Touch You Last

I'm in the midst of watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, and, well, it's just there. It's not a bad movie; it's beautifully shot and it's interesting enough, but it's not great, and it's not vital, and it's not important. And it just got me to thinking. I've seen a lot of movies in the past few years. Movies that I thought were important (or great, or vital), and as it turned out -- only a very small percentage met any of those standards. So... would anyone care to see my movie recommendations in those areas? Not in regards to whether you should see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen (which you shouldn't, FYI) , but whether you should see the Oscar Winner for Best Picture in 1960, or how many of the AFI Top 100 you should bother to check out. Is this useful information to anyone? Will you act on it? ( that 's the important question) If the answer is no, please don't post anything at all. But if you're intere...

Teddy, I’m addressing this one directly to you. Your mom often asks questions about what I was like as a kid. I’m no good for answers because I can barely remember the start of this day, and my parents only offer up generalities: Dave was quiet, stayed in his room a lot, was on the computer all the time, was very pale. Frankly, we were afraid he might kill us in our sleep. So, I don’t know that much about what I was like as I kid, and what I want to tell you here is exactly what you were like when you just turned one. Your favourite pastime right now is bouncing heavy toys off the hardwood floor. Actually, what you like even better is when you throw something against the hardwood and then it bounces under the c ouch. Then you try to retrieve it… and you can’t… and you get angry and shouty… and then we dig it out for you… and then you throw it back under. At present, that’s your idea of a good time. You also like to slap the cats. Gunther especially, but that’s only because he’ll endur...

Oh, right – momentum. Yeah, I blew that resolution as fast as damn possible, but if it’s any consolation I blew all my resolutions. Huge. But my plan is to reboot as of today. There are two big mistakes I always make when I commit to something. First, if I fail for even a day, I immediately throw up my hands, say fuck it , and forget about even trying again. Second, if I pick a start date that’s some time in the future, I’ll squeeze in as much as that behavior I’m trying to avoid as humanly possible between now and then. (The ‘behaviours to avoid’ almost always involve sloth and gluttony, FYI). So anyway: here we are again, trying to get a routine going. What’s really great, and what this post is really about, is that 2010 seems to be the year the bloggers came back. They all didn’t go away, obviously. Some continue to be pro-stars; some haven’t stopped blogging since the day they started. (A wise eye will see that those first two links go to the same great site.) But the ...

Starting is hard, at least for me. Once I establish a routine and find the rhythm of something, I have no trouble keeping it up. Actually, once I've got a patern down it becomes harder for me to stop. But starting off: I'll do almost anything to get out of those first two or three attempts. Anyhow, I'll stop beating around the bush and tell you what I'm trying to tell you. I want to become a serial killer. No, wait. That's not right. Sorry, I'm writing this and watching Dexter as I write this. I'm trying to get back into the habit of writing. It's one of those resolution things. I'm not too particular about what I write, just that I do it. (That might change once I get my momentum on. Given enough time, I might get around to that erotic zombie novel I've been thinking about all these years.) Three hours a week of writing; that's the plan. It seemed like a pretty small commitment when I made it, but it gets larger and larger the ...

Of late, the changes in Teddy seem to come on a daily basis. He’s broken out so many new skills, and it’s like they’ve al l come at once. We’ll start with the big one: walking. First steps came over three weeks ago: he was holding onto the couch and then he turned towards Sarah and took three little steps before falling over. Before Christmas, we were able to coax him into walking back and forth between the two of us (as long as we were no more then two feet apart). In Georgetown, on the last day before we came back home, he really started perfecting it; fifteen to twenty steps at a go. Then yesterday, he performed a few turns and started catching himself with his hands when he fell forward (much preferable to the ‘I’ve just been cut down by a lumberjack,’ face-first plummet). He’s had his first words too, as Sarah reported here and here . ‘Uh-oh’ is the most reliable one, followed by “Dad Dad Dad” – although you really can’t get him to say that one back to you (and it’s not totally cl...

The dust has settled, the guacamole has been retired, and MM5 is done for another year. Good line-up, probably not the best one yet, but definitely less duds than any year prior. More of my thoughts and the thoughts of people far smarter than me can be found in our post-game podcast here . Be warned that the audio quality is a bit raw and goes from quiet to deafening on more than one occasion. Before I stop talking about the Movie Marathon for another twelve months, I would be very remiss if I didn't thank the follow folks: Sarah - While I'm the programmer for this show, Sarah takes on the much harder task of running this party. As always, the party was amazing. An in addition, she also did a lot of Teddy juggling and taxiing of people and babies to and fro. I couldn't and wouldn't do this without you. Grandma Nonna and Grandpa - Sarah's parents took Teddy overnight and for a huge chunk of Sunday. Thank you so, so much for helping us out. I'm greatly in...

Okay, so we're almost at the end. I haven't mentioned it yet (because it's true every year as it is this year) but all the good stuff is on Jorge's site. I had some funny feelings about the end of this movie list, and they've proven a little true. I was worried they wouldn't be edge-of-your-seat enough, or compelling enough to keep us going. Outpost wasn't all that scary (but the company kept the energy up). Moon is good, but it's more of a slow burn. You really have to give it some effort. Not a hell of a lot, but some. Anyways, it's good so far, but I don't begrudge anyone who's taking a powder right now. More later. Tired, and can't compose a while lot of coherent thoughts.