Pictures

Pictures! You know... Pictures!

My girl has always loved bathtime.

We need this hoodie in a bigger size now. 

So fresh and so cool. This is right after bath time.

This was at a rest stop somewhere in Washington State. 

We were on our way to The Gorge to see Dave Matthews.

Nice hat! It's a toss up between this and the hoodie.

There are no words to accurately describe the cute.

We had a lot of snow in 2010 for one day. By the afternoon it was nearly all gone.

Her first taste of homemade cookie. I ate the 75% that was leftover. 

And I can say with good authority that it was delicious!

This was looking down on the city of Seattle from our hotel room. 

We don't live in the USA, but we sure like to visit!

A very quick picture post of Baby Bean's first year. That was easy. 

Company

Company! You know... Company!

I have visitors on their way over right now. In fact, they are running a little bit late, which gave me time to do this. Blog.

She is napping, and seems to nap for 2.5 hours now. This is not a usual nap timeline for her. I'm used to 1 to 1.5 hours or even less. Those are difficult days. All this napping gives me a lot of time to hang around my house. Today is Wednesday so I don't have a vehicle until later in the afternoon. So I try and organize with someone to come over to my mountainside suite and visit. But they are still not here yet.

BUT

Company is coming, I've vacuumed, made cupcakes, and cleared off the kitchen table... now I'm just sitting here on my exercise ball in the middle of the living room waiting. Not for too long I hope.

Maybe just one cupcake while I wait...

More interesting posts in the future! I promise!

Marvel vs DC

Marvel vs DC! You know... Marvel vs DC!

Whoa. Life has been busy!

This weekend we were at 2 different birthdays. I had to do some overtime at work. We had to squeeze grocery shopping in there somewhere, which we did not totally manage, so we will be finishing that today. And we brought Baby Bean to the park. It's nice to have a good portion of the day free to catch up from the weekend.

As a result of the busy weekend I have not had time to watch very much. We're working through the PVR list and also getting rid of shows we can't be bothered with. Last night we finished Come Dine With Me Canada, the Redemption episodes. We deleted a cooking show, and Mama Bean decided she just didn't have time for Dr. Phil anymore. Before I sat down to blog today I watched Young Justice and Star Wars Clone Wars. Both cartoons, and both very enjoyable for me to watch.

At one of the birthday parties on the weekend I had a conversation with the birthday boy about Marvel vs DC comics and their movie counterparts. It felt great to show off some of my comic book knowledge, which I consider to be 'better than average'.

My favourite live action movies are Marvel. What they have been doing with The Avengers characters and their movies is nothing short of brilliant. Even if the movie is only mediocre, it's all leading to the team-up movie. Talk about great planning! But as for direct-to-video movies, the animated DC movies are better storytelling by far. I'm also partial to DC because the characters are superior. Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman live at DC comics. They're just cooler than mutants, which is really all you get with Marvel.
Batman: Year One is coming out on DVD soon (tomorrow), so I'll be checking that one out. With animation they basically have all the storyboards from the comic, so animating it should be a no-brainer. With live action, it takes much longer to make, and most of the costume and set designs don't translate well to real life. Can you imagine Hugh Jackman wearing the yellow spandex Wolverine costume? Or Jeremy Renner wearing the purple horned Hawkeye costume? It would look ridiculous.

Marvel is making better theater movies. Period. DC just doesn't know how to tell a great live action story. But they dominate the animated movie.

TV Finales

TV Finales! You know... TV Finales!

Whoa... I just finished watching the Season 4 finale of Breaking Bad. That show is cool. Turns out the scheme that the two main characters put into action was totally based on overthinking it. But now, because of their scheme, the bad guys are dead, the meth lab is burned to the ground, and there's practically no one to force them back to making meth. How are they going to pull another 16 episodes out of this series? It will be interesting, because the only bad left over is recovering from a gunshot wound on the other side of the Mexican border. But he can be an awesome bad guy with the right writing.

TV show Finales can be tricky things to execute. There haven't been too many that I have found all that memorable. I haven't heard good things about Entourage or Sopranos, so I hesitate to even start those shows. The Friends finale was sort of okay. Seinfeld just kind of ended. The Lost finale makes more sense once I learned (recently) that the showrunner had no plan and was just kind of making it up as he went along. He even tried quitting a few times. Apparently J.J. Abrams made the first episode without any long term plans, just lots of mysterious things happening and no answers. I think he fixed his formula for Fringe.

By far, the very best television finale was Six Feet Under. It makes all the death and misery of the previous 6 seasons all worth it. I felt like the final montage was the most important part of the show, and everything was leading up to it.

Also...
I watched the first 3 episodes of the new Archer season. Now there's a break until the new year. I don't know what happened in animated technology, but for some reason the faces seem to be more expressive during those episodes. Usually the expressions are either blank, or basic emotions. 
And...
Now during her naps I'll have to start a new show. Boardwalk Empire? Justified? Spartacus? Human Target? Strike Back? I still have Season 2 of Eastbound and Down to catch up with too. There's just all these shows that Mama Bean isn't that into.
Lastly...
Baby Bean's naps taken a new development too. She's not as tired at her usual nap time, so she stays awake for longer. But first we have to get through the 10min car catnap. That seems to recharge her for another hour and a half!

Yesterday

Yesterday! You know... yesterday!

So yesterday... yesterday was a busy day. No time for blogging.

I drove my wife to work (there's got to be a cooler way to refer to her in these posts... I'll revisit that.) On the way, my little Bean (daughter for the uninitiated) fell asleep. Oh great. Now her nap is going to be a little bit later, and that puts her whole schedule off for the day. And she's going to Grandma's house for a couple hours in the afternoon, so she needs to wake up for that.
She stayed awake for the ride home, and I let her play for a little while once we got home. Then it was Nap Attempt #1.
Followed closely by Nap Failure #1.
She chatted happily to herself in her darkened room with an occasional loud freak out from what I can only guess as her leg getting caught in the crib rails. She freed it within seconds, this I know because of the following "Yay!".
After 30mins of this, she decided to scream and cry and carry on until I eventually decided that Nap Time would have to wait a bit longer. More like she had decided for us.
While we were playing, my wife called sick from work, which meant I had to go pick her up, which more than likely meant our Bean would sleep on the way again. She only lasted 5mins awake in the car and slept the rest of the 40min ride.

Now that Mama Bean (nickname for now I guess, pending approval), was home, Little Bean's visit to Grandma's wasn't necessary. But a Nap most certainly was. Altogether she had only slept for less than an hour, and she usually naps for 2hours.
Nap Attempt #2 was met quickly with Nap Failure #2. This girl was not going to nap today.

That meant I had to go to my afternoon shift and leave sick Mama Bean with a potentially cranky Little Bean.

Thankfully, when I got home, Mama Bean reported that Little Bean was an angel, and had played so well during the afternoon.
Bedtime that night, obviously, was very easy as we had a very tired Bean on our hands.

Hey, because I'm the Dad, does that make me Fava Bean?

Sleep

Sleep! You know... Sleep!

I'm so very tired right now. I should be napping too, my wife even tells me so. She would know best as she has to live with me and my tired self.

My tired self is the guy who's energy level is drained, doesn't help out very much, and is generally miserable about everything. (Except when it comes to family, that is something I will love forever.)

I also have a sleep self who's a real jerk. My wife tells me many a story where I've kicked her in my sleep, or stolen most of the covers. Once when she got up to tend to the crying baby in the middle of the night, she came back to my sleep self hogging the whole bed.

I guess that's why I have days off. To catch up on sleep. I'm looking forward to the upcoming weekend, because I feel like September has lasted for a month and a half.

Sesame Street (part 2)

Sesame Street! You know... Sesame Street! (still)

Where was I? Oh yes...

Abby's Flying Fairy School. It became apparent early on that this was not my little girl's favourite part of the show. She would start playing with other things. So naturally it did not endear itself to us. And now we are not huge fans of Abby's Flying Fairy School.

My favourite part these days is when Elmo asks a baby something. I don't know why, it just cracks me up.

One day I want to own this book.

That would be so cool.

Well, she's not napping right now... but I've been reading Brightest Day during her nap, so I haven't been making time to blog.

Sesame Street (part1)

Sesame Street! You know... Sesame Street!

I watched Sesame Street growing up. My Mom is convinced it's what taught me how to read at an early age. Like, so early that I went for testing in Kindergarten. I could read at a way higher level than I could understand.

The new season of Sesame Street started this week, which is exciting because we just caught up on last season over the summer. I came home from work one morning and my beautiful wife and daughter had discovered which channel it was on. My daughter loved Elmo instantly, and it has become a show we can put on when we both need a minute to ourselves to either prepare food, or eat food.

The new format of Sesame Street is much better than I remember. They told a story through short clips before... now they tell the story start to finish, then move on to the short clips, with other animations in between.

... must run... I'll have to continue this later because the Nap has ended...

Yogurt

Yogurt! You know... Yogurt!

Here is our adventures in eating Yogurt this week...

We knew she'd get the spoon to her mouth eventually.

She must be learning something because there is not too much mess here.

You know... spoon dexterity just takes too much effort some days.

There's something on my face? You're crazy, I don't think there's anything there.

How's that for a picture post? Also, she's not napping. Her Mom took her to the park for a playdate. Does that invalidate this post? Hmmm....

Blackest Night

Blackest Night! You know... Blackest Night!

So there was this comic event that happened, I guess a few years ago now... called Blackest Night.

It was a Green Lantern storyline, and there were about a million different characters involved.

What started as only the Green Lantern Corps, quickly evolved into 7 different corps, all representing a different colour and emotion.

Green Lanterns wield the power of Will
Yellow Lanterns are the Sinestro Corps and wield the power of Fear
Violet Lanterns are know as Star Sapphires and wield the power of Love
then suddenly there was Blue
Blue Lanterns wield the power of Hope and only work when a Green Lantern is around
and then...
Red Lanterns wield the power of Rage, and are essentially dead, with acidic plasma blood keeping them and their rage alive.

Orange Lanterns, well, there's only one Orange Lantern, and his name is Larfleeze. He wields the power of Avarice, which basically means he's greedy and wants everything all the time. His ring has a 100,000% power level and brings forth as many orange lantern avatars as he's killed. Confusing right?
Indigo Lanterns are mysterious, because nobody knows what they do. They wield the power of Compassion. (What? That's a power?) They apparently worship Abin Sur, the Green Lantern that died on Earth and who's ring chose Hal Jordan as a Green Lantern.

All the coloured Lantern Corps came together, eventually, because they needed to stop a threat to the Universe, the Black Lanterns, who wield the power of the dead. The black rings made the dead heroes and villains of the DC Universe rise from their graves and mess with the living. The sole purpose? To bathe the living heart with emotions and 'harvest' it, which fed the power of the ultimate Black Lantern, Nekron. Nekron wanted to extinguish all of life in the Universe, because he was the ultimate darkness.

It explained how some heroes in the DC Universe had been resurrected over the years, while others stayed dead. And then at the end of it all, 12 heroes/villains were alive again, and there's a White Power Lantern, which I assume is why the next bit is called Brightest Day.

Blackest Night is a long story, because there are a lot of dead heroes/villains that came back to life. As such, many different titles were tie-ins to the main event. I skipped a few of them, because they seemed to be the same old story. Everyone is surprised to see so-and-so alive, then everyone fights. Sometimes the heroes manage to figure out that intense white light destroys the black ring. Or more characters die from having their hearts ripped out.

Overall it was an intense story line that was supposed to have the reader experience a lot of character emotion. This was difficult for me as I was not as invested in the characters as someone who say, spent the last 10 years reading comics.

So now I embark on the next part of this Green Lantern story... Brightest Day. Where a bunch of redemption will be interwoven into the story. That's my guess anyways.

Onward...

Fall

Fall! You know... Fall!

For the Fall I hope to accomplish some things. The first is to start being better and finances. Now that my wife has steady income, we can start paying some things down. Having a kid is expensive! Once the finances are managed, everything else in life can fall into place. Maybe then we can start upgrading a few things around here. We were recently able to upgrade our cable and internet connection for not much extra $$. We mainly use the internet for downloading shows anyways. New and returning shows for the upcoming Fall season.

We have a list of Fall shows we are watching:
Sunday - Dexter, Hung
Monday - House, Bored to Death
Tuesday - 90210, Parenthood, Glee, and possibly New Girl
Wednesday - Modern Family, Happy Endings, Top Chef: Just Desserts
Thursday - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Big Bang Theory, Community, Parks and Recreation, Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice
Friday - Fringe, Chuck, Ghost Adventures
Saturday - Nothing (amazing)

Hard to imagine all that TV watching. But somehow we manage to pull it off. If needed we play catch up over the holidays, when they re-run episodes.

I finished some more of the Blackest Night saga, and noticed that I have been reading the comics in a weird, pre-selected order that has caused some continuity problems for me. I checked an online forum and, yes, I am reading them in a weird order. But it's almost too late to go back now and fix it. I just have to keep on plugging through until the end.

Updates

Updates! You know... updates!

Or a lack of updates. Time just gets away on me and I don't remember to update the blog.

I've been watching Breaking Bad. I started watching this after the first season had aired because a friend told me it was good. This was also at the time when another friend had recommended we catch up with Weeds. So we went from marijuana to meth. It was not the time to do this. Breaking Bad was way too serious a show, and it was difficult to transition over. Cancer, drug deals, guns, motorhome labs, and killing was just way too much to continue on with. My wife stopped watching, but I kept with it.
I think it's because I just can't stop a story in the middle. Even the most terrible of movies, I will watch to the end. Or at lease Google it to find out how it ends.

Breaking Bad, right. Keep focus. Now Breaking Bad is in its 4th season  and things have changed dramatically from the 1st season. The motorhome is gone, the Cancer is in remission, the danger of being caught has increased, and so has the paycheque. It's just so interesting!

I am also plugging away on the Blackest Night comic series. It's nearly 100 different comics! I'm about halfway through it, and then I'll move on to Brightest Day, which is over 100 comics long. That's including all the tie-ins, which are sometimes relevant. Mostly they're just extra comics for DC to sell to people and make lots of money. Hmph, DC.

Going to have a playdate today... so I must make sure the place is clean. My wife made lemon bars and brownies for our visitors, which I am thoroughly looking forward to eating. I could eat the plate of lemon bars all to myself! So delicious.

What else? The construction on the farm is nearly done, at least, the part that I use the most. The milk parlour is exactly 8 days from being finished. This means we'll cut the milk time from 2.25 hours to 1.25 hours. Shift times will be slightly shorter again, and I can get back to arriving home an hour before E's bedtime instead of AT her bedtime. Life will be great. (I hope).

I'm working on finding some music to listen to while I blog. I recently (yesterday) asked a friend for his recommendations, and he gave me a lot! He said it was nice to vent his brain about something other than school for a change. Glad I could help!

Also... thinking about doing a picture post during the week.

That is your update.

Cartoons

Cartoons! You know... cartoons!

I watch cartoons. A lot of different cartoons. I don't always watch them with my wife because I know that she's just not that into some of them.
I love watching cartoons. Especially superhero cartoons.
On my computer desk right now I have a ton of cartoon DVD's.

Batman the Animated Series
Superman the Animated Series
Justice League
Justice League Unlimited
The Batman
Superman/Batman Public Enemies
Superman Doomsday
Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam
Batman & Mr. Freeze
Hulk Vs.
Ultimate Avengers
He-Man and the Masters of the Universe 2003 Version

And those are just the ones I bought on DVD. There are countless other cartoons that I love watching.

They started a new Thundercats series this year. Although I will admit to never watching the old version. But after the new Thundercats season finishes, I might go back and have a look-see. After all, my daughter naps in the mornings and I have very little to do in the meantime (chores aside, of course).

Doesn't the new version look so much cooler? 

It is.

Cover Links

Cover Links! You know... cover links! For music!

Jeff Tweedy from Wilco covers Black Eyed Peas


I can't say that I've ever really sought after Wilco songs. I know they're a great band, and that they have a very strong fanbase for concerts and on the Interweb. I can honestly say that after watching those videos, I can understand why.

I've commented to my wife that it would be so freaking awesome if Indie artists did more Hip Hop/RnB/Rap covers. Like, how cool would it be to hear Bishop Allen cover some Cee-Lo?
Pixie Lott does... and it's amazing!

Pixie Lott blog post

And if you love cover songs, check out THESE VIDEOS at the A.V. Club. They are awesome.

There's so many cover songs out there. I love it when a musician takes an existing song and reworks it into their own version of the same song. It only works if they make it their own though. Pearl Jam is guilty of just performing another artist's song as it is written. Boring.


I could probably find more links for fun cover songs, but the dishes await me.

Comics

Comics... you know... comics!

The DC Universe underwent a massive reboot recently. That is, every comic that had been running since it's inception all started back at #1. Detective Comics, Action Comics, Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman... everything started over. Titles have been revamped... characters have been slightly altered.

I will admit to not having the slightest clue about what this actually means in the grand scheme of things, except that it's big. Here's a quick example about how slowly time moves in a comic book world. Batman had a son back in 1987. He's 12 years old now, not 24 years old like he should be.

Right now I'm about 3 years behind the current storylines. But now that there's been a reboot, I'm going to try and keep up with the current story at the same time as catching up with the old storylines

I've read through 52, Final Crisis (where Batman dies gets sent back in time), The Return of Bruce Wayne, and am currently muddling my way through Blackest Night, where old heroes and villains return from the dead as Black Lantern zombies. To catch up to the "end" I still have to read Brightest Day, War of the Green Lanterns, and Flashpoint. There are also the individual characters series that interest me. Like Batman, Batman and Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl, Power Girl, Superman/Batman, Booster Gold, and Detective Comics. Not to mention the spin-offs Batman Incorporated and Batman The Dark Knight.

So many comic books! And there are 52 new titles coming out every month now. Comics are crazy.

Blogs

Blogs! You know... blogs.

When she napped, I created this blog.

It's where I'm going to put all the stuff I've been reading/watching/listening to that I just don't want to bore my wife with. She's a great listener, but there are some things that even I know aren't all that interesting to her.

So... while the baby sleeps, I will blog.

I'm currently listening to the girl upstairs practice her piano. I intend to watch some Super Hero Squad Show until my baby Bean awakes. We'll see how far I get. There are dishes to be done...