Star Trek Next Gen remastered theater screening

Last night we took the kids to a special showing of Star Trek Next Generation at the local IMAX theater.  This was to promote their new release of the remastered season 2 on blu-ray. 

In the car on the way over, we were discussing it, and our agreed opinion was that we wouldn't be getting the blu-ray, because we have the entire series on DVD and that's good enough.  We've recently started watching it with our kids, ages 5 and 7, and they seem to be getting into it.  As one of my friends commented, "You had them watch Farpoint first?!  If they got through that, they will love the rest!"

We were half an hour early and the screening room was already plenty crowded.  They were projecting a series of different shots on the screen, cool imagery but also some before/after shots of the remastering.  I have to say, it was looking pretty good, and those were all it took to convince us, we would probably be buying the blu-ray after all. 




The showing kicked off with a big chunk of the documentary included in the new release.  You KNOW I'm a sucker for documentary, so I was delighted.  Also surprised the kids made it through that.  About 45 minutes later, Q Who? was shown.  The kids loved it (especially the hot chocolate spilling incident at the start).  It was also just so cool to be in an audience full of trekkies laughing at Riker's chastisement of Wesley, and just enjoying the show on the big screen.

When that episode ended, they next showed a bunch of blooper outtakes.  Once again, it was fun laughing together as an audience, along with the crew.

There was going to be about an hour more of stuff including the Measure of a Man episode, but we figured we'd pressed our luck far enough and ushered the kids out at that point.  It was a great night though, and as we drove home, my daughter said, "When we get home, can we just settle down on the couch and watch another one?" :)

Top 10 Regular Show Episodes

There's a cartoon channel progression that parents go through.  When the kids were first born, it was Sprout, then Nick Jr., then Nickelodeon. There was an Angelina Ballerina phase, a Spongebob phase, and of course Yo Gabba Gabba. Right now it is all about The Hub (Ponies), Boomerang (Powerpuff Girls), and Cartoon Network.  I might not have realized this if I weren't a parent, but Cartoon Network has got it goin' ON these days.  I know several people who love Regular Show but dislike Adventure Time, but they are neck in neck for my the #1 spot as my favorite cartoon ever, even surpassing Beavis & Butthead. So as an excuse to talk about Regular Show, I've thrown together a list of my 10 favorite episodes below.  In no particular order (except #1, that's totally my favorite), I present 10 awesome Regular Show episodes:

1. Rock/Paper/Scissors (You're Hired)

The first Regular Show episode ever is still my favorite.  Partly because of the tie-in to Rock, Paper, Scissors: A Geek Tragedy, and partly because as I mention below, it has an 80's song video sequence.

2. Rap It Up

I've seen the Power of Poetry persevere half a dozen times, but I never get tired of it.

3. Carrey O'Keys

The best Regular Show episodes often seem to include a sequence with a musical number from my childhood.  The Footloose sequence in this episode is possibly my favorite Regular Show moment of all time.

4. Hangin' Tough

This is that awesome episode that introduces GBF. "Euuuugh! Giant Bearded Face!"

5. Viral Videos

Makin' viral videooooooos... oh Wedgie Ninja... we hardly knew ye.

6. Road Trip

Episode where they make a pitstop at "Joyspot" aka Funspot in the real world, but also the electro-pop music sequence rocks. :)

7. Exit 9B

It's not even entirely fair to put this on the list, as this season opener featured pretty much every single cool character in the show's history together for an epic battle.  EPIC.

8. Roadkill Bingo

This was one of the first episodes we saw, but so memorable.  Especially the skunk spray battle.

9. Summertime Lovin' In the Summertime

Awesome ode to earworms!

10. Fist-Pump Concert (coffee.  Coffee coffee coffee.  Coffee?)

I was all set to end this list with the Night Owl episode, but then I remembered how one of the things I love most about Regular Show is its constant appreciative nods to coffee.  And 80's musical interludes...




I hope this show continues to get the credit and attention it deserves.  If there were a Cartoon Network theme park, I would be all over it.

Breaking the iParty Shackles

As the true Halloween experience we grew up with dwindles in the rear-view mirror of today's political correctness and safety awareness machines, I realized there's a part of it that I'm actually letting slip away through basic laziness: the creative exercise of making your OWN costume.  Not going to iParty and grabbing whatever happens to be left on the shelf in your kid's size.  I must shamefully admit now that so far, that's what I've been doing.  I know not everyone has succumbed to this apathetic approach, but I also know I'm not the only one.

When I was a kid, Halloween was magical.  We got to go trick or treating by ourselves.  On the actual night of Halloween, October 31st.  If that fell on a Wednesday night, so be it.  We would go out there and trick or treat our little hearts out, late into night.  These days, there are scheduled hours for door to door candy collection, and you're lucky if it actually gets to happen on actual Halloween night.  Or night at all for that matter; day-time trick or treating is quite common now.

This sort of dumbing-down of Halloween might be responsible for my lack of zeal when it comes to costumes, particularly this year for some reason.  But I can't say the lack of creativity is my kids' fault... because I never gave them the option.  I only just this morning told my son, "You know, when I was a kid, we made our own costumes.  Once I was a dinosaur, I sewed a big huge t-rex costume all by myself!  And one year I was a table..."

His little face lit up at the description of what being a table entails, and that's when it all hit home.  As a busy working parent, it takes effort to do a big elaborate costume planning campaign.  It's so much easier to buy a pre-made costume.  A few years back I put together my own Black Widow costume for myself, but I've been selling my own kids short by not giving them the same opportunity to really create something unique.

That ends now.  It might be too late for THIS Halloween, but next year, it's on like Donkey Kong!

New-Found Respect for the Nintendo 3DS

When the Nintendo 3DS first came out, I admit it.  I was a hater.  A detractor and a scoffer.  It's not my normal style, but I felt like the 3D was a total gimmick, and most review sites backed up my lukewarm reception with their own.

When the new larger 3DS came out, our son inherited the "old" 3DS from his Dad.  My daughter had inherited my older regular DS, and as our trip to Disney approached, it became more and more evident that the old one wasn't going to make it.  The thing was literally hanging by a single hinge.  I mean, really it was almost as old as she was.  And knowing that both an Adventure Time game and a Skylanders game are slated for the 3DS this year, I decided it was time to get her a replacement.

I went into the local Gamestop (where everybody knows our name) and they happened to have a used pink 3DS available.  As the clerk walked me through the features, things I had dismissed as silly like the augmented reality stuff activated by cards, or the shooting game that uses real faces to make the characters, I realized that while that stuff wasn't very interesting to me, it probably would be to the kids. 

I surprised her that night with it, and she immediately started investigating the thing.  Because it had a previous owner, all sorts of games and features were available that my husband hadn't unlocked his old DS, so suddenly the kids were working together to get it all going on my son's DS as well.  I was especially appreciative of the feature where you have to take the DS for walks in sleep mode in order to accumulate what the kids are calling "pig points" that can be used to buy puzzle pieces for different puzzles.  They love that part.

And then we went to Disney.  You might think I mean that having these was the best thing ever in the sense that it kept the kids quiet and waiting patiently in lines for busses and rides.  The old "tv babysitter" concept.  I won't deny there was a small element of that in there, but it was by no means the true benefit.  Though this picture shows them both intent on their own games, the majority of the time was excitedly checking to see if anyone new had "visited" them (loads and loads of visits, from all over the world, and the DS shows you where people who visited your DS are from, a little geography they actually cared about).  They worked together and showed each other new things, complimenting each other when they would finish a battle or a quest, or make a new cat soldier.  The coolest thing about it all was, neither one of them played a single DS cartridge game.  This was all stuff that is just baked into the handheld itself. 

They both took pictures of things we saw at Disney, and my son started emulating the park photographers, taking family pictures where he would direct us to "make scared faces" or "point at the ground" like they had.  So cute.  They had hours of fun just recording pointless little voice snippets and coloring the speech balloon icons so that they formed patterns.  They made, re-made, and re-re-made their Mii characters just to play with hair and face options.  Oh, and I almost forgot; you can turn off the 3D, and that is advised for children under 7.

3DS, I may have judged you prematurely.  I think the handheld phase of my own gaming career is over, but I'm very impressed with the creative and teamwork-encouraging elements you've incorporated.  Silly things that a grown-up wouldn't think twice about, but they were captivating and amazing to our children, in an interface that allowed them to explore and discover new features all on their own.

Geek Kids: Edible Wild Plants

This is a repost from a blog I used to write about edible wild plants.  I was just going to borrow images from it this morning, but since the kids are still foraging for sheep sorrel two years later, I figured it would be worth posting the whole thing.

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Fall has brought on a bout of wild plant enthusiasm. I just found out about and ordered Samuel Thayer's DVD on edible wild plant foraging (ha, guess that's one documentary off my to-do list!). I was watching it this past Saturday, and then went out to clean up the garden a bit. I was looking at a plant growing all over the place with very distinctly spearhead-shaped leaves, and I realized that had definitely been in the video I was watching.



Didn't take long to find the segment about Sheep Sorrel, Rumex acetosella. Apparently I made it through childhood never knowing about this one (cheeseweed was my childhood weed of choice). I was so excited, I plucked a few leaves and one by one, accosted the family to try it.

Husband: "Uh, no, not right now, thanks."
Maddy, 5 years old: "I don't want to!" Me: "Oh, come on!" Her: "OK..." She took a nibble and dropped the leaf into her water. I told her that was a good idea, she could make lemonade that way, and she beamed.
Colin, 3 years old, tried one. Then asked for another, and the remaining few I had in my hand.

Colin is five now and the sheep sorrel is still growing next to the garden, and when we get home from school, he is still going over there every now and then and picking it.

There are many reasons that foraging for wild plants would be a good thing for kids to do, and sheep sorrel is a good option because it's so easy to identify.  There are so many teaching opportunities here, including valuable discussion about how some plants will make you sick or are poisonous, and how plants on the side of the road should not be eaten and why.  It's also one of the few consistent geeky nature type things I can do to balance all the electronic ones.
 

New Blog Category: Geek Kids

I figured you readers (all three of you!) might get tired if I talk about nothing but pinball here, so as I was doing my afternoon solo walk, I thought of another major category I could pretty consistently write about that might be interesting.

There are loads of us Geek Moms and Geek Dads out here, doing geeky things to make sure our kids have zero hope of not growing up geeky.  We struggle with the constant questions, "Is this appropriate for my child?  Am I doing damage?  Did the other parents at daycare find out that Colin was telling his classmates all about werewolves today?"

I am not all that concerned about all that.  My kids are 5 and 6 and so far have handled all the geekery I've thrown at them just fine.  OK, so for a while there Colin was scared of Gollum, but the other day in the car he told me he wasn't scared of Gollum anymore, and got all enthused when I said if that was true, we could probably go see The Hobbit in 3D this Christmas. :)

So anyway, will probably post kid-related stuff on maybe Fridays, but it'll be geeky kid-related stuff, OK?