The Fun Zone

Amazon Prime is an awesome, if extremely dangerous, service. Stef and I needed to get something quickly shipped from Amazon recently, so we decided to give the one-month trial a try. When you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you get unlimited two-day shipping on whatever you order, with no minimum required for each shipment. The power of this instant gratification is intoxicating. Need a cable for your PS2? Click it and you'll see it in a couple of days. For another four bucks, you'll have it in your hands tomorrow. They even connect it to your One-Click settings, so nothing stands between you and your stuff (other than the two days, that is... and the credit card bill). I'm not sure if it's worth the annual subscription fee, but I highly recommend the free trial. Though there was that danger I spoke of. As our free trial came to a close, I found myself looking for stuff to buy, hoping to "make the most" of my insta-shipping ability before it was gone. While I don't regret any of the purchases I made in the past couple of weeks, I could feel my inhibitions slipping away as the Amazon packages stacked up on the doorstep. Perhaps I'm not ready for this kind of power.

This is all a prelude to say that I got a neat new video game last week.

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So, news came down yesterday that Stargate Atlantis would not be returning for a sixth season, instead moving to the DVD movie format like SG-1. Today, we learn from The Hollywood Reporter that SciFi has picked up the brand new series Stargate Universe, which will begin early next year:

...the show will be set on board a previously unmanned ship called the Destiny, and will involve more space-based action than its predecessors. "Unable to return to Earth, the crew must fend for themselves aboard the ship, which has a preprogrammed mission taking them to the far reaches of the universe," ...

...The new series will also be aimed at a slightly younger audience, SCI FI president Dave Howe said.

"This is an opportunity to reinvent this franchise and make it relevant to a new generation," he said. "We really don't want to be more of the same. It's going to build clearly off the existing franchise but with a cast that gives it a younger vibe."

Full article from GateWorld here.

Alarm bells are going off in my head on this one. It's weird to hear of the cancellation of a series just to make room for its cousin. I'm all for building the franchise, but this has me in cautious pessimism mode...

...AH, who am I kidding? I'll watch it. I'm a sucker for this stuff.

This past weekend, we took TK to a photo shop in the mall to get his 6 month photos done one month late. I'm very happy with the results. If you're not a reader of Stef's stamping blog, you might want to check out her post here to see our favorites from the session.

So, from time to time, the rain did pass, and the sun did show its face in Prospect Harbor. We still had plenty of gloom while we were there, but we did manage to venture out of the house every once in a while.

These were taken at Schoodic Point, part of Acadia National Park, just a few minutes from my parents' place. Lucy also enjoyed climbing on the rocks, though she drooled on my lap the whole way there and back.

Maine has a different way of doing things, a mindset at odds with that of Hamden or Boston, and we were constantly confronted with that discontinuity. For example, this is what my parents call their front yard:

It's right on the bay, looking out over the water. Now, if we routinely approached their house from the sea, I would agree that this was the front yard. However, their driveway, garage, doorbell and street number sign are all on the opposite side of the house, the side where you'll find "the back door." This caused me no end of confusion. "Meet you at the front door," one of them would say, and I'd be standing by the closet, looking out at the driveway, while they were gazing at the ocean. Terms are flip-flopped there, man! It's Bizaro World!

Life operates on a slower gear in Maine. On our way up, we stopped at Wild Willy's Burgers in York, ME. It was a popular local eatery, with several types of burgers available (as well as some of the best french fries I've ever had, but that's beside the point). Both Stef and I decided to try their BBQ burger, though Stef didn't want bacon on hers.

Stef: "Hi! We'd like two BBQ burgers, one without baco-"

Woman: "WOAH! Hold on. One at a time."

Stef: "Uh, okay. One BBQ burger."

Woman: (writing) "Mmmhmmm... okay. Now what else would you like?"

Stef: "Another BBQ burger, but without bacon."

Woman: (writing) "...without...bacon. Anything else?"

Now, this may have been a fluke, just a specific trait of the lady working the counter, but later in the week, we ran into a similar issue when we stopped for ice cream.

Woman: "Hi, can I help you?"

Stef: "Yes, I'd like two scoops of chocolate peanut butter in a cup, please."

Woman: (writing) "...chocolate peanut butter... one scoop or two?"

Stef: "Uh, two."

Woman: "In a cone or a dish?"

Stef: (stifling laughter) "Dish, please."

Woman: (writing) "...okay... anything else?"

Me: "Moose Tracks... two scoops... dish, please." (I catch on quick.)

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And now, a quick interlude to show how happy The Kid is in his Jumperoo:

Stef bought this to take to Maine, because she thought his other play center:

... was too big to bring. I should note that the Jumperoo takes up just as much space, if not more. He really likes it though. Back to Maine and its quirks.

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Maine has shut down an entire highway (295 S around Portland, I believe)in order to repave it. True, this will allow the job to move much faster, but I'm amazed that this was agreed to by the populace. Can you imagine if Connecticut proposed completely closing I-95 S between New Haven and Bridgeport for a few months? Chaos! But it Maine, it just works. That's the way they do things there, I guess.

Social classes in Prospect Harbor seem to be divided along the lines of natives ("real Mainers") and transplants ("from away"). It kind of bleeds into the culture. During my Improv class (led by the owner of Bar Harbor's ImprovAcadia, by the way, a pretty awesome theater, go if you get a chance, but I digress), one of my fellow students was given the task of playing simply "a carpenter." He went on a passionate rant about the building and repair needs of natives vs. "those out-of-town folks." Everyone was laughing and nodding in agreement. I started to feel very lonely.

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So Maine is a little weird, but I'm going to have to get used to it. As of the end of this month, my parents will be living there full time, having sold their place in the Boston area. In fact, the final leg of our vacation was spent hauling stuff away from Prospect Harbor so that there will be room for all of the stuff coming from MA. It wasn't quite the end to our vacation that we had envisioned, but we got a new bed and a really cool TV out of it, so I'm certainly not complaining.

Perhaps once TK is a bit older, the 7-9 hour journey won't be quite so daunting, and we can visit them more often. For now, Maine will remain a happy memory. A damp, cold, gloomy, physically exhausting happy memory.

Oh, and more pics can be found in the flickr gallery.

Maine is Damp.

Prospect Harbor's been getting a lot of rain lately, and when it's not raining, it's foggy. I go outside to take Lucy for a walk, and my clothes are moist by the time I return. The sun appeared just long enough to wake us up at 5:30 this morning, but then it disappeared. We even had to go shopping for baby clothes because we were stupid and didn't pack any long pants for TK.

This isn't to say that we're not enjoying ourselves. It's very quiet up here, and we're essentially going with the flow. The only scheduled event that I have is an improv class tomorrow, part of the local arts festival. There's a nebulous to-do list: go see a movie, read the book I'm recording when we get back, play more games, take Lucy out into the bay at low tide, watch Stargate Continuum, puppet show, etc., but there's no sort of pressure to get them done immediately.

I'm told that it can get pretty warm and sunny here, and that it might just do that in the next few days. For now, I'm happy to just accept the Maine way of life.

We're headed to Prospect Harbor on Saturday, bound for a week of sun and sea breezes, with nothing to worry about but how much sunscreen to put on The Kid, or which games we want to play that evening. Oh, and the new audiobook I need to research so I can be ready to record when we get back, but that should be pretty low impact.

Once we arrive at our destination, I'm sure we will really enjoy ourselves. Before that time can come, though, we have to endure 8-9 hours in the van with TK and Pukey The Dog. We're going to have to stop every hour or two, so TK can eat, or Lucy can get her bearings on solid ground before we move on. I've loaded up the iPod with tons of podcasts, so we have something to listen to when we're not listening to Raffi.

Before we can hit the road, though, we have to pack the car. The last time we mounted a full-family excursion, we ended up in a frenzy moments before we left, trying to make sure we didn't forget anything important. This time, we decided to make a checklist, both for completeness and efficiency. We're planning to do a good bit of loading tonight, so those last few moments before departure won't be so crazy. I thought you might enjoy seeing the list.

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We've been reading a lot to TK lately. It's part of our naptime/bedtime routine. We read a book or two together when he starts to get sleepy, so he gets the idea that sleep time is nigh. He typically enjoys the activity, and will often reach for the characters in the books as if he could pick them up. He's still working on the whole 2D/3D concept.

I've discovered, though, that books for little children are not created equal. They are typically heartwarming and cute. Many rhyme. Several concern the quantification or categorization of love for a little one. Others are all about getting the kid to go to bed, or to take a bath. Lots are designed to teach specific concepts like colors or letters of the alphabet. Most are boring.

These aren't bad books, exactly. They're written for babies, after all. It's just that when you face the prospect of reading these things over and over and over and over again, it's nice to find a few favorites that you actually enjoy reading. They're still on the kid's level, of course, but they're books that have enough wit and humor to keep an adult's interest. So far, we've found two authors that achieve this level: Mo Willems and Bob Shea

Willems is an award-winning writer for Sesame Street, as well as the creator of Sheep in the Big City for Cartoon Network. Our first exposure to his work was Knuffle Bunny, the story of a little girl going to the laundromat with her dad, only to leave her prized stuffed rabbit in the washing machine. The story is told using cartoon-style line drawings superimposed on real photographs of New York City, and the expressions on the characters' faces are priceless. Willems doesn't need many words to convey the inner passions of the characters. The look in the Dad's eye when he decides to "look harder" for Knuffle Bunny says it all.

Kunffle Bunny is at least based in reality. New Socks, by Bob Shea, is a joyous exercise in absurdity. Leon is a bean-shaped creature who wears glasses, and he's really excited about his new socks. That's the plot, really. Leon spends the book talking to the reader, playing games with his new socks: sliding on a wood floor, and pretending his foot's a phone that he uses to talk to the president. His unbridled joy practically leaps off the page. He's so excited that we have to tone down our reading style at bedtime. We actually managed to snag an autographed copy of this one. Is says, simply, "Hey! You got new socks!" which is absolutely true.

Enter the pigeon.

Stef had heard about more of Mo Willems' work after we got New Socks, so she ordered the highly regarded Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! This story is told with more simple line drawings (no photographs this time) with priceless expressions. A bus driver speaks to the reader at the start of the book, asking them to watch his bus for a moment. There's only one rule that must be followed: THE BIRD MUST NOT DRIVE THE BUS. Mere moments after the drivers' departure, the titular pigeon emerges, and asks if he can drive the bus. The idea is that the child interacts with the bird, telling him "no." The bird then tries various schemes to trick the reader into letting him drive the bus, eventually working himself into an avian meltdown, complete with red eyes and scribbly text. Ultimately, the pigeon will fail in his quest, but he is not beaten. At the end of the book, he spots a semi truck, and the dream continues. The book won a major award for kids literature (Caldecott honor, I believe), and it's currently being adapted into an animated short. There's even a musical version out there somewhere.

Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus! is only the beginning of the pigeon saga. Other titles include Don't Let The Pigeon Stay Up Late! (in which The Pigeon carries his own Knuffle Bunny) and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. In The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog, the pigeon, well, finds a hot dog in the street, but before he can eat it, a new character appears: The Duckling. This Machiavellian baby bird seems sweet at first, but you soon realize he has his eyes on the hot dog in question. At first, he asks simple questions: "What does it taste like? Would you say it tastes like chicken?" His continued persistence drives the pigeon into a frenzy once again. Only the suggestion that they split the hot dog gets things back to normal. TK is fascinated with The Pigeon, and we've been snatching up as many of the books as we can.

This snatching behavior extends into the two spinoff "board books," The Pigeon Has Feelings Too! and The Pigeon Loves Things That Go. Each of these are only about eight pages long (they call them a "smidgen of pigeon"), but they include cameos from and references to their larger cousins. This is odd, because if you're dealing strictly with suggested age ranges, children would read the board books first, not understanding why a hot dog "gos" in The Duckling's belly in The Pigeon Loves Things That Go, or why The Pigeon is so pissed off at the bus driver in The Pigeon Has Feelings Too. Maybe these really are written with the grownups in mind as well. Whatever it is, I can't wait to find out what happens to that flying rat next.

So next time you need to snag a gift for that little nephew or young cousin and you find yourself wandering the children's section of the bookstore, just remember that not all kids' books are created equal. You might be subjecting the parents to the torture of "A, aardvarks in an alleyway... B, baboons ballooning... C..." over and over and over and over again. Oh and one more thing,

DON'T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE-oh, you know.

I'm about to hit the "update" button for The Fun Zone's blog software. If all goes well, it will be a painless transition, and the only thing you'll notice is things looking funny for a while (my custom layout, or "skin," is not directly compatible with the new version, so I'll have to rebuild it from scratch). If things don't go well, you may not hear from me for a few days. Weeks even.

Tell my family I love them.

UPDATE: At 10:23 on Friday night, after returning from a Mold Monkies concert, I think I've got things running smoothly. Functionality is a bit different in the new version, and I think I'll be fiddling with the aesthetics for a while. For now, enjoy the change of venue as you travel from blog to blog.

Anybody want to buy a slightly used* TiVo?

It's been a good four years or more since we first fell in love with the TiVo. It's Rob and Katie's fault. They showed it to us upon our first visit to their apartment. We immediately (the following weekend, if I recall correctly) ran out to get our own. Everything about the device was revolutionary: the interface, the performance, the ease of use, and the ability to follow your favorite shows automatically when they changed dates or times without your knowledge. It was the rare device that did exactly what it claimed it would do. It changed the way we watched television.

But that was four years ago. A lifetime in technological terms.

A couple of weeks ago, a salesperson from AT&T stopped by, offering to upgrade us to their new U-Verse fiber optic system. This would transfer our existing phone and DSL service to a digital phone and wireless gateway-based system, as well as offer us a wealth of digital television options. Plus, they'd give us a free month of service, and a hundred bucks. "Um..." I said, "Let me think about it a sec."

I've been resisting the upgrade of our standard analog cable hookup for a long time. Our brief experience with a cable box in Fishkill did not go well. Often, planned VCR recordings would fail because the box was tuned to the wrong channel, or turned off entirely. The TiVo has the ability to interface with a cable box, but only through a IR-based system, one that isn't 100% error free. I wasn't excited about adding an extra technological layer to our system. Still, if we ever plan on upgrading to an HDTV setup, we'll need digital cable, and Comcast just keeps raising the price of analog while removing programming from the analog lineup (last I checked, $56 a month for "extended basic"). Switching to the AT&T bundle would save us about $40 a month.

Oh, and the new system comes with a DVR. I didn't really pay attention to the specs, because I intended to continue to use the TiVo though the cable box, but in the back of my mind I heard the words "...can record four programs at once." Hmmm... interesting, I thought. We don't really need a DVR, but I guess it will be worth wading through the clunky UI as a backup to our VCR setup. I told the sales guy okay, and we set up an install date.

We got the system this past Friday. It took longer to get up and running than anybody expected, so I didn't really have a chance to fiddle with things until Saturday. Still, the TV worked, our standard Friday night recordings were being picked up by the new DVR (since the TiVo was technically blind at that point) and both of my studio computers could access the internet (though not each other, more on that in a sec), so I was pretty happy to start with.

Then I tried setting up the TiVo. Hookup cable box output to TiVo input, check. Rerun TiVo setup, uh-huh. Zip Code stays the same... Do I have cable, or satellite? Um... neither? Okay, let's try cable. Wait for it to call home... nope, the only cable option is Comcast. Okay, back up, and choose satellite. Wait for it to call home again... DirecTV or Dish Network? No, I have U-Verse now, TiVo. Where is that?

The TiVo suggested that I go to the support forums online. The official FAQs didn't help a whole lot, but a Google search soon located some other forums that addressed what I needed. See? All we have to do is call TiVo, and they'll give us a zip code that DOES include the U-Verse info... but it's not 100% correct. Oh, I can request that they update their lineup on the TiVo website, but that takes 2-3 weeks. What's this? People can't seem to get the IR blaster to change the channels on the U-Verse box. What? Need to buy a third party IR cable? Huh? Don't point it at the IR port on the cable box, but about three inches to the left of it? And remove the front cover first? What? The best results were found by holding the IR emitter two inches above the box, over the left-hand corner, and rotating it 45 degrees? Oh, and the U-Verse box has a habit of falling asleep when it's idle, requiring user input to return to programming, so you often end up with a recording in the TiVo marked "Doctor Who" that's just an hour's worth of a screen saying "Press OK to continue?"

My head started to swim. This wasn't going to work. Even if I could get MacGuyver some sort of setup that worked most of the time, there would always be that doubt in the back of my mind that something wouldn't record because the two boxes wouldn't communicate properly. We're going to have to cancel the U-Verse. We certainly can't abandon the TiVo! Our TiVo.

Or could we? After all, the U-Verse included a DVR, one that, while different, wasn't all that bad. What was I trying to do? Get my four-year-old box to interface with the brand new unit so I could get it to do exactly what the new box was capable of doing on its own. And the new DVR can record four shows at once. No more priority lists. No more VCR backup. No more needing to watch anything live ever again. Plus, it has video on demand, picture in picture channel surfing, and the ability to browse menus while the video continues in the background.

It slowly dawned on us (it took me longer than Stef). This was okay. We'd gotten our money's worth out of our TiVo. It was time to move on. Then we checked eBay. 80-hour Series 2 units with lifetime subscriptions are still going for several hundred dollars. Well, that settles it.

So, nearly all of our season passes have been migrated over to the new DVR. The TiVo's still connected, as there are a few more shows in there that we'd like to watch, but it's not set up to record anything anytime soon. Actually, it thinks it's attached to a DirectTV system and that it's able to change channels and everything. I just couldn't bring myself to tell it the truth.

This isn't to say that everything is peaches and cream with the U-Verse system. My two studio computers, which used to be hard-wired to a Linksys router in the old DSL setup, are now connected to the wireless gateway in the other room via USB wireless antennas. I'm still fiddling with the antenna positions, and I do occasionally lose the connection. My shared folders, which used to be visible between the two computers, are now missing as well. From what I can gather, it's likely a firewall issue, but I haven't had the guts to dive into both the Norton and Windows firewall settings, armed with port numbers and IP address ranges, to make it all work. Not sure what I'm going to do on that front quite yet. Do I need to call the Nerd Herd?

On the whole, though, we're pretty happy with our upgrade. Plus, since we get the first month free, we have the super-deluxe package, with, like, eight HBOs. Yesterday, I watched some classic Doctor Who on Demand. No, I'm not talking Christopher Eccleston. This is Patrick Troughton, Doctor Number Two, from 1968. Odd.

Goodbyes are so hard. Later, TiVo!

*Okay, moderately used** TiVo.

**Fine. Ridiculously overused TiVo. But well loved.

Link: http://www.drhorrible.com/

Again, I think I'm behind the curve on this one, but this is just too awesome not to share:

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Whedon. Harris. Fillion.

Super-villains. Freeze Rays. Musical Theater.

And it's a love story.

Act I is up now. II and III on the way.