Captain's Log

All my life, popular media has been preparing me for the day that my daughter would have her First Period. As a Father, I was told that I will be unable to keep from "Freaking Out", things would get weird, and that this would change EVERYTHING. ESPECIALLY if I was alone with her when it happened! If I was lucky, I *might* be able to hand her off to a nurse, cashiere, stripper or other Responsible Adult Female who would take care of all the "Down There Lady Bizzniss" for us. No matter WHAT happened, though, as a Father I would be spending the next several days alone in my garage workshop fixing my motorcycle/lawnmower/toaster trying to avoid the issue.

PLEASE NOTE, I didn't "prepare". I didn't "study". I didn't consult feminist blogs and psychological specialists looking for the best way to "Handle The Situation" so that my daughters fragile psyche wouldn't be scarred from this turmoil. I didn't plan a Moon Goddess Welcoming Ceremony where all her aunts and grandmothers could come to celebrate and praise her glorious newfound womanhood. So trust me when I say that this is coming from a position that is far from "woke" on the subject, okay?

And so this morning, when Molly got her First Period, it was handled by both of us with about as much severity and sincerity as running out of toilet paper.

"Daddy, I think I got my period..."
"Cool. You need a pad?"
"Yeah... wow that's a lot of blood! Can you check and see if there's any on my bed?"
"Yeah, hang on... yup, just a tiny bit"
"Aww MAN! That means I have to put sheets on my bed!"

AND THAT WAS IT. Hollywood, why you gotta LIE like that???

SPENT: $30 (one $10 pass for each of us)
MOVIES SEEN: 11 (I Feel Pretty, Tully, Overboard, Super Troopers 2, Avengers Infinity War, Beirut, Blockers, Black Panther, Isle of Dogs, Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs)
TICKETS PURCHASED: 19 ($220.39 with tax)
COST PER TICKET: $1.57
FREE POPCORN EARNED: 2

I'm not a fan of Amy Schumer. Didn't like her stand-up, didn't like her Comedy Central show, didn't... I just didn't like her.

The movie that they are advertising this as, which seems to be aimed squarely at the "Moms & Wine" crowd, is repulsive - "Fat girls can only get self respect and esteem if they have a head wound, and even then they just do skinny-girl things that look ridiculous when done by a fat girl! HA! LOOK AT HER DANCE! SHE HAS A BELLY!"

So that's the frame of mind I had when going in to see "I Feel Pretty" this morning.

THE MOVIE THEY ARE TRYING TO SELL YOU IS NOT THE MOVIE THAT IS ON THE SCREEN!!!

What I got was a great movie that played with the classic body-swap, wish fulfillment tropes and transferred them into a Real World setting for examination of just how ridiculous they are, and how they are all wrapped into self worth and exteem and confidence and doubt and success.

It was funny. It was sweet. It had the whole theater (only five of us) laughing out loud in several spots.

This... was a great movie! I should start ranking these things! Let's see here...

MOVIEPASS MOVIE RANKINGS BASED ON HOW MUCH I LIKED THEM

• (1) Avengers: Infintiy War
  
• (2) Isle Of Dogs (First Viewing)
  
• (3) Overboard
  
• (4) I FEEL PRETTY
  
• (5) Black Panther
  
• (6) Tully
  
• (7) Blockers
  
• (8) Isle Of Dogs (Second Viewing)
  
• (9) Beirut
  
• (10) Ready Player One
  
• (11) Super Troopers 2 (Walked Out @ 20 Minutes In)

SPENT: $30 (one $10 pass for each of us)
MOVIES SEEN: 9 (Overboard, Super Troopers 2, Avengers Infinity War, Beirut, Blockers, Black Panther, Isle of Dogs, Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs)
TICKETS PURCHASED: 17 ($200.93 with tax)
COST PER TICKET: $1.76
FREE POPCORN EARNED: 1

I'm 45 years old now... it's time I admit to myself and the world that I LOVE ROMANTIC COMEDIES. I know that I spent most of my life being pushed towards Action, Sci-Fi, Horror and Screwball Comedies because I'm a DUDE and that's what I was supposed to be into, but my heart was always drawn to the Romantic Comedy aspect of any film.

(Crystal and I disagree on the definition of "Romantic Comedy" - my definition being any light comedy regarding love, be it the love between two lovers or the love of a family for each other or the love of an alcoholic race car driver taking in a group of orphans as his pit crew. Crystal's definition of a Romantic Comedy is "These two people look like they would never do it, but by the end of the movie they totally end up doing it").

So yeah, I LOVED Overboard! Different enough from the original to be surprising, and you have to suspent *just enough* of your belief to buy the idea of the movie. But in the end you've got sincere smiles and laughs from a cast of characters you want to believe in :)

SPENT: $30 (one $10 pass for each of us)
MOVIES SEEN: 7 (Avengers Infinity War, Beirut, Blockers, Black Panther, Isle of Dogs, Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs)
TICKETS PURCHASED: 15 ($187.06 with tax)
COST PER TICKET: $2.00
FREE POPCORN EARNED: 1

Seventh film of this adventure was an opening day viewing of Avengers Infinity War. No spoilers. After the credits had finished and the lights came up, the theater was STILL packed. At least a dozen of us sat in our seats, unable to move, staring blankly at the screen with that 100-yard stare that only war veterans get after they've seen terrible, awful things that can not be unseen. One little girl, maybe 8 years old, was inconsolably sad/angry, rageful - tears streaked her face but she made no sound as she just sat there, fists clenched, staring unblinkinly at the screen.

Then, MoviePass pulled some shenanigans over the weekend. No more watching movies more than once! I got banned from several different MoviePass Fan Forums for asking about ways around this new policy - people are TERRIFIED of potentially breaking the terms of service on their MoviePass to the point where all talk of such blasphemy must be silenced, permanently!

Then we had some issues with the minivan so I couldn't go see movies for a few days.

Tomorrow, back on track!

SPENT: $30 (one $10 pass for each of us)
MOVIES SEEN: 5 (Blockers, Black Panther, Isle of Dogs, Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs)
TICKETS PURCHASED: 11 ($136.48 with tax)
COST PER TICKET: $2.73

You know how the old saying goes, "Monday Matinees Are Made For Movies You'd Never See With Your Family"! The movie BLOCKERS looks absolutely terrible from all the previews and commercials I had seen, but y'know what? It was PRETTY DANGED GOOD!

I had the entire theater to myself (literally) and was tempted to take off my pants, but then I remembered what The Judge said last time I was in court so decided to keep them on this time. I laughed out loud at more than a few scenes, which is all you can really hope for from a comedy right?

The neatest thing about it was that it was an old-fashioned "Hey Everybody We're All Gonna Get Laid" teenage sex comedy that focused on girls instead of boys, and IT WORKED!

SPENT: $30 (one pass for each of us)
MOVIES SEEN: 2 (Ready Player One, Isle of Dogs)
TICKETS PURCHASED: 4 ($52.41 with tax)
COST PER TICKET: $7.50

Ready Player One had NO CHANCE to succeed. It is my *favorite book*. I'm angry at this movie for SO MANY REASONS, I... I can't even...

And I hate to say it, but I blame Steven Spielberg? He's big enough of a name to make a stand and get a film done *right*, and instead he did a futuristic Goonies remake without any guts and a strong message of "Danged kids spend to much danged time on their danged phones" message.

Not since The Great Starship Troopers Debacle of '97 have I been so angry at a film claiming to be an adaptation of a great book :(

Molly is a target of various bullies at school, and she seems to be okay with it? I think that the constant stream of Disney Channel Original Movies, Sit-Coms and Cartoons we have raised her on have really driven home the undeniable fact that the kids who get bullied are the Heroes of the story, and the ones doing the bullying are just... story elements.

Every time a teacher or a bus driver tells us about another incident, I'm really torn about what to do with the information. Any attempts at talking to her about it are met with indifference, "Like "Yeah that happened, so what?" and I don't want to press the issue until it becomes, y'know, an "Issue". I don't want to force her into thinking that these ARE things to fear and worry over till they absolutely ruin your life.

Right now, her coping mechanism is to just roll with it. Those people are jerks, why should I give any thought to what they said, let's just drop it.

...But is she *really* okay with it?

It's Summer, TOO MUCH STUFF going on in the Summertime to write an update for Dreamwidth! If I'm going to Blog, I need to sit down at an actual computer with the express intent of *blogging* - somethign which just hasn't happened much since June :/

So what's been going on?

I struck out at my last two craft shows. Like, HARD. I sold *one lamp* in Tacoma, and *ZERO LAMPS* in Everett. Everyone around me assured me that Summer shows just aren't big sellers, and just wait till the Christmas shows come in November and December, so I'm cautiously optimistic - I love making these lamps so much, and I love people's reactions to them, so I may just have to start giving them away!

I've got one more show to do, this weekend (August 19th) in Tacoma. We'll see how that goes. Then I don't have another show till OCTOBER, so yaaaaaaay!

I've spent a good amount of time making sure that Molly is well versed in the things I love. We had a Movie marathon where we watched Die Hard, Road Warrior, Terminator, Short Circuit, a few episodes of the new MST3K... I'm not pushing this on her, she ASKED to be introduced to everything that makes me so awesome :)

Back in the early, untamed, WILD days of The Internet, I was very close to becoming a legal, honest-to-gosh, tax-exempt Religious Cult Leader. It's really a lot easier than you might think!

This morning I was reminded of this because Hulu now has all 5 seasons of The Brady Bunch available to stream, and so I started watching at Season 5. Why? Because there's where my Religion was born...

...The Cult of Cousin Oliver.



My Cult of Cousin Oliver was much simpler than most cults with their weird, wacked-out delusions. See, Cousin Oliver is the Alpha-Omega, the New Beginning that heralded The End. Through examining the 6 episodes he was on, we can find parables that give guidance through our daily life. From his first episode, the Brady's label him as a "Jinx" and is forever the harbinger of chaos from that point on, regardless of how the rest of The Brady's may choose to ignore it. Every line of dialogue from his mouth is like a blast from Gabriel's Horn. From Oliver we learn that nothing is permanent, nothing is sacred, and all shall end in a cataclysm of pie-fights and orange rabbits! He utters the final line of Brady dialogue in the entire series, and from that line, from that FINAL LINE, he sets himself as the one true God. Because despite all the lessons we learn from him in his short 6 episodes, despite parable after parable of good, wholesome life-advice, despite showing us the ONE TRUE WAY THROUGH A LIFE OF NEVER EVEN HAVING HIS OWN BOX IN THE CREDIT SEQUENCE GRID, with these six simple words...

...And let's reflect on that for just a moment. SIX simple words. SIX episodes of Cousin Oliver. SIX Brady Kids. SIX SIX SIX, THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST, LOU-SIF-FER, OL-LIV-VER, the fallen angel Lucifer Morningstar who became so impressed with his own beauty, intelligence, power, and position that he began to desire for himself the honor and glory that belonged to God alone and so he was cast out of Heaven just as The Brady Bunch was cast out of the ABC Friday Night Line-Up...

His final six words?

"Geez, It Was Just A Suggestion..."

Now THAT'S a religious icon I can really get behind! CAN I HAVE A HALLELUJAH!

(Hope that embed link works! If not, go here - http://www.king5.com/mb/entertainment/television/programs/new-day-northwest/step-into-the-realm-of-the-weird-1/440878025)

Here's the video of when my lamps were part of a feature on new Day North West, a local TV program featuring things in and around the town to do :)