more fun with the camera phone

Last weekend I painted STGs face to look like Darth Maul. My wife snapped this with her camera phone. We went to visit some neighbors. We all had a good time. We watched Phantom Menace a few times. This weekend we are watching Attack of the Clones. When not watching these movies, the boys run around the house having light saber battles. They do this on playgrounds as well. Occaissionally they will get some other kid to join them. Usually they just get nervous stares. Hopefully we will get to roll down to the Tombigbee National Forest this afternoon. We may even camp out.

what fun

Another shot with my phone camera. I have a son in preschool and I went with his class one day to visit the campus police station. Each kid got to get in the patrol car and press the siren button. So here is my little one getting ready to hit it. I think the resolution is pretty good for a cell phone. It is a Nokia 6235i. More coming!

the things you kids are into these days...

I am learning how to use my phone camera. Snapped this in the grocery store. Interesting packaging and advertising campaign here. I guess this is being marketed to suburban tweens who get bored easily with the same old microwave pizza day in and day out. If you look at the picture, it looks like pizza with pop rocks on it. For those of you under 35, pop rocks were these things we bought as kids back in the seventies. They looked like ordinary rocks that any kid would want to eat, but when you put them in your mouth they fizzed up like crazy. If you put a whole bunch of them in your mouth, like an entire package, and every kid tried this at one time, it was like, hang on for the ride of your life. This package has the word "fizz" on it, so there must be some sort of carbonation sprinkling in there somewhere. I was intrigued right away by the product name: Mess with your mouth. Now, that just sounds gross to me. Call me an old fuddy, but I don't want my mouth messed with really, and I am not sure we should encourage that sort of compulsion in our young people. I wonder what kind of debates circulated around the table when the advertising committee came up with this one. Did it just fly through? Or were there reservations? It reminds me of the whole Mr. Whipple and "Don't squeeze the Charmin," campaign, again, from back in the seventies. That was a strange one, and very popular. Mr. Whipple seemed to occupy a position of some authority in the store. Why couldn't he just take a couple of rolls into the back and squeeze them in peace? And the housewives walking by imploring him to resist this ungodly desire, did they know something we don't about the darker paths awaiting those who fall into such temptations? As I look back on it, I hope that today Mr. Whipple has found peace and that those who feed children pizza with pop rocks on it have what it takes to bring the youngsters back from the brink when the buzz wears off and they want to crank it up a notch.

cool and wet this morning

I am stiff and sore today from my butt-whuppin class on Friday and further workouts on Saturday. At the playground, I have developed a practice of seeing how many chin-ups I can do. Yesterday I did two reps of eight each, then two reps of six each. I don't push or strain, just do what feels right. I stood on my hands for a while with my toes holding against the chin-up bar. So I will take it easy today. Spent most of yesterday afternoon on a ladder pruning up a top-heavy hedge of yaupon hollies. These are 30 foot tall trees with so much top-growth that the branches touch the ground in some places. I took a lot of weight and sag out of the trees and hung four bird feeders which you can no see from the house. There is a big pile of limbs out at the street. Hope the landlord doesn't mind. So today I will take it easy. Maybe put the kids in the truck and go down to the Tombigbee National Forest so Mrs. Icker can write.
Saw a good German film Friday night called "Im Juli/In July." Sweet and clever romance with a sort of "Bonnie and Clyde" motif. Interesting scenery, they go from Berlin to Bavaria, then to Budapest and Istanbul. Good date movie. OK for the kids, unless you have a problem with your kids seeing people smoke marijuana in the movies. My six-year-old loves to watch German movies with us. He watched "Comedian Harmonists" last week, and he liked "Beyond Silence" a lot. We didn't let him watch "Downfall," which was good because watching Frau Goebbles murder her children was disturbing even for me. When he was four he loved watching that Russian movie that was filmed in the Hermitage Museum, famous for being one (actually two, there is a splice where the camera zooms in on a painting, but you hardly notice) incredibly long tracking shot. I forget the title, but it is a dream, wherein the dreamer is lead by a mysterious figure through both the museum and the history of pre-Communist Russia. We were intrigued by STG's fascination with it. He doesn't understand Russian or German, but only rarely does he ask for the translation. Part of it is, he just really likes movies, and doesn't particularly need the dialogue. Last night we watched Pirates of The Carribean: Black Pearl. We had all seen it a few times before, but still got a kick out of it.
Got my Oxford American Summer Music Issue Friday. Nice to see Katharine Whalen in the magazine and on the CD. Terrible, terrible song, but she sings it so pretty. I also am digging "Three Is A Magic Number" by Bob Dorough. This came along just in time, as you know, my iPod was getting a little stale. I don't understand how they consider Richard Hell's "Blank Generation" to be southern music. Maybe because he moved to Kentucky and became a writer. Speaking of music, does anyone else get the feeling that Pink's "Dear Mr. President" was written by Jack Black?

Martial Arts

I have begun my training at the Starkville Acadamy of Martial Arts (SAMA). I found the Acadamy while driving around downtown and was immediately attracted to the large black and white storefront sign, which featured a man in a white bathrobe and black belt flying through the air with one foot extended. I’ve always wanted to be able to do that, so I went inside.
It turns out that the martial arts instructor was a well-known and well-respected member of the international martial arts community, with over forty years of experience teaching Judo, Taekwando, Ju-Jitsu and probably a few other disciplines. Unfortunately, this gentleman retired after my first lesson, and the new instructor was a rather portly and bearded gentleman who went by the name of Luther Murrel. He has decided to take the class in a new direction. He spends the first half of class teaching the traditional grappling, throwing, kicking and punching moves, but during the second half he mixes in a lot of more highly applicaple, “real world” knowledge, which he calls “old fashioned butt-whuppin.”
So last week we spent a lot of time on pool cues. I have decided to share some of the knowledge here as it could save your life. If your adversary picks up a pool cue, no need to panic. Usually this attack can be neutralized fairly quickly with a few simple moves. First of all, if there are any balls left on the table, grab one and throw it. Go for the head, and put some muscle in it. Think major-league pitcher here. If no balls are left, the cue ball can usually be located in its little pocket on one end of the table. Keep the table between you and your adversary as you maneuver around to the pocket. If throwing the ball fails, pick up a pool cue yourself. Remember to hold the stick upside down. You are not going to use it to shoot pool, after all, but to crack heads, so you want the heavy end up.
The week before we practiced with beer bottles. Master Murrel emphasized that smashing the beer bottle on the edge of the bar so as to improvise a sort of cutting blade, while a dramatic gesture, is not very practical, and is really only done in movies. You stand a good chance of then holding the neck of a bottle that has disentegrated completely and is of no use in a fracas. The goal with the beer bottle is much like that of launching the billiard balls. You want to stop the attack with one good lick. Once you have come in to close contact, if the lick has not achieved results, discard the beer bottle immediately and rely on your traditional grappling and throwing moves.
Next week we are going out to the parking lot to work on various things you can do with a handful of gravel.

mushroom, flower, monster

Some of my boy's graphic art done in an appleworks document creation program. Maybe I'm a biased, proud papa, but I think it's pretty good. Is it good despite of, or because of, the fact that he is not yet seven?

alien monster

My six-year-old has learned how to create painings in appleworks. He has his own documents folder he saves them in. I had to save this as a gif for blogger to take it. If it looks good I will put up a couple more.

boys

I got nothing to say. Here's a cute picture though. This is not my kid, and I did not take the picture. You can find many more like it at this page:

http://ebcrennie.googlepages.com/boys

what's on your iPod?

What I've been listening to lately, as if anyone cares. Got the latest Tom Petty, "Traveling Companion," from iTunes just before leaving CH. Good, solid album, especially the first track, "Saving Grace." I actually bought the video for that one. I really like it, simple black and white shots of the band playing the song with their shadows cast upon a white screen behind them. Middle aged rockers doing it right and looking like guys you would want to hang out with. Tom Petty is going to be one of the few big name rockers to grow old gracefully, like Neil Young and Johnny Cash. Speaking of Cash, his cover of Blind Boys of Alabama's (though they probably weren't the first, but the only version I know, from "Spirit of the Century," a must-have as far as I'm concerned) "Run on for a Long Time," has been in heavy rotation at the college station here. Great percussion, and some sort of ringing sound, while John intones "well goodness gracious let me give you the news..." I usually have to pull the car over and just soak this one in. When I heard that he was nearly blind and in a wheel chair when the album was recorded, I thought, what a shame, if that album sucks it will mess up his legacy. I listened to a few samples on iTunes and was unimpressed. But "Run on" carries some weight and grace, and though he slurs it a little, he conveys strength from a man looking directly into cosmic time.
On a lighter note, I downloaded and enjoyed "Morning Wood," by the Rugburns. This is an album that I have wanted since I first heard "My Boyfriend" back in the mid-nineties. It's college-age humor, but still funny to me. The songs are melody-strong and well-put together. A little too much so, actually, since a few of them, such as "Pit Bull," "Hitchhiker Joe," and "Holliston Street," got stuck in my head for a few evenings one week and just about drove me crazy. Everyone should try the Rugburns at least once. If you want to start with the best, just treat yourself to a taste, start with "My Boyfriend" and "Me and Eddie Vedder."
Generally speaking, I am bored with the 2713 songs on my iPod, and the cds are all packed away. I have a Smithsonian recording of black banjo players of North Carolina on the way from Amazon, so that will create some excitement. I have also been working on appreciating silence, which is altogether different here than it was back home. It gets REALLY quiet here, especially out in the wilderness, with no highways or airports nearby.

Optimist Club

I have noticed in the newspaper and the list of civic organizations given to us by the welcome lady, that there is an Optimist Club here in Starkville. No Alcoholics Anonymous (for that, you have to drive to Columbus), but there is an Optimist Club. What is that? A bunch of Polly Annas sitting around saying "you know, I think we have a good chance of solving this global warming thing," and "I don't want to jinx it, but I think the Iraqis are really close to establishing law and order on their own," and "Baby Suri is just so lucky to have Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes as her mommy and daddy!" My first instinct upon hearing about the Optimist Club was to found a Pessimist Club. Sort of to give people an alternative, you know, to the Optimist Club. But then I thought, no one would show up to that. It'll never get off the ground. It just WOULDN'T WORK.

zapperese

English word: backpack
Zapper's word: packback
English word: roly poly
Zapper's word: poly roly
English word: walkie-talkie
Zapper's word: talkie-talkie

Tailgate party

Here are some images of the lovely tailgate party hosted by the MSU College of Arts and Sciences. I was very impressed with the whole shebang and wondered if these sorts of parties are hosted by other colleges at other universities. There was plenty of food, live music and lots of friendly people.
When we walked up to the tent this guy was playing "Angel From Montgomery," which he followed with JT's ubiquitous "How Sweet It Is," and I thought "this is going to be nothing but frat party standards," but he mixed in some rather obscure tunes, such as the Holy Modal Rounders' "Mr. Spaceman," and the Beatles' "Rocky Racoon." He also played "Orange Blossom Special," the samba-lounge version of "Layla," "Horse with No Name," and "Steal My Kisses." Check out the floral display, really top notch:The boys had Bulldog shirts and pom-poms and closely observed a bean-bag tossing game being played at a neighboring tent. I am so glad that my wife works for a university that takes such good care of it's faculty on game day. At faculty orientation we received two tickets to the game, and it was eventually decided that I would take Bugs. We sat close to the field in a fenced off area. Behind us the students were crammed shoulder to shoulder. Although cowbells have been banned by the South Eastern Conference, and the stadium has a sign prohibiting "artificial noisemakers," the racket from hundreds of cowbells during the game was horrendous even in the open air. In the concourse area below it was thrilling. We were directly behind the opposing team, the University of South Carolina Gamecocks, who, as you can see, have the same team colors as MSU:This caused some confusion for the MSU offense, which scored no points and at one point threw the ball right into coverage. MSU picked off a pass early in the game as well, so perhaps the advantage was equal.