Boys will be boys....

I hate watching American Idol with my sons. We can't get through a song by Pia Toscano without them rolling on the floor laughing about her name. Too bad. They're missing a great singer. I, on the other hand, can rewind the DVR later :-)

I thought Thea Megia was gonna be the one to make them laugh.

What am I missing?

Nothing apparently.

It's been a really busy time around the house recently. One consequence is that I've not spent any time in front of the TV. Not that that's a bad thing, but I admit that it's a little different.

I used to love watching TV. I'd find TV shows that I thought sounded interesting, set them up to record on the DVR, and then when the kids and wife went up to bed, I'd sit back in the recliner and play catch up -- or try to anyway. Things got a little out of hand and I started falling behind. So I picked the show that I liked least and removed the DVR series recording.

Then I fell further behind, so I removed another. Then another. Then I finally just stopped removing them with the intention that when I did feel like watching something, there should be something there to watch.

But I've never gotten back to watch anything. Things some up -- homework to check or help with (though I love that my wife does most of this before I get home), chores to do, this and that... Time just slips away.

As the kids are back in school, there is no "screen time" (TV, or computer) during the week to avoid the temptation for them to rush through homework too quickly, so that removes the lead in to me watching it more when they go to bed.

A couple of months ago I was really geeked about a couple of shows, but I can't even tell you if they're still on or have already been cancelled. There is not a single show that I watch regularly right now. I still have the TV on in the background upstairs at night, but for the most part I don't pay any attention to it. I watch a few family shows with the kids on the weekend when time allows, but that's it. And I am surprisingly OK with that. I thought there would be some withdrawal or something.

We still record the stuff for the kids (a few cartoons and Disney shows and science shows that they like) and my wife (Grey's, etc), but I've pretty much given up...

And I'm OK with that.

Copyright 2010

Unless someone else has thought of this, I hereby copyright this idea... :-)

There are many sites on the web that allow you to create "Ransom Note" style text where each letter you use is presented in a different font, or substituted with a different picture representing that alphabetic character. My idea expands on that a little (but significant) bit.

My idea is to replace whole words (where possible) instead of the individual characters, but by using images of signs from each specific locality. For instance, if someone was to type "Come see our Saturday Performance at 12345 Mainstreet, 10 o'clock am" and tag the location as Detroit-area, each of the words would be replaced with the image of that word from a picture taken somewhere around Detroit. The images would be crowd-sourced like the Human Clock site after being seeded with some Creative Commons images.

• Obviously not all words would be available, especially at the start of the project, so when that happens, the word would be replaced by random letters for each character, though still from local pictures where possible.
• Logos, recognizable signs, etc would all be fodder for the collection.
• The images should be able to be submitted by anyone, but would need to be moderated.
• Submitter should specify which word/letter they are submitting.
• Submitter should be able to cropthe image upon upload so that it isolates the intended area.
• Submitted images should be commonly sized.
• File formats should be restricted.
• Multiples for each would would be allowed and encouraged to provide more randomness.
• A needs list could be presented based on the most common words.
• A needs list could include the ones that are being used that we need to replace with characters instead.
• Users of the site would be allowed to specify a metro area or allow images from the global catalog of images.
• Once presented with a refined image, the user would be able to refresh for a new set of images if desired.
• The final image should be presented to the user as a single image for download.

Any code hackers out there that want to take a shot at this?

Lest there be any doubt...

I am NOT smarter than a 5th grader. Well, that might not be technically true. Maybe I should say 7th grader. No wait. She didn't get it either. I should say that I'm not smarter than some one on my wife's internet buddy list. That much would be true at least.

I called my wife on the way home from work and was confronted with a math problem that she was trying to help my daughter with. It had to do with solving the following equation for a:

a(2x+3) = 9x+12 -x. I got the right answer, but I couldn't show my work. Even the Wizard of the Internet didn't provide an exact answer. It may have provided the answer if we'd dug a little, but nothing came up in the one box :-)

I had the right idea, but couldn't complete my train of thought. I guess that's the first thing to go ... the mind? Maybe that's 'cuz once the mind goes it can't realize what else is already going as well.

Anyway, back to the ice cream story. No wait. Math! Yeah, that's it.

My wife used her own little "Wizard of the Internet" -- the collection of friends she met on-line when she was pregnant with our daughter that have stayed together on an on-line bulletin board. People from all over the world and, apparently with mad math skills. Within a few minutes she had the answer to our problem - factor out a 4 from the right side (after combining the x values). Once we did that, all became clear.

Maybe there is some value in the "social network." Speaking of which, has anyone see that movie - The Social Network? I missed the free screening that I saw on Film Metro. I'm not a Facebook user (I know... I know), but the movie has been getting pretty good reviews.

Fiddle dee dee

Just got back from seeing nearly 40 high schoolers rock the fiddles last night (well actually, violins, violas, cellos, drums, guitars and mandolins - and a few tap shoes as well!). It is not music that I choose to listen to often, but they were full of energy and, especially as younger performers, very entertaining. They've played at the White House and with several famous artists so other people think that they've got a wee bti of talent too. :-)

We had the older two kids with us last night as well and they both commented on how good the concert was. It's encouraging, but sometimes embarrassing, that these performers are so talented at such a young age. It takes a lot of dedication, practice, and probably some ribbing, to keep at it long enough to be at the top of their game.

We try to expose our kids to a lot of different things and then let them decide "what sticks," so to speak. My eldest son has tried the violin in the school band already and really liked it. He has an eclectic mix of music likes. I think that's really cool.

The Saline Fiddlers have more shows coming up in the area. If you get a chance to see them, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

I'm scared...

I'm scared of getting sucked into another TV series. I managed to evade the Lost hype -- just never got into it, but this one looks really interesting. I hope it holds up to all of its pre-launch hype. In a week we'll see...

FREE MOVIE SCREENINGS!

A couple of months ago, the family and I visited the Detroit Zoo for Earth Day. We had a blast (as usual), but one of the most interesting things that we got while we were there was a set of passes to a free screening of Disney's Earth. The movie was cool, but used a lot of footage from The Discover Channel's Planet Earth series. Seeing it in a large theater was worth it though.

When we left the movie that night, I made a mental note to look for more free screenings. A quick Google Search later, I had located a couple sites that seemed to be what I was looking for. One of them, Film Metro, seemed to draw my attention for some reason. I setup a free Change Detection alert to watch the Detroit site for new movies as they were added to the screenings list.

A few short days later I got an alert that a new movie had been posted. Too late though. By the time I checked my email and got to the site, all of the passes were reserved. Shucks. Then came the next alert. Darn. Missed that one too. Strike two. People must sit on the refresh button on their computer just waiting for the passes.

Then, on the third email, I found that they had the new Start Trek movie available. I'm not a big Trekie and couldn't make it the night of the screening anyway, but I found a friend at work who was quick enough to snag a pass (admit two). He said it was a great movie, by the way. I asked him about the experience -- I still had not even signed up on the Film Metro site yet, I was just lurking, waiting for the right movie before I committed. He reported no issues. It was very smooth.

Back to lurking for a while... Movies came and went when my wife and I couldn't make the dates. That's one thing that makes it a little hard. The screening are mostly during the week, and there is not often a lot of heads up -- a few days mostly -- before the actual screening.

Last week, The Proposal showed up on the list. Again, until the kids are out of school (this Thursday!), it was hard to get my wife and I out, so I offered it up to my mom and sister. Once again, SOMEONE ELSE enjoyed the movie... :-( They said it was even worth paying to see again :-)

Oh well. If I can't get out to see them (yet), I thought I'd at least share the wealth...

Head on over to the Film Metro site and see if there's a screening that you'd like to see. If you live in the Detroit area, you can go directly to the Film Metro Detroit site. You'll need to check back often or setup an alert or something to catch changes though, because they do go quick...
Happy FREE movie watching!

Misery Loves Company

Not sure why this is, but it does seem to be true -- especially for network TV shows that parade endless contestants across the screen suffering all kinds of misfortune. This is the premise of the ABC show Wipeout. Like many similar shows over the years, they lure the contestants with promises of fortune if they win, but those winnings might just be needed to pay doctor bills -- physical or psychological -- after seeing what I've seen.

We all cringe seeing the crashes and "wipe outs" suffered by the foo..., er, um, contestants as they compete against each other and time to be the winner. It's not quite as bad or humiliating as the infamous Japanese game shows that we've seen clips of, although there's an American version of that coming this summer from ABS as well called I Survived a Japanese Game Show. That one is more likely to be funny in an embarrassing kinda way than challenging physically. I might catch an episode or two of that one as well. Not sure I could take more than a few episodes of either of these, but it keeps the kids laughing for a while after I lose all of my laughing gasses...

Locally famous

Tim Allen is famous for inserting local references into his entertainment projects -- his Home Improvement show, The Santa Clause movies, etc each make reference to his home town of Detroit, or to places around there where he grew up. Moviemappr (ala Flickr, remind me to blog about the naming of web sites later) allows you to find movies filmed in your area. You give it a city/state and it'll list all kinds of movies that spent some time filming in and around the area. Live in Cedar Rapids, IA? Did you know that Incident at Oglala, Miles from Home and, perhaps the most famous of the three - Starman were filmed in the area. Oglala might not be the summer blockbuster of 1992, but the others brought someone some money and had famous people involved...

Check out your city. Might be worth renting a movie or two just to see some local hangouts. The database seems pretty complete with movies ranging from the VERY low budget and audience to the most popular titles on the market.

Wanted: Editor

I was reading one of my posts last night to my mom who hadn't had a chance to catch up on-line. That's when it hit me. I need an Editor.

As I was reading verbatim from my blog to her over the phone, I was stumbling in places. I had missed a word, or found a wrong word, or something else that threw me off. I do try to spell check my posts before posting, and even after posting, I occasionally will break the rules of blogging and go back and edit an obvious typo. In this case, most of the issues were where I used the wrong word, but a correctly spelled one. I had typed weather, instead of whether for instance. I'm usually pretty good about using the right word, but I was either typing too fast, or tried to correct a miss-spelling and chose the wrong replacement.

I've seen plenty of typos that lead to some really funny quotes. Spell checking is not enough as evidenced by:

Spelling Poem
Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.
Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.
As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.
Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

Now, I can't pay for a professional editor (though feel free to chime in if you find something wrong. I play that game when I'm reading books, etc. -- looking for wrong, missing words or miss-spellings), you'd expect that a major company like Disney could.

I mentioned a few posts ago that my kids were really liking the Hannah Montana / Mylie Cyrus CD. The CD, when inserted into the computer, would take you to a site where you could download the lyrics. I played along. Keep in mind that this was the official site linked to by a CD that has sold hundreds of thousands copies... I downloaded the lyrics and took them in the car for the next sing-along journey.

After the kids had used them a few times, I tried to follow along (just for curiosity's sake). I was shocked that the words didn't match the songs. Some times they were just missing a word. Other times, it was obviously a different word being sung than the one printed. Why didn't anyone catch this?! It made me mad.

I downloaded the lyrics again and pasted them into Word, turned on Track Changes, and listed to each and every song, changing the lyrics as needed. When I was done I was staring at several pages of redlining and strike-throughs. I finally just accepted the fact and moved on (yeah right, I still have a chip on my shoulder), accepted all revisions and printed a clean copy for the car...

SHOCKER!

When we were exiting the Corbin concert last week, the attendants were passing out free tickets to the Detroit Shock WNBA playoff game this weekend. We were pretty tired after the concert and were planning on taking the weekend to recuperate with some much needed sleep... But... Because we had so much fun at the last game we went to , we decided to go again.

We had something like 11 tickets between my wife and I so we decided to invite my mom, who had gone with us to the last game, and one of my wife's friends and her daughter and daughter's friend.

My wife went to cash in our vouchers for real tickets and when she returned, she was carrying BOX SEAT TICKETS -- on the FLOOR. Ok, we're not a very sportsy family, but this was gonna be COOL! :-) Apparently the box had been reserved for a different group that had cancelled and the ticket agent just gave them to us! Snooze you lose!

The kids got thunder sticks (inflatable tubes that you smack together to make noise). The box had two couches and carpet. We were 4 steps up from the floor and about 30 feet back from the boards. A little closer than the nose-bleed section we were at the first game.

This was a televised game on ESPN and my daughter got on the center scoreboard camera twice (and thus, likely televised!) dancing and smiling away. She was also flirting with the DJ Announcer who was right beside us. At the end, she actually went over to get his autograph and he gave her his arm sweat band too. Not quire Corbin Bleu, but she was very excited.

The Shock won 77 to 63 against Indiana after leading by about 20 points the whole game. Not quite the nail biter the last game was, but very fun nonetheless.

Not a bad afternoon for just $10 in parking!

Seeing Stars

I blogged a while ago about the tickets that my daughter won for the Corbin Bleu concert from Radio Disney. Well Thursday night was the concert. She was out her mind with anticipation. She was screaming into her hand, jumping up and down and in general, freaking out like a star-struck teenager (she's not quite there, yet). And Corbin wasn't even on stage yet! My wife had playfully reminded her as we were walking into the theater that she was breathing the same air as Corbin and that just took her frenzy to a whole other level.

At one point, I asked her why she was so excited. She said that this was the first time that she was going to be able to see real stars in person. I gently cradled her head and pointed it toward the sky and said, "every night dear..." She just laughed and uttered some "Dad, you're so weird" quote that I guess I should start getting used to.

Also at the concert was the 12-year-old winner of the first season of America's Got Talent, and a singer from some Nickelodeon show we didn't know (he reminded me of the Monkeys) and then the concert was capped by Aly and AJ, another Disney pair.

We all had a lot of fun!