Karate Kid Remake

One of my favorite movies of all time is Karate Kid. Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that. As a kid, I used to watch Karate Kid daily on a VHS recording I made of the movie on one of those times we got free HBO for the weekend. Anybody else remember free HBO weekends? They don’t do that anymore, do they?

Anyhow, I used to watch Karate Kid, particularly the ending of the movie where Daniel does the crane kick and wins the All Valley Karate Championship. We used to watch the maneuver in slow motion, noting how Daniel’s foot doesn’t quite reach Johnny’s face, but not really caring that it doesn’t.

My best friend Cory and I used to play Karate Kid all the time. I was always Daniel and he was always Daniel’s best friend, that happened to have the exact same skills as Daniel and looked the same as Daniel. lol We fought many invisible bad guys in those days.

So, Karate Kid is near and dear to my heart. When I heard they were doing a “remake” of Karate Kid I groaned. When I heard that Will Smith’s 9 year old was playing the part of Karate Kid I vomited. I was set against watching this movie on principal alone. Then I saw the trailer.

Not bad. I can get behind Jackie Chan in the “Miyagi” role. I still don’t agree with the choice of such a young “Karate Kid” but I can get beyond that. In fact, if they had called the movie something other than Karate Kid, I’d probably go see this in the theater. Instead, I’ll probably rent it.

Who knows, maybe some kid will see this new movie and become Karate Kid themselves. And just maybe they’ll check out the original and realize what a much more superior film that was.

Sweep the leg.

A Year Ago Today…

A year ago today, right around lunch time I got a phone call from my wife that I should probably get home soon because she thought she was going into labor. As it was her EXACT due date, I dropped what I was doing and hurried home, all the while expecting a false alarm.

When I got home my wife had packed sandwiches for herself, my daughter, and I, and we were off to the hospital. Just in case, I called my Mom (who lives 45 minutes away from the hospital) and told her we were probably going to need her to come to the hospital. Somebody would have to take care of our daughter while we were in the hospital.

Well, we get there and it is definitely not a false alarm. Things are happening fast. Contractions are close. My wife is in pain. And all the beds are taken, so we have to sit in the waiting room until they can get my wife in. Which also means no pain meds for her.

Eventually they did get her in and not long after that our son was born. That’s him in the Pirates hat at the top of this post. As I’ve told many people today, looking back it seems like it was just yesterday, but moment to moment (such moments as changing diapers and waking in the night) time seems to creep.

So anyway, happy birthday to T-Mike. May you have many many more.

Big Ups for the Old School

Did you all know that you can watch all of the old classic Star Trek episodes online absolutely free? Well you can, and it’s awesome.

Most of you are most likely clicking away, not caring about a cheesy sci-fi show from the 1960s. Bear with me a moment, though.

Take for example, the episode titled A Taste of Armageddon. It’s sci-fi, for sure, with transporting, and phasers, and silly costumes. But the story is really very good. In this episode the Enterprise is sent to Eminiar VII to help establish diplomatic relations with Eminiar VII and its sister planet, Vendikar. When they get there they discover the planets have been at war for 500 years, and what’s more they are warring via computer. One planet “attacks” and the other planet gets a printout of name of the casualties. Those who are on the casualties list have a set time period to turn themselves in to be termination by stepping inside a disintegration booth.

That’s the setup. The rest of the episode is mostly Kirk trying to get the people from Eminiar VII to realize how stupid the above is. Or you could say a big chunk of the episode is about how stupid war in general is.

Some of my favorite quotes from the episode:

“Sir, there is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder.”

- Spock, before treating the guard to a Vulcan nerve pinch

“Death, destruction, disease, horror… that’s what war is all about, Anan. That’s what makes it a thing to be avoided. But you’ve made it neat and painless – so neat and painless, you’ve had no reason to stop it, and you’ve had it for five hundred years. Since it seems to be the only way I can save my crew, my ship… I’m going to end it for you – one way or another.”

- Kirk, on Eminiar and Vendikar’s situation.

“All right. [War is] instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands… But we can stop it! We can admit that we’re… killers. But we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill… today!”

- Kirk

The episode ended with this, which made me smile:

Spock: Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.
Captain James T. Kirk: Why, Mr. Spock, you almost make me believe in miracles.

If you’re really interested, check out Tor.com’s Star Trek Re-Watch, in which they are viewing and rating each episode of the classic Star Trek episodes.

A New Toy

So, I’m sick again and so is my wife. Blah blah blah. Woe is me. Not really. Sure we’re sick, but at least we know we’re gonna get better soon. So many people don’t have that hope.

Enough of that. Let me instead tell you about my newest toy, the iPod Touch. I’ve only had it for a few days, but so far I love it. And I haven’t even listened to music on it yet.

Most of you know this, but I figured I’d mention it anyhow. The iPod Touch has nearly all the same features as its iPhone cousin, including the touch interface and web browsing (if you are in a wi-fi area, which I am at home). You can surf the web, check your gmail, twitter, or facebook all wirelessly using the iPod Touch. And, you don’t have the monthly fee or contract with AT&T that you have with the iPhone. What you don’t get with the iPod is the phone part or a camera, both of which I already have devices for.

Most people that know me in real life have heard me make fun of Apple and their overpriced gadgets many times, and I can’t help but feel a bit hypocritical about liking the Touch so much, but I don’t care. I like it. *sticks out tongue*

I like it better each day, in fact. Today, for example, I discovered I can read and download books from Project Gutenberg directly on the iPod Touch. I haven’t tried it yet, but if it works I going to be very happy.

Will my new toy help me with my writing? *ahem* I’m not so sure. As a wise man once said, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” To which I reply, “I know you are but what am I”.

Much Better, Thanks

Well, things are much better for us. The boy has recovered from his ear infections just in time for his birthday (he turns 1 in 8 days, unbelievable!). The daughter and my wife are feeling fine as well. On top of that, little T-Mike slept through the night last night, going from 8:00 PM to 5:30 AM.

The highlight of the past weekend was Valentine’s Day. We loaded the family into the Beetle and headed to the skating rink for a little ice skating. My wife and I took turns skating with our daughter while the other chased T-Mike around the lobby of the rink.

This was only the second time my daughter has been skating, but she was so much more confident this time. Holding onto one of those walker things, she was absolutely running on the ice. I would skate backward in front of her as she would skate towards me and several times she was going so fast she nearly passed me. At one point she got so brave that she decided she wanted to get rid of the walker and skate holding only my hands. We did one lap of this and she did well, but she was leaning a bit forward and I was holding her up quite a bit. After the one lap she decided to switch back to the walker thing. My thighs appreciated it.

We all decided we would make the ice skating a regular thing. For one, it gets us out of the house. Second, it’s exercise for the entire family and selfishly should help me with my skating for hockey. And judging by the smile on my daughter’s face the entire time she was skating, it’s going to be hard to keep her off the ice.

Really the only thing that isn’t firing on all cylinders is my writing. The old ink well has dried up. I assure you that I will rectify that soon. I just need to start writing and show that old blank piece of paper who is the boss (the boss is me).

I Need a Clone

Just thought I’d detail my day so far, mostly as an excuse for why I’m gonna hold off on the time travel post until Monday (the article is here Diane: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2009/05/14/rules-for-time-travelers/). Also, thanks for everybody who has been leaving comments here. I read them all. I need to get better at responding.

• 3:00 AM – Daughter walks to our room with a fever. I give her tylenol and she spends the rest of the night with us.
• 5:00 AM – Wake to T-Mike crying. Change diaper and hand off to Mommy for a feeding. Hope he falls back to sleep.
• 5:30 AM – He does not go back to sleep. Mommy hands him back to me to rock him.
• 6:10 AM – Finally get him back in his bed without him waking. Lay back down myself to get 20 extra minutes of sleep. Daughter is taking up my side of the bed, of course, so I lay on the floor.
• 6:30 AM – Shower and all that stuff.
• 8:00-ish AM – Arrive at work.
• 9:40 AM – Leave work and walk to my wife’s dentist to watch the kids while she sees the dentist.
• 11:00 AM – Walk back to work
• 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM – Doctor’s appointment for me and then watch the baby while my wife has her appointment.
• 3:00 PM – Back to work.

Obviously this is not a typical day. Still, you can see why I feel a bit stretched today. At least tomorrow starts the weekend (with a hockey game in the AM of course).

Absent

Sorry everybody for the lack of posts this week. I’ve spent the past couple days in a class for work (and homework for the class at night) and just haven’t had the time to write the post I want to write (based on the rules for time travelers I tweeted about the other day). That post will come soon, I promise.

In the meantime, a story. I’ve come to realize that we are setting an example for our kids all the time, whether we think we are or not. Case in point. I have entered an exercise challenge at work in which I do x many pushups 3 days a week, y many situps 3 days a week, and z parallel bar dips 3 days a week. (note that in this example x, y, and z all equal 1 million). I’ve created a little chart to keep track of my progress. Well, as I was getting dinner ready tonight, guess who had started a chart of her own? Yep, my 3 1/2 year old daughter.

Let’s hope she keeps picking up my good examples, such as exercise and ignores my bad example, such as my tendency to leave my dirty socks under the kitchen table.

Bring Out Your Dead

(Note: I was gonna put the “Bring our your dead clip” from Monty Python here, but that one’s pretty grim. Instead here’s the coconut discussion.)

I planned on writing this weekend. I really did. Life decided otherwise.

Little T-Mike, nearly a year old now, came down with a bit of sickness Friday night. We would hold him until he fell asleep, we’d put him in his crib, and then he’d wake up again. All night. Eventually my wife and I decided to take care of him in shifts, me from 10:00 PM to Midnight, her from Midnight to 2:00 AM, etc. On the plus side, T-Mike watched Letterman with me for the first time (we both fell asleep through no fault of Mr. Letterman).

Saturday we called the doctor and they told us to bring him to the E.R. (because it was Saturday) and we spent a good portion of Saturday morning and afternoon there. Luckily my sister wasn’t busy so our daughter got to hang out with her aunt while we were at the hospital. Turns out poor T-Mike has an ear infection in each ear.

Went to be early, for me, on Saturday night expecting another long night. Luckily he slept much better as was only up 2 or 3 times. He got a bit of his spirit back Sunday even if his voice is still froggy and he sounds like Darth Vader when he breathes.

So that’s us, just trying to get by and hoping everybody feels better soon. As bad as we feel now, we still have to be thankful that he will feel better, which is something not all families can look forward to.

Winter Song

In honor of the upcoming snow-pocalypse headed my way, I give you Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson. Stick with this one to the end. Adorable ending.

Peace and Star Trek

So there’s this website PRX which in their words is “… an online marketplace for distribution, review, and licensing of public radio programming”. It’s a fascinating site with a ton of very good programming (free). I urge you to check it out.

Anyhow, I was browsing around there today looking for something to listen to while I work (this used to be fulfilled by local radio but I got sick of listening to the same songs over and over again) and came across Paul Engle’s show Peace Talks Radio: The Peace Message in Star Trek.

A description of the piece from PRX:

A new Star Trek movie comes out this spring that revisits the stories of Capt. Kirk, Spock, Bones and the characters from the original series. This month Peace Talks Radio notes how many stories in the original series thoughtfully explored the themes of war and peace, tolerance, friendship and compassion. When originally released in the turbulent late 1960′s, Star Trek stories tackled complex issues that mirrored both the Cold War, the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights Struggle. Host Paul Ingles talks with David Gerrold, author of The World of Star Trek and the popular episode “The Trouble With Tribbles.”

It was a very enjoyable half hour, listening to this show. It made me appreciate the work of Gene Roddenberry and the heart he brought to Star Trek and science fiction.

Consider this bit of dialogue from the episode titled A Taste of Armageddon Captain James T. Kirk talking:

[War] is instinctive. But the instinct can be fought. We’re human beings with the blood of a million savage years on our hands! But we can stop it. We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill – today!

I’d like to get that on a t-shirt please.

Anyway, if you have some time check out the piece of PRX. I doubt you will regret it.