May 27, 2007
And now... these messages
Kind of a boring weekend, as we wait to see if Kimberly has a baby. Meanwhile, I've generally been busy with work, and haven't had any time to post. There's a bunch of stuff I want to write about, most of it involving stuff I've found on YouTube, the best website ever invented. Occasionally at work I'm just waiting for builds or tests to finish, and while that's going on, it's YouTube Research Time.
This week I've been looking at a lot of the old Saturday morning cartoons I used to watch. Sadly, this video is probably a fair representation of my Saturday mornings circa 1984, minus the actual cartoons but with the great network bumpers and commercials:
Yeah, those cartoons based on arcade video games were really bad. I would hate to have been a writer for one of those.
PRODUCERS: You, there! We need to create a cartoon about Q-Bert! GO!
WRITER: @$#$!
But the CBS bumpers I totally remember, as well as Crest vs. the Cavity Creeps, and C3PO's, which I did not make Mom buy... I think even then I could see through the poorly-conceived product tie-ins. Not that it kept me from watching the Dungeons and Dragons poorly-conceived tie-in cartoon:
Actually it's this end-credits clip that blew my mind:
...because it features the oft-watched bumpers with Rick Dees voice-overs (post-"Disco Duck", pre-Weekly Top 40), a Levi's commercial I must have seen at least 100 times that year, and the ending credits, including credits for writers I now recognize after reading way too many comic books (Mark Evanier and Steve Gerber). Plus the Marvel Productions logo. Awesome.
CBS also used to run short two-minute segments called "In the News" in a poorly-conceived and largely-ignored-by-kids effort to educate us in between ads for toothpaste and sugary cereal, and I'm pretty sure this depressing installment about the atomic bomb scared the hell out of me:
Furtherly scary: I remember watching this Muppet Babies primetime special (it's the one where they recreate Star Wars), in the basement of my grandmother's house in West Seattle in December 1984, when the whole city was totally excited about the Seahawks-Dolphins game coming up later that week. And I totally remember the promo for He's Hired, She's Fired, a poorly-conceived Mr. Mom knockoff.
By the way, you can watch all of the Saturday morning network bumpers here. Some really good ones, including the NBC ones from when Casey Kasem was the voice of all that network's promos.
Yeesh. Nostalgia is an ugly, ugly thing. You can really get caught up in it. I recommend using it sparingly.
Next up: the scariest thing ever broadcast over the airwaves. I'm not even kidding. Scariest. Thing. Ever. And it's all thanks to... Max Headroom?
May 23, 2007
Que triste!
Susana of Puerrrrrrto Rrrrrico sends us this music video by one Delfin Quishpe, who Susana says has "a flare for making hot dance music about national crises." Indeed he does.
May 9, 2007
Self-efficacy does not translate into actual efficacy
A "can-do" attitude is supposed to be a big asset. As I learned this week, however, having confidence in your abilities doesn't mean that you actually possess those abilities. I picked out a slightly beat-up rocking chair at a consignment store. The finish wasn't in great shape, but the design was simple and exactly to my taste, and when I sat in it I got the feeling it was made for someone exactly my size. All it really needed was a paint job. "No problem," I thought, "people paint their own furniture all the time." My parents and brother are tremendously talented when it comes to home improvement. I was sure I could handle this relatively simple task. (I should have remembered that the rest of my family members also have impressive green thumbs, and I really, REALLY don't.)
So we brought the chair home with us. We bought sand paper, white paint, and paint brushes. I sanded the chair, making sure to smooth out the spot where some kids had scratched a tic-tac-toe game into the seat. I painstakingly painted the chair. And wow, does it look awful. I'm not even sure what went wrong. But I am sure that I must have learned nothing from watching all those episodes of "Changing Rooms," "Trading Spaces," and "House Invaders."
The problem is not so much that I now am the proud owner of one horrendous-looking piece of nursery furniture. I'm sure the chair is just as comfortable as it was before I attacked it with vigorous, paintbrush-wielding enthusiasm, and it will rock my baby to sleep just as efficiently. The problem lies more in the failure of my original logic: if lots of other people can do this, I can too. Obviously, not so much. So when I tell myself, as I frequently do, that people have babies/endure labor all the time, and if they can do it then so can I, it just doesn't have quite the same resonance. But, as with the unfortunate chair, it is way too late to hire a contractor. No pun intended.
May 2, 2007
Babies 'R' You
If you happen to want to buy something for Mr. Baby (and who wouldn't!), but aren't sure what to get him, we have some suggestions.