Zeigen

Once, a man pulled up into a gas station in the country, and asked the gas station attendant, “What are the people like in the next town up ahead?”

The attendant said, “What were the people like in the town you just came from?”

“Awful people,” the man responded. “Rude, cold, hostile, abrupt, unfriendly. They wouldn’t give me the time of day.”

“Well,” said the attendant, “I’m sorry to say it, but you’re going to find exactly the same sort of people in the next town up ahead.”

A bit later, another driver pulled in, heading in the same direction as the first.

“What are the people like in the next town up ahead?” the second man asked.

The attendant said, “What were the people like in the town you just came from?”

“Wonderful people,” the second man responded. “Friendly, warm, helpful, patient, kind. They went out of their way to help a stranger.”

“Well,” said the attendant, “I’m happy to tell you that you’re going to find exactly the same kind of people in the next town up ahead.”

Now that we’ve got two kids, the previous heading image (of Sammy) was out of date. A new image now appears at the top of each page, again thanks to Jason “Xyne.” Details in a separate page about the heading image.

Let me know what you think! Are the eyes too big? I made Jason enlarge them from his first draft, but maybe I had him go too far.

Sammy now likes to rhyme things as he says them. “Yes mess” and “nope pope” are favorites, along with “book look” and “nose hose.”

When I put him to bed at night and tell him “no more talking,” he responds with “no more walking.”

Let’s see, what else is going on? We’re currently taking it easy after pretty much everyone except me got sick for Christmas. Sammy’s nose is running like a faucet, and Kimi’s been run down and fighting a fever for over a week. Despite that, we managed to make it up to my parents’ place in Elk Grove on Christmas Day, and while it was a bit rough at night at the hotel (I apparently have started to snore really loudly) we made it through okay, and were able to celebrate my mom’s birthday on Boxing Day. The next morning, Sammy and I went with Phil, Erin and Sarah to the Train Museum in Sacramento, which was pretty much Sammy’s favorite thing ever, especially all the Thomas bits.

Sammy and Sophie both got some wonderful gifts from their aunts and uncles and other relatives and friends; our house is a bit of a shambles; pine needles everywhere — nearly time for the tree to go.

Despite being one of the worst-reviewed movies in recent history, I still wanted to see Requiem, which picks up immediately after the previous Aliens vs. Predator flick left off. So I caught it last night after the kids were in bed. (Thanks Kimi!)

Kimi thought I was nuts to want to see this instead of something, well, decent… But I’ve actually wanted to see this movie since 1991, ever since the teaser trailers for Alien 3. Those brief audio-only trailers made it sound like the Aliens had landed on Earth and were attacking us at home. Turns out, those trailers were a lie and Alien 3 ended up being my least favorite movie of the series by far. (They should have gone with the “Saturday Night Live” sketch’s idea and called it Alienses.)

Sure, the first Aliens vs. Predator (2004) was set on Earth, but it was confined inside some magic temple, so it wasn’t what I was expecting or wanted.

And while Requiem isn’t the most tightly-plotted or superbly-acted movie you’ll ever see, I think it’s far more entertaining than any of the others in the series since Aliens, and it really does deliver on the scenario that scared me 16 years ago. This movie does not pull any punches: animals, children, and lead characters are all in jeopardy.

Don’t misunderstand me, though: Aliens is about 500 times better than Requiem. Steven Pasquale (Garrity from “Rescue Me”) and Reiko Aylesworth (Michelle from “24″) are the closest thing to stars they got, and they ain’t really movie stars. Making Reiko’s character Kelly so obviously based on Ripley (protecting her daughter, driving the tank) seems like a misfire to me, but both leads do a decent job. (Whoever they have as the sheriff was terrible and badly miscast, though.)

There are certainly plot holes in this that defy any ability to suspend disbelief. But if you want to see Aliens attacking a town on Earth with Predators mixed in, and a nice twist (telegraphed by the ending of the previous movie), the action scenes work, the movie is decently crafted with good special effects and a tight pace, and it’s not nearly as bad as the critics say.

For the record, here are my ratings of the films in the series, using the -4 (truly horrible) to 0 (meh) to +4 (wow!) scale:

By the way, Defective Yeti nailed the whole “versus” genre a while back.

Well, I just left out the cookies and milk and Santa’s note, the stockings are out (poor Sophie doesn’t get one this year, too young…), and I’m about to head to bed. But before I do, wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas, assuming you celebrate that sort of thing.
We had Tom, Jennifer and Miranda over for Kimi’s clam chowder and lasagna, followed by a gift exchange — and already Sammy’s rolling in the gift loot, earning a new Cars shirts and another toy airplane. (That’s on top of the airplane I got him from the Hiller Aviation museum which we visited this morning.)

Sophie gave us a wonderful present last night: I took her with me to drop John and Yvonne off at the airport at 10pm (their flight was delayed 3 hours, yeowtch), and she slept from then until around 7am. Nine hours is her longest stretch of sleep by a huge margin. She’s not quite ready to sleep through the night regularly (she just woke up a bit ago, for example, and needed a bottle). But man, I am very pleased she’s starting to be able to sleep for so long.

Kimi pointed out to me that Sammy had started a new game with her, his way of telling a joke: He’ll rhyme a word with another word when answering a question, and laugh uproariously. “Sammy, ready for bed?” “Yes mess!”

At bedtime, when we’re done with the stories and I turn out the light, I always tell him, “Time for sleeping. Head on the pillow. No more talking.” (That’s in addition to the gushy stuff about who loves him.) Tonight, it was “No more talking, no more walking” and he thought that was hilarious.

Okay, I’m rambling now. Night! Merry Christmas!

It’s my opinion that anyone who has grown up watching heist movies or reading mystery novels is capable of dreaming up two or three dozen methods of circumventing most security measures employed by the TSA at airports.

All of those hoops we jump through — removing shoes before tiptoeing through x-ray machines, powering up laptops to show they’re real, drinking a bit of your infant daughter’s formula to show it’s not a deadly poison — are, in my opinion, nothing more than so-called “security theater” — a well-choreographed show that is designed to make us feel safer, but bears little relationship to actual security.

An article in tomorrow’s British Medical Journal comes to the same conclusion, while highlighting the staggering costs.

At heart, airport safety agencies seem to rush to implement new screening tests based on publicity around a perceived threat, without any scientific rigor or analysis of if the screening method is effective. A skeptical approach is called for, one that examines the evidence of the threat and then designs the least intrusive and most cost effective method of controlling for that threat.

I imagine that if a terrorist organization manages to smuggle bombs in their underwear or invents an explosive substance made out of cotton, we’d all be required to travel naked.

Our family is next flying in March. If you’re flying this holiday season, enjoy the security show. It costs you $9 of each ticket you purchase. Why, that’s practically the cost of a heist movie.

We had a brief one with Nancy, Kyrie, Jack, Andy, George, Nick, and Tommy tonight to do a gift exchange before Kyrie and her boys head off for Boston.

This morning Kimi went to Sophie’s upcoming classroom’s Christmas party. (Sophie will be joining the “Butterfly” room at the Children’s Preschool Center in Palo Alto starting mid January.)

Yesterday, Kimi went to Sammy’s CPSC classroom’s Christmas party (he’s in the “Hummingbird” room).

Last week Kimi and I went to TiVo’s Christmas party.

I think that’s it for parties until Christmas itself.

Kimi dressed Sophie for the occasion and I have to say, as biased as I am, I think she looks adorable. She’s starting to smile a lot more, although not reliably enough that I’ve been able to catch it well in a picture.

You can’t really tell in the picture, but Sophie has some infant skin conditions. There’s her “cradle cap,” which is a euphemism for all kinds of crusty gunk on her scalp. There are her “angel kisses,” which is a euphemism for blotchy red skin on her face. There’s her “stork bite” which is a euphemism for a bunch of red bruising around her left eye (birth trauma, a side effect of her rapid delivery). All of it should fade in a few months. She’s definitely filling out, much like Sammy did at the same age — she’s really pudgy! Almost 12 pounds now.

At 12 pounds, an infant can start possibly sleeping through the night. Sophie’s not to that point yet regularly, but she is starting to sleep in 5 hour blocks now. She’s had 1 or 2 nights where she slept for 8 hours. Not consistent yet, though. Sleep glorious sleep, how I miss you.

We had our friend Howard over on Sunday for a quick visit; he brought his son Ethan and his twins Brian and Katie with him. Sammy had a great time. Howard, who works for Pixar, was impressed by Sammy’s Cars paraphernalia: Sammy was wearing his Cars shirt, Cars shoes, and had his Cars jacket nearby, and was playing with his Cars speedway. (”Speed? I am speed!” “You’re one gutsy racer!” Repeat ad infinitum.)

Good thing we didn’t show Howard the Cars towel, Cars socks, and all the other Cars toys. But anyway, Howard was telling me about the first year after his twins were born, and how crushing the exhaustion and sleep deprivation was for that entire first year. I have to say as hard as it is having a 2 year old and a 2 month old, at least we’re not dealing with twins. I am in awe just thinking of it.

I just learned on Boing Boing that Anita Rowland lost her years-long battle with cancer. I never met Anita in person, but we corresponded years ago over stylesheet bugs when she was working for Microsoft on IE 4 and I was writing an HTML book. After collaborating over bugs, we happened to read each other’s web sites and exchanged e-mails for a while.

I was always inspired by her site — one of the very first web journals ever, and a precursor more than ten years ago to the blogs of today. Anita was a pioneer, and I’m sorry to hear of her passing.

Now that the press release has hit this morning, I’m proud to announce that hundreds of music videos in a range of genres are now available — FREE! — on your broadband-connected TiVo DVR through TiVoCast.

You can search by the artist’s first name or the song title’s first word, or you can browse the different genres. To get started, simply visit TiVo Central -> Find Programs -> Download TV & Movies -> Music Choice.

Check it out! And you can discuss this on the TiVo Community forum here.