smattering

Went bowling this weekend. Channelled my inner Dude. Despite growing up in Toledo, Ohia, I was never a big bowler. But this weekend a friend had a birthday celebration that included rolling some balls at the lanes in the Port Authority. Lotsa fun. Our son had a blast, too, and my wife was rolling unconscious for a while, three straight strikes and a couple spares.

On our way from the lanes to dinner at a homey little Italian place, walking along the edges of Times Square, it snowed a little bit--big, wet, floppy flakes that glistened in the night air. Christmas lights and headlamps reflected in the slick black streets. Beautiful night. "God, I love this dirty town!"

Sunday we saw Fantastic Mr. Fox. I am a Wes Anderson fan, and I'd put this up there with my favorites of his. The whole stop motion world seems perfect for his stagelike, neoclassically balanced images. Really a fun, beautiful, touching film. We watched Up again on DVD this weekend, too, and that is even better than I remembered. It will be a tough call between those two come Oscar time [and don't forget Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, which is also a really fine and funny animated film. but I think the Academy will overlook it because of the silly title].

Oh, and there should be a moratorium on the use of the old saw about second acts and American lives. Maybe, fifteen minutes of fame, too. Sick of 'em.

great dane

I'm no Joe Dog Whisperer, but Scooby Doo is an monstrously large dog, even for a great dane, I think.

And I don't say that just because I was scared of dogs as a kid.

I mean, I'm no Michael Vick, but don't it make you wonder who'd win in a fight between Scoob and Marmaduke? Not that anyone would want to see it.

These are the kinds of observations that sound completely original and witty to me in this little corner of the internets, but which have probably been made about a million times at other places on the cyberhoohah. Or at least, I should hope, in Mad Magazine.

And we'll leave Clifford out of the equation entirely.

Meatballs

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: great fun! A lot like Up, in that it's more than just funny, it's big and grand oldstyle adventure. And I think it's as good as Up, no question.

I've never seen the book, so I didn't have any preconceived notions. On that note, looking forward to seeing Wild Things, just not sure if it will be too intense for my five-year old. He usually will watch anything, but we had to leave twenty minutes into Ponyo, which had some pretty scary water monster images.

dere it is, dere it is, dere it is!

Home a lot of this week with my five year-old son. His daycare's closed for the week, and we're also having the bathroom redone. Stifling NYC August heat. So we are watching a lot of cartoons, I have to admit. Fun for both of us. Scooby Doo, Looney Tunes, Animaniacs, Superfriends. DVDs rock.

He likes the newer Scooby Doos, which are much more self-aware, of course, than the originals, and where Fred's become kind of a dim bulb, and Daphne's made herself more useful. And Velma never loses her glasses anymore. Mike Piazza makes a cameo in one of the newish ones. But we also some of the old guest star ones with Batman and Robin and the Harlem Globetrotters. One of my favorite things about watching Scooby Doo with him: the first time the gang got caught by one of those haunted house traps where the stairs collapse and turn into a slide, I said, "It's the old stairs-turn-into-a-slide" trick, and now he says that exact same sentence every time it happens. Which is a lot. It happened in a Superfriends episode yesterday, sending Robin into a deep pit, and he said it, and then he said, "Hey, that's the first time I've seen that trick with a hole at the bottom!" And it won't be the last, my son. It won't be the last.

Animaniacs are fun. Looney Tunes are perfect--nothing I can say right now to add to them. And Superfriends are great, corny, gentle fun.

Yesterday was the first time we tried one of the crafts, from the little sections between adventures. You remember, where Aquaman would show you how to make a piggy bank from an old bleach bottle, Superman would teach you how to bend iron pipe into a pinata, and Wonder Woman would tie a knot in a cherry stem with her tongue. Uh, waitaminute, no those aren't quite right. Must be thinking of some barely adolescent, David Lynchian fever dream.

So anyway. Yesterday Wonder Woman did have a craft project that we made at home and had a lot of fun with: a balloon powered rocket! And all you need is some string, some tape, a straw and a balloon. And it's pretty cool. You run the string through the straw, tie it between two places, blow up a balloon and tape it to the straw without tying the end. Count down and blastoff, letting go of the end and the ballon-straw rocket shoots on a straight line across the room. I felt kind of redeemed for letting my kid watch a lot of tv. Kind of pathetic, I know.

Mush, mush, mush all the way

Good sledding yesterday, and not a single fused vertebrae to speak of, although I am a little stiff today. Afterward, my son slurped hot chocolate, holding the cup with frozen fingers, and ate his weight in marshmallows, and later that afternoon I nearly fell asleep while reading to him in bed, but hey, (finger pop) that all adds up to one grade A, killer snow day, cowboy. We also watched a little Noggin and some Looney Tunes, and I made a big pot of turkey sausage, black bean and quinoa soup.

Speaking of eating....

A new link to the right: a blog from a friend and neighbor about cooking, called "What's Cooking at Jerk Castle...recipes two amateur cooks are trying at home." They are great neighbors, and I will definitely be trying out some of the recipes my own self.