Geek with Family

I’ve been into Blade Runner since it came out in 1982. I remember the color full page ad I cut off the back of the Seattle Times Sunday Tempo section and thumb-tacked to my wall. My Harrison Ford fever was high after the Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Ridley Scott is finally releasing a restored 1992 Director’s Cut (saw it in the Fine Arts theater in Chicago) this September. Later in 2007 a "final cut" will be released in theaters and then a super-deluxe-special-edition with multiple versions of the film (now I can finally enjoy the voice-over narration again—those fly by scenes seem so empty without them)(Ridley Scott better record a commentary track too).

Variety.com - Marathon ‘Runner’: "The restored ‘Director’s Cut’ will debut on homevid in September, and remain on sale for four months only, after which time it will be placed on moratorium. ‘Blade Runner: Final Cut’ will arrive in 2007 for a limited 25th anniversary theatrical run, followed by a special edition DVD with the three previous versions offered as alternate viewing: Besides the original theatrical version and director’s cut, the expanded international theatrical cut will be included. The set will also contain additional bonus materials."

In 2007 I’ll have another two additions to my Blade Runner curiosity cabinet. The cabinet’s past and current contents: Director’s Cut DVD, VHS (permanently borrowed from some guy in high school), CD Soundtrack, S.M.H. vol. 4 (featured top anime sculptors’ diorama interpretations of the Blade Runner world—"Post Bla-Run Syndrome"), Starlog magazines, PC Game, Plager Katsumate Series-D blaster resin kit; Books: Retrofitting Blade Runner : Issues in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner, Blade Runner: The Inside Story; second draft of the script, and failed attempts at making my own action figures, 1:6 scale sculptures and Hot Wheels spinners.

(Via Rotten Tomatoes.)

Popularity: 4% [?]

I never realized Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and the ABC’s had the same tune until my daughter remixed them at bedtime while we rocked her to sleep.

Since she was born I’ve sung Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star whenever I put her to bed. She usually sings along. We sing it in low, high or staccato voices. A few months ago she started requesting "Eh-Bee-Thee’s?". After running through the alphabet at least twice we’d switch back to the Star song.

This month she’s really liked to mix the two songs up. I’ll start, "A-B-C-D…" and she’ll cut in "…little star…" then we’ll both "…H-I-J-K…" She thinks it’s hilarious. I imagine a smile in her mind at the improved creativity.

If my wife can hear us, she’ll tell you the song hops are never as smooth as described above. I really have to pause and think about fitting the right phrase with the coming melody. Luckily, my daughter has lots of musical and cognitive talent to spare, so she helps me out.

I wish this was a talent we could nurture and encourage in our daughter. Mash-up remixing is a dangerous talent path to pursue. By the time she wants to share her songs with the world I’m sure we’ll have the lullaby copyright police at our door.

With the collapse of the public domain do we owe performance licensing fees for singing these songs in the first place? Will her pending release of the "Alpha-Star Album" spell doom for the record industry?

Popularity: 3% [?]

We bought a 2000 Lexus RX 300 SUV on Saturday. The Lexus has a factory upgraded sound system with a six CD changer in the glove compartment. On Sunday we remembered to take a CD, Decemberists’ Picaresque, with us on the short drive to the local horse farm.

In our old car (a 2004 Honda Pilot, so really newer than the Lexus) we never had too many CDs in the car because I had this great idea that we would remember my iPod (we never do because it’s always connected to me, my Mac Mini or on the night stand with drained batteries).

Continue reading The Decemberists’ Picaresque - Toddler_o_Geek Doesn’t Hate My Music Yet

Popularity: 7% [?]

We haven’t always appreciated hi-end audio at my house. Six years ago my wife and I attended a demonstration by Jim Thiel at Chicago’s Audio Consultants. I can’t remember how I convinced my wife to attend (lured with fancy dinner out or she owed me for a previous night out with her coworkers?). Audio Consultants was only a few blocks from our old apartment, just down the street from the old Rock n Roll McDonalds.

The Audio Consultants shop was on one of walking-around-town-shopping routes, so we had stopped in before. We never stayed long for two reasons: my wife had little interest in the sparse walls of CD and DVD players, processors and amps, and loudspeakers and subwoofers; one of the two salesmen would ask me what I was looking for, I answer, just looking, and felt the invisible pressure to take a nervous glance at the equipment on the sales floor and in the listening rooms and get the hell out.

Continue reading Thiel Loudspeaker Demo Converts my Wife into an Audiophile Sympathizer

Popularity: 4% [?]

No matter how much money I spend out of my maxed out home equity line on contractors I always end up plumbing my own pipes. Plumbers are just too expensive. Whenever the wife and I discuss the remodeling budget, plumbing is either forgotten or left to the last with her question, "You can handle that, right?" My mind blanks on all my past terrible plumbing experiences and I say, "Sure."

I’ve learned the following tips with the combined wisdom of my contractor father-in-law, my father’s teenage apprenticeship under my grandfather as a toilet installer, random books I read while checking out at Home Depot, and the internet.

Continue reading Home Equity Line Budget Never Enough for Plumbing - Pipe Connections

Popularity: 12% [?]

My newest T-shirt design, featuring Toddler-o-Geek with me playing video games in the background.

It’s her idea of a wireless console controller, not mine.

Available in Black, Ringer, Jr. Baby Doll, and Toddler styles. Just in time for summer, outfit your whole family in our geek-wear.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Toddler_o_Geek wakes up every morning between 5:30 and 6:15 AM. A sing-songy "Watch TV" tops her demands (the more inappropriate the request the more cute she tries to be). As I get ready for work and my wife fits in a quick shower, our daughter ping-pongs between playing with her Playskool super-deformed family and their fold up house, eating dry Cinnamon Toast Crunch, searching for her baby doll or Pooh and testing our patience with the "watch TV" bit. When she is distracted by one of the first two activities I sit down at the computer hutch to catch up on email and news of wonderful things. After a minute of peace, she discovers me and wants to see the computer screen, move the mouse and type her baby code on the keyboard. I place her on my lap and satiate with a quick look at the latest blogged pics at Cute Overload.

Continue reading Cute Toddler Moment: Cuteoverload.com and Singing Happy Birthday

Popularity: 3% [?]

As a lifelong geek, I’ve never had much desire to exercise. As a kid I was always as skinny and weak as Neon Genesis Envangelion’s Shinji. My adult life, or at least the last ten years, I’ve struggled with weight loss. With the birth of Toddler_o_Geek (then Newborn_o_Geek), I stopped dieting and trying to exercise and really gained a lot of weight in a short amount of time. With weight related health problems looming, I must exercise for at least an half hour a day, doctor’s orders. After a few weeks of using a boring peddling machine while watching Invader Zim, R.O.D. OVA, or Blood+ at 5:30 AM, I ordered Red Octane’s DDR clone bundle, In the Groove, plus 2 Ignition 3.0 Dance Pads (one for me and one for Wife_o_Geek or Toddler_o_Geek, though she prefers a bamboo inlayed serving tray we keep on the ottoman, it’s more to her scale). I had to wait a few weeks for the bundle to show up (backordered), and then another week for the second dance pad. Now I could join all those obese elementary school kids I keep hearing about, and dance away from diabetes and heart disease.

Continue reading Red Octane’s In the Groove and Ignition 3.0 Dance Pads Weight Loss Plan Review

Popularity: 6% [?]

Now that all the 2005 holiday blockbusters that I cared about are on DVD, I still can’t find time to watch them. How do the creators of these movies expect me to find time to watch these with my schedule?

Continue reading Peter Jackson’s King Kong is too long

Popularity: 3% [?]

If your toddler is having a bad day, tugging on your shirt every 30 seconds requesting "UP," sobbing when one her baby Kangaroo plush doll won’t standup, her imaginary friend, Cory (not sure if she spells it that way), has stopped speaking to her and she has resorted to kicking and screaming face down on the carpet, then you need to catch up on Cute Overload.

Toddler_o_Geek says, "I luv gwapes. I luv cuteovalud. Rabbits?"

Popularity: 3% [?]