So far, so good

I'm back with a brand-new hard drive. Doesn't that sound like the first line to some weird sort of nerd hip-hop song? Can you picture it? Speaking of being able to picture it, Steph and I went to see a movie the other day for the first time in a year. For those of you who didn't follow that jarring transition, I was trying to be clever in tying in how a movie is actually moving pictures. It worked in my mind. Anyway, saw MI:3, and I really liked it. Like I said to Trevor, I'm not one to insist on a whole lot of plot in an action movie, as long as it's got lots of explosions. And this one had it, let me tell you.

But here's something else I noticed: going to a movie sucks. The studio execs are busy wringing their hands and considering committing ritual suicide with their gold-plated ballpoint pens because movie attendance keeps declining. They then proceed to villify file-sharers, saying that illegal downloading is dropping revenue. They even make PSA's with stunt men telling us how illegal downloading hurts their feelings in a very masculine, I-can-roll-a-car-six-times-and-walk-out-without-a-scratch kind of way. What a big fat load of hooey. I'll tell you why revenues are going down: the movie-going experience is really bad. After paying over $10 for the privilege of getting in to actually see the film, I have to shell out another $10 for a hot dog and a drink. So despite the warning signs about the risk of grievous bodily injury should you dare bring outside food in, I sneak bags of 7-11 candy past the ever-vigilant minimum-wage-earning ticket-takers. Like they care. I probably don't even have to conceal my bag of Glosettes; me taking them in is no skin off the ticket-taker's nose. But you never know when you're going to get one who just wants to have a power trip, you know? Anyway, like any man does, I simply stick my snacks in my wife's purse and deny that I know her if she gets hauled into the secret holding cell where all illegal-snack detainees are held and questioned at a length that comes perilously close to violating their Charter rights.

Anyway, once we actually get into the theatre, now we have to sit through mind-numbing slides full of advertising. What ever happened to not being visually stimulated every second of the day? And have you noticed recently as well that now even the innocuous before-the-previews ads have sound? Grr. Finally, the lights go down and the movie starts. Oh wait, first there's the previews. Oh no, wait, first there's the commercials. Oy vey. After sitting through nine, yes that's right, nine commercials without being able to change the channel (I was twitching like a crack addict, let me tell you), we finally got to the previews. I'm still a bit of a sucker for previews, and this time we got treated to Miami Vice and Spiderman 3. Anyway, the movie finally started, we had a good time, and we left. And the best part of the night was that since we left Theo at home (don't worry, the cat looked after him just fine), we got to ride the motorcycle together. We'd never done that before, so it was pretty cool. After we figured out how to not bash our helmets together, that is. Good times were had by all.

Note to aforementioned studio execs: make my experience more enjoyable, and I'll be happy to go to more movies. May I first suggest handing out Tazers at the door so that I can zap anyone near me who talks throughout the movie or who answers a cell phone call. Just a suggestion.

So, now that I've got that out of my system, on with the post. I have some good ones here for you today, so I promise it will have been worth the wait. As usual, I'm behind in getting these photos up--trust me, he's grown in the two weeks since these were taken. But they're still great photos. On with it, then.

The new recommendation for infants is that you don't start them on solid food until six months. We say pish posh to that--our little guy keeps trying to eat our food at the table, so let's see how he does with his own formula. Of course, going from bottle to spoon had predictable results with regard to how much of it actually stayed in his mouth. Here's the gory evidence...

Okay, so we figured out step 1: spoon goes in mouth. How about step 2: swallow said food?

Nope. Well, it was worth a try, wasn't it?

He looks like one of the competitors in a competitive eating competition (whoa, did you see how many times I used words based on the root word "compete" in a short time?) after the bell rings and he realizes he's just eaten 25 hot dogs and they've got to go somewhere. By the way, the annual hot dog eating competition did go on yesterday, and the winner consumed 53.75 hot dogs in 12 minutes. And he weighs 130 pounds.

So, I got a new toy a couple weeks ago: my new guitar. Yes, the Telecaster I've been waiting quite some time for finally made its appearance in our house thanks to the generous support of Revenue Canada. I figured that it's never too early to get Theo started (sorry for the red eye in the first one--my editing software couldn't get it out)...

The kid's going to be a prodigy, I can feel it. A couple of random cute ones that I include only to prove my hypothesis: sweater-vests are cute on infants, but they should not be worn by anyone else. Thank you.

Ah yes, the obligatory bath shot. Fortunately, it's not embarrasing. It's quite cute, actually.

And here's one from tummy time. He's getting really good at flailing around while sticking all four limbs up in the air, but he hasn't quite gotten the hang of propelling himself around yet. Oh well, when he actually does start to crawl, we'll be wishing he didn't.

What else? Ah yes, the Jolly Jumper. These things are pretty cool, really. It's the convincing the kid that they're cool that's the trick. As you can see by the following photo, he wasn't too sure what this was all about at first. However, I'm happy to report that he's since figured out jumping, and is quite pleased with himself when he does it.

Here's his "I'm going to issue a fatwah" pose.

To end today, I thought I'd put in a nature shot. I just couldn't resist this photo when it presented itself to me outside our house the other day.

So that concludes today's presentation--I hope you enjoyed it. Come back again soon and I'll have some more photos. For those of you with Italian heritage: go Italy, go! And for those with French heritage: go France, go! For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, well, I hope your cave is comfy. Talk to you all soon.