Beyond “To Infinite and Beyond”

A few weeks ago Lee Ann and I took Molly and Emma to see “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” in 3-D.  The only thing the movie had in common with the book was the title, but that was actually a good thing.  The book makes no sense and takes 4 minutes to read — not a great formula for  a direct route to a movie blockbuster.

And a movie blockbuster is exactly what Cloudy 3D has become.  It’s closing in on $200 million before DVD release.

Within a day of seeing Cloudy, Lee and I went  to see a “grown up” movie starring Jenifer Aniston, “Love Happens”.  It really challenged our mantra that “Any movie is better than no movie”.

So there we had a pretty well aligned side by side comparison of a couple movies, and there was no doubt that Cloudy was much preferred.  And that got me to thinking: Why would the movie companies spend 10’s of millions of dollars on an actress (who I happen to like, but has not had any chemistry with a lead since Ross Geller), when they can create chemistry along with visually stunning backgrounds?

And they can also do this in 3D.  And they have tremendous flexibility with the main characters.  “The Incredibles” is likely the best action movie I’ve ever seen.  Elastigirl was able to do stunts that Will Smith could never even dream of doing.  “Toy Story”, “Beauty and the Beast”, and lots of others have been more cutting edge in their time and delivered more enjoyment to me as a moviegoer than most of their contemporary films.

So why can’t movie studios bring the freedom and success they have had with family movies to romantic comedies?  I look forward to the day that even more movies consider widening the boundaries of storytelling to include an animated lead couple that can move from one environment, country, universe to another without worry of production costs.  I will gladly suspend my need for a “real” couple for the gimmickry of 3D and a great story.

Bob and Helen Parr: now THAT's chemistry

When I’ll Really Start Worrying about Swine Flu

The CDC, National Institue of Health, and every third report on CNN have alerted me to the horrors of Swine Flu.  But I’ll really take it all much more seriously when legislation is passed to prohibit Panera from offering its latest dessert samples from a communal dish.  At lunch yesterday, I witnessed too many episodes of “Here’s your change…oh, Gesundteit….and be sure to try our Pumpkin Brownies but make certain you touch all of them first.”  Until then I cannot think we as a country are overly concerned, despite all the lip service we give it.

Alternately, I’ll worry about it when Molly and Emma get it, which is of course inevitable.

Reading Made Easy

I bought Lee Ann a Kindle for her birthday.   Then I spent the next couple months remarking how cool I thought it was.  And then all the carefully (and Lee Ann would say, transparently) planned schemes paid off on my birthday when I received a Kindle of my very own as a gift.

I knew I would like it.  But I didn’t know how it would significantly change my life.  Yes, not just my reading time or my hobbies, but my life.  As far as technology goes, it is pretty unassuming: an electronic book reader is not nearly as revolutionary as, say, an iPod.  But here’s the thing….and I’m a bit (gulp) reluctant to say it since I loooove my iPod so much….but the Kindle is my favorite tech product (waiting for lightning to struck…..okay, nothing…I can continue typing).

It’s surprising.  I have a hard time defending why I like it so much.  Especially since it is replacing something that was pretty cool to begin with.  “Curling up with a good book” connotes the physical link to dead tree literature in a pretty accurate way.  You can almost hear the fireplace crackling and the snow falling outdoors.  And I can’t point to one revolutionary change as the reason I have so quickly forgotten about hardcovers and paperbacks.  But that’s just the thing: There are so many very minor things that I hadn’t even noticed limited my past reading experience.  And now I am free. 

For example:

1) Easier to carry – This is the most obvious one.  Instead of lugging around a bunch off books you can carry up to 1500 electronically on the Kindle.

2) Downloading – You hear a recommendation on NPR or form a friend.  No need to go to the bookstore.  Just click on the link to Amazon and purchase it.  You’ll be reading it within 60 seconds.

3) Price – Most books are $9.99 (comapared with about $27 for a hardcover in the bookstore).  And many are significantly less than that.  I “bought” a book for $0.00 (The Mark) and it was among the better books I’ve read.

4) Font size – Turns out non-uniform font size across books is annoying, and now unnecessary.  The Kindle shows every book in a standard format. Same virtual page sizes.  I never realized that it was discouraging to move from a book with large font to one where the pages were crammed full of text.  Like moving from the Acela to Green Line local at rush hour.  Now there is no need to apply the breaks.

5) The clock – Silly, but I used to spend a lot of time reading while thinking to myself “what time is it?” It would eat at me and I wouldn’t concentrate fully on the story.  Even if it meant simply turning my wrist to see my watch I would continue to defer.  Now I click the button onthe side and it pops up while I continue reading.

6) Dictionary – built into the Kindle.  You simply toggle to the word, and the definition pops up.  No need to skip over the word and try to figure it out from context.

7) Page turning – simply clicking to flip a page is much less obtrusive than flipping the page.  Again, it keeps the flow (and my concentration) going much more consistently than a physical book allows.

And that doesn’t even cover other items (samples are available at no cost so you can decide wheteher the book is any good ahead of buying it, you’re not stuck with the space consuming books all over the place, environmental impact is positive).

And there are lots more I’m sure I will think of after I post this.  The thing is after the first two items, I would have scoffed if anyone listed these as positives, like I would if a baseball player said he loved playing for the Red Sox because they have three kinds of deli meat in the postgame spread.  But I have been reading and enjoying books exponentially more than I did back in June.  Sometimes extra deli meat changes the whole ballgame.

Halloween

As Molly (dressed up as her stuffed animal monkey) and Emma (dressed up as a fairy) rang the doorbell of a neighbor after traipsing across the lawn along with three of their friends, and I (with a painted on 3rd eye upon the generous canvas of my forehead) looked on, it hit me: Halloween is strange.

I mean, it was an admittedly incredible night.  A bunch of kids, happy as can be.  A mild evening (amazing in itself that we have had GREAT weather for Halloween as many years as the girls have been walking door to door).  And we even had Bubbe and Papa to stay behind at our house so both Lee Ann and I could enjoy the trick or treating.

But maybe it was my 3rd eye that made me see it so clearly this time around:  Halloween is nuts.  If there had never been the tradition of it that makes it seem so natural, then anyone who would dare suggest it would be thrown in prison.

What if I, in a “no prior Halloween” parallel universe, tried to convince Lee Ann to let Molly and Emma go trick or treating?

Me: Hey, Lee, I have an idea.  On October 31st let’s wait until it’s dark out and have the girls go ring on the neighbors’ doorbells and get candy.

Lee Ann: What?!? No way, that would be embarrassing for us.

Me: Well, the neighbors wouldn’t really know it’s them because they’ll be wearing disguises.

Lee Ann: Oh, that makes me feel better.  At least the neighbors won’t know it’s our kids begging for sugar.

Me: Well, the neighbors would be in on it.  They would keep their outdoor light on so we would see which houses to approach.

Lee Ann: So we would know whose house to go to, like the way God knew whose first born sons to kill by the sheep’s blood on the doors in Egypt.

Me: Right. Wait, no.  The neighbors will want us there.  The kids will say “Trick or Treat” and be given a candy bar or something.

Lee Ann: So the girls will deliver a subtle threat?  Give me candy or we’ll play a trick on you.  Great.  That’s a good life lesson.

Me: It’s not like they’ll be the only ones.  They’ll be lots of kids dressed up as ghosts, witches, devils, and Octamom.

Lee Ann: This is sounding better and better all the time.

I’m guessing anyone who tried to organize the Halloween movement from scratch would be given 20 years in prison.  Minimum.

Twix or Tweat

My vision of the afterlife, to the extent that I have one at all, is that there will be all the data you need at your fingertips.  Want to know what you were doing January 23, 1981? A video pops up replaying the day (you could fast forward to cut out the boring parts).  Want to know the song you’ve heard the most? There’s a list.  Want to know what candy bar you’ve eaten the most?  Well, I already know that one.

It’s the Twix.

Candybars have come and gone but the Twix has always been my standby.  I have had short term addictions to Baby Ruth, Oh Henry, Skybar (very tough to find anymore), and Payday.  But Twix has been my consistent go-to  bar.

I think I was about ten when the Twix came out.  There were television ads for what may have been the first and last time for the candy bar (it does not need the budget of Snickers or the jingles of Kit Kat).  I was intrigued.  And then when I tried it and my bottom teeth would hit the crunchiness of the cookie while my top teeth hit the soft caramel, I was forever on board the Twix bandwagon.

And while every Halloween brings its candidates for dethroning Twix (a few years ago during the Halloween of Take 5 I momentarily considered it until I realized pretzels and peanutbutter was a gimmick, and it would have been like giving up on the Beatles to listen to the Monkees), nothing else has been a serious contender.  Caramel, chocolate, cookie.  Brilliant.

Starblech

Starbucks is now selling an instant coffee that they tout is as good as their store brewed coffee.  How is this a good move?  I mean, I always suspected (okay I knew) that my Starbucks coffee was overpriced, but I didn’t expect Starbucks to come out and spend its marketing budget on telling me that is the case.

Dunkin’ Donuts must be chortling with glee.  They have played this so well.  It’s like watching a game of one on one basketball where one opponent gets in the head of another to the point that no defense is required.  The player is so rattled that you know he is going to brick it up there even if he has an uncontested layup.  And that is what Starbucks is now doing.

Turns out "vente" is latin for "I paid $4 for this?!"

A few years ago I don’t think anyone would have even debated who had the better coffee.  Starbucks was seen as a coffee house, and Dunkin’ was a doughnut shop.  But Dunkin’ Donuts went after the pretension that Starbucks tried to create (likely as a way to justify $4 cups of coffee) with some pretty good commercials mocking the whole vente/tall thing.  Then Dunkin’ attacked on quality with taste tests. And now Starbucks has pretty much said, “Okay, you got us, we were pretentious.  Truth is we’re only as good as instant coffee.”

And that’s how years of carefully cultivating an image quickly unravels.  Starbucks instant Via will get people to clearly see the reality and wake up and smell the coffee.  But they’ll be less likely to be doing that smelling (and drinking) at Starbucks now.  Clang, and Dunkin’ Donuts gets the rebound.

When in the U.S., Do not Do like Roman

A few days ago on NPR they were debating Roman Polanski’s extradition to the United States.  Can this really be debatable?!?  But there they were: Geraldine Ferraro sticking up for the United States and some accomplished French movie guy sticking up for Polanski.

Everyone agrees that Polanski raped a 13 year old girl.  Doesn’t the discussion end there?  How do you have an hour show about whether Polanski should serve time in the US? 

The discussion centered around the victim’s statements in later years (she feels Polanski should be left alone), and the amount of time that has passed, and the art he has produced as a free man, and the change that has taken place in his personality.  But still EVERYONE AGREES THAT POLANSKI RAPED A 13 YEAR OLD GIRL.

I can understand the French debater feeling emboldened by his country being very right and the US being very wrong over the whole weapons of  mass destruction.  But let’s not have any carryover into areas of lunacy.  The US is gaining momentum on the world stage and can purposefully choose areas for strong, defensible statements.  Let’s start with “When in the United States, do not do like Roman”.  If you can’t follow that rule then expect to be carted off to jail whenever you’re dumb enough to allow the MP’s to find you.

Peace and Hope

The news that Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize really caught me by surprise today.  There was a lot more pre-hype for Chicago winning the Olympics (which did not happen) than for Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize (which did happen).

And predictably, lots of the chatter on radio and in the cafeteria today was around Obama’s not being deserving of the prize.  But, hey, he’s moved toward nuclear disarmament, communication with Muslims, and away from unilateralism.  Sounds like a deserving recipient to me. 

So now Obama has another powerful word assoicated with his name: Peace.  He’s already linked closely to another key word, Hope, due to his political campaign.  And his first nine months have done nothing to undermine the campaign Hope — confronting the economy and making what looks like a tremendous comeback on meaningful action for Healthcare reform.

So….Peace and Hope.  I cannot think of two words a politician rather be associated with.  If Obama can add the less lofty but very meaningful Accomplishment to that by getting a Healthcare Reform Bill passed this will definitely be the most productive first year of a president in my lifetime.

Just the Right amount of Terrestrial

I had never seen E.T. the Extra Terrestrial until our family’s most recent Friday night movie screening.  I settled in expecting an enjoyable movie, but one that would definitely seem aged, just like I had noticed when we watched The Karate Kid.

But somehow E.T. has avoided the outdated phase and moved right to classic.  Which is a pretty difficult trick since the movie’s title character by definition requires technology, and technology certainly has improved since 1983.  But E.T. himself (I think E.T.’s a he) is understated.  Spielberg did not gussy him up at all; he’s a green, sometimes grey, blob that slowly develops its mystique rather than blowing you away or scaring you when you first see it.

Nothing extra about him

In fact, the whole movie is like that.  There is very little dialogue.  The characters, especially the adults, are developed by the positioning of the cameras rather than speech.  We feel a closeness for the children by witnessing how they care for each other and for E.T.  We feel distant from the scientists and teachers since we really never see their faces.

Even the specific time period references are chosen well and have endured: Space Invaders, Dungeons and Dragons, Coca Cola…..even Drew Barrymore.  So Spielberg ended up peppering the movie with specific icons, and using subtlety to move the main plot along.  No over the top indulgences. And that has helped it stand up really well.  I cannot think of another movie from that time that our whole family would have liked as much.

Unbelieveapple

I am an unabashed Apple fanboy.  I feel like I’m watching the Patriots circa 2004 when I see what Apple is doing.  It’s not enough that their products are so amazing (I still sometimes sit with an iPod in my hand thinking “I can’t believe I have all my songs on this thing”), they continue to innovate and dominate marketing.  “There’s an app for that” has become a catchphrase simply because Apple wanted it to happen.

And now there’s the new nano, which is less about what it is but what it may become.  Video recording for $149?!?  In a device that is no bigger than a finger?!  Forget for a moment that it doesn’t zoom, the quality is not great, and that it’s really suited for clips rather than your family vacation.  The point is that these gaps undoubtedly will be addressed in future versions and that the heavy lifting has already been done.

And there are oodles of additional features that are not publicized.  In addition to video recording, and the music listening and video watching capabilies of past ipods, it also has FM Radio (with stop/start capabilities like Tivo).  Now how much would you pay?  But wait there’s more.  It has a recorder for voice memos.  And the most accurate and user friendly pedometer that I’ve ever seen.  And speakers that allow it to function effectively as my alarm clock.

Apple continuously reminds me that despite the many negative aspects of living in 2009, it really is a pretty amazing time to be alive.