A couple new toys

I have to be somewhat obsessed with Rock Band, despite being hopelessly incapable to operating the foot pedal up to par at the "Hard" mode, I'm still pretty hooked on the drums. Anyway, I invested in some drum pad silencers for my drum kit - which sounds odd, but if you've ever played the original drum kit, there's a "thok thok thok" sound when you strike the surface, which actually can get a little loud and distracting after some time. Especially while playing guitar with someones drum, one can barely hear the music sometimes. The new pads are pretty sweet, definitely masking the sound quite a bit, and also making it slightly bounicer.

The other toy finally arrived in the mail today, my 4 disc Blu Ray of BBC's Planet Earth. That's 550 minutes of hi-def beauty, effectively turning me into mashed potatoes whenever I look at it. You could actually just run the series and leave it on for the worlds more beautiful screensaver. I've skimmed through some bits, and man it looks freaking awesome. Gonna have to resist just sitting there and watching the whole damn thing.

So this is on top of some pretty big things coming up, including Alex having a semi celebration tomorrow with a family gathering, followed by Sunday at the Puyallup Fair, and then on Tuesday, i'll resist checking the web for updates and just watch the keynote when I get home.

So here are the factors to consider. The nano will likely either get a memory boost to 8 gigs for the core model, or a price drop in order to create some interest in it which might wane because of the iPhone. In either case, its a strong contender for me. For a second and less likely option, if the touch drops to 199, it might have to be considered. The app store essentially turns the touch into more than just an ipod, but the price is still hefty. I dunno, will have to be patient and wait it out. My 512mb mp3 player is really not cutting it.

Struggling to stay awake. Gotta clean up a little before I watch 10,000 BC. Don't know why, since I've heard terrible reviews about it. Oh good, Snoopy just ended.

This week bad, next week should be better

Seriously, this week needs to soak their feet in quick dry cement, crawl its pathetic self to the pier, shoot itself in the head, and throw itself into a watery grave. Not much to salvage from this week really. Started off unofficially last Friday after the expensive car bill, and then elevated itself into a traffic ticket on Labor Day after the family spend the day at the zoo. Later that evening, I had some serious dizzy spells and headache and went to bed where I napped for about 3 hours. Unfortunately, I missed the kids bedtime, woke up at 10:30, then wandered about rather aimlessly unable to really go back to bed. The next day was a similar experience. Feeling sick, went to bed really early.

On the kids side, Alex pooped his pants two days in a roll, the regression which we don't really understand. Ever since he's been potty trained, this hasn't been a problem at all. Hopefully it's a real quick phase.

Anyway, next week will be better. Especially Tuesday. Tuesday will be the best.

Okay, it's late.

How Stephen Chow Destroyed My Little Girl

I'm a big fan of Stephen Chow, his absurdist comedies have always ranked high on my favorites when it comes to movies, so when he directed a little family movie in between his big budget ones, I thought it might be a good little intro for my kids. So I popped in CJ7, and then slowly my expectations began to peel away little by little. So, one of the things I forget sometimes is the cultural differences between Eastern and Western movies. As nonsensical as his movies are, Chow tends to infuse a lot of spiky and mean humor, bordering on cruelty. At the same time, it's not that it's just mean to be mean, but rather it's stuff we don't see in Western movies. Basically, the movie is about a destitute father and son, the father being a rather clueless construction worker and the son being picked on especially since his father enrolls him in a private school full of snobby rich kids. In a couple scenes, the cute little alien is being chased and stomped on by kids, even by the protagonist of the story. While this is jarring for most of us, like Zoe, it's pretty much what kids would do. So Zoe is baring the whole movie except when the little alien is being squished and twisted and abused - she would vocally shout, "That's not nice!" and get a little worked up. She was definitely making me a little worried because the movie does take it a notch further then what we're used to as Disney-fed audiences.

Spoilers now, so watch out.

Anyway, the father falls off a building at work. That was a little traumatic as it is. But the alien, possessing regenerative powers, revive him but ends up draining his own life whereby a little bead falls out of his head, and he shrivels up and becomes a stuffed animal. At this point, Zoe is just sobbing and I'm feeling like I just took a sledgehammer to her heart by showing her this movie. The movie ends a little ambiguously, but is enough for me to tell her that everything turned up alright. But still. We had to watch a couple episodes of Curious George and have some fruit snacks just to take her mind off the movie, and just when I was putting her to bed, she was hopping in excitement and she hit her hit on the second tier of the bunk bed. Crying recommenced.

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Not doing a whole lot today, just some space and data management. I cleaned up the desk a little and labeled some of the many USB cables I have laying around. I can't even tell half the time what the hell I'm plugging in anymore. So I got a load of that junk sorted out. Stayed home pretty much all day. Feeling drained today, coming down with something that dehydrates me a little.