Special Agent Oscar

I can’t spend too much time blogging. I have to clean up the house a little because I have a meeting with a “special agent” later today. No joke. I’m not even totally sure what it’s about, but somebody’s possibly been doing something they’re not supposed to be doing. As far as I know, it’s not me. I guess I’ll find out more later.

The Oscar nominations are out. I’m glad they nominated Jake, since they nominated Heath. They were both equally good in the movie. This year is going to be a tough one to predict. Every year we have our little Oscar contest. I usually do pretty well. This year the nominations seem all over the place. My early forecast is that Brokeback Mountain will be the big winner. I also get to root for Joaquin and Jake, though they may not be the ones I bet on to win. I always bet on who I think will actually win, not who I want to win or who I think deserves it the most. Some people bet that way, but they usually lose. I think back to when Tommy Lee Jones beat Ralph Fiennes for best supporting actor. Yeah, Jones role in The Fugitive vs. Fiennes in Schindler’s List. Sheesh. But they had to give Jones his lifetime achievement Oscar. I hope they broadcast the awards in high definition. It's fun to see how bad the celebrities really look.

Totally Epic

I just got a sneak peek-listen of one of the new Fours Eyes songs. I think it’s called “For the Horde.” It’s awesome and the recording came out really good, too. And, yes, it’s about Warcraft. Speaking of which, we did a Raid with our new guild Saturday night. We did Upper Black Rock Spire. The new guild is really good, especially since they mentioned what a great job the paladin (me) was doing over Ventrilo (game chat program) even though they didn’t realize I was listening. What sucked was I was the only paladin and nothing good dropped, so no l33t loot for me. Then last night I spent forever with my priest and Davey’s warrior buying silk cloth at the Auction House and having Glom (Davey’s warrior) turn the silk into silk bandages so my priest could turn them in to reputation with the city of Stormwind. This is all so my priest can hopefully at lvl 40 ride a horse instead of a ram. You see, my priest is a dwarf and dwarfs get stuck with rams. Humans get horses. If I get enough reputation with the human faction, then I can buy a horse from them. Yes, I realize this is really ridiculous.

Match Point-tried not to post spoilers but warning anyway

I saw “Match Point” last night. Let me first say I am not a Woody Allen fan. I will never argue that his movies are crap, because I don’t think they’re really bad, I just don’t get all the who-haw over them. I thought Match Point looked interesting, so I third-wheeled on Bill and Karen and went to see it with them.
I don’t want to give any of the movie away, but I sort of hated it and sort of liked it at the same time. A lot of the movie felt like I was watching a high school play, mainly any part that had Scarlet Johansson in it.

I’m a Scarlet Johansson fan, but she really sucked in this one. Her acting was horrible. We all agreed on that. Bill and Karen liked the movie more than I did, I think. Did she get nominated for something for this role? It was amazing how bad she was. I can’t believe such an acclaimed and experienced director (especially of drama/comedy) would let her get away with that performance. Stinky.

Also near the end of the movie I thought I had to “suspend my disbelief” a little too much. There is a seen in which there is a loud noise, yet nobody seems to hear it and it seemed really weird to me. Also, a couple of the characters kind of go off the deep end a little and I don’t think the scenes leading up to their behavior satisfactorily showed why they would act out how they did.

The movie had a nice theme. I was more or less satisfied with the ending, which kept me from outrightly hating the whole thing. The movie drags a little in parts. Other parts are good. Overall, I guess I didn’t think it was that great, but probably better than the majority of the crap that gets released.

Off the movie topic, I dropped Roan off at preschool earlier. It’s pajama day and for snack they’re making pancakes. Well, there is a class in there before them and the room smelled so good. Like pancakes. Mmmmmmm.

What you talkin' 'bout Deborah Gibson?

I got to watch about 15 minutes of “Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus” last night. By “got to watch” I mean “that’s all I could stomach.” It has some segments in 3-D. We tried watching the 3-D version (the dvd comes with 4 pairs of Barbie 3-D glasses) but it was really horrible and Roan’s glasses kept sliding down her face. She didn’t care about the 3-D anyway. It was pretty blurry and you could see this weird outline of the figures. So we put on the regular version. I stopped watching around the time Annika (I don’t even know if Barbie “proper” makes an appearance in the movie) is rescued from the evil wizard guy (who just petrified a bunch of townsfolk along with Annika’s parents) by a pegasus. Did I mention Annika has a little baby polar bear friend named Shivers? Baby Sage loves Shivers. Probably because he looks a little like her.

Logged onto World of Warcraft. Looks like a bunch of us lvl 60’s are going to leave the Moonlight Sentinels (our guild). Sort of sad, since it is OUR guild, but it’s such a pain to get a group together so being in a bigger guild might help. We’re planning on keeping our alts in the guild, so it won’t just die. I actually play my priest alt a lot anyway. It’s hard to recruit people when you have a small guild. If the five or so people who read this would just start playing Alliance on Draenor and roll any class but Hunter and lvl up to 60 in a couple weeks, we could build up a pretty good guild again. Well, we’d need a few more than 5, but that would be a good start. We’d be raiding Molten Core in no time.

Tomorrow is “pajama day” at preschool. The kids get to wear pj’s and they’re going to make pancakes for snack. That sounds fun. It’s sort of silly, since Roan goes to preschool at noon, but I guess getting her dressed will be one less thing I have to do in the morning.

So, Lost was pretty good, eh? Crazy Charlie. What’s up with that? (Hehheh, that saying amuses me). 24 has sucked me in this season too. The show is so ridiculous, but so entertaining. I suppose that could be said for pretty much anything on T.V. Well, maybe not the entertaining part. I also love American Idol. I hate hate hate the music, but I love watching it. I think I finally got Tivo to cooperate and record the Tuesday night episodes (we’ll see next week) so I’ve only seen half of the auditions so far. I hope that cowboy kid who sings to his turkeys makes it into the final group. Another ridiculous show I love is “Skating with the Stars” or whatever the heck it’s called. Poor Todd Bridges got eliminated last week. (Sorry for the spoiler...;-)...I’m sure you all watched it already anyway). It’s not totally fair, because some of the “stars” (ahem) have had previous skating experience and some (Todd Bridges (who used the “whatchew talkin ‘bout” line at one of the judges, even though it wasn’t his character that ever said that) and Deborah (love that you can’t call her ‘Debbie’ anymore) Gibson) haven’t ever skated before. Yep. I know how to spend my free time.

It's a Good Thing

I just finished watching an episode of Martha with Cyndi Lauper as a guest. Cyndi looks pretty good. I wonder if she had some work done. It doesn’t really look like she’s had plastic surgery, but she’s aging pretty well. She did a couple songs off of her new album. Can’t say they were great. She did a version of Time After Time (of course) and it really wasn’t good at all and I really like the original. Then she did another song that I hadn’t heard before that was better, but still not great.

I like Martha Stewart’s new show. It’s on the Learning Channel (TLC). She’s such a trip. I like when she makes prison jokes. One episode had Alan Cumming as a guest. He was amazingly restrained. He and Cyndi Lauper are doing a broadway show together this spring, so I guess they were both on to promote that.

On the episode I just watched, she had a segment about organizing your pantry. It was pretty ridiculous. She had this giant stainless steel cabinet for a pantry. If I had room for that thing, I’d have no trouble being organized, Martha. Cyndi Lauper even asked what if you don’t have room for something like that. Martha blew off the question by saying when you renovate your kitchen to make room. Thanks Martha. I’ll remember that the next time I remodel. I guess I won’t need a stove or a refrigerator because I’ll need that room for my giant pantry. Sheesh.

In and episode prior to this one, she showed how to organize your medicine cabinet in your bathroom. It was pretty useless, but I still found it entertaining. Not sure what that says about me. I’m trying to think if I’ve ever put to use anything I’ve seen on her show....
I’d probably try the trick of putting candle holders in the freezer in order to get leftover wax out of them. I haven’t tried it yet, though. And I learned about the “crumb coat” on a cake. Basically, you have to frost it twice. I think that’s about it.

I'm sick part deux

You know what I think the worst thing about having kids is? Not the lack of sleep, not the inability to do what you what when you want, not the constant worry that they will crack their little heads open, not the dirty diapers and incessant whining, not the fact that 90% of your adult conversation ends up about them. Nope, none of those things are the worst. The worst is that kids are little germ factories and then when they go off to places like preschool and congregate with a bunch of other little germ factories and trade viruses like baseball cards and then bring them home and then I AM CONSTANTLY SICK.

I’ve had maybe a week or two since Christmas that I haven’t felt sick. Roan started preschool halfway through December. It’s just insane. The kids have been pretty much sick the whole month too. Being sick doesn’t seem to slow them down much, though.

We went to another birthday party on Saturday (when I was just starting to get sick). It was fun. It was in San Jose, so a long drive. I was pretty worn out, but a lot of that was from being sick, I think. I have a cute picture of Roan swinging a stick at a Nemo piñata, but I don’t know how to get it “detached” from my email. If I figure it out, I’ll post it.

I always think of stuff to blog about when I don’t have time to actually sit down and type. Then I can never remember what I was thinking about later.

A couple of friends got us a Ronco (as in Mr. Popeil) rotisserie. It’s awesome. We made some kabobs on it and the chicken was excellent. It’s not so great for burgers. I think it’s hard to beat a regular grill for cooking burgers. Those are the only two things we made on it so far. I’m looking forward to roasting a chicken on it soon (got one in the freezer, waiting). I love watching the food spin around and around. It’s mesmerizing.

"Shake Your Dragon Tail"

Last night Roan and I went to see Dragon Tales Live! It was at the Community Center Theater. I like the Dragon Tales music, but I could barely stand the plot. Roan seemed to like it. She even stood up and danced a little at the beginning. Then she didn’t want to stand up, but I’d look over and she’d be swaying to the music in her seat.

It wasn’t so horrible, as it was presented more like a real musical (I like musical theater) than some crappy kiddie show. They had pretty decent sets and lighting effects. Zack and Emmy were actually played by children, which was pretty amazing. I’m not sure if the dialogue and singing were live or not. It sort of sounded like it (kind of bad) but I really couldn’t tell for sure. The music was recorded, of course. Last night was opening night and all seats were $12, which was a really good deal. We sat orchestra level row T and they were pretty good seats. This is the same theater I saw Cabaret at a few years ago. I thought it was pretty cool they were doing a kids show. Most of the kids shows seem to be at Arco and “on ice.” I guess the Dragon Tales crowd is more cultured.

The one thing that irked me was the audience taking 20 million flash photos. C’mon people, turn off your fricken flashes if you must take crap-ass picture. Your little point and shoot flash is not going to come close to illuminating the stage. The flash does nothing but irritate people trying to watch the show. They actually had a dark theater with real stage lighting and then there’d be this strobe light effect of all the idiots in the audience taking pictures. Oh well. They pretty much stopped during the second act, at least.

I was hoping they’d have some kids/dragons on wires flying around (these are flying dragons, btw). They didn’t, but they did have the two kid actors ride stuffed dragons that were each on a mechanical arm (pretty well, hidden I only saw the machine once and it wasn’t well lit or anything) that went up and around while they projected cloud-like lights on them. So it looked like they were flying. Wires would have been cool, though.

Sage Broke My Back Mountain

Sage weighs 21 lbs. now. No wonder my back was killing me. She’s a chunk. I just finished (well, took a break since it’s nap time) going through tons of baby clothes and trying to sort out what fits and what needs to go. I always get a little sad now, when I weed out the clothes that are too small. I wish some of my friends would get busy and have little girls so I can pass some of the stuff off. I ended up selling a bunch of the tiny baby stuff at a garage sale a few months ago. Some of the clothes are really cute. I have a “save” pile of stuff I can’t bear to get rid of, but I keep trying to whittle it down.

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain with a friend over the weekend. Surprise, Surprise (not really, I expected it would be good) we both thought it was really good. The theater was pretty full and seemed to be mostly women. There were a surprising amount of senior ladies there. Occasionally there would be some uncomfortable laughter. The movie has this beautiful, majestic quality and then ever so often, is really blunt and to the point. I really love the score, as well.

We went to a 2 year olds birthday party on Sunday. Roan camped out at the cupcake table. The birthday girls mom had a great idea, “frost your own cupcakes.” She put out a bunch of unfrosted cupcakes and then a few tubs of frosting and sprinkles and such. The party was in Berkeley and I was amazed at how little traffic there was both ways. It seems like every time we go to the Bay Area we get stuck in traffic somewhere (usually around Fairfield where 80 meets 680).

Random Stuff

Some jerk-face stole our out going mail on Friday. It was about five pieces of mail, all bill payments. Luckily a bank teller at my bank busted his ass and called me when he tried to cash one of the checks. He had somehow blanked out the name of my credit card company and wrote his name in. I guess he spelled his name wrong too. The teller called me to check it out. The bank held on to his I.D. and called the cops. He got away, but they seem to know who he is. I assumed the I.D. would be a fake, but the guy is apparently the grandson of the owner of a local venue.

So we had to change our checking account (just after I ordered two boxes of checks that are now useless) and I had to cancel my credit card, just in case. Not to mention, repay all of the bills etc. Pretty annoying. I’m glad the teller spotted it, though or it would’ve been even more annoying.

Preschool and dance class have started up again. No more late Friday nights playing Warcraft because I have to get Roan to her dance class on Saturday mornings. Oh the sacrifice. I guess they’re already planning for a dance recital in July. It’s a long ways off, but I guess with 3 years olds, you need all of that time to get them ready. The dance instructor hasn’t decided what they will perform yet. She’s narrowed it down to two choices. One is some jazz dance (the class is ballet/tap, so not sure where that fits in, but doesn’t really matter either) to some song I didn’t recognize the name of. The other choice is a tap dance to “Singin’ in the Rain.” I’m already excited about it. Tap would be great because it’s a pretty big accomplishment for them just to be able to walk around in those shoes without falling.

Sigh. I wrote the first two paragraphs yesterday afternoon. I didn’t get around to finishing and posting. Now that Sage is crawling, the next couple of years should be pretty hard. Now she’s starting to have opinions and experience frustration. My formerly happy, smiley baby has become demanding and whiney. And by 'demanding' I mean 'let me keep eating this newspaper, I'm going to scream when you take it away' or 'let me suck on this shoe, now.' I was so worried about getting through the first three or four months, that I forgot about this stage. Once Roan started walking (at 1 year old) until she was about 2.5, it was a challenge to take her anywhere she couldn’t move around. I’ve been so tired since Sage has started crawling. Being sick all month hasn’t helped, but the little baby is wearing me down.

But isn't she sooo cute?

The Bravest Little Hobbit of Them All

Lord of the Rings fest was great this year. I have to say it was a little more “festive” which made it a lot harder to actually watch the movies, but still lots of fun. Also, EVERYBODY was late this year. I guess that happens when it’s on New Year’s day, but it’s still kind of weak, people. I was up until 4:30 Friday night and ‘til at least 3 am New Year’s Eve and I had to get up before the Hobbit (real great idea Davey) started at 9:45. Of course, now it’s Monday and I’ve spent most of the day either sleeping or playing Animal Crossing and I’m still in my PJ’s (what’s the point of getting dressed now?). I have this horrible pain in my neck, as well and I have no idea why. (Insert pain in the neck joke here).

Let see some of the highlights of New Years Day were, 2 dozen doughnuts from Marie’s. Yum. Davey driving over to Jilary’s to get wake them up. French toast. A snow globe exploding in Roan’s room. Crappy frozen pizzas. Chocolate chip cookies. Bill’s pumpernickel sandwiches. Joel and then Olsen with some mad magna-doodle action. A creepy looking rabbit body cooking in the crock pot. Hurrah for vegan chili. Po-tay-toes. Brownie bites. Beer braised chicken. Jilary’s honey maple cake that never made it from ingredients into actual cake.

Thanks to Chris for drawing about 500 different types of cake on the Magna Doodle so Roan’s laser pointer could eat it. Thanks to Dongsdale for the rabbit and for venturing out on foot during the storm for a mid-movie beer run, even though Karen had just told him she’d drive him to the store. He snuck out while she wasn’t looking. Also thanks to everyone who came, because it was a lot of fun.

I’m gonna post some pictures. As usual, we didn’t take enough. I’m not posting all of them, because I want Davey to write something and he can post them all on the Four Eyes blog. He can explain them all too. I’ll just leave them up for interpretation.