The Lego Movie: On Specialness, Creativity, and Boundless Cross-Branding

This is not a movie review. I wish I could write those, but I'm not really equipped with the necessary cinematic vocabulary, and besides that, I'd probably either spoil movies by telling all the good parts (for the flicks I like) or struggle to find anything interesting to say about them (for the ones I don't).

This is just some observations that came to mind last night as I took in The Lego Movie with my boy, Caleb. We both love Legos. I've enjoyed them all my life. He has thousands in his collection, and playing with them is among our favorite things to do together. This movie was one of the best we've ever seen together. I highly recommend it, for all ages, for boys and girls, and especially for anyone who loves Legos.

Now, without further ado, I give you my thoughts...

The Lego Movie is intelligent and entertaining on several levels. It is very funny. It makes heavy use of visual and thematic gags inherent in the idea of live plastic toys, in the tradition of the Toy Story trilogy. It gives an interesting new texture to the standard framework of a regular Joe standing up against a powerful, evil force, winning a girl's heart and inspiring his friends along the way, and ultimately saving the world. What it does best, however, is use Legos to illustrate the ideal of original thought, unrestrained creativity, or (at the risk of applying a phrase that's becoming ironically clichéd) "thinking outside the box."

The beautiful thing about Legos and part of what makes them such intelligent toys is their limitless re-usability and recombinant potential. Erector sets, Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs can be assembled in original ways, encouraging imaginative play, but even these are limited in the variety of configurations they'll allow. Only Legos permit and encourage a virtually infinite scope of new combinations.

In his typically excellent essay "To the Legoland Station," Michael Chabon explains a concept that many have delighted in, the Lego company wisely encourages, and The Lego Movie pushes rather overtly: the "saving power of the lawless imagination." Having enjoyed square and rectangular bricks in six basic colors--the only kind of Legos made at the time--during his own childhood, Chabon now watches his children combine intricate, more specialized, and much more detailed pieces in ways that fly in the face of convention and of the relatively simplistic play of his youth.

Here's an example he gives relative to spacecraft and minifigs (the human-ish characters of the Lego world):

"My children have used aerodynamic, streamlined bits and pieces of a dozen Star Wars kits, mixed with Lego dinosaur jaws, Lego aqualungs, Lego doubloons, Lego tibias, to devise improbably beautiful spacecraft far more commensurate than George Lucas's with the mysteries of other galaxies and alien civilizations. They have equipped the manga-inspired Lego figures with Lego ichthyosaur flippers. When he was still a toddler, Abraham liked to put a glow-in-the-dark bedsheet-style Lego ghost costume over a Lego Green Goblin minifig and seat him on a Sioux horse, armed with a light saber, then make the Goblin do battle with a minifig Darth Vader, mounted on a black horse, armed with a bow and arrow."

I've often joined Caleb in a similar hybridization of vehicles and characters, combining elements from diverse platforms. Lego offers play sets based on dozens of movies, comic books, characters and mythologies both pre-existing and of the company's own invention, real human endeavors, and historical periods, and Caleb owns a fairly eclectic variety of these. I create with him not to deliberately flex my artistic muscles or appear clever from the perspective of a brilliant essayist's toddler son. Like Caleb, I do it simply because it is fun, and Legos lend themselves to it so easily.

The Lego Movie opens with a day in the life of Emmet, one of countless citizens of a Lego city, whose lives are marked by repetition and blind obedience. They share an almost worshipful respect for corporate mentality, industrial efficiency, modern urban lifestyle, and especially for The Instructions, written documents that tell them exactly what to do minute-by-minute. Although Emmet seems happy and joins his fellow citizens in a rendition of "Everything is Awesome," we detect a dystopian undercurrent.

Emmet becomes unwittingly entangled in a struggle between Octan, the mega-corporation in control of his city, and an intrepid group who oppose it by searching for a small plastic object cleverly named the Piece of Resistance. This item is predicted by ancient prophecy to fall into the hands of the Special and has power to stop the Kragle, a terrible weapon possessed by Octan's evil leader, President Business.

Not unpredictably, Emmet winds up holding the Piece of Resistance, is dubbed the Special, and therefore must find a way to penetrate Octan's fortress. Despite the expectation others have for him to be the most extraordinary person in the universe, Emmet's mind is almost totally devoid of innovation. Here is a pretty well done iteration of a common literary theme: the likable Everyman who feels unfit for the world-saving burden thrust upon him, à la Moses, Frodo Baggins, and others.

There follows an epic adventure through some of the various worlds that Emmet learns comprise the Lego universe: his own city, the American Old West, Cloud Cuckoo Land, and even the high seas aboard a submarine and a pirate ship. (Because what epic adventure would be complete without this?)

We soon learn the exact nature of the Kragle, and this is key to the movie's central message. It does not kill people or destroy property in the usual manner, but glues Lego pieces together so they cannot ever be re-purposed. It ends creativity and true progress as it sentences all within its reach to an everlasting static condition, powerless to change.

Also important to my discussion is the hugeness of the movie's cast of characters. Besides the several new players introduced in it, there are dozens of comic book superheroes, historical figures, Star Wars humans, aliens, and droids, and stock characters. Some of these come from Lego's proprietary collection (such as the 1980s Astronaut), but most are practically universal in human storytelling (e.g., ghosts, mummies, pirates, etc.). There are no fewer than three wizards: Tolkien's Gandalf, Rowling's Dumbledore, and Vitruvius, who debuts here. Even vehicles from other stories take on minor roles: the Batmobile, Wonder Woman's invisible jet, and Han Solo's Millennium Falcon are characters of a sort.

Numerous though the characters are, their real effectiveness results not from their number, but from the breadth of their origins. I can't think of another movie that co-opts so many pre-existing characters, from so many other stories. This feature, which is part of what makes the movie so fun, is the same thing that has helped catapult Lego to tremendous popularity and success in recent years. The company has made immense cross-branding efforts. Their toys, characters, and themes include and are included in many non-Lego platforms, genres, media, and products.

A few years ago, I wrote in a blog post, "While at the game store, I took a few minutes to browse the used discs and spotted a cheap copy of Lego Star Wars. We picked it up for our boy, Caleb, and it's a huge hit! This is a video game based on a toy that's based on a movie... I want a T-shirt with this game on it!" It turns out that they make these T-shirts, and Caleb now owns a few of them.

Though we've watched several lesser Lego movies, produced for DVD and also released on Netflix, none of these matched the grandeur of The Lego Movie. It is Lego's first really ambitious, feature-length, big-budget film production. Having enjoyed Lego toys, books, video games, T-shirts, and DVDs, we were excited to see what a big movie studio could do with our favorite toys. We had high hopes for the movie's quality, and we were not disappointed. 

Unlike the hybrids assembled by Chabon's children, characters in the movie are generally put together "correctly," i.e., people have matching legs, torso, arms, head, and hair, and vehicles tend to have a similar consistency. The movie itself, however, is a hodge-podge, a mix-and-matched assortment of remarkable diversity. In other words, the cast of characters and vehicles mirrors the diversity of the Lego company's offerings. There are some exceptions to the general consistency: the pirate Metalbeard consists of a typical minifig head atop an enormous body made from spare parts of many different types. Another exception comes at the climax of the struggle against President Business, when members of the resistance convince everyone to reject The Instructions and assemble pieces in new and unconventional ways.

This revolt is the movie's most obvious expression of the message I identified early in my essay. The filmmakers made The Instructions very closely resemble the printed instructions included with every real Lego set, which help consumers build a model into its intended form. In showing the movie characters' Instructions as a tool of the oppressive mega-corporation and a crutch for the mindless masses, Lego satirizes its own product. By the end of the movie, we can hardly avoid an inclination to shirk compliance with published standards and forge our own paths.

Chabon notes his children's instinctive mastery of this inclination: "Kids write their own manuals in a new language made up of the things we give them and the things that derive from the peculiar wiring of their heads. The power of Lego is revealed only after the models have been broken up or tossed, half finished, into the drawer."

So maybe that was a weak attempt at a review, after all. I hope I didn't spoil too much of the movie for those who have yet to watch it. I'm sure my family will see it many more times in the coming months and years. I'll be happy if it continues to stimulate and inspire me the way it did on my first viewing. I especially hope it causes Caleb to repeatedly laugh as freely as he did last night.

Improving On the Classics

Warning! The following post contains a big movie spoiler. Don't read any further if you're the type who likes sappy drama and you've never seen Little Women. You should only proceed if 1) you don't care about movies like that, or 2) you've already seen it. (I think that covers roughly 100% of the human race.) 

Cupcake (a.k.a. Celeste, my spousal unit, the wife-inator) and I don't have exactly the same taste in movies. It's not that I mind her movies so much; I just enjoy them in a different way. While she likes to sit quietly and concentrate on the dialog, characters, and social drama, I find it fun to add my own witty commentary. As you can imagine, this leads to some great conversations.

Recently, she and our daughters were engrossed in the screen adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. (The version with Susan Sarandon, Winona Ryder, and young Kirsten Dunst.) I've seen most of this movie before, so I knew what was coming in the part where the girl gets really sick.

We had the following fun discussion:

Me: Is this the part where she dies from AIDS?

Cupcake: She doesn't die from AIDS! It's cholera. She gets it from holding the neighbors' baby.

Me: Whatever. Same thing.

Cupcake: How can you defile a classic like that?! [From her tone of voice and facial expression, you'd think I'd just scrawled a mustache on the Mona Lisa.]

Me: I don't know, if by "defile" you mean make better, and by "classic" you mean boring chick flick, I guess I just have a talent for it.

Cupcake: Well, you'd better STOP!

Me: Okay, [whispered too quietly for her to hear] if by "stop" you mean think of some even better comments to bring out next time you're watching Pride and Prejudice or Steel Magnolias.

She's so lucky to have me, because movie nights would be very dull without my contributions.


Edit: True story. I published this post late last night, and this morning the girls watched Fried Green Tomatoes. I got to tell them, "Here comes the part where the guy gets killed by a train," and there was nothing anyone could say, because he does! Ditto the part where they chop up Mary-Louise Parker's husband, barbecue him, and feed him to the investigating officer. These chick flicks are great.

Solitaire

The other day, boy genius Caleb was begging me to play a card game with him, but I had a lot of yard work, so I put him off. Don't judge me. I had already played with him for quite a while that morning. Sometimes a dad has to go out and do what needs doing.

He followed me out and set up in the driveway. Then he started the game without me, taking a toy penguin for his opponent.

"Oh nothing, really. Just sitting here all alone on the concrete, getting
sunburned while I party with an inanimate friend. What else is there to do?"

I can't decide if this is the saddest thing I've ever caused and I'm a shameful, horrible father, or if it's an inspiring display of independence and resourcefulness. Maybe a little of each?

And I'm not sure who won the game. If Caleb played like he does with me, he probably cheated.

Mr. Productivity

It's been about a week since I wrote anything here, but I haven't exactly been goofing off. On the contrary, I got all kinds of stuff done lately. It's as if my last name were Workerton, and my first name, Workie.

I did stuff in the yard:

See that in-ground faucet? It wasn't there before. I had to dig pretty deep for the pipe it attaches to. After finishing the installation, I turned on the supply valve, and it worked! No leaks. Water comes out when I turn on the faucet, and stops when I turn it off. Success! Oh, one little thing though... another faucet that I recently installed in a different part of the yard used to work, but now it doesn't. Where's the emoticon for a puzzled look and head scratching? Pipes are tricky!

I played appliance repairman with our washing machine, which recently went on the fritz. (Whatever "the fritz" is, lots of things at our place seem to go on it.)

I had almost every part of this unit out, and somehow managed to get it all back together. And it works! Washes clothes again. Rinses and spins them too. And there are no leaks. After finishing this job, I only had a few screws left over. Obviously they were extra and unneeded, like your appendix. I'm pretty much a genius with electronic and mechanical things, and I (usually) save a fortune by not calling in the professionals. That digital multimeter isn't just there to look good in the picture. Okay, that's largely why it's there, but I did use it once during the repair process.

My neighbor was installing tile in his kitchen this weekend, so I went over and helped with that. We did pretty good, for amateurs.

It looks like wood, but it's actually ceramic tile. Cool, huh?

I'm definitely NOT a genius with tile, so I wanted to get some experience (in someone else's house, hehe!). I like learning new skills.

For the biggest job of all, I spent some time in the garage. There's a problem with the clutch on my old Ford pickup, so the transmission had to come out. Here's the truck:

And here's the transmission:

Notice that the two are now completely separated--proof I was successful. I did this alone, with no help at all. I do not recommend this method. If you're considering removing a transmission, take my advice and get a friend to join in the fun. It's much less exciting that way, and excitement isn't something you need in your garage. During this operation, I invented several new swear words, never before spoken by man. Please don't remind me that removal is the easy part, and I still need to put this back in. I'll nearly destroy cross that bridge when I come to it. Hopefully I will not end up with too many extra bolts.

A guy can't just work all the time though, can he? Sunday we had lots of family and friends over, and we cooked out. I grilled burgers, hot dogs, and chicken kabobs, and also made a huge batch of Dutch oven potatoes.

Thin sliced potatoes + bacon + cheese + 1.5 hrs in an iron pot = culinary bliss.

I must have not used enough charcoal, because these took forever to cook. When they eventually got done, they were delicious. I guess that's a win.

So you could say I'm pretty handy around the house. Fixing things and building things... even cooking things sometimes. I don't do it perfectly, but I can do it all.

Now, for my next project...

Jennifer Lawrence for President of the World!

Just a little something to share with you tonight, because I love it...

Photo courtesy of, um, some website Google found for me.

It seems whenever Jennifer Lawrence (who has a serious shot at dethroning Zooey Deschanel as Queen of Quirk) tries to do glamorous, she comes across as goofy, hilarious... and so CUTE!

Click! --> Mashable: Jennifer Lawrence Photobombs SJP at Some Stupid Gala <-- Click!

I was delighted to stumble onto this story today, because 1) Just look at how funny J-Law is, as usual, and 2) She did this to the grossly over-rated Sarah Jessica Parker. Sarah, you might as well face the fact that you've just been owned. By Katniss Everdeen. (Might be time to throw in the towel.)

Sarah showed up wearing a hat that's ridiculous even by Hollyweird standards and what looks like a gown made of gold foil. From where I sit, she was asking for it!

I stared at my screen, watching the GIF play about 300 times, and could do so all night. Jennifer, you have both hypnotized me and restored my faith in humanity. You're my hero.

A Few Worthy Diversions, or Where I've Been Lately

Hey folks! I have not written much lately. By "not much" I mean nothing, and by "lately" I mean the past three weeks.

So what has occupied me, you ask? What could be important enough to keep me away from the ol' blog for so long? Gather 'round, and I'll tell you a tale of home improvement, endless manual labor, and wilderness adventure!

We've been sort of remodeling our house. This is an ongoing project that started late last summer and, if everything continues to progress at its current rate, will be finished sometime around 2085. We hired a contractor to do all the major work, so we now have a garage and several rooms that were previously non-existant, plus a new roof. But we wanted to do the interior and finish work ourselves, and to refresh some of the existing rooms.

We decided the main level of the house would get hardwood floors. I bought the material weeks ago--32 big boxes full of birch tongue-and-groove planks. I got my hands on the special staple gun that tacks down the planks. I prepped a few areas of the subfloor that needed some repair work. Installing the wood was all that remained.

Do you have any idea how much work it is to install a hardwood floor? Sure, for a professional, it would only take a day or two. Three days, tops. I am a perfectionist and also an amateur at woodworking projects. Folks, this is a deadly combination. So I spent two weeks measuring, cutting, placing, and stapling birch wood flooring in place. This is pretty much all I did every day, before and after my full time job. Thank goodness my parents came to assist several days. Dad was a huge help, and he's going on sixty-eleven years old! I know how sore I was each night. I can only imagine how he felt.

The birch covers our entire entry way, dining room, kitchen, and family room. About 600 square feet in all. And it looks b-e-a-utiful! We did a downright fantastic job, if I may say so. One more (big) step checked off the home improvement list.

Cooper enjoying the new floor in our family room.

Our entry way. Please disregard the lack of base boards, and
the unpainted walls and door. I'll get to that stuff soon.

Soooo, with the floor done, I was able to take a few guilt-free days off and go on an epic motorcycle adventure with a bunch of friends. We rode about 500 miles in two days, 80% of it on dirt roads. Desolate dirt roads. Roads with no town, village, store, or sign of human presence for many miles in any direction. We rode through some of the most remote territory in the U.S.

Our route started at the Golden Spike National Historic Site, where the first transcontinental railroad was completed. From there, we retraced the path of the railroad across the Great Salt Lake desert, then turned South toward the town of Wendover, U.S.A. (We call it that because it straddles the Utah-Nevada state line.) In Wendover, most of the guys got motel rooms, but I and a few others chose to camp out. I've always felt it's not really an adventure unless you sleep on the ground. On day two, we picked up the Pony Express and Overland Stage route, following it East, back toward civilization.

I've driven some of these roads before, but never the entire loop, and never on my motorcycle. It was a sometimes hot, often tiring, occasionally scary, usually dusty, always dry, and definitely fun, rewarding trip.

We viewed the Great Salt Lake from vantage points most people don't get to see.

We rode through ghost towns, old train stops, and old Pony Express stations.

We visited graveyards, enormous valleys, rugged mountain passes, and earthwork sculpture. We even rode our motorcycles right through some gigantic art.

Since I'm aware of the internet rule that says "Pictures, or it didn't happen," here are a few shots of the weekend's fun:

My 1993 BMW R-100 GSPD, all loaded and ready to go.
It is the perfect machine for a trip like this.

Elephant Rock, just North of the lake.

An old rail bed, probably built in the 1860s, but unused now for many decades.

Scenic vistas abound. Here are millions of acres of nothing but desert.
It's surprising how much of Utah looks like this.
We're not running out of space. Water, on the other hand, is another matter.

Campsite. I slept very well that night.

A cabin at Simpson Springs Station along the Pony Express route.

Properly attired for a long day in the saddle.
Who says too much sun can make a fellow loopy?

Yoda once told Luke Skywalker, "Adventure? Excitement? A jedi craves not these things." If that's true, then a jedi I will never be. But I must admit that it was nice to come home to my wife and kids and our lovely new floor.

I Stepped Out of My Hotel and Into a Magazine

Right before I left for Korea a few weeks ago, I picked up the December 2011 issue of National Geographic magazine. I've always liked their articles and photos. I've been working through it, reading a page or two whenever I have a few minutes. (Okay, I'll just come out and say it. I like to read it while sitting on my throne.)

As always, this issue is full of good stuff: tigers, the Magellanic Clouds orbiting our galaxy, the worldwide rise of cities, and the making of the King James Bible, to name a few highlights.

In the meantime, a friend and I had a day off over here, so we went for a drive to show ourselves around the place. On our four hour excursion, we saw mountains and forests, farms and villages, the ocean, bridges, towers and factories. We found out how much we don't know about the Korean toll road system, but somehow got that worked out. 

We took a few pictures. Here's your unintimidated blogger and intrepid world traveler next to the Yellow Sea:

On the 2011 Ugly Americans Tour

Crowded cities were one thing we got more than our fair share of. As a man, I'm genetically predisposed to refuse ever admitting I'm lost, but I'll confess in hindsight that we were really lost for a little while. During that time, I snapped this picture while stopped at a red light:

Every street looks almost exactly like this. Is it any wonder we had trouble navigating?

There's nothing remarkable about this spot. On the contrary, the city we found ourselves wandering through was filled with hundreds of streets just like this. I guess that's why I took the picture--because it's very typical of our location, and it captures the mood here.

Back at the hotel, I picked up my magazine and opened to an article about Japan's nuclear zone, the region abandoned following last year's earthquake, tsunami, and radiation spillage. Here's a photo from that article, by David Guttenfelder:

An empty street in Okuma, Japan, where people have not been allowed since March 2011, but pets and farm animals freely roam

Apparently, these settings are typical not just in Japan, but throughout Asia. Either that, or we drove farther from our hotel than I thought.

Lest you think I'm naive about cultural diversity in this part of the world, I'll acknowledge that Korea and Japan, despite their remarkably similar urban landscapes, are two distinct countries, each with its own laws, customs, language, mythology, history, and national identity. Like the U.S. and Canada. (Do you think the locals will be offended if I refer to their country as the Canada of Japan?)

College degree, CHECK!

Hey, everyone. I'm BACK!

Hopefully I did not forever lose both of my readers by taking a two week break from my blog. I had a very stressful, homework-filled time, beginning around Thanksgiving and going up through Friday, December 9th. I got this idea that it would be nice to pass my classes, the last two needed for my degree. (I'm actually pretty conventional on things like this.) It seemed the only way that would happen was if I finished all my assignments. So that's what I've been occupied with lately, but now... I'm all done! Walked in the commencement, wore the cap and gown, got the dipoma (actually just a diploma cover, but they promised to send me the real thing).

It's been a long journey (six years), and often difficult, but also enriching. Now I'm looking forward to getting some sleep, catching up with my family, and rediscovering some of the hobbies I used to enjoy. Most of all, I'm looking forward to NOT spending hours upon hours in class and on homework.

I'll post some pictures later, and perhaps some reflections on Weber State University, my degree, and what I've learned in the past six years. For now, please check out The Bozo List, which I've just updated. (You have to scroll down, because the list is getting pretty long.)

We're Not Exactly a "Licensed" Day Care Center

Tonight the Missus went out with her girlfriends to get some dinner and see a teenage vampire romance movie. She deserves it, because she takes excellent care of me and our young-uns, and she very seldom takes a night off.

One of her friends has a little boy who needed a babysitter, so we said, "Why not leave him with us? We planned to stay in. The girls can entertain him, and I'll be around in case any problems arise." So that's what she did. The boy is about one, maybe two years old. I'm not sure exactly. I'm not really a baby expert.

Here is the conversation between my oldest daughter, Josie, and me about 5 minutes after the moms left:

Josie: Oh, maybe he shouldn't play downstairs where all those jars are stacked.

Me: Yeah, bring him up here... [Looking around the living room] Just keep him away from the wire cutters and the soldering iron.

Josie: Right! Our house isn't exactly "baby-proofed," is it?

Me: Not exactly. He has some toys in his diaper bag.

They fixed a snack and then turned on the TV to watch "Gnomeo and Juliet" with him. If I'm not mistaken, it's just like Shakespeare's tragedy of forbidden love, but with more gnomes.

Please don't call the authorities on us. All night, only one glass got broken. It was a complete accident, and the kid was nowhere near it. NOBODY WAS EVER IN REAL DANGER, AND I HAVE FOUR UNBIASED WITNESSES WHO WILL TESTIFY TO THAT FACT.

I am posting this for your enjoyment, knowing the mother probably does not read my blog. And knowing we're really not interested in professional child care, so we have no need for references from anyone who does read it.

Dads and Daughters

I've written quite a bit about my only son, Caleb. That's mostly because he gives me so much great material, stuff too good to keep to myself.


But I also have three wonderful daughters, and this weekend we got to spend some time together.


Last night, Sarah (whom I call Josie) and I slept out in our trailer. It was a wet, chilly, blustery night, in other words, typical November Utah weather. But that's okay, because the trailer has a good built-in heater. It also has AC outlets, so we took a little TV and DVD player out and watched movies until we fell asleep. (Before that, we enjoyed some pizza, sodas, and candy bars.) It was just like camping!

Like camping, but with pizza, movies,
and indoor plumbing 100 feet away.

This morning, Keely, Lydia, and I went to a Daddy-Daughter activity at the church. We had a nice breakfast and made little glass snowman ornaments. Who says dads can't be crafty? It was fun, and hopefully something they'll remember for a long time. (Ensuring this was kind of the point of the ornaments, so I wrote little messages on their backs.)*

The nice thing about these girls is they're pretty
enough to attract the attention of princes, but they
don't mind hanging out with their goofball dad.

* The ornaments' backs, not the girls'

Grab Bag No. 3: I'm Part of the Atari Generation

I've been writing a weekly grab bag post consistently every three weeks, give or take two...


Which means it's time for another. The topic of this one is video games, but it's a short one because I'm not really what you'd call a "gamer."


- I had Columbus day off from work, and Mrs. Christensen and I spontaneously decided some of that free time should be used to get the band back together. By "the band" I mean Rock Band, our family's favorite use for the PlayStation. We searched the house but could not find two pieces necessary to make the drums work, and the guitar was not in great shape either. What to do? Simple! Go out and buy all new instruments. We now have a better guitar, wireless drums, and a new microphone to boot! (They come as a set.) It's great to be an adult. Kids and teens have to save for months or beg Santa Claus for something like this. We just had to reassign a hundred bucks from the grocery budget. (Maybe it was the car insurance; I'm not sure.) DON'T JUDGE ME!


- While at the game store, I took a few minutes to browse the used discs and spotted a cheap copy of Lego Star Wars. We picked it up for our boy, Caleb, and it's a huge hit! This is a video game based on a toy that's based on a movie... I want a T-shirt with this game on it!


- George Carlin once said that violence on television only affects kids whose parents act like television characters. I tend to believe this theory, and I'd like to apply it to video games as well, but have you seen what goes on in some of those games? Shocking. There's a big debate over this topic, and a lot of research is being done. I side with those who believe games are more harmful than TV to young minds because you are an active participant in the game; you don't just watch it, you interact with it.


- I was thinking about the old Pong console we had 30-something years ago, which we hooked up to our 13" black and white TV. I wonder how much that unit would bring on eBay today? No doubt several times what it cost new. (I can still picture its simulated wood grain housing and big mechanical switches and dials. They just don't make 'em like that anymore.) I recall being just as entertained by it as by the Atari 2600, the Super Mario Bros. on NES, and every increasingly sophisticated game that followed, up to this day. In another 20 years when we have holodecks in our houses, I doubt I'll find them much better than any of these. Marshall McLuhan's claim that "the medium is the message" holds true here. A video game is a video game... they're all fundamentally the same as each other, and different from all books, movies, etc.


That's all for now. If you need me, I'll be rocking out. Or maybe stacking Tetris blocks.


...




Love my blog but want more cowbell? Wish I would fall into an abyss, or at least throw my laptop in? Feel I should have chosen 12 pt. Arial instead of 14 pt. Verdana? Comment below! I’m not a mind reader.

Awesome Parents and Other Reasons My Life is Great

My mother stopped by yesterday to take my number one daughter, Sarah, out for her birthday. A couple things that prove Mom is awesome:


- She was able to help Sarah find an entire ensemble for less than 50 bucks. They got a skirt, a shirt, a sweater, and even a necklace. It all fits Sarah--both her body and her sense of style--and she LOVES it! Do you know how difficult this is?


- I was away at the time, so I didn't get to talk to her, but when I came home there was a little surprise waiting for me on the dining room table. What did Grammy leave? Not a nice loaf of banana bread or something she'd knitted. It was a box of .30-06 cartridges from Dad. (For my non-gun-savvy readers, this is rifle ammunition.) So her visit made both Sarah and me happy.

Nothing says grandmotherly love like rifle ammo.

...


Last night I took number three daughter, Lydia, out to a haunted house. I haven't been to anything like that in decades, and I was among the oldest 4 or 5 percent in the crowd of hundreds there. But it was kinda fun, and it made me feel a little younger.


...


I got thinking about how many cool things I saw this summer, and it's a pretty good list:


1) On Memorial Day, World Superbike races. This is (as the name suggests) an international event that draws the world's best motorcycle road racers. True story: The series includes races in several countries throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but it makes only one stop in North America, at Miller Motorsports Park near Tooele, Utah. I went there with Jack, my newest and most Japanese bro-in-law, and we had a really great time. As part of the whole multi-day event, we even got to see a live concert by Creedence Clearwater Revisited. This is the band that spun off from Creedence Clearwater Revival, and they are very good.

Images are all © Esben Bøll, a friend from Denmark who visits the U.S. each
summer, touring by motorcycle and documenting his adventures in photographs.

2) Over the Independence Day weekend, I decided to go for a motorcycle ride of my own. I loaded up some camping gear and headed to Wyoming, taking in Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Parks and the surrounding area.

On rides like this, I make a point of taking the roads less traveled.
This is along Tin Cup Road, a.k.a. Hwy 34,
through the desolate S.E. corner of Idaho.  

The Tetons are my favorite mountains, and I visit them every chance I get.

I stayed one night at Colter Bay Campground, and the
next morning got to see the sunrise over the bay.

The intrepid traveler in his element.
Returning to the subject of my parents,
it was Dad who introduced me to this place.
I'll forever be thankful.

In Yellowstone, I saw all the typical attractions, including
some wildlife. (This guy could use a good combing.)

Here I am reflecting on the wild landscape--or vice-versa.

On the higher passes through the park, there's still
plenty of snow in early July!

Yellowstone Lake. Does it get any better than this? I don't think so.

On the second night, I camped in Cody,
a great town filled with stuff like this.

Cody loves rodeos, and they have their biggest ones over the July 4th weekend.
I didn't get any good pics of the cowboys, but here are some of the rodeo royalty
and a USMC mounted honor guard during the opening ceremony.

I also got to see a parade. These guys are AUTHENTIC.

Beartooth Mountain in the background.
The road leading to it (Beartooth Pass) is
among the world's most beautiful drives.

In this territory, Spring goes into July. Everything is green,
and the rivers all swell above their banks. This was especially
true in 2011, when we got even more precipitation than usual.

3) The last weekend in July, number two daughter, Keely, and I rode to Kemmerer, Wyoming for the Oyster Ridge Music Fesitval. This is becoming an annual tradition for us.

We could have driven the car, but the motorcycle is more fun!
Keely is not as uncomfortable as she appears, although neither
of us had room to stretch out....

Here is Mike Mangione and the Union.
We saw several other great bands, including
The Brothers Comatose, The Mighty Regis,
and The Mother Hips.

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These are only a few highlights, and we had other good times this summer. In summary, it's been a great year. I enjoyed some camping, some concerts, and even some motorsports, most of it with people I love. Life is great!