As the sun set, we cruised back into Boston Harbor, saw fireworks, the USS Constitution and the Queen Mary 2. She’s a big lady and apparently one of the biggest cruise ships to sail! Here’s the link to the photo album and I’ll be posting a video below.

(and the rocket’s red glare, indeed)

I always knew he could do it. If you haven’t visited Pete’s site before, take a look. He’s got some finished stories over there and both his commentary and interviews have been picked up by SFSignal. While he and I may lean a bit away from each other when it comes to politics, Pete is an extremely intelligent and talented man sure to go far once his stories are published. With VP, it might happen sooner than later. Here’s hoping!

Congrats Pete. Knock ‘em dead.

Here’s the link to my original post, which someone took and posted on the xkcd forums. So far, I’ve had almost 100 new visitors in the past two days. So welcome visitors and worshipers of Randall Monroe. Feel free to try the cake.

But it might be a lie.

So I admit, when I first saw the preview of WALL-E, I was rather skeptical. The only thing that made me pay the 7.00 fee for the three of us, was that so far, PIXAR has had really high quality movies. I still have yet to see CARS, but that’s only because I can do without Larry the Cable Guy.

WALL-E was excellent. Probably one of the best “kids” movies since The Incredibles. As with all Lassiter movies, there is plenty of slapstick comedy that will enthrall your children while throwing in little things that will amuse the adults.

For instance, when WALL-E has to charge his battery via solar panels, the bar ticks up fast and finishes with the sound of a booting laptop that is run with a Mac OS.  The geek in me chuckled considering the story takes place almost 850 years into the future. There is also what looks like an early generation IPOD in WALL-E’s collection as well. Nice to know that APPLE is still running the world in the future.

I will warn you. This movie comes with strict warnings should we stay our current course. In fact, the opening 10 minutes of the movie was probably more depressing in any children’s movie I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it doesn’t look that way to a child, but if you didn’t get the message and you were over 15, your heart is definitely in the wrong place and you’re missing a few brain cells.

As it is bordering on the science fiction, what starts as a wholly depressing dystopia does sprinkle in the ingredients which make you leave the theater with determination and yet a smile on your face. If I had a ratings system here, I would definitely be giving WALL-E  a 10 out of 10.

The one thing I will diss is the fact that we were given cheap plastic watches for the kids from Disney that were most likely made in China. While they had the WALL-E logo on them, they were to serve the purpose of marketing the talking dog movie mentioned above.  If you go see WALL-E, you’ll find out why it’s so terribly ironic and rather sad that the distributors didn’t even get the point. Who said marketing ever had brains to begin with anyway?

Go see it.

Now.

Gnomes, bunnies and mice beware!

I can not wait for this!

Teaser from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

I had the unfortunate experience of taking my son to a children’s hospital ER over the weekend, (yes, he’s fine now as his “problem” has been resolved) and waited 6 hours in the middle of the night for tests only to be sent home without a diagnosis.

As we sat in the waiting room for a good hour around midnight, parents with children came and went. To my left was a woman who brought her entire family (including another adult), and called a nurse over who had come out looking for the patient next in line. She mused that her daughter had been seen by triage and was told she most likely had a mosquito bite upon her stomach. She then asked when she would be seen; putting two and two together and figuring out that a bug bite would continue to get bounced down the list as more important cases came in throughout the night. The nurse calmly told her to wait and that it would be useless to leave since she was already there.

She left.

There are two issues I found rather odd and frustrating in this scenario. My kids have had the usual slate of maladies associated with childhood. While I may rush my child to an ER should she have the croup and couldn’t draw a breath, or a fever spiked over my comfort zone and would not come down with alternating Tylenol and Motrin and a lukewarm bath; I would never bring my child in for a common bug bite unless she suffered an allergic reaction. Even before then, I’d douse her with some Benadryl and unless she couldn’t breathe or was swollen like a marshmallow; I’d call my doctor.

I don’t understand why this mother found it necessary to drag her whole family down to an emergency room in the middle of the night so that her daughter could be looked upon by a tired doctor and given some anti-itch cream.

Furthermore, when she was brought into the triage area, I am curious as to why the hospital found it necessary to make her wait. I guess that had I been the nurse, I would have ripped a doctor away, told him to confirm the diagnosis of a bug bite, give her the cream and send her home. I don’t suppose I’d last too long at said facility.

So you wonder why your insurance premiums are going up? This is a fine example. Parents: Please know when to take your children to an emergency room. Stop using your neighborhood hospital as your own private doctor. Find a free clinic if you do not have proper insurance. There are plenty of other options, here. Doctors: Please dedicate someone to send frivolous cases that come in through triage, back home, as to keep the patients with more serious injuries or sicknesses revolving in timely manner.

I hesitate to even mention that the woman and her family left without paying. How do I know this? They didn’t even grab our insurance information until we were settled in the room with a bed. By the way they handle the influx of families, I’m wondering if they aren’t specifically set up the way they are because, Ms. Bug Bite has a tendency of bolting before actually being seen by a doctor.

I don’t know what makes me more sick to my stomach.

Enjoy the hilarity:

Apparently failure for cleaning the floor is having a cloth soaked in rotten milk applied directly to your face.

In this one, the spider ladies eat fermented soy beans which smell like rotten flesh and then breathe it on you.

Naaassty.

The third thing I’ve been working on however, benefits you! Yes, you!

May I present my first pseudo-pop song. Take angry alternative lyrics that you’d likely hear from Avril, wrap it within a pop beat, throw in some 70’s power ballad chords and an 80’s synthesizer, and you’ve got “Finally Oblivious”.

The first version of the song you see below is a completely untouched recording. Just the song and words.

The second version was my attempt at trying to make it sound a bit more “commercial”.

Regardless, enjoy and please let me know what you think.

She wanted to help.

She did.

What’s even more amusing is that I have a few other vegetable plants growing in places were they weren’t quite expected, either. For instance two more pea vines at the end of the driveway, and a pepper plant near the deck. The sad part is, they’re growing better where they’re not supposed to be, than the ones in my garden.

Go figure.