Entries Tagged 'Family' ↓

So, we just got back from a week's vacation down the Cape. During our one rainy day we (my wife, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, and three children) decided to take in a harbor cruise. We're like the second family in line to get on board, and as we're going across the ramp we realize that there's a photographer taking group shots. Having done the Odyssey Mother's Day brunch cruise every year for the last five years, we know the drill – take a family shot, then sell it at the end of the cruise. Well we've only got half the family with us, it's raining on us, and we'd like to get a good seat. We're only second in line anyway, but the family in front of us has like 12 people and it's a small boat.

So we try to sneak past them and go onto the boat. "Please, wait," says the photographer in heavy Russian.

Fine. We wait. We get our picture taken. I don't bother smiling, since I know we're not buying the picture. I mutter something to him about wasting our time and his film by making us do that.

You see what's coming, right? Anybody that knows my family does.

The cruise goes fine, it's rainy and cold but it's something to do with the kids on a Friday afternoon before lunch. As we're nearing the end, the photographer comes over and hands my mother in law the picture. "Ooooo, I like that, that came out good!" she says. She shows it to my wife who agrees. "How much?" she asks.

"Ten dollars," says the photographer.

We bought two.

Had a weird dream last night. I'm in Starbucks, waiting in line. Mind you, I've never been in a Starbucks in reality. Well, maybe once, waiting for someone else. I've certainly never ordered anything. I don't even drink coffee. But there I am, waiting in line at a crowded Starbucks, trying desperately to see the menu of what exactly they sell so that I'll know what to order. I am happy to see that they now offer Small/Medium/Large sizes, so at least I won't make the cliched mistake of saying Venti when I meant Grande, or whatever the language is that they speak in the place. I can make out from my position that there is a "vanilla" coffee, so I figure I'm safe. (In real life I'm sure this has something to do with my many coffee runs to Dunkin Donuts to get the wife her French Vanilla).

It's my turn, and I order a small vanilla coffee. The man behind the counter pauses, as if I've screwed it up anyway. "And what food?" he says, impatiently. "That's it," I say. He shrugs like I'm weird and turns away. "What, did I get in the wrong line?" I ask. "Yes," he says, and I realize that I have been standing in the food line. The other line is for coffee only orders.

So I just got into work 10 minutes ago. I work in a cube farm where half the floor is another company, and we can typically overhear conversations. "I'm going downstairs now," I hear a man's voice say to someone. "Just regular, right? Because I'm not ordering any hazelnut or vanilla or any weird flavors like that. Just on principle."

Cue Twilight Zone music!

So I've been listening to Harry Potter on iPod for about a week. At a rate of about 2 chapters per day I was planning to be finished tomorrow, or maybe the day after. But a coworker was pestering me enough to hurry up and finish so we could discuss it that I found myself reading the ebook in between chapters and then went for a walk around the lake over lunch and basically finished the thing in a couple of hours this afternoon. Ironically, I am scheduled for vacation next week, when I really should be reading the silly thing instead of deliberately finishing it before I go.

Anyway, the point of my story is that this afternoon on the train home, I sat down and realized that the people 4 rows ahead of me were actually discussing the ending of the book. So if I hadn't picked up speed and finished today, I would have walked right into a major spoiler. Yikes. I was tempted to tell them to shut up, there might be people on the train who had not yet finished the book.

So the other day I swing by Supercuts to get a haircut, and I'm listening to Harry Potter on my iPod while I'm waiting. So naturally when it's my turn the girl asked me what I'm listening to, I tell her, and we get into a conversation about it. She seems intrigued that I have it on ipod, and has never made the connection that just like you can rip a CD full of music, you can rip a book on tape.

She's maybe in her mid-20's or so. We mention kids and she tells me she has a 4yr old. I tell her that my oldest is 5.
We discuss other books, she mentions VC Andrews, a name I have not heard since high school. If I recall correctly, VC Andrews "Flowers in the Attic" was basically Danielle Steele for teenagers. "I'm not really the audience for that sort of book," I tell her, "Give me science fiction or something like a Lord of the Rings."

"Yeah," she says, "My dad likes to read that stuff, too."

I clutch at my heart.

"No!" she says, aghast, "I'm not saying you're old! My dad's not old! He's 43!"

Yes, about 5 years older than me. AND A GRANDFATHER!

I think we started watching The Singing Bee because we'd just wrapped up seeing Joey Fatone every week on Dancing with the Stars and he caught our eye in the commercials.  I didn't even know until after it started that there's another show, Don't Forget the Lyrics, which is basically the exact same concept only with much more complicated rules.

Singing Bee is growing on me.  I mean, come on, how awesome is a show that uses Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for the opening round?  Isn't that the song whose lyrics are so famously garbled that MTV used to run scrolling text at the bottom of the video?  I was really hoping for someone to bust out the line "A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido!" but they actually went with a different line that I can't remember.

The show's got all the elements of a winner (except one, which I'll get to in a second):

1. Contestants are chosen at pseudo-random from the audience, and then immediately whittled down from 6 to 4 in a quick singing contest.  You can immediately bond with the ones chosen and decide who you like.  Compare that to something like Deal or No Deal (or Identity, or Bingo Night…) where there's one contestant who was basically hand picked by the producers because she's not afraid to act like an idiot on television, and you just don't care.  You either want her to win or you don't.  But when there's 4 contestants you can pick your favorite.
2. You can play along.  They're picking songs that everybody knows.  Question-driven shows will almost always have categories where you say "Oh, I have no idea" and then you don't have a shot.
3. Each round lasts long enough that you can cheer for your favorite.  Last night during one of the games a contestant had to sing long enough to fill in 15 blanks in a song, and she did it perfectly.  With each word you're thinking "Wow, she's good, she's going to do the whole song!"  Meanwhile her opponent got almost every word wrong.
4. Speaking of which, if somebody gets it wrong, it has room to be funny.  Like when the Nirvana music stops and the guy sings, "I'm so stupid, I don't know this!"
5. Variety.  I've heard everything from Sweet Home Alabama to Mickey ("Oh Mickey you're so fine…") to, well, Nirvana.  You don't get bored.  You may not like every song, but chances are you know every song.
6. The rules are easy.  Each round is basically "We'll sing part of a song, you sing the rest."  It appears they vary the middle game, which I like.  One week it was "We will jumble up the words in front of you and you have to rearrange them" (which sounds hard!), this week it was "You have to fill in the blank words."  Compare this to Don't Forget the Lyrics, which has been described as a combination of Jeopardy and Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, complete with choosing your own category, having lifelines, escalating prize levels, etc…  Makes me think of that "Bamboozled" game from Friends where you had to go through the mudpit to enter the Golden Hut and pull the monkey's tail.

The one problem I have with the game right now is that it's too easy.  I've seen two episodes, and both times somebody won that $50k prize.  Remember when Millionaire first came out?  You know what made that such a huge hit?  That it took forever for someone to will the million dollars.  When somebody finally won, it made the news.  So when you've got a game where somebody wins the big prize every week, you don't get the same anticipation that comes with "Wow, she was so close…maybe someone will get it next week."

Check it out.  It's a fun show.  Not sure it's going to be a runaway hit like a Millionaire (or Dancing with the Stars), but it's great for a summer night's television watching.

I had not heard about Sibling Rivalry until my brother in law got us a gift certificate last year. The gimmick behind this restaurant is that there are two head chefs, brothers David and Bob, and each has his own menu. The menu is divided up by main ingredients – tuna, beef, pork, mushrooms, etc… – and each chef opts to make either an appetizer or an entree using the ingredient. You create your meal by picking whatever seems good. (There's a different style where you pick a chef, more on that in a bit.)

The restaurant is quite nice, not fancy enough that you need jacket and tie but still the sort of place that ran us $400 for 4 people (counting wine and cocktails). There is a bar area, and a patio where you can eat outside. The waitstaff is very attentive, I dropped a fork and it was replaced instantly. They were just a bit more forward than I prefer, honestly. When the two ladies at our table both decided to have the swordfish, the waiter tried to convince one of them to try another seafood dish. And when I had the beef, he asked if I was sure I didn't want to try the beef special. I can see why they do it – for a restaurant whose theme is all about the variety of ingredients you want to encourage diners to try a variety of things. But, still, I saw the specials menu, thank you, and I chose what I chose.

And that's really all there is to say about the place. The food was very good. Our table actually ended up getting all of their appetizers from Chef David's side of the menu, and all the entrees from Chef Bob's side. We didn't plan it that way, but it just worked out. The tuna sushi appetizer was particularly outstanding, and I was very pleased with my flat iron steak in chili sauce. And the creme brulee was warm, as it should be. I do so hate cold creme brulee.

The theme only goes so far. The menu is fixed – you can look it up online (which we did). So it's not like every night the chefs are back there deciding what to make, ala Iron Chef. They actually do that on Monday night, something they call "Fight Night." On Monday (not every week), you order "prix fixe" where you pick a chef, pay a fixed price, and then your dinner is whatever that chef decides to make. I would guess that it's similar to a Japanese steakhouse where you'd pick a main ingredient like the chicken or something, and then the chef does something special with chicken for you.

A very nice place, highly recommended. Be careful with the wine. We asked for a bottle that would complement swordfish and pork (I was on my own with the beef) and we never asked what it cost. My bad for not taking the receipt home with me, we just looked at the bottom line and threw some cash at it. After I thought about it and added it up in my head, I'm thinking we got a little screwed on the wine thing. Oh, well. Live and learn.

This guy wanted out of jury duty so badly that he filled out the form saying that he was a racist, homophobic habitual liar. But his real stupidity came on the stand when the judge asked "Are you lying to me now?" and the guy said, "I could be." The judge said, "I think you're intentionally trying to get out of jury duty," and the man said, "That's true."

Judge immediately had him arrested and charged with perjury, among other things. Love it.

Overheard yesterday on the swingset:

The neighbor's son, who is five, turns to my 3yr old and says, "Remember that time we bonked heads?"

"Yes," says my 3yr old.

"That was funny," he says, and continues playing.

In case you don't get the reference in the title…

I knew what High School Musical was just based on the sheer amount of television I watch. But I was surprised when my at the time 4yr old started getting into it. It seems that her friend was having a HSMusical-themed birthday party. Fair enough. So we watched the movie with the kids, and other than the singing and dancing, I think the plot went right over their heads. Science decathalons? Basketball playoffs? Eh.

Fast forward nearly a year, and for K's fifth birthday we got tickets to take her and her sister to the play. I was curious how they'd handle it. I'm a big theatre geek, but I prefer my stuff a little bit on the … deeper? side.

I have to say, I was impressed very impressed. The plot is for the kids, of course – smart girl and dumb jock boy get together to sing for the musical, despite all the cliques that tell them they're breaking the status quo (in a musical number that for some reason makes me think of Little Shop of Horrors' "Down On Skid Row"). The singing and dancing is actually very good. If you like big, full-cast numbers that shake the back wall of the theatre, that's exactly what you get with this one. There is one really weird scene in the middle where there's a slow love song, and for some reason a couple of dancers come out and do this little ballet thing while the stars are singing. Very West Side Story. But that was the only real slow point.

A special nod, too, to the stage direction. There's a point in this place, near the finale, that has no less than three crowd scenes going on simultaneously – the musical auditions (where two students dance some sort of tango/rhumba number), a science competition, and…get this…an actual slow motion basketball game, complete with two teams of players, ball in play, and basketball net with backboard suspended from the ceiling. All timed out to a single musical number, no less. I was quite impressed. Maybe not helicopter-in-Miss-Saigon impressed, but still it was damned cool.

The kids did very well. K kept asking me "Where's Gabrielle?" until I pointed her out, and then she was happy – until the second half when she kept asking me what song they were on. I think she was getting tired. E, on the other hand, appeared to be watching a different show than the rest of us. When I asked her favorite character she said something that, as best I could figure out, involved "The beauty who danced with the beast."

Overall, very impressed, glad we went, excellent show for the family.

"Daddy, how you spell fireworks?"

"F I R E W O R K S."

"And how you spell me?"

"M E."

"Exactly not right. I gonna spell it all by myself. E L I Z B T H."

She was actually pretty close. We gave the children some long names.