Sunday/Monday "mix tape"

(This post was begun on Sunday afternoon and I am finishing it up tonight. Its randomness is the reason for the title.)

Yesterday I was raking leaves in my front yard, listening to my iPod. It occurred to me that there are lots of people like me, approaching/ensconced in middle age who own iPods and use them to enliven their normal household chores. But why doesn't Apple depict this demographic in their ads? Instead you have young hipsters monochromatically gyrating to the latest song from the Gorillaz or other spiffy band-of-the-month.

If Apple listened to me, you could still have the young hipsters but you could also have their parents jamming to Bob Dylan while cleaning the gutters, mowing the lawn, or whatever.

Who would be against this idea? Anyone, really? Is Apple not interested in selling their iPods to just about everyone with $200? Wouldn't it benefit the company to do this? And if Apple won't do it, then maybe Creative or the iRiver people will do it?

Go ahead anyone who is reading this. Send the idea to Steve Jobs. I don't need credit for the idea, I just want to see good ideas come to fruition.

*****

Someone tell me what I should do about King Kong.

As I have told some of you before, I am of two minds on this movie. Peter Jackson earned a lot of credit with me by making three excellent adaptations of The Lord of the Rings, but I am not sure if I am excited enough for this movie's subject.

Individually, I love a lot of the people involved in the movie: Jackson, Naomi Watts, even Jack Black. But the twenty-five foot monkey is a stumbling block. And, for some reason, the fact that it is set in the 1920s is a problem. Maybe I hate the clothes? I don't know.

I'll probably go see it, but I am not overwhelmed by it. Is that wrong? Am I growing up?

*****

Speaking of growing up.

Here is a drawing that Ariel drew a long while ago and I just now decided to reduce it so that it could fit on my scanner bed. Unfortunately when it was reduced the picture lost some of its quality and the details aren't quite as sharp. Sorry about that.

The picture shows two houses, one on the extreme left edge and another one near the middle of the page. In the sky above are several blue birds. There is also a kite flying in a sun-filled sky between the flock of migrating birds and the houses below. Also between the houses is what I think was a yellow school bus.

The blocks of text are her "story" of the picture, dictated to me:

"At home I got a book and I threw it. I went inside my house and I looked at something else. Mom told me not to throw my books. And then I went to go pet Dog. And I looked everywhere but I could not find my dog." [Shades of Terry and Hopkin Green Frog here?]

"I didn't check in the living room and I saw my dog. It was fun. So we both went outside to play. I threw my dog a bone. But my dog could not chew it. He did not like the bone so he went inside. I did not want to play with the dog so I played with my dolly. [Preferring inanimate objects over living things?] But I accidentally broke it. And I yelled, 'Mom!' And I looked everywhere for Mom."

Really, it's a sad tale, a search for life fulfillment, as described by a five-year-old.

If you didn't like that bit of child-like creativity, you might enjoy this. Last month, on Columbus Day Tegan and I didn't have to work--but the daycare was closed. So I stayed home with the kids while she went into the office to try and keep up with her Project from Hell.

While I was home, working on the computer, the kids were playing with some spare yarn (from Tegan's pregnant and knitting phase). When I stopped to see what they were doing, I was confronted with this complex (multi-roomed!) masterpiece of yarn art.

*****

Other entertainment news:

1.) The demise of Arrested Development on Fox is for certain, but there is some hope that the show might be resurrected by Showtime. So, people with lots of disposable income will benefit from intelligent humor while the frugal and the poor will suffer.

I wonder if I can adjust our budget to squeeze enough money out to subscribe to premium cable? Maybe if I can buy some Malk (now with Vitamin R!) rather than that expensive milk.

2.) You might have hated Aquaman in the late October episode of Smallville, but soon you will be able to hate Aquaman each and every week. Hurray? (No, not really . . .)