thought I'd post some happy video. This always makes me smile. Yes, I've posted this before (and the backstory is here ) but be honest, aren't you glad that you watched it again?

(I don't know where this shot was taken from.)

(This post was inspired by a conversation at the dinner table at which we discussed whether or not I could be hired by the FP Gal's school district to teach this distinction.) What is the difference between a cat and a comma? If you put a dot above a cat they don't become a semi-colon. A comma is usually found on a keyboard. A cat is only sometimes found there. Cats use a litter box. No one knows where commas go to the bathroom. Cats are always grammatical. No one is allergic to commas. A serial comma is controversial. A serial cat is...apparently just one of a series of cats.