Category: Daft Musings

So I just finished watching the movie “Two for the Road.” It’s not really that good: it’s kind of about an English couple’s dysfunctional relationship over the years. In short, Albert Finney loves himself and Audrey Hepburn spends the rest of her life trying to get his attention, up to an including wearing a dress…

When I was in elementary school, the valentines the children exchanged were the small paper kind that were sold in bulk in boxes. Those are still sold, and they’re my default for what I get for Neil to give to his friends. But as I realized when Neil was in kindergarten, sometimes the children will…

My junior high school had a delightful tradition called Carnation Day. I don’t think it actually took place on Valentine’s Day, but the sentiment of it was similar. In short, for $1 students could fill out a card to be sent any other student of their choice. On Carnation Day, all the cards were delivered,…

One of the best documentary series I’ve ever seen, A Walk in Your Shoes, was produced for and aired on a children’s television cable channel, Noggin, a few years ago. It was simply a show in which preteen (or teenage) children exchanged their places, families and lifestyle for a few days, and kept a journal…

When I bought a ticket for the Rolling Stones concert I didn’t go to, I got added to the “Rolling Stones Fan Club.” Being a member of the Rolling Stones Fan Club means getting offers to buy Rolling Stones branded merchandise before everyone else does. And, boy, do the Rolling Stones ever pimp their brand….

With my new cell phone, we captured a really cute video of Kelly singing “Jingle Bells.” As doting parents in the internet age, of course our first thought was “we must put this up on the web!” And we thought it would be really cute if Kelly had her own MySpace page. It turned out…

It was refreshing to see the old movie, since I saw the 2005 remake, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when it was in the theatres. The story is the same in both, and I like them both, though they’re likeable in different ways. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is darker, and Neil finds the paddleboat’s tunnel too frightening. It also manages to get in a few more digs of social commentary. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has far better child actors and they play a bigger role than the parents, who had almost all the lines in the original. The new movie is also far more fantastical and Willy Wonka’s factory really looks like a magic world of its own. I only realized later that the geese who laid the giant golden chocolate eggs were replaced by squirrels and chocolate nuts in the remake, but it didn’t make any difference in the story.

I hate to think how many hours I’ve spent hunting for lost stuff. So when, in one of his many gadget magazines, Peter heard about a product, called Loc8tor, that’ll help you find missing objects, I was more than a little interested. It works like this: you buy several tags, which you attach to the…

I was surprised to find out how saddened I was to find out this morning that Anna Nicole Smith had died. The authors of her various obituaries seemed to be ashamed they even knew who she was and struggled to describe her career with various synonyms for “celebutard.” Which left me to wonder if I’m…

The first comic books I ever read were Harvey Comics my father got for me at the Heidelberg US Army PX. I loved Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Little Witch. I didn’t like Richie Rich too much: he was a perpetually grinning dork, but he did have a cool robot maid, and…