Yes, I'm a geek

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to present This Week's "The Big Bang Theory" Moment From Carl's Real, Actual, Non-edited or Embellished Life.

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INT. CHILD'S BEDROOM -- NIGHT

A father, CARL, and son, CONNOR, sit on a glider. CONNOR is in CARL's lap, and CARL is reading from the children's board book "STAR WARS SPACESHIPS".

CARLPointing to a picture of the DEATH STAR surrounded by other ships, straight from the final battle scene in RETURN OF THE JEDI.

            Death Star... this ship has a Dangerous Laser.

CARL closes the book, revealing another picture of the DEATH STAR on the back cover. This second image is just the DEATH STAR, there are no other ships.

             The End.

CONNORPointing at the DEATH STAR on the back of the book.

            Moon?

CARLSmiles.
      (BEAT)

            That's no moon. It's a space station.


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This has been This Week's "The Big Bang Theory" Moment From Carl's Real, Actual, Non-edited or Embellished Life. Please join us next week for another exciting installment.

"Where's Elvis?"

A few weeks back we were out at a Chili's for lunch and to keep Connor occupied we were having him point out things in the ubiquitous photos that cover their walls. "Where's the doggie?", "Where's the airplane?", etc.

Then, just for fun, while looking at one of the photos of a couple in Elvis wigs & glasses wearing Elvis T-Shirts, I asked Connor, "Where's Elvis?"

And, *BAM*, his hand shoots right to the picture of Elvis on the T-Shirt.

Shocked expressions followed by raucous laughter. Thinking this might be a fluke, I asked him to point out a few other things and then came back to the Elvis question and *BAM* right back to Elvis.

Now Misha and I have never taught him "Elvis". To our knowledge he's never seen Elvis and has no idea who Elvis is. He has a "Ten Little Elvi" book that was a gift, but since it's not a board book we haven't given it to him yet, so that can't be it.

So this begs the question...

Did someone teach our son Elvis without our knowledge... or is Elvis just something we're all born with.

Sounds like a great "In Search Of" episode to me.

Harry Potter & The Sub-Prime Mortgage

Suffice it to say, there's going to be spoilers in this post.

I finished reading the final Harry Potter book recently and, though I believe it was about as good a send-off as we could hope for, there are a few discussion points to be had IMHO.

First - Death
For a book that takes its title from a mythical group of three items that together make the wearer the "master of death", there sure is a lot of dying in this book. And a lot of seemingly random, needless, senseless dying.

Sure, it's a product of our times, but there are a few "rules" out there, especially in Hollywood, such as "The Dog Never Dies". Show me a movie other than Old Yeller (or any other movie where an animal is the lead character) where a dog bites it. Even that lame Stallone movie where everyone's trapped in the tunnel under the east river... that darn dog lives.

But what character is the first to go? Hedwig the Owl. C'mon. Cute white snowy owl that we've come to know and love over the course of 6 books as Harry's trusty messenger and only summer friend... BAM hit by a killing curse and then unceremoniously blown up BY HARRY in a falling motorcycle side-car.

Beyond that, there's the death of a minor, death of parents resulting in the orphaning of a child, extraction of trophies from the dead... you get the picture.

Second - Deus Ex Machina
Something I've always loved about Rowling's writing was that she'd sneak something into a story that seemed trivial, yet proved to be a useful bit of information a book or two later.

Sorcerer's Stone opens with Harry speaking to a snake, a trait that seems merely magical to us unknowing muggles, yet this plays a very important role in Chamber of Secrets and future books that delve into the connection between Harry and Voldemort.

Later in the same book, it's revealed that Fred & George Weasley seem to know their way around the school better than anyone else but it's not until much later in Prisoner of Azkaban, that it is revealed they've been using the Marauder's Map to find their way around and learn about all the secret passages in and out of Hogwarts.

The twins' joke shop, the Room of Requirement, the list goes on of items and themes alluded to and later revealed.

So was I the only one that was competely broadsided by the Hallows?

With the possible exception of Harry's Cloak, there's really no mention of them at all throughout the entire series. Maybe I just need to read it over again from start to finish. Yeah, that's what I'll do. (evil laugh)

Finally - "19 Years Later"
For a guy who evolved from "the boy who lived" to the boy who killed Voldemort, you'd expect he'd be a bit more celebrated and swarmed by fans. Further, you'd expect that any evil or crazy wizard out there looking to make a name for themselves would be itching to challenge him to prove they are more powerful.

Not that I'd want him to be eternally haunted by his past or paranoid in the epilogue, but it just feels a bit too suburban the way she's written it. It's almost as if he's settled into a happy, safe muggle-like lifestyle with 3 kids and a mortgage.

But I really did like it...
Besides all that, I really liked the book and thoroughly enjoyed the series. Frankly, I can't wait to see this particular book on the big screen. The battles at the end should be quite a treat to see with all the giants, acromantulas, wizards, thestrals, centaurs and furniture in the mix. With any luck, they'll leave enough time over to do justice to the rest of the story.

So what did you think of the book and series?

Busy... busy... busy... repeat...

This blog was a great idea until I got a job. Now I’m trying not to remember how long it’s been since I last updated it.

So what’s been happening?

I've been working
Turns out that the Business Analyst position is pretty close to being right in line with the work I was doing at my last job, so I’ve been doing a pretty good job getting up to speed on their systems. My health care background has helped help tremendously.

The good news is that I’m now earning an income and we can start saving money instead of living check to check and trying not to dip into our savings so that we have a nice chunk of change to plunk down on a house. The bad news is that this saving period won’t last long because we can also now start looking for that house.

I’ve been at the job 2 weeks now and already there are a pile of projects on my
desk that threaten to become overwhelming. Needless to say, I haven’t had time to
update my blog from work (nor would I, boss). ;-)

We’ve been house hunting.
As mentioned above, we've begun the arduous task of hunting for a house. There are a ton out there, but unfortunately, nothing that remarkable. Sure, the homes are more affordable here, but when you get down to it it's the same as anywhere else. The nice neighborhoods with the good schools are all expensive and the closer you live to the city, the more you're going to get for your house.

A few houses looked promising this past weekend, and it's a good thing because it feels like we've been through about 50 already. One was move-in ready, beautiful, but had a smallish lot and very small backyard. It was also a full brick facade with vinyl siding around the sides and back... which is a peeve of mine since I'm of the opinion that if you're going to do brick, do brick. Siding with some brick accents? Ok. Full brick front with siding? Not so zesty.

The other house was larger, older and sitting on 1.5 acres. Wow, talk about a huge lot. The home was semi-remodeled in an awkward way with a modern full bath downstairs and a country-style kitchen. The rest of the house was original, which was a shame because the master bath was hideous and would have been the first thing we'd re-do before even moving in. The price was a bit high, but it was on the market for 4 months already, so we figured they would be willing to negotiate.

Trouble is, someone else beat us to the punch and put an offer on it today. I'll look back on this in a few months and thank them, I'm sure, for making the decision for us. It would have been a very nice home, but a potential money pit and we don't really need that with a baby on the way.

We can’t decide on a middle name.
We’ve been trying to decide on a middle name for our impending son. There’s a tradition in my family to honor a relative who has passed on and we’ve had a few deaths in the family since our wedding but we can’t decide on any names based on these family members.

There’s a thought to name him after my grandmother on my mother’s side, but I can’t exactly give a girl’s name to my son and still be able to look him square in the face. My mom countered that we could use her Hebrew name only and that she has her uncle’s Hebrew name, but I'd want to somehow anglicanize that name and it probably would come out strange. Now if we were having a girl, I'd have no problem with Rene as a middle name (which is my grandma's name without the "I"... figure it out, win a gold star...)

We saw Harry Potter 5 and The Simpson’s Movie
Both really good. They managed to whittle down The Order Of The Phoenix pretty well to its major points without leaving you totally at a loss for what was going on like in The Goblet Of Fire. Considering that TOOTP was the longest book, the fact that it's also the shortest movie is quite an accomplishment. I'm actually thankful that they took out some of the story lines (S.P.E.W for one), but a bit miffed that they completely ignored the fact that they left out that the Prophecy could have been interpreted to have been for one of Harry's classmates and not Harry. Then again, Neville and the Deathly Hollows just doesn't sound right.

The Simpsons Movie was everything you hoped it would be, but maybe not quite enough at the same time. Great jokes, great gags, all the characters being the most true versions of themselves possible: Bart skating and defying authority, Lisa concerned about the environment, Homer doing completely foolish things over and over and over and Marge trying to keep the family together through all of it. With the exception of a few CG scenes (and some 3D animation similar to the style used in Futurama) the movie was largely exactly what you'd see on TV, just longer and packed with more jokes. The movie even says as much, mocking you - the moviegoer - for having paid good money to sit there and watch it. You can stay until the very end, but there's not much that's rewarding to be seen after the Simpson family gets up and leaves halfway through the credits.

I’ve finished reading Harry Potter 6
Bring on the Deathly Hollows! In The Half-Blood Prince (who wasn't who I thought he was) Rowling obviously learned a lesson from The Order Of The Phoenix and cut the exposition and tangential story lines to the bare minimum required to move the plot forward. It was welcome, as the book was more tightly paced, but at the same time it felt a bit lacking in the rich detail that she has painted in previous books.

People call TOOTP a transitional book, merely existing to set up the final 2 books of the series. In my mind, that distinction belongs to The Half-Blood Prince. Without giving too much away to the 3 people who haven't read it or haven't heard about what happens from a friend or online somewhere, Rowling pretty much makes the final Harry/Voldemort confrontation we're all expecting in the final book possible, plausible, and ever more dangerous than any to come before.

Can't wait to burn through the final book.

The pugs are in Doggie Day Care
Now that we're at work all day, the dogs have had the house to themselves. After eating one of our dining room chairs a while back, we managed to find a gate wide enough to block off that part of the house so they could have the rest and the outside. Unfortunately, the couches are still in their area.

Day 1 on the job and we come home to a house filled with fluff. One of the back cushions had a stain on it so my wife had thrown it into the wash and left the exposed pillow part on the couch. This was apparently the "kill" signal for our pugs and they did a handy job eviscerating it. It's still sitting in the laundry room awaiting triage.

Day 2 passed without any destruction, but with a fair share of fluff in the pup's poop. At least it was passing through them. We looked into "Doggie Day Care" places where we could drop off the dogs in the morning and make sure they weren't tearing up the house, but at $20/day/dog, even with a pre-purchase discount we were still looking at $600+ per month to do this and decided it was too expensive.

Day 3 and they turned their attention on another couch pillow, but this one was a seat cushion, so in addition to the fluff, there was a firm foam core. This core was partially eaten and there was dog vomit on the floor when we got home. Clyde threw up again later in the evening and then again in the morning. Each time, it was only kibble, no foam. So we were worried that he had a blockage from eating the foam and took him to the vet where they kept him under observation, took x-rays and eventually released him back to us once it was clear that things were *ahem* "moving along".

So $550 later we decided that $600/month was a small price to pay compared to possible vet bills for whatever horrible thing they decided to get themselves into next. The pups were pretty freaked out at first, getting pushed into a room with several other dogs all crowding them as the new arrivals, but they've been there for over a week now and seem to be doing well so until we get a house with a good dog solution (read: a room we can close off completely and securely with a dog door to the outside so they can make) we'll just keep them in Day Care.

So... what's new in your life?