For John Robert

PediSedate: feed kid nitrous oxide while they play a Game Boy.

JR, do they have DS hack for this?

(via MedGadget via Boing Boing)

Space Skulls!

Best Lego set name ever: Space Skulls!

(via Bozarth)

Before Sunrise / Before Sunset

I finally got around to watching Before Sunset last night.

I remember seeing Before Sunrise when it came out.  I was about the same age as the characters (a bit older) and not in a relationship and a romantic.  It clicked hard with me.  It's not like it is a brilliant film.  But it is exactly what it is, nothing more and nothing less.  A man and woman meet on a train, spontaneously get off in Vienna and spent the afternoon and night being in the moment.  They kiss on a Ferris wheel and have sex in a park.  At the end, he gets on a plane for America and they agree to meet back in Vienna in 6 months.  Film ends.  It's an honest little movie, acted well.  The characters are flawed and young, but I bought into the romance.  That movie made me hopeful about people and, well, love.

I rewatched Before Sunrise last night before watch Before Sunset.  It was like returning to an old memory.  It was exactly as I remembered it but I had changed.  Ethan Hawke's character was more of an ass and awkward and Julie Delphie's character was more naive and awkward than I remembered.  But, you know, I kind of loved them all the more for it.  And the ending, which years ago filled me with hope and expectation, now felt bitter-sweet and sad.  Because I knew they didn't meet in six months.  The movie now hung on me like a regret that you don't actually regret.  How to explain it... Sometimes you do something that, in the long run fail and causes some sort of pain and ache, but you wouldn't go back and change it.  That's how I felt about the character's night in Vienna.  (And in reflection of my time since 1995.)

Before Sunset takes place nine years after the first film.  Now in Paris, Hawke's character has written a book about that night.  Delphie's character comes to a book signing in Paris.  And they hang out for a while until Hawke has to get on a plane for New York.  They never met in Vienna and try in a few short hours to catch up on the passing years... and to figure out what that night meant to them.

And I bought it.  (Although seeing how thin to the point of looking sick Hawke looks... and the fact that Delphie has just become more attractive....)  Again it is honest and sweet and fully taps into what has happened to me in those years (at least emotionally).  And they look back on Vienna not just with fondness but with a bit of anger... how that night may have twisted them.

I fully understand why people might dislike either or both movie.  But has character study and a rumination on what love might be... I love them.

Movie news that makes me giddy

To explain why this fills me with joy:

1) I grew up with Tintin.  I love Tintin.

2) Two of my favorite characters are Thomson and Thompson.  I can picture every panel of them in Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon.

3) With all his faults, I still really love Spielberg.  No, he doesn't push the envelope often but he is a master at telling a story visually.

4) I very much respect Peter Jackson.  If there is a master of motion capture it is him.

5) Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are a brilliant team.

So Pegg and Frost as Thomson and Thompson makes me pee may pants a bit.

Wikipedia Brown

I got to play Wikipedia Brown at our System Error show on Sunday. A bit of a dream of mine. Made me happy.

Of course, there is a lot of W. Brownout there.
• Wikipedia Brown and The Case of The Captured Koala.

• Zebra Crossing's Wikipedia Brown and The Case of The Accidental Occidental.

•BJ Novak reads from The Case of The Missing Bike

Yes, I am six years old

This game just makes me laugh.
Puzzel Farter!

(via Kotaku)

Cole Porter... IN YOUR FACE!

I watched the film version of Kiss Me Kate. Now, I am fully aware that Cole Porter musicals were just them coming up with a pseudo-plot to string together a few already written songs with a couple of specific songs written just for the show. (I can't believe Porter write a song about traveling actors traveling from on Italian town to the next before he realized the whole Taming of a Shew thing. Although, to be honest, it didn't actually have much to do with the play either). And the movie of course gets butchered even more by cramming it into and hour and a half. (Which does create the weird "We need to have Too Darn Hot because it's a hit song... but it doesn't fit... well, we'll sing it at the beginning and then just say it has been cut from the play within the movie." Weird.)

The weirdest thing was how it appeared the director thought he was shooting the movie in 3D. The actors kept throwing things at the camera lens. Maybe he thought it would make it more intimate. It just made it scary. Ahhh! A banana coming at me!

Then there is the song Tom, Dick and Harry. This is of course just a case of words taking on different meanings (I am assuming.) The chorus:

I'm a maid who would marry
And will take with no qualm
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Harry, Dick or Tom,
I'm a maid mad to marry
And will take double-quick
Any Tom, Dick or Harry,
Any Tom, Harry or Dick.

Harry and Dick doesn't sound quite right anymore, but I suppose if you're a maid mad to marry.... I lost it at the chant at the end:

A dicka dick,
A dicka dick,
A dicka dick,
A dicka dick!
A dicka dick,
A dicka dick,
A dicka dick...

Admitted catchy lyrics.

Plus side: The costumes of the play within the play were awesome, in a skin tight-Technicolor way.

LittleBigPlanet

This was just announced by Sony for the PS3. It's hard to understand how neat this game is from watching this little clip... especially if you haven't been playing platformers for 20 odd years. But watch the video... and then realize that this isn't just the game. The game is actually a complete level editor. In fact you could re-edit that level on fly. All four of you.

This is just fun.

Best Song of the Day

I have to fly to my last 401 improv class, but I just had to post the song I just heard. I'm in the Tea Lounge in Park Slope. A 4-year old girl is standing by the cocktail table Ms. Pacman. Suddenly she stands on the stool and sings at the top of her lungs:

"I love being a princess!
I love being a princess!
I love being a princess!
Do you have any quarters?!"

Artistry. I wish I could do that spontaneously in my improv scenes.

Apoohcalypse Now

Jolly St. Nick Is Darn Scary

As I am finding myself referencing practically everything she posts, I realized that I have to give Lukira a slop on the links list.

She currently has a wonderful, get in the spirit for SantaCon slide show of photos of kids scared of Santa. The photos were sent in by readers to SouthFlorida.com, Sun-Sentinel.com and Chicago Tribune a few years back.

Sketchfighter 4000 Alpha

I started playing the demo of Sketchfighter 4000 Alpha yesterday. Man, is that just a flashback into my own head! I loved drawing out dream video games on sketch paper when I was a kid. Pages and pages of this stuff, all the time making the noises just under my breath. My only complaint is the music because I didn't spent my childhood in an elevator.

Sorry, Window Users, Mac OS only. I do hope they make this into an Xbox Live Arcade game. It is perfect for it.

(I also got Sneak King from BK for $3.99. I'll have a review up soon.)

Why I think the Wii will win

Because your kid, any kid, will do this.And because these two will get more exercise than they have all year.

"Jersey... Where are you?"

All day was spent with the family. Tom's Diner (Brooklyn). Subways. B&H. More subways. Central Park. Metropolitan Museum of Art. More subways. Rest at Starbucks and strange tasting pretzels. Empire State Building. Subways back to Brooklyn. Pasta for the kids, Indian food for the adults. It was great and fantastic and fun and exhausting. But walking the streets of NYC and riding the subway with them is just mentally draining. The older two are pretty easy to handle, listen pretty well, but I still became very aware of all of the dangers EVERYWHERE.

And then we got the two and a half year old. He's a bolter. Most of the time he was in is stroller, but as soon as you cut him loose, he is off! Just gone. I watched him run in large circles for half an hour straight. I adore him so much but he is a massive showboat and a bit crazy.

My conversation with him up top of the Empire State Building.

Me: "And over there is New Jersey."
Him: "Where?"
Me: "Right over the river."
Him: "I want to swim in the river and swim with the boats."
Me: "No, you really don't want to swim in that water. Besides, it would be so cold."
Him: "I'd wear a jacket!"
Me: "In the water?"
Him: (laughs... and then sing-songs to himself) "Jersey... where are you? Jersey... where are you? Jersey Jersey Jersey. I want to swim to Jersey. Jersey.... where are you?"

Love him 'till I burst.

At the Daily Show

I just got back from watching The Daily Show with Jon Steward being taped (thanks, Uday!). Very fun. He is a actually very funny and a very relaxed performer. There is a great bit tonight by Rob Riggle that is reminiscent of my Survivor application video.

Tina Fey was the guest and, now that I have seen her in person, she is still on my "list." Glasses. Why to I have a think for smart girls in glasses?

Anyway, you will see her tonight mention that while she was at Second City in Chicago, Stephan Colbert and Steve Carell were both main players there. She then went on to say that one of them was a "notorious ladies man," but she refused to say which. While Steward was talking to Colbert (not on tape... just before they did their end show capper), Steward asked him about it. With a mischievous childlike grin, Colbert burst out with...

"Carell would fuck anything that moved."

Sadly, you will not see that tonight.


Oh, and I forget to tell the Valet last night: I passed right by Joel Grey in the street yesterday afternoon. Does that count as "meeting"?

Kotaku Supports the Boycott Against Itself

Gamer sites/blogs are a lot like gamers themselves. They like to trash talk, they like to have fun, sometimes they take it too far, and sometimes they take things too seriously. Oh, how many roleplaying sessions I've been at were things are all fun and games and then suddenly someone feels their honor has been besmirched. Next think you know, 12-sided dice are being flung at faces and 2-liter Coke bottles are being wielded like clubs.

So I am quite amused by the Kotaku/Destructoid tiff. The details are better handled by going to those sites (and Faith Naked's blog). The main thing that I find entertaining is Kotaku's full support fr the boycott, even if they are doing it tongue firmly in cheek.