Wife Post - Alex's Mobile

So Alex has gotten a little attached to his "cell phone" lately. It's a pretend phone but obviously it is rather important to him. So much that when we are now going out to exciting places like a picnic he will call up an imaginary friend and have a conversation with them telling them what is going on and inviting them. He really sounds quite grown up about it and it almost always sounds like he is really talking to someone on the other end. I think it's really cute. Well today he did it a couple times. Once to let the "person" know we were going to Redmond Town Center and the playground, another time when we were getting hot dogs at Wetzels pretzels but I found it really endearing when Zoe fell and scraped her knee, leaving us to head for home. On the way back to the car he told the doctor "we have to go home now Zoe has an owie." He talked some more and hung up telling me the doctor said to give Zoe lots of loves and bandaids. Taking his advicce that's exactly what I did. I am so glad he called the "doctor".

Sunday Post

Didn't know what I was going to cover exactly, so I gave it a generic title.

I've been meaning to post this for a while, but I keep forgetting.

Whenever we come to a automatic sliding door at department stores, my wife will say, "Open Sesame!" as we step up, and the doors would slide open, and we would continue upon our way to our capitalistic ways. Anyway, Zoe being the brain that she is, was going through the door with me a while back and after we exited, she turned and said, "Thank you, Sesame!"

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So I've been flirting with this idea around, and it gets riled up whenever something like the iPhone or my Palm comes around. Portable word processing/web access. I am very much attached to the idea that I should be able to write anywhere on a device, and I know it's been possible for a while, but the devices are either too incompatible, expensive, or too much of a hassle to bother with. At this point, I think even the iPhone would be too much of a bother because touch screen text entry isn't quite as intuitive as button pressing.

The biggest obstacle is cost - how to have a device that has web access but doesn't cost a cow. Even the real basic data plan has to be paired up with a voice plan, and there's a yearly/monthly commitment that I don't really care much for.

But I have a solution on the horizon. T-mobile has a prepaid plan that I'm currently on, which ensures that I do have mobile access, but more on a pay as you go type situation so if I'm not using the minutes, I'm not being charged. The last time I used the phone for a voice call was Valentine's Day, in fact. Anyway, T-mobile also has rates for the Sidekick, which is a funky phatty phone with a full keyboard on the phone. And if I wanted to access the data, it's only a dollar a day, and that's only if I want to use it. If I don't, it'll be no charge. Anyway, I did a bit of research (code for something I do when I'm bored and looking for stuff to buy) and found that a used one will be in the ball part of 150 bucks. It's not loose change for sure, but it certainly is cheaper than a brand new smartphone. The Sidekick isn't especially smart, but the keyboard is nice. It probably is a bit of an indulgence, but the idea of being able to blog anywhere or write anywhere has always been an attractive idea for me.

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Watched "Superman" with the kids yesterday, and found the movie to be pretty much as corny as I remembered it. I thought I just didn't get it when I was younger, but now I just realize that I probably wouldn't have gotten it if I was older. Not that it's awfully complicated, just that there are some parts of the movie which seem kinda... off. Like why Margot Kidder isn't really attractive in any sense. Or how Lex Luthor never really states why he hates Superman (although in the comics, it is fleshed out.) Or why he spends a year at the Fortress of Solitude offscreen and then he's got his costume on. Like, WHAT? Don't even get me started on altering the earth's rotation to turn back time. It'll take years to explain that to the kids and how that's not possible. He got bored and sewed himself a suit? I dunno, probably in context, that would've been a better film than it is now.

More than that, I think it's really surprising that "Superman Returns" basically lifts most of the first and second movie for his update. The whole thing is like a weird remake - there's a dichotomy, I get it, but most of the movie seems like they were working off the same producer notes. Weird.

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Well, I had more in my head but the kids are doing their thing now. Jesus Christ, I was just typing that and Alex took a hollow tube and blew into my ear. He lost that tube.