Three is a Magic Number

See, THIS is your problem...

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who listens to the lyrics... I’ve already bitched about Justin Bieber, but he’s not the only one whose songs make me say “huh.”

"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" by Wham:

Cuddle up baby, move in tight
We'll go dancing tomorrow night
It's cold out there but it's warm in bed
They can dance, we'll stay home instead

See, George, this is why she* does not wake you up before she go-gos. Because she wants to dance, and you will try to talk her into staying in bed. She doesn't want to do the nasty, she wants to do the go-go. Go dance with her, you horny jerk.

*Yes, I know it's likely he didn't have a "she" in mind. But at the time, he would have given us that impression, so that's what I'm going with.

"Fernando" by Abba:

Though we never thought that we could lose
There's no regret
If I had to do the same again
I would my friend, Fernando

Well, of course you would do it again if you had to. That's what "had to" means, Abba. It means you don't have a choice. Did you mean "If I had the choice to do it again, I would?" If so, say that. God.

"Cold Shot" by Stevie Ray Vaughan

I really meant I was sorry
For ever causing you pain
You showed your appreciation
By walking out anyway

Okay, Stevie, I'm sorry to be picking on you when you're dead and all, but here's the deal. You caused her pain. So she walked out. It was nice of you to apologize, but she is under no obligation to remain with you, pain-causing-guy, just because you said you're sorry. So don't be all snarky 'bout her showing her appreciation by walking out. Also, if you were still alive, I'd suggest you look into the classic hurt-apologize cycle of an abusive relationship to see why this is an inappropriate expectation on your part. But you're not. Again, sorry about that.

Pretty much any song that threatens to change my "point of view," mostly on Radio Disney

I'm tired of little teenyboppers claiming they can change my "point of view." You can't. You might be able to change my opinion, but my point of view is not the same thing. So quit it.

Reviews! For free!

Every once in a while I answer the phone even though the caller ID says “unknown”* and it’s someone who wants my opinion on a product or TV show or service and I say “How much are you going to pay me? Because I get paid for consumer reviews. Nothing? Then good day to you, sir. I said good day!” But today I am giving you reviews for free! Because that’s just how I am! Always eager to cram my opinion down someone’s throat. Well, not always eager to do it on the phone, apparently. Anyway.

Great Wolf Lodge

If you haven’t heard of it, the Great Wolf Lodge is a string of resorts/indoor waterparks scattered throughout the U.S., with one conveniently located in Grapevine, Texas.  Okay, convenient is relative. I wish one were conveniently located closer to my in-laws. (Ha! Relative! In-laws! Get it?) The GWL features various types of rooms, an indoor andoutdoor water park, and other activities such as restaurants, arcades, spas (for adults and kids), etc.

The good

GWL is completely self-contained – once you step inside, you never have to step outside until you check out. This is great if you’re craving some pool action during a cold part of the year. (Here in Mayberry there is a motel that advertises a “heated indoor pool” when the pool is, in fact, outside of the hotel in a separate enclosure. Which means you still have to go outside to get to the pool. Seems misleading to me. There is also a very nice hotel in Branson with the same issue. And no, they do not tell you when you make your reservation.) Of course, being a self-contained resort, everything (food, etc.) is a bit pricey.

Your room key is a swipeable wristband. This is unbelievably convenient and I wish Disneyworld would pick up on the idea. You can also assign charging privileges to your wristband, which means you can swipe it for snacks, souvenirs, tokens at the arcade, etc. Even some vending machines. Again, very convenient. Though after seeing kids run through the arcade swiping their wristbands for tokens again and again, I think I was wise not to give Boo this option.

The room options are numerous. Some rooms have a “kid cabin” or “kid cave” which is basically a room-within-a-room, complete with its own TV. We didn’t get one, but our room was comfortable and clean and included a mini fridge and microwave.

You are allowed to “pre-check-in” and use the waterpark before you actually get your room. You can also use it for the rest of the day you check out (we had planned to take advantage of this by checking out Saturday morning and leaving that afternoon, but we ended up leaving at o’dark thirty trying to beat bad weather). This means you can turn a one-night stay into a two-day stay, but it also means that at any time, the waterpark can be holding twice as many people as its room capacity. However, the pools never really seemed crowded, and there weren’t long waits for anything.

The bad

This place is huge. There are no photos on the website showing the entire exterior. Probably because you’d look at it and say “Holy crap, look at all of those rooms! It’s going to be super crowded.” Our hallway was approximately the length of three football fields, and we were on the far end.

The waterpark is not really all that spectacular. There is a wave pool, a shallow kiddie pool area, a “lazy river,” a large pool with an obstacle course and some things to climb on, some slides, and a large treehouse structure. That’s all. There was more outside, but it hadn’t opened for the season.

The water itself was a bit cold for me, but that was nothing compared to the fact that it burned my face and eyes like acid. Seriously. No one else in the family had this problem. I know I have sensitive skin, but I’ve never had issues with pool chemicals before.

Did I mention it’s expensive? We happened to be going at a peak time (and they kindly show a calendar on their website showing how much you’d save if you could go during a different week… oh, but this is your spring break? Well, sucks to be you, doesn’t it. Welcome to Double Price Week! Bwah ha ha ha ha!!!)

And I can’t discuss "the bad” without getting into The Stupid Game. I don’t remember what The Stupd Game is really called, but it’s some kind of Harry Potteresque thing that requires you to buy or rent a magic wand and then run all over the resort looking for clues (I wish I had taken a picture of the staircase labeled “Hidden Staircase”) and congregating in the lobby and hallways and getting in people’s way and running through the halls and generally making a nuisance of yourself.  At one point, after Boo and I had laboriously maneuvered through crowds of oblivious gamers in the hallway, I said “Ugh! That stupid game!” A voice behind me said “Oh, please watch your language around the children!” Really? “Stupid” is watchable language? Lady, you’re lucky my kid was with me or I might have said much worse. I replied, over my shoulder, “Watch your children and keep them out of people’s way!” I mean, I’m all about kids having fun, but they are human beings. Not a pack of feral dogs. A little courtesy and respect for other guests is in order. Stupid lady. That's right, I said stupid. Lock up your children.

Alice in Wonderland

I completely lost interest in this movie once I heard it wasn’t the actual Alice story at all. Unfortunately, Boo did not. It turns out that it’s actually quite a dark and potentially upsetting movie. There is cruelty to people and animals, a child in a very frightening situation (brief but memorable), infidelity, death (including a moat full of floating decapitated heads), and it’s generally just not a good kid’s movie. Then why the hell are they advertising it all over The Disney Channel and Radio Disney? I find this completely inappropriate, to the point of being irresponsible. I can’t imagine taking a young child, who heard the actor playing the talking white rabbit interviewed on Radio Disney and thought this would be a fun movie, and letting him see someone cross a moat by walking on floating heads. Not cool. Also, it was just a boring movie. Sorry, Johnny Depp. You know I have the deepest love and respect for you. Maybe next time.

I started to put a review of Justin Bieber here, but that's more of a rant than a review, so I'll save it for next time...

*And it's a good time I did answer the unknown phone call once, since otherwise I would not have known my car had been stolen. But, again, that's another story for another time.

Geniuses and sheep parts

I was going through old CDs recently, weeding out the ones that need to be donated, and I found a bunch of "classical music for babies" titles. Do you remember when someone decided listening to Mozart would increase your baby's intelligence? I had a half dozen of these, provided by my good friends at Enfamil and Johnson & Johnson and the like. I don't think any of them were even opened.

Today I read that Disney is offering a refund to people who bought the "Baby Einstein" videos, and it's being called "an acknowledgment that baby videos are not educational." Well, duh.

And when I say "duh," I do not mean "duh, everyone knows Baby Einstein videos are just baby Prozac, and lazy parents use them as an electronic babysitter." I mean "duh, of course a video alone is not educational for a baby." But that doesn't mean they're a bad thing.

We bought our first Baby Einstein video back in the days of VHS, believe it or not - it was Baby Mozart, the original, and probably best, of the bunch. Boo loved it. We also bought Baby Bach, but it wasn't as good, and our Baby Einsteining ended there. By the time we bought our videos, the Baby Einstein producers (this was before they were assimilated by the Disney Empire) were no longer touting the claim that listening to classical music would increase intelligence. But you know what? Boo and I had a lot of fun with that video. We always watched it together. As soon as she heard the music, she was ready to sit in my lap. I'd explain what she was seeing on the screen - "look, the train is going to go through the tunnel!" She was exposed to shapes and colors. She said "blah!" back at the puppet. She didn't sit there slack-jawed, staring at the screen - we interacted with that video together. She giggled and pointed and sang. I thought it was a wonderful resource. It bothers me to hear people dismiss it as worthless, let alone bad.

Unfortunately, I know the kid watches too much television today. We have limited her TV viewing on weekdays to either before or after dinner, which means she can still potentially watch 2 hours of television a night. And that's too much. (Also, she and I like many of the same shows, so it means I can't watch TV before dinner either, which kind of sucks.) And we are probably too permissive in her TV viewing, as we let her watch things like The Simpsons, FlashForward, and America's Most Amazing Police Videos and Stupid Crooks Caught on Tape or whatever those shows are called. Of course, they offer a lot of teachable moments. ("Wow, Homer did something stupid and now he's in a jam. "Look what happens when you try to lie to the police." Etc.) I wonder if it would be a good idea to insist Boo sit in my lap again, and we can interact with her shows together. "Ooooh, look! The fugitive in the stolen car is going to go through the plate glass window!"

Maybe not.

And on a mostly unrelated note, director Paul Haggis has left the "church" of Scientology because of their stance on gay marriage. So he doesn't have a problem with the whole aliens thing. He doesn't mind that Scientology was founded by a man who said if you want to make a lot of money, you should form a religion. No, those are fine. It's just the gay marriage thing that he has issues with. Well, as long as you have standards.

(BTW, I'm not mocking him for wanting to support gay marriage. I support it, wholeheartedly, myself. I'm mocking him for being willing to accept the rest of the BS and drawing the line here.)

(Also, Haggis is kind of an unfortunate name, isn't it?)

Genius

The iTunes Genius "can create playlists from songs in your library that go great together." So let's see the list of songs that supposedly "go great with" Matthew Sweet's "Girlfriend:"

• Pump it Up - Elvis Costello (I'll give you that)
• The Impression That I Get - Mighty Mighty Bosstones (Eh, I'm into this song right now so it "goes great" with anything)
• Red Barchetta - Rush (Um, no. Just no.)
• One Night in Bangkok - Murray Head (Maybe)
• Rosanna - Toto (Meh)
• Mad World - Adam Lambert (Seriously? This goes great with fun fast-tempoed songs?)
• Africa - Toto (We're liking the Toto, aren't we, Genius?)
• Viva la Vida - Coldplay (Okay, this goes with Toto, but aren't we supposed to be going with Girlfriend?)
• Fall for You - Secondhand Serenade (see Viva la Vida)

So, I'm wondering what criteria Genius uses to pick these songs. According to iTunes, "To create Genius playlists, iTunes uses anonymous information about your library and other iTunes libraries". Is this "anonymous information" the fact that I like both "Girlfriend" and "Red Barchetta?" Is that enough to say they "go great together?" So far, the only thing some of these songs have in common is the fact that they're in my library. Oh, and they're all sung by men. And several are about women. Maybe that's it.

Anyway, let's give it another try. Let's pick Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack." What songs from my library "go great" with that?

• Pump it Up - Elvis Costello
• The Impression That I Get - Mighty Mighty Bosstones
• Red Barchetta - Rush
• One Night in Bangkok - Murray Head
• Rosanna - Toto
• Mad World - Adam Lambert
• Africa - Toto
• Viva la Vida - Coldplay
• Fall for You - Secondhand Serenade

Ooooh-kay. Those are some versatile songs, aren't they?

Summertime

Yesterday was Boo's last day of school. Which always comes as a surprise to me for some reason. As if I didn't know, nine months ago, that it was coming. "What, it ends? In May? The hell you say."

We're trying something new this summer. She doesn't really like daycare (and she's one of the oldest ones there, apparently? Even though she's not even 10 yet? How is that possible?) so she's only going three days a week. I'm getting every Friday off. This was going to be perfect. We'd sleep late, spend the afternoon in the pool, etc. And if a good field trip ever happened to land on a Friday (which they almost never do), we'd go. But the universe got a hold of my plans and said "Ha!" Because we got her daycare calendar, and this summer, every single freaking field trip is on Friday. And, as J pointed out, it would be silly for him to take off work to go on these field trips since I'm already off. So, the zoo? The amusement park? Everything, in other words, that is hot and takes place outside? Mine. Yay.

In honor of yet another wildly successfuly school year, we offered Boo her choice of celebration last night. She chose takeout and a movie rental. Which leads us to... Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

You know how sometimes you see a movie trailer and you later realize that every single funny part in the movie was in the trailer? This movie goes beyond that. I remember giggling all the way through the trailer. And yet the number of times movie made me laugh out loud, I could count on one hand. It's like they had funny things in the trailer that didn't actually appear in the movie. The best thing about that movie was that it had the trailer for Star Trek (which, I must say, was a damn fine movie).

So, the bottom line. Lazy Fridays - denied! Paul Blart - sucks! Star Trek - yay!

I laughed, I cried, it was much better than Cats

This month's selection for my book club is Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal. I’m not much of a book reviewer. All I can say is that it was warm and funny and heart-wrenching and silly and sad… Go on, read the first few pages and see if you don’t want to read further. I think J sent his mom a copy before he even finished the first chapter.

Lamb tells the story of Christ that isn’t included in the Bible – from age 6 to age 30. Yes, of course it’s all made up. But it’s such a wonderful concept. I’ve read reviews that suggest Christians will be offended by this book. Well, I wasn’t offended (not that I’m the standard bearer for All Things Christian, but still). Nor was my husband. Nor our church’s rector, who recommended it in the first place. Who are these people who are offended at the idea that Jesus lived as a man, and had doubts and fears and desires like a man? That he would have been interested in, or even the master of, different spiritualities? Whoever they are, they need to get over it. One of the ladies in the book club told me she didn't like it and refused to finish it. She's a generation older than me, so I don't know if she was disturbed by the Christ aspect, or just the general bawdiness. Should make for an interesting meeting.

Now I'm reading The Fountainhead. When I bought the book for a quarter at the thrift shop, I thought I was re-reading it. After all, how does one get an English degree without reading The Fountainhead? Well, either I have a really bad memory, or this is the first time I've laid eyes on it (I must have read Atlas Shrugged instead, and this tells you how memorable it was.)

Anyway. It's hard to take this book as seriously as Ayn Rand intends it to be taken, because I simply can't get into the whole "architecture as religion" context. They're buildings, people. Get over it. It's hard to get into it at all, because the print is fiendishly tiny. And knowing that Rand considered protagonist Howard Roark (with his orange hair, "contemptuous mouth," gaunt cheeks, and serious case of Asperger Syndrome) as her ideal man, both physically and emotionally, just makes one say "eeew." An interesting comment from one website:

It is revealing that as Rand refined her idea of the heroic personality from the Howard Roark of The Fountainhead to John Galt in Atlas Shrugged, the type became steadily drained of, indeed, personality. Galt seems little better than a robotic mouthpiece of merciless ideology. Howard Roark was already peculiar enough, since he would just sit staring at the phone while waiting for work. He might at least have read magazines.

Magazines. Heh. That cracks me up. I'm less than a third of the way through, so it's too early to judge.

And, wrapping up our little book review column, Boo recently brought home a book from the school's library called Cats Have Kittens. J said "At least it doesn't come with a parent advisory." No, but maybe it should have. My first clue was when I saw it had won some kind of science award. We're not talking about the stork here, people. Instead, we're talking about the lovely Tabitha, who is in heat (and here's what she acts like when she's in heat! With pictures!) So she mates (no pictures there, thankfully). Either Boo already knows what heat and mate mean, or she didn't care enough to find out, because she was too eager to get to the part with the kittens. I'm betting on the latter.

No, I'm not crying. I just have something in my eye.

So, I finally finished watching the finale of Six Feet Under last night. Damn, I'm going to miss this show.

I have to admit the first part, before Claire leaves, was the kind of ending I generally hate. All of these completely messed-up people suddenly pulled their shit together, at the same time, out of the blue? Not likely. But I love the actors/characters enough that I didn't let it bother me.

And then the ending. Damn. I hate that Keith died violently. I hate that Claire and Ted spent 20+ years apart. But I love that Ruth and George stayed together. And Brenda married again but still stayed part of the Fisher family. And Durrell became the next "Fisher and Sons" son.

And how much did I love David and Keith's 100% gay kitchen? A lot. I wonder what our kitchen would look like if we painted the cabinets white...

Edited to add... that blog that I quickly backed out of so I'd remain unspoiled? Turns out she hadn't seen it yet, either. D'oh!

"Are we happy, Vincent?"

Okay, so, we saw Revenge of the Sith last night. I don't know the last time I was in a sold-out theater. The manager (or some other Important Guy in a Red Shirt) actually came in to ask everyone to scoot together, since there would be no empty seats.

And my little friend over here? Saw him in the food court before the movie. (Forgive the crappy picture, it's from my camera phone. Yeah, I was in spy mode. I'm a dork.) Actually, he didn't look bad - it's a very nice costume, which he'd obviously put quite a bit of work into (and knee high leather boots make anyone look good, especially as he was tall enough to pull it off). Quite honestly, on someone with a better haircut and clearer skin, it would have been sexy as hell (um, did I just say that out loud?) I'm obviously a geek as well as a dork. But still, it's a bit over the top, and we didn't see anyone else in costume (they were probably all there at the midnight showing on Thursday).

So, the actual movie... good, but not great. Plot details are given away here, so consider yourself warned.

The good:

• Samuel L. Jackson. Gotta love him. However, it's impossible for me to watch him in anything without expecting him to break into his Jules character from Pulp Fiction. "Do I look like a bitch, Chancellor Palpatine?"
• The special effects. Very, very nice. Yoda was beautifully animated. Still bothers me that he sounds so much like Fozzy the Bear, though. Ah, Yoda. Contagious your way of speaking is. Continually did I use it on the way home. Annoyed my husband must have been.
• The explanation of why Annakin turned to the dark side. Believable, and yet ironic (dude, don't you know a deal with the devil always comes back to bite you in the ass?)
• I never noticed it before, but Hayden Christensen really does resemble a young Mark Hamill. A nice touch. Another nice touch was playing "Leia's Theme" from the original Star Wars movies when showing the infant Leia with her new family.

The not great:

• The movie, though it clocked in at 2+ hours, needed to be at least 20 minutes longer. The major emotional moments seemed very rushed. When Annakin decides to become evil, it takes him about two minutes to go from "I can't do this" to "What have I done?" And again, when his wife and best friend realize what he has done, they go from "No, this couldn't be true" to "You're evil, gotta go" in a heartbeat. And when Annakin/Vader realizes what he has done to Padme. They really needed to experience some shock and grief. They expressed almost none of that. And sadly, I don't think Lucas can write that kind of dialog.
• Hayden Christensen's acting was just as wooden as in the previous movie. Everything is delivered in a monotone.
• The opening sequence, where Obi-Wan and Annakin rescue the Chancellor, seems to have been lifted from a 70s cop movie. It was a bunch of silly banter - "Oh, you only saved my life 9 times, that one time on Planet X doesn't count." Feh.
• And a few nitpicky details. Why ask Annakin to spy on the Chancellor when you can just view the security hologram and see everything he does in 3-D? If you want to hide Luke from his father, why place him with his aunt and uncle? Why does Yoda refer to what's his name (Liam Neeson's character - Quai Dong? Mah Jong? Mao Tse Tung?) coming back from the dead at the end of the movie?

Basically, the movie (and the whole new trilogy) cannot help but pale in comparison to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Both are classic tales of good vs. evil, but Star Wars layers on a convoluted and boring political subplot. Both have breathtaking special effects and kickass swordfights, but Star Wars seems to rest on that, while LOTR has the emotional highs and lows that SW is lacking.

It wasn't a bad movie at all. It just could have been so much better. When I left each LOTR movie, I was saying "Wow. That was great. Okay, I might have done this or that differently, but that was great." But each Star Wars movie left me saying "That was good, but they really should have done this or that." But then, I'm a huge LOTR fan, so of course I'm going to say that. :-)

Bottom line, as our beloved Jules would say... "Are we happy, Vincent?" Yes, we're happy. We could have been happier, but we're happy.

Ah, and there's my little friend again. I wonder if he was happy?