6 months ago

crawl
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Our holiday preparations are pretty much in place: we leave for Oklahoma to my dad's place this Saturday. It will be us three, my sister and her husband Eddie, and brothers Andrew and Jonathan (dad and Ilu's kids. I say kids but they are both grown too). With all them kids you think dad would have more grandchildren. All of us are slackers!

Brenden and I had a rough weekend. He was sick with a cold and a lot of coughing - he would wake himself up then wake me up. I could get him back to sleep with a little water, rocking, and meds, but then it would take me forever to get back to sleep. I have some kind of bug now - so far I'm not sure what it is, maybe another sinus infection.

Speaking of my sinuses, I am occasionally experiencing good days, where I can smell without loading up on medications. This development is encouraging. I'm sure it has a lot to do with getting rid of the carpeting. I'm also trying to be scrupulous when it comes to my meds.

I also have a quick "what we're watching" update: the Discovery Channel has been showing a 6-part series "Everest: Beyond the Limit" which has been fascinating viewing: apparently Mount Everest has become so damn popular to try to climb that the most dangerous things are the traffic jams. The series, of which the last ep which airs tonight, follows one group as they attempt the climb - the coolest things are the Sherpa-cams. The entire series will be shown concurrently starting at 5pm (eastern, I presume) New Year's eve, if you want to set your TiVos. If you read "Into Thin Air" you might like this series.

Yippie-kay-yay!

yahoo
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

A meme from Nancy:

1. Grab the book closest to you.
2. Open to page 123, go down to the fifth sentence
3. Post the text of next 3 sentences on your blog
4. Name of the book and the author
5. Tag three people

The Book: Dynamic HTML, by Danny Goodman

The text:
For Internet Explorer 4, the TextRange object and related functionality is guaranteed to work only on Windows platforms. The macintosh version of I.E. 4.0., for example, does not support the TextRange at all. Plan your deployment accordingly.

I'm not going to tag anyone. My dear sweet Neptune, I need to read something for fun!

Big B, little B, what begins with B?

Big B, little B, what begins with B?
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Short butts- I mean bits

Last night Jon and I watched Super Size Me, an amusing/scary documentary about fast food. He didn't tell me anything I didn't know, except he went into explicit detail about why fast food is bad, mmmkay. But remind me, when it's time for my son to go to school, to investigate for myself what kind of crap they're feeding him. I remember what our high school served: starches, covered in starches, with a side of starch. And ketchup, which was our vegetable.

Brenden is 18 months old and was given several dozen Hotwheels as a gift. Yes, I let him play with them, under my supervision. Really the only danger they pose is for us adults. Hotwheel + slick floor = twisted ankles.

I'm losing weight again - I have been dieting since the end of October with mixed results. I am happy that I'm still on it despite the holidays and the abundance of free candy left over from Halloween at work. I now weigh 135, which means I am now taking off the weight that I gained just before I got pregnant. I have been exercising by walking and Jon and I have started back on weights. While one of us does our reps, the other one plays with/corrals/bribes Brenden.

Family Portrait

Family Portrait
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What we've been watching:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest: Not as good as the first one, but a welcome addition to our DVD collection. Why? Pirates! Sword fights!! Monsters that gave Jon and I nightmares!!! No, really. We both had seriously vivid dreams about Davey Jones and his crew the night after we watched it.

Nacho Libre: Rented because we both like Jack Black, who should receive an Oscar for the actor having the most fun with his career. The movie itself was... odd. It's helpful to know about Mexican wrestling (which is a hoot, especially if you have watched only WWF in the past).

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: Nifty concept (retro sci-fi), but Meh execution. I like Jude Law, but he's a bit too androgynous for some of the roles he takes especially this one. The movie has some nifty Giant Freakin Robots, which is always a plus.

In the series world, everything seems to be on hiatus or in repeats. Battlestar Galactica is still showing first runs and this season might be the best one ever. Last night's episode, where Kat's past catches up to her, made me cry, and the episode before that where Starbuck and Apollo resolve some old issues by literally beating the crap out of each other was terrific. And I'm glad to see Colonel Tigh back on the job!

Veronica Mars shifted format slightly for the 3rd season (don't worry, no spoilers here) and I think is still trying to adjust. Veronica's in college now and instead of one big mystery per season, the writers have changed it up into 3 mystery arcs. The first mystery was put to bed and I have mixed feelings about this arc. Still I'm going to stick with this show because the first two seasons were so awesome.

Mememememe!

Using our new kitchen
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Hey, One word Meme time:

1. Yourself: lazy
2. Your spouse: hyper
3. Your hair: long
4. Your mother: retired
5. Your father: grilling
6. Your favorite item: camera
7. Your dream last night: Ugh
8. Your favorite drink: Guinness
9. Your dream car: Mustang
10. The room you are in: cubicle
11. Your ex: gone
12. Your fear: incompetence
13. What you want to be in 10 years: rich
14. Who you hung out with last night: family
15. What you're not: organised
16. Muffins: chocolate
17: One of your wish list items: robe
18: Time: fugit
19. The last thing you did: read
20. What you are wearing: jeans
21. Your favorite weather: warm
22. Your favorite book: worn
23. The last thing you ate: cheese
24. Your life: nice
25. Your mood: active
26. Your best friend: husband
27. What you're thinking about right now: coffee
28. Your car: Saturn
29. What you are doing at the moment: coffee
30. Your summer: fun
31. Your relationship status: better
32. What is on your TV: Pirates
33. What is the weather like: cold
34. When was the last time you laughed: seven

Brenden being Curious

Brenden being Curious
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

Short and perhaps not so sweet this month:

Letter to Brenden 18 Months
Hooray, my sweet little fella; you are now a whole year and one half! Many websites, blogs, and discussion boards state that the terrible twos often start early and you are no exception. What you are displaying is frustration, often because you have to deal with the word "NO!" many, many times during the day. You attempt to vent your frustration by throwing or hitting things, or hitting me - you tried to pull that on your dad once.

Once.

Naturally, these actions invoke another spate of "NO!"s from your loving parents and you don't know what to do. Welcome to Earth.

Up, up and away!

Squee!
Originally uploaded by Sandra Maynard.

What we've been watching (the Good, the Bad, the Ugly but not in that order:

The Bad: Strangers With Candy - this movie may be the straw that broke the camel's back. I had to review it and I am still trying to come up with 700 words to say "It's not my cup of tea". Bleh.

The Ugly: BloodRayne - I know better than to watch an Uwe Boll film, but I ended up watching this because of an unfortunate exchange of information with my husband. He was going through the OnDemand movies, reading the descriptions and stopped on Bloodrayne. I said "Hey did you know Michelle Rodriguez and Kristina Lokken are dating?". Bad move - he immediately turned on the movie, despite my assurances that it sucks. I really don't know if they are dating for real, they might just be best buds. Still, more power to them if they are.

As for Bloodrayne, it was actually entertainingly bad, with a whole bevy of embarrassed actors including Sir Ben Kingsley. The Queen is going to take his knighthood away if he keeps slumming in crap like this. The best was a perfectly miscast Micheal Madsen as some sort of medeival vampire hunter. Rodriguez and Lokken are simply unfortunately here, but at least it looks like they got more out of the movie than a paycheck.

The (really, really) good: Superman Returns I loved this movie! I'm very glad I saw the 2 original Christopher Reeve Supermans recently because this movie takes up where they left off (thankfully ignoring the 3rd and 4th movies). Superman has been away for 5 years, unsuccessfully trying to find remnants of his homeworld. When he returns he finds things have changed radically - Metropolis and Lois Lane have moved on, having found a way to live without the man of steel. Bryan Singer directed - he did the first 2 X-Men movies and I don't blame him for dropping X-Men for something as iconic as Superman (although the X-Men franchise suffered from his loss).

Singer plays off the original 2 movies like I mentioned as well as the comics, and he gives the movie his own touches. The one I liked best are all the characters (except perhaps Jimmy Olsen) have more dimensions. Lex Luthor (Kevin Spacey) benefits the most. He's still the evil genius buffoon, but he's actually somewhat scary in this movie. Lois Lane is still your standard feisty reporter, but she is prickly and hurt as old wounds open when Superman returns. And Superman himself (played by Brandon Routh who is spooky in his resemblance to Christopher Reeve yet doesn't do an impersonation) seems so lost and alone even as he saves countless lives. Singer gives Superman an ethereal quality (as well as overtly touching on the Christ/Atlas/Prometheus imagery). It also doesn't hurt that Routh is almost disturbingly beautiful.

If I have quibbles the movie drags in places, and my biggest problem with the movie I can't really discuss because that would be spoiling it. Let's just say that Jon and I had a mini-argument about why Superman can't have a relationship with a human woman and it degenerated fast into territory that Kevin Smith would be proud of.