11/23/06

Thanksgiving day. I used to write about my experiences at such family gatherings, but they found out about so all my blog material dried up.

There's always baby material though. Everywhere we go, no matter how much pink she has on, our girl is mistaken for a boy. It was hard for me to see her that way, until the "Hemingway sweater" came along. Now, I understand what people may be seeing:

Getting a baby to pose any particular way is like herding cats, but you get the idea. I can't see her in this sweater without thinking of this old picture of Hemingway. The hair on top even falls the same way.

I can only hope she grows up to be famous for something more that an old house full of cats or bare-knuckle boxing with Truman Capote.

10/31/06

I don't get much done besides taking care of ther baby these days. Halloween was fun though-- the baby and the pumpkin have matching teeth...

7/5/06

Let me know if this video actually plays for you, but don't blame me for how bad it is.

Audrey and Grampa From Florida compared bald spots last time they got together. They must be related.

4/6/06

Little Audrey turned 8 weeks old today-- not quite old enough to fit into her first comic character t-shirt, but mommy couldn't wait any longer.

4/5/06

King Kong Twinkie update:

Thanks to all the regulars who brought banana-flavored Twinkies in for me since my post about them, but the snack-food spin-off wasn't my point at all, of course. Although I have to say, they're not bad, especially since Twinkies aren't my favorite thing and anything banana-flavored certainly isn't. X-Entertainment has a great write up from a guy who really, really cares about such things, if you really care about such things.

But since King Kong was released on DVD last week, I do have to reiterate that that you should steer clear of the wretched mess, and give you the warning that I wish someone would've given me before I saw it in the theaters: in this new version, the girl actually runs after King Kong near the end of the movie, and goes skating with him in Central park. I kid you not. I can't believe the major news networks weren't predicting the end of days when this @#$%^&* hit the theaters, or at least telling reasonable people to stay away. Movie reviewers weren't any help, with people I'd normally respect like Leonard Maltin inexplicably gushing over the thing.

The cliché I hear from everyone is "fast forward through the first and last hour" if you buy the DVD, but I say: Why support the emotional cripples who ruined the opportunity to update a classic that thrilled literally generations of movie fans into something that could entertain those same people, as well as their kids and grandkids, for generations longer? Are a few CGI dinosaurs worth buying or even renting this mess? I don't think so.

I need to write out my rant that I've given at the store so many times about all the evils of Peter Jackson's King Kong, but that'll be another day, coupled with my disgust at listening to comic book fans gripe about the lack of wife-beating in their super-hero cartoons. It's all true, and it all ties together some how, trust me. But that'll be another day...

Chicken Dinner Update:

As seen on some Food Network show about the history of fried chicken, a restaurant down south seems to own one of the original Chicken Dinner Candy-mobiles and has re-branded it to sell actual chicken dinners, of all things. I'm not really set up to get a screen capture or anything, so you'll have to take my word on it. And on the fact that I suddenly yearn to live in the south, where they also have Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurants shaped like giant, if semi-abstract, chickens:

3/26/06

Forget About the Bird Flu With This Chicken

Not quite a Weinermobile, but pretty sharp nonetheless. I found this giant postcard at an estate sale a few weeks ago, and only after bringing it home did I notice that it wasn't for a food delivery truck, but a rolling ad for Chicken Dinner brand candy bars! Produced by a Milwaukee company, I weep at the thought of this thing rolling down the very roads I drive on today, long before I was born. According to the back of the card, there were FLEETS of them! Sob! Oh, where did we go wrong, America? Where did we go WRONG?!

Sigh... this guy has another picture of one, with a little more history as well as a speculation on the name of the candy, while this site has a wrapper image from a spin-off treat. This Ebay auction is is fabulous, too...

3/25/06

From the press release: In connection with the DVD release on March 28 of the blockbuster film King Kong, Hostess is introducing limited-edition Banana Creme-Filled Twinkies,
which will be available in over 30,000 retail locations nationwide beginning March 23, 2006.

As a remake of a 1930s classic (Twinkies were originally filled with banana creme, and only later during WWII was the filling replaced with what Harlan Ellison calls "elephant cum") these new snack foods aren't going to be angst-ridden enough for the modern connoisseur! Twinkies should be gritty, hard-core confection exploring complex sociological and anthropological themes that
earlier bakers would hardly dare to touch upon! Plus, they should be 150% longer than the original Twinkies.

3/22/06

Since we started running games nearly every night of the week a few years back, and for other reasons, I haven't had the time or energy to add much here to the website. But now, the lawsuits over a few old essays have been settled, and I took on a new helper at the shop so I'm hoping to be able to add a little bit to the blog a couple of times a week again.

Lee Shaver started coming in back when he was about half the height he is now. His God-father, my high school aviation teacher Mr. Finnefinger, used to bring him by to buy cards, so I got to know him before he fell in with the current Warhammer crowd at the store. Mr. Finnefinger passed away a couple of years ago, but I'm glad I got to go out and fly model rockets with with him, along with Lee and his little brother, one last time. I'm sure we both miss him.

Anyway, Lee is working a couple of late nights at Rockhead's for me, so don't give him a hard time like I'm doing here. Only I get to do that.

2/14/06

Wednesday morning, not long before I headed to the shop, I got the call that the baby was coming the next day, about 2 weeks earlier than we'd expected. And sure enough, 24 hours later, before I even knew what hit me, we had a screaming Audrey Elizabeth in our hands.

This is still what we see most of the time-- closed eyes and arms thrashing around as she sleeps. But she's not even 5 days old yet.

These pictures are a lot more interesting, but I can still count on my toes the number of times I've seen her in this alert mode, looking around at us. So I feel like a cheat-- like Michael Moore presenting a half-truth of some kind. Sean Hannity is going to call me out on FOX news tomorrow: "That baby only opens its eyes 3% of the time! What is he trying to pull here? Damn those liberal bloggers!" Still, there are only so many squinty-eyed sleeping pictures I can post, and two's my limit.

This one is kind of haunting. After her first 2 hours of life, screaming and squirming around like a tiny bald monkey as the nurses cleaned her up and prepped her, she recognized my voice as I talked loudly to my father. (During the pregnancy, I would yell "HELLO, BABY!" at Valerie's stomach. She thought I was crazy, but it worked.) She lay quietly on the incubator table, which looks like the heat lamp appuratus they carve the hams on at the Old Country Buffet, and followed me around with those big, thoughtful eyes for a minute or two until she fell back to sleep. She seems wise beyond her days, here.

Of course, this last one is actually on her second or third day, and not on the ham-incubator table, but the expression is the same so don't harangue me about cooking the facts yet again...

I sent out a haphazard email the day she was born, but most people couldn't open the picture, and of course she wasn't 17 lbs., she was 7 lbs. 15 oz.. Forgive my addled brain...

Brian