As I continue hammering out my 2009 resolutions, one thing I cannot decide is what to do with my Star Wars collection.
I grew up loving Star Wars. In 1982, my bedroom looked like this:
The vast majority of my Star Wars action figures and spaceships survived my childhood and ended up boxed up and packed away. I’ve lugged them from house to house, occasionally unpacking and displaying them but, for the most part, just storing them. In 1995 when the original films were re-released, Star Wars toys flooded stores and I bought everything I could get my hands on. By the time Susan and I had moved back to Yukon from Spokane, my computer room looked like this:
My walls were covered with action figures and my closet was full of toys. And to be honest, I would say these pictures represent somewhere around 20% of my collection. The collection didn’t stop with the toys — it spread out to include everything from pencils, dishes, and drinking glasses to replica lightsabers and other goofy items. At one point I even had half a dozen or so of these guys:
So, what happened? The collection outgrew its room and, more or less, our house. There’s no single room in our house that I can display my collection in. When Mason was born, the vast majority of the collection was boxed up and put out in the garage as storage.
And yet, it grows. Just this year for Christmas I got over a dozen Star Wars-related items. I’m not complaining — I love the items, but I’m simply out of space to put it all.
So if you were me, what would you do? I’ve considered selling it but at this point I would get pennies on the dollar (if that). Conservatively speaking I probably have somewhere between five and seven thousand dollars worth of Star Wars toys sitting around and I would do good to get a thousand for it all — there’s simply no market for big collections right now. Without turning the house into some ghetto-looking toy-nut shop I don’t know how to display it all at this point, and yet, no one is getting any enjoyment out of it sitting out in the garage at this point.
If you’ve got any suggestions, I’m all ears. Like Yoda.
The kids and I just got back from dropping Susan off at the airport. She’ll be in Florida this week, flying home over the weekend, and flying back out Sunday for a second week in Florida. The kids each have five days worth of clothes laid out for this week. Mason has to take his lunch on Tuesday (it’s “stew day”). Other than that, everything should be fairly routine. Morgan was fine with Mommy going on a trip until we arrived at the airport and she realized she wasn’t going. It was a rough ride home but she’s over it now, at least for tonight.
I don’t know if Susan knows this or not, but the minute she leaves town on one of her trips the first thing I do is get the biggest trash can I can find and put it smack dab in the middle of the living room. Recently I picked up ten 22-gallon trash cans from an auction (don’t ask; in all fairness, five of them are Jeff’s …), so the minute the kids and I got back from the airport I found the Hefty Hefty Hefty trash liners, installed one in one of the new trash cans, and put the trash can in front of the fireplace. When it comes to cleaning I subscribe to the theory of “least amount of steps,” so this system works out well. I may pull a clothes hamper out here and put it on the fireplace too.
Tomorrow is Mason’s first day of school with the cast on his arm. The cast is on his writing arm which essentially prevents him from writing. We’ll see how that goes. Also, he cannot tie his shoes or button/zip his pants by himself. He did okay playing Rock Band the other night with the cast on, so I suspect “where there’s a will, there’s a way.” He’ll get through the day, somehow.
I am putting the finishing touches on my 2009 Resolutions and I’ll be darned if they don’t look a lot like my 2008 Resolutions. I know that one of the ways to success is to not just make resolutions, but determine your path to success, so I am trying to incorporate that into this year’s plan. In other words, I’m not just saying, “lose weight.” I’m saying, “lose weight by exercising 3-5 times a week” — stuff like that. One trap I always seem to fall into is the technology one — like the time I couldn’t start cleaning the garage until I set up a laptop capable of streaming mp3s via wifi from the server out there, or the time I couldn’t start walking for exercise until I bought a better mp3 player. One of my resolutions is to “read more books,” but most of the books I’ve been getting lately are eBooks, and I find I don’t like reading while sitting at a desk. I pre-ordered a Pandora (a new hand held device) last October and had hoped it would be here by now, but the pre-orders have all been cancelled and the unit has been delayed. One of the things I was looking forward to using this device for was reading eBooks on the go (in the car, in bed, etc.) If the units don’t materialize soon I may break down and buy one of those mini-netbook/sub-notebooks for that purpose instead. The prices are comparable (~$300) and I was really looking forward to the Pandora, but … well, we’ll see.
For Christmas this year I got a couple of $50 Best Buy gift certificates, a $50 GameStop gift certificate, and a $25 one for Hastings. Yesterday Mason and I went on a citywide mini-shopping spree. We ended up buying two more Wiimotes for the Wii (we’ve only had two all this time), a four-Wiimote charging station (those AA batteries were starting to get expensive), and two Wii steering wheels. I rounded out one of the cards with two stickers — one that says “I {heart} Metal” (for Mason’s guitar) and one that says “I {heart} Pirates”" for … something. I have one card left and I plan on picking up another Xbox 360 controller (I only have one) this week. Mason has been having a good time with the Wii steering wheels. He and Morgan are playing Mario Kart Wii right now, in fact.
Recently I discovered the crack addition that is Facebook. It’s MySpace, but with less spam and less bling, and more networking and more real time feedback. I’ve spent the past week or so uploading photos, reconnecting with old friends and meeting some new ones. Very fun, very addictive. I figured out how to send my blog entries here via RSS to Facebook so there’s another place my drivel will appear. Icing the Internet cake with my crap, one site at a time.
About an hour into The Tale of Despereaux (pronounced Dess-per-Row) I was already brainstorming headlines for this review. “Despereaux-te to Leave” was one I came up with. “The Tale of Desper-No” was another one. I originally considered “Desper-eaux-no” before settling on “The Fail of Despereaux,” which I decided was wittier, funnier, and more thought provoking than anything contained within the movie itself.
Warning: this review deliberately contains spoilers in an attempt to keep you from paying money to see it.
The Tale of Despereaux tells not one tale but (at least) three intersecting ones. The film begins by introducing us to Roscuro the Rat (Dustin Hoffman) as he arrives in the Kingdom of Dor (which coincidentally rhymes with “bore”). Dor revolves around soup, and one day each year Andre (the king’s chef) prepares an irresistible soup for everyone in the entire kingdom. Roscuro is so drawn to the soup’s wonderful aroma that he heads directly to the kitchen. (At this point it was hard to ignore the similarities to Pixar’s 2007 film “Ratatouille,” a film about a rat that loved soup.) While trying to get a better whiff of the soup’s mesmerizing aroma, Roscuro slips and falls into the soup. The queen, convinced she has just taken a sip of soup from a bowl containing a rat, has a heart attack and dies. As a result, the King bans both rats and soup from the kingdom. The King retreats to his room where he plays sad songs on the guitar all day, color disappears from the kingdom, and it never rains.
If this sounds weird, just wait — we’re just ramping up here. Roscuro ends up in Ratworld, a place where rats live deep below the city. Also below the city but not near Ratworld is Mouseworld, where mice live. In Mouseworld we meet Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), a young mouse with big ears who refuses to conform to the rules of Mouseworld. He sets off mouse traps for fun, refuses to cower and hide, and wants to (gasp) read books instead of eat them. When Despereaux commits the cardinal sin of talking to a human, he is ultimately banished to a dark hole (which leads to Ratworld).
The story goes on and on. Eventually Roscuro the Rat and Despereaux the Mouse team up to try and save the Kingdom of Dor from its soupless funk. At some point along the way Roscuro turns bad, then good, then bad, then good again, for reasons neither my wife nor myself could ever figure out. When Mason asked if Roscuro was a good guy or a bad guy, all I could say was, “Hell if I know!”
Thrown in the middle of this whole retarded mess is a subplot involving a servant girl (Miggery Sow, played by Tracy Ullman) with a hearing problem who gets duped by Roscuro to kidnap the princess. Through a series of flashbacks we learn that the servant girl with the unique birthmark (don’t they always have one?) was given up for adoption and you can bet she’ll find her father before the end of the film. What this had to do with anything, I have no idea.
Being an animated film for children one can assume there will be a happy ending, but by the time we got to it nobody in the theater cared. I seriously did not care if anybody in the film lived or died — in fact, I was secretly hoping they would all die so that the film would end. The film’s run time of 100 minutes is deceiving and I felt like they may have left a zero off the end. Despereaux is the only film my kids have asked — no, begged — to leave. Morgan finally quit begging 2/3 the way through the film. She was lucky; she fell asleep.
Modern animated films must walk a fine line between entertaining both kids and adults, but The Tale of Despereaux failed to entertain either demographic. After the movie was over I asked Morgan (age 3 1/2) what her favorite part was. She said, “the popcorn.” Mason (age 7) claimed to enjoy the film, but when I asked him what it was about he said he had no idea. (To be fair, neither did I.) I also had to look up every single character’s name online while writing this review; names like Miggery Sow, Roscuro, and Botticelli are tough to remember and/or spell. The one thing you will remember are the film’s morals. Not only do you get beaten over the head with them, but just in case you miss one, they are repeatedly reiterated by the narrator (Sigourney Weaver).
About the only thing this film has going for it is its beautiful animation, but this is 2009 — I expect beautiful animation. Unfortunately, I also expect to be entertained, and in that respect Despereaux was a failure. Not only would I not recommend seeing this in the theater — I wouldn’t recommend renting it or even downloading it for free.
I hope everybody had a safe and enjoyable New Year’s Eve!
Both Jeff and Andy and their families stopped by the house to helped us bring in the new year. There were lots of snacks and fun and (or course) games. Click on the picture of Sawyer Willrath below to see more pictures from New Year’s Eve.
I’ve never had an appreciation for art that I can’t make heads or tails out of, and I’ve always secretly wondered what would happen if you took a piece of abstract artwork and rotated it 90 degrees.
So, last summer, I did it.
In the Starbucks off of I-240 and Penn in Oklahoma City (and, I suspect, many others across the country) there are pieces of artwork made up of four smaller paintings arranged in a cube. Back in June of this year (2008) I noticed that one of them was not completely screwed to the wall, so during a slow period I pulled the bottom left hand picture off the wall, rotated it 90 degrees, and reattached it. You can see my handiwork in the photo below.
Notice in the bottom left hand quadrant how the coffee pot is now lying on its side. You should also note that these pictures face the front window; everybody who enters the store and/or orders coffee can plainly see them.
My question was, how long would it take before an employee noticed it and rotated the picture back? A few minutes? A few hours? A few days? Surely not an entire week, right?
Try six months.
For the past six months, the picture has remained rotated. Someone must’ve finally figured it out last week. When we stopped by for our weekly coffee last week the picture had been rotated back 90 degrees, over six months after my original prank.
Harmless fun, nothing more. I’d like to think of more pranks like this in the future.
One of my New Year’s Resolutions is to go as digital as I can — this means moving my music, movies, books and photos into the computer. In preparation for this, I built myself a four-terabyte drive RAID in a big yellow full-sized tower that has been since dubbed “Moonpie.”
Currently I am copying all my mp3s up to Moonpie, one CD at a time. Each CD can take up to five minutes and I have 500+ CDs of music archived, so it’s going to take a few weeks. If you’re thinking, “there’s no way anyone could listen to that much music,” you’re probably right. Still, I like having it, and it will be nice to have it all available to me instantly without going and rummaging through CD binders. When I am through I will box up all my physical music CDs (around 1,200 or so) and either put them away or get rid of them (har, har).
If you’re thinking all of this sounds familiar, you’re right. Earlier this year I spent about month essentially doing the same thing, copying all my mp3s to a single USB terabyte drive. Unfortunately either the drive itself was bad, the connection was too slow, or something else on my network was corrupting the files. All of those variables have been removed from the picture with Moonpie; between its fast SATA 2.0 connectivity, RAID drive redundancy and my new backup scheme, corrupting and losing files should be a thing of the past for me (ha, look at me, tempting fate). I also have a hunch part of my problem was storing all of my albums within a single directory; I have corrected that problem this go-around by splitting them up into groups by letter (A-E, F-J, etc.)
As of this morning I have moved over 180 CDs worth of mp3s. Here are a few numbers for you stat junkies:
- 26,250 files, 1,780 folders.
- 103 GB.
- 4 corrupted albums.
- 34 artists start with a number.
- Smallest directory: “U-Z” (123 albums, 9.5 GB)
- Largest directory: “P-T” (394 albums, 26 GB)
- Orphan (Singles) directory: 2,233 files, 8.5 GB.
Making a few assumptions, by the time I’m done I expect to have 482 GB of mp3 files. That’s 482,000 meg. Divide that by an average of 3 meg per song and that gives me 160,666.666 (Rock!) songs. Using another average of 4 minutes per song, that’s 642,664 minutes|10,711 hours|446 days worth of music. This is a low estimate, as I have another 600-800 CDs that I need to rip. (Some percentage of those are no doubt duplicates, thus the large gap in the number.)
If someone will remind me in a month or so, I will compare the final numbers to my predictions.
So, here’s where we stand. Mason broke his humerus (aka his “funny bone”). The doctor said it was a very slight fracture, but apparently slight fractures are treated the same way as any other fracture. Yesterday Mason’s temporary splint was removed and replaced with a hard cast. Apparently great strides have been made in the area of arm casts over the past several years (who knew?). Mason’s doctor actually recommended that he get his cast wet at least once a day — Mason can shower and bathe with it on, no problem. Also, the doctor said the cast is virtually indestructible and anything he could do before he had the cast (including riding the Ripstik), he should still be able to do. Before he can ride the Ripstik, he’ll have to be able to find it …
Susan leaves this Sunday for two weeks in Florida. Mason will have the cast on for three weeks. Other than helping him put on shirts and jackets and stuff like that, I’m not expecting a lot of extra hassle. As I mentioned yesterday, his cast is on his left arm and he is left handed (as are Susan and Morgan) so we’ll see how school goes in a week.
Believe it or not, I never broke a bone. I joked at lunch yesterday, “that’s because I never went outside as a kid,” but I sold myself short. I did an awful lot of break dancing, skateboarding, bicycle and motorcycle riding and karate as a kid. I guess I was just lucky.
After a day of walking around the house with one shoulder significantly lower than the other, we took Mason to the hospital to get him looked at. The doctor said that he had a “muscle or ligament tear,” which should heal itself with time.
Because of his injury, Mason decided to give the Heeleys a rest and switch to the Ripstick. As I briefly explained the other day, a Ripstik is a skateboard-like device that only has two wheels (one on each end), both of which spin. Here is a video of some kids riding one. Unlike Mason, these kids are mostly vertical.
While zig-zagging his way down the street, Mason fell and landed directly on his elbow. According to him, “he heard a crack” when he landed. So, for the second time in as many days, Mason went back to the hospital — this time for apparently a broken arm. After performing an x-ray, the doctor said he saw a “hairline fracture.” Mason’s left arm (he’s left handed, too) was put in a splint. Today he goes back to the doctor for a full arm cast.
Let it be known that I picked out the guitar, an item that (so far) has not directly injured him. Then again, the week is young …
With the children, I have learned not to ask important questions too early as their answers change frequently. For example, this year for Mason’s birthday we asked him three times (about a week apart) where he wanted to have his birthday party. Each time we asked we got a different answer: bowling alley, the Omniplex, and finally, the skating rink. The trick is not to keep asking once the decision has been made so they don’t get the opportunity to change their minds.
Unfortunately this doesn’t work around Christmas, where kids get asked what they want for Christmas every single day and end up seeing Santa at least three times. Seriously, as a kid I only remember talking to Santa once a year, but kids these days get at least half a dozen chances. I know Morgan saw Santa once at daycare, once after her Christmas program, once at the mall once and once at Wal-Mart. It’s ridiculous. And each time the kids are asked, they come up with something different they want for Christmas. The first time around, Mason said he wanted a guitar — so, we bought him a guitar. The second time, he wanted a Ripstik (I’ll get to that shortly). Susan went to the store, picked up a Ripstik, and put it in the closet next to the guitar. Before long, Mason was asking for a digital camera and Heeleys (those shoes with wheels in the heels), so we farmed those requests out — Dad bought Mason a camera, Mom bought him a pair of Heeleys.
This morning, along with a slew of other gifts, Mason got his guitar and his Ripstik. After spending a little time rocking out on the guitar, it was time to go outside and try the Ripstik. The Ripstick is a weird skateboard-like device with only two wheels, both of which not only roll, but spin as well. On top of that, the whole thing pivots in the middle. Riding the thing is almost like a puzzle; part of me wanted to try it, the other part did not want to visit the emergency room today, so I did not partake. After several attempts to ride the thing, we had to regroup in the house and pull up tutorials on eBay. Once we understood the basics, Mason was able to at least scoot down the sidewalk.
Once the excitement of Christmas morning wore off, Mason seemed sad. When I asked him what was wrong, he said, “I didn’t get any Heeleys. That’s all I really wanted.” Now, let me paint this visual for you; he’s saying this while covered in Christmas wrapping paper, surrounded by hundreds of dollars worth of toys. On top of that, in the back of my mind I know that my mom has a pair of Heeleys waiting for him over at her house. “Maybe you’ll get some later today,” I suggested. With that he picked up his guitar. “You working on a new song?” I asked, “Yeah. I’m writing a song about Heeleys,” he said.
Oh brother.
This afternoon, we made it over to mom’s, and sure enough, Mason gets his Heeleys. I remember my mom’s husband Jack saying that Mason had a helmet out in the garage that Mason could use, but we waved it off. Please. I grew up not wearing a helmet for anything, ever. Mason laced up his shoes and went out on the back porch. We saw him scooting back and forth across the porch for a while and then kind of quit paying attention.
While we were chatting about something or other, Susan stood up and said, “Mason’s down.”
I just thought he had fallen, but when we stood up and looked out the window, Mason was out cold. Susan and my mom ran out the back door as I stood and looked out the window. They picked Mason up and although he was awake, his legs were definitely wobbly. Mason swore that he did not get knocked out but he was definitely out when we saw him. We searched his head for lumps but couldn’t find one. The only pain he complained about was his elbows, so we’re thinking he fell backwards on to his elbows and maybe whipped his head backwards. We watched his pupils for a while but never saw any serious changes.
The Heeleys and Ripstik have been retired for the evening. Mason spent the rest of the night playing with his guitar and his camera. Susan noticed that Mason is holding one shoulder significantly lower than the other and is complaining of a sore neck, so tomorrow will probably be his first (of many) hospital trip caused by toys with wheels.
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