My So Called Life

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/ Shane / 4 Comments

Go see this movie.

Sure, the plot is pretty predictable. I know you’ve seen it before. But believe me, it is well worth the price of admission. I look at this movie more like an amusement park ride than a movie, where you pay your money, enjoy the ride, and then go back to the real world.

Sara and I don’t see many movies these days. This is only the 3rd movie we’ve seen in the theater since Evie was born. I really wanted to see this one in it’s full 3D glory, rather than waiting for it on DVD. The movie is truly breathtaking.

I haven’t been to many 3D movies. At the beginning of this one, I was rolling my eyes a little bit. I thought, “Oh boy, the traditional putting-a-golf-ball-toward-the-audience shot. How cliché.” But pretty soon those fell by the wayside as the movie really got cranked up. The 3D became a lot more subtle as the movie went on, to where you weren’t really noticing it. This is when it was at its best, when I wanted to swat aside a mosquito that was buzzing by my face. At one point I even flinched away from something that was falling, and then looked around sheepishly to see if anybody noticed.

Of course the Internet is crawling with people hating this movie. Ignore those people. I can’t imagine anybody with an open mind not enjoying this movie (meaning, people who aren’t looking to find problems with it, or going into it hating it because it is popular). Very cool.

Living off the Grid

/ Shane / 6 Comments

We did it. We made the leap. We got rid of our satellite dish.

It all started when I was reading an article at my mom’s house, I believe it was in Newsweek, about a guy who had decided to cancel his cable television. His main point was basically that most shows are online, or on Netflix, or some other medium. Of course, not all shows were, but for the money he was paying for cable, it would be worth it to miss those shows.

This really resonated with me. Most of the shows we watch are on network television. Yes, there are a few shows that aren’t available online and aren’t on network television that I will miss. But are those few shows worth the money we pay? If someone came up to me on the street and said, “Hey, if you stop watching show X, I’ll give you $500 a year.” I would take it so fast the guy’s head would spin.

There were a few other factors as well that affected our decision. First off, as you probably know, we don’t watch t.v. with Evie. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no t.v. before the age of two. But of course, after two years of not watching t.v. with her, there didn’t seem to be much point in starting when she turned two. We have plenty to do in a day. So the t.v. doesn’t come on at all until she is in bed. Depending on how tired we are, we can probably watch (at most) two shows. So we’ve already weaned ourself down quite a bit, to where the t.v. isn’t on all day.

Second off, if t.v. is so bad for kids, is it really so great for adults? Don’t get me wrong, we still watch plenty of t.v., but I’ve been making an effort to watch left. Honestly, I feel like I never have enough time for my hobbies as it is, and I’d really rather be doing them than watching t.v. in most cases.

For me personally, there was a third factor to consider. We have had our Tivo for years now. It worked great when we just had regular cable. But with any sort of box, satellite in our case, but also digital cable, etc., the Tivo has some trouble. Most people rent a box with a DVR included in it, so they don’t have these sorts of troubles. But it didn’t make sense to pay extra for that when we already had something. Anyway, long story short, but if we didn’t remember to “fix the t.v.”, the Tivo would blindly record an hour of satellite screen saver. This happened constantly, meaning we were missing shows left and right. And if we were gone for a weekend or something, forget it.

Okay, so, the short version is, for whatever reason, we don’t watch much t.v. anymore, and we decided it wasn’t worth it. So I got a digital converter box for my birthday and decided to give it a whirl. After a short trip to Best Buy for a $13 antenna, we’re in business.

I have to tell you, I couldn’t feel better about this. Basically, the downside is missing a few shows I used to watch (and I basically only mean The Soup and Robot Chicken, maybe the occasional football game). The upside is saving about $500 a year and not missing shows from when the Tivo / satellite connection messes up.

And let’s be clear, this isn’t exactly like going down to 4 channels, like when I was a kid. The combination of digital signals adding sub-channels, and maybe the fact that I live in Chicago now, I receive a full 39 channels. That’s like how many basic cable used to give you.

So anyway, I dumped all of those horrible monopolistic television providers, and I have a new lease on life.  A spring in my step. And I recommend to all of you to do the same.

One funny anecdote about the whole thing. When I went in to Best Buy, the checkout lady tried to get me to get a credit card. She asked me, “Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas? We have no interest right now, you could get that big t.v. you always wanted.” I looked at her and said, “Are you seriously trying to sell a big screen high def t.v. to the guy who just bought the cheapest pair of rabbit ears he could find?” She repeated about the no interest, and I just laughed and left.

Basketball, Dreams and Cactuses

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Over the weekend we took Evie to a women’s college basketball game. It was actually a lot of fun. Evie was excited to learn about a new sport and see people playing actually playing it. More exciting though were the peripheral things, like the jazz band and the decorations for the Hawaiian theme promotion. Most exciting of all, of course, was the mascot.

Evie gave him several high-fives over the course of the evening, and she demanded to know where he was at all time. We spent much of the game looking around for him so she could check out what he was up to. We’re pretty sure he was a Phoenix, but Evie insisted he was a Cardinal, due to the fact that he was red. Every dance move, every attempt to pep up the crowd, was amazing to her. And for my own part, I really enjoyed the game. It was exciting.

Unfortunately we left before the end, so I didn’t see who won. Evie has asked many times since then if we could go back to “see the bird” and has made plans for our next trip. So who knows, we might be back to watch another game.

Evie, laughing: “Those aren’t pants!”
Me: “Yes they are.”
Evie: “No they’re not!”
Sara: “What are they, if they aren’t pants?”
Evie: “Cactuses!”
They were khaki’s, although maybe she wasn’t misunderstanding the word…she finds khaki’s to be stiff and poky.

Over break she was taking a nap in the car, when suddenly she sat bolt upright and announced, “I have to go potty!” We started looking around and finally found a place to pull over and go. As we were looking, she says, “I was having a dream I was going potty.” So we had to explain to her, “It’s okay, that happens to adults too!” I don’t know how many times I have had dreams like that.

The next day she was eating and she started crying. She said, “I ate my finger! Does that happen to adults too?”

It’s so funny, seeing her have these dreams that adults have. This morning she told me a dream that she was in a place where there were lots of people eating, and she was looking and looking for her chair, but she couldn’t find it. Again, haven’t we all had dreams like that? She hasn’t gone to school yet, so she can’t have ones where she hasn’t studied for a test, or can’t find a class or her locker. I still have a dream like that now and again.

Of course, she has strictly Evie dreams too, like the one she had over the weekend where her feet got dirty because she had cheese in her Elmo slippers…

The first signs of getting old

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Okay, I just turned 30 and now this.

Verizon called the other day to tell me I had text messages. They said that they had noticed because receiving text messages was a break in my pattern, and they just wanted to know if that was okay. They said they didn’t want me to be surprised when I had a few charges for text messages on my bill (we don’t have text messaging in our plan). So basically, they did everything except go step by step on my phone to tell me how to get my messages.

In summary, the call went something like this:
“Don’t be alarmed! This is called a “text message”. Many people of your generation don’t know what that is, so I will explain it to you. Don’t bother trying to fiddle about in there by yourself, you’ll probably just mess things up. Just so you know, when you break out the bifocals to look at your bill, you will notice a charge on there. Do you need me to explain to you what money is?”

Am I really that old? Sure, I don’t text message much. It’s just not my thing really. But lets just say I understand the concept, I didn’t need quite so much hand holding. I have received text messages before, they’re not just all piling up in my inbox unread.

I guess maybe they put stuff like that in there when the stories started coming out about parents having a $500 phone bill because their kid was texting all over the place. So I guess they really are doing it as a favor to me or something. But we’re talking about like 3 text messages here, not 3,000. I probably wouldn’t have even noticed the difference on my bill. And it’s not like the first time I’ve ever received one. I’ve even sent a few.

So, in summary, get off my back Verizon, I’m not in the grave just yet. And get off my lawn.

The restaurants of break

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Over the break (the two weeks over the holidays during which I didn’t blog), we were out and about a little more than usual, which led to us hitting up more restaurants than usual. So I wanted to mention a few of the highlights:

The best of the lot was Electric Cheetah in Grand Rapids. Evie was pretty excited to go here, since she considers us the “Cheetah family” (on account of how fast she and I run at soccer practice). She must have been hungry too, because she insisted she was going to order “everything” from the waitress. The waitress must have been taken with her, since she spent a few minutes showing her pictures of her kids. I had one of the best sandwiches I can recall, the “Sloppy Jalopy” which was:

House-smoked corned beef brisket and black forest ham, caramelized red onion, tomato, thousand island, Dijon, and Swiss on grilled rye.

They also had a root beer list the way a brewery has a beer list, which was also enjoyable to read (but the one Sara ultimately chose did have high fructose corn syrup in it). They also had good fries with *awesome* dipping sauces for them. I don’t remember what they all were, but there were like 10 different kinds and they were all delicious. My favorite was the dill. Also, Sara had some saffron-tomato soup which she enjoyed. All in all, a very awesome “hipster” lunch spot (it even said hipster on the menu, so I know it’s true).

Obviously that was a little more interesting than the Pizza Hut lunch buffet, but that doesn’t mean Evie didn’t enjoy it more. Evie ate more than Sara! She had 3 pieces of pizza, garlic toast, a dessert breadstick, 3 slices of peaches (she didn’t beat her old man though).

Next up was a restaurant a little closer to home (and one we go to now and again), Chant. At this one, Evie was excited about getting to try “sushi” (except it didn’t have fish). She had wanted to try some at Sara’s work Christmas party, and then she got a set of play sushi from Rachael, which she loves to play with. So I ordered some so that she could try it. I don’t think she really liked it, but then again it was non-traditional sushi, so she might go for it again some time.

The last and least exciting restaurant was Quiznos, the name of which Evie found hilarious. “Quiz-nose? The restaurant is Quiz-nose?” Now, it’s just funny to have “nose” in the name, but this was especially funny to Evie, because she has special names for all of us in the family. Evie is Spoon-nose, I am Fork-nose, and Sara is Kitchen-nose. This all happened one day when Evie and I were being silly, and I was wearing a spoon on my nose, but in true Evie-fashion, she never forgets a thing. So these names have been around for a long time and she never forgets them. So this sort of added to the humor of Quiz-nose.

There were a few more restaurants, but those were the ones that stood out.