Our new lens

Our new 35mm f/1.8 Nikon lens arrived today!  For those of you wondering what that means, perhaps this highly inspirational quote from the Nikon press release will clear things up:

When mounted on a DX-format camera body, [this lens] enables photographers to document their world with a lens that produces a picture angle similar to the field of vision as seen through the human eye.

 In other words, it's basically like looking at stuff, if you're a human.  My spine tingles.  This lens is actually really great for us, though, because we have been using a 50mm portrait lens for everything.  Our old lens takes beautiful pictures, but you have to be pretty far from your subject unless you want a closeup.  The new lens will allow us to take pictures that don't make our house look like a closet.

So far I've been able to document what I saw when I opened the fridge this morning:

Ah, the pleasures of living with small children.  That Saurolophus really made my day.

Also, I am finally able to take a picture of the bike hutch I built for $5:

Previously I would have had to stand in my neighbor's yard to take that picture.  Now you can see the whole hutch, plus a bunch of crap in my yard!  Hooray!  Oh and if the hutch looks rickety, that's just uh, barrel distortion from my new lens.  Yeah, that.

You know what annoys me?

I'll tell you what.  It annoys me when people describe their music taste in one of the following ways: (a) eclectic or (b) "anything but rap."  

The former (a) is only annoying because when somebody says his or her taste is eclectic, it's almost never true.  It usually means they like Nickelback AND Bob Marley.  It often also means that their tastes run towards the shitty, for some reason.  (Which is to say that they don't have the refined tastes of this blog's humble author.)

The latter (b) makes me want to say: really?  You're into Norwegian black metal, shoegaze, lounge music, contemporary Christian music, Shomyo Buddhist chants, Rogers and Hammerstein musicals, free jazz, Southern gospel, and Raffi*?  Just as long as nobody attempts to rapidly speak rhyming phrases over a sampled beat.  Huh.  That's weird.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: if you somebody asks you what kind of music you like, you're best off just sneering and saying "you wouldn't have heard of anything I like."  Or, you know, naming some specific bands or genres.

*(Well, not all Raffi, I guess.)

Let the sucky rumpus start

As a kid I was no great fan of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are."  To me, it glorified Max (the protagonist) and his bad behavior.  Also, I thought it was silly because it was all about some jackass kid's imagination, and the last thing I wanted was to be seen as silly.  I'm not sure what was wrong with me; although I had as active a fantasy life as any other kid, I thought the imagination was just dumb.  I hated it when TV shows talked about how your imagination could take you to magical places and other such nonsense.  I loved watching Reading Rainbow but Geordi LaForge sure did like to talk about my imagination and how awesome it was.  Also, the theme song* and intro made me want to puke -- what kid wants to be Ben Franklin?  I mean, I loved reading about Ben Franklin, but it was totally beneath me to pretend to be him.  I wanted adults to treat me like an adult, but adults seemed to think the imagination was some wonderful thing only kids are posessed of.

Now that I'm over all that (Monty Python cured me of my hatred of the silly sometime around eighth grade) and have kids of my own, I really enjoy "Where the Wild Things Are."  It's a perfectly told story that gives us just a slice of a fully-realized yet tantalizingly hidden universe that only Max has access to.  Older Daughter loves the book.  Alia probably will too, if she doesn't tear it in half and cram it down our dog's throat.  (As of last night, she just roared through the whole book.)

Anyhoo, it turns out they've made "Where the Wild Things Are" into a movie.  This is a bad thing.  The preview is great and all -- I love the acoustic Arcade Fire song they used -- but WTWTA is like a 32-page book.  The world doesn't need a feature length movie about Max.  We don't need backstory.  We don't need CGI Wild Things.  We don't need to know more about the mysterious ocean voyage.  The Wild Things certainly don't need to be anthropomorphized and tamed.  We don't need subplots.  Just leave a good thing alone for once, dammit.

* I now recognize that the RR theme song is actually totally awesome.

UPDATE OF SORTS: Since writing this post (but before posting it), I have run into approving commentary from numerous friends about the WTWTA trailer.  There are a lot of impressive names behind the movie: Spike Jonze directing, Dave Eggers writing the screenplay (?!), and not the least, Maurice Sendak giving this blessing to the project.  Regardless, I remain skeptical.  Also, the Wild Things' movement looks cheesy and their faces are all wrong.

Gave dude a dog

In an attempt to close the puppy gap between this blog and Craig's, Baby and I picked up a new dog last night.  Actually, my dad realized his daschund Alvin (previously pictured here) was a bit more than he could handle, so we took Little A off Dad's hands.  I had kind of anticipated this happening when we got Dad the dog (at his insistence), but I had hoped it would happen after Alvin was older and more housebroken.  Oh well -- it looks like Baby's mom might take him home with her this weekend.  

At the moment, though, things are a little rough; Ramona (our seven-year-old black Lab) wants Alvin to leave her alone and Alia is terrified of him.  Older Daughter just wants to lock him in his kennel -- not because she doesn't like him, but because she feels like that's his "home" and so she puts him there like she would put a doll in its house.  He's actually a very good dog and seems to be pretty clever, but he's quite a nipper and he pisses everywhere.  But you know, that's kind of just what you get.

My daughter the gnostic

Me: What's that you made?

Her: It's Shootplane, he shoots fire at night so kids aren't scared, but if they're scared, he sends ghosts to play with them!  Pretend it has a mouth and eyes and talks to you.

Me: Okay.  Hi Shootplane, what's going on?

Her (as Shootplane): Last night I shot fire and made the earth planet!

Me: That's great, but I thought you told me God made the earth.  [Referring to an earlier conversation.]

Her (as Shootplane): Actually, God is my cousin.  He didn't want to make the earth planet so he let me do it.

Begun the SXSW has

So, I'm on spring break.  I don't technically get this week off, but I could probably have not shown up to work for the last two days and gone unnoticed.  Case in point: I had to take down the building's network for a little over an hour yesterday, and my administrator forgot to send out the email; I got one phone call about the outage.  During this time nobody in the building could print, use their email, surf the web, etc.  You would think this would be a great time for extracurricular activity, but in truth having nothing to do at work turns my mind to mush so that the only thing I can do is indulge in some newfound guilty musical pleasures* and watch Flight of the Conchords online.

Yesterday was not only St. Patrick's day but also an old friend's birthday, so I met him and several others at the Draught House pub for good times.  By "several others" I mean that there was a line out the door snaking through the parking lot** and that people in the know brought camping chairs to avoid sitting on the pavement while drinking.  It was good times, though -- I only had to wait in line for a few minutes since a friend was near the front and gave me cut-sies.  Booyah!  Take that, civility!

Spring break is an awesome time to be in Austin, mostly due to SXSW.  For the first few days -- during the film and "interactive" portion of the festival -- the town is flooded with fat, ponytailed computer dudes and thin, ponytailed movie dudes.  After that wave the ironically-ponytailed music dudes and sideponied scenester dudettes from all over the world take over the city with a million SXSW-sanctioned shows, free corporate-sponsored RSVP parties, non-sanctioned house parties, panel discussions, label showcases, etc.  It's also apparently a really great time to release massive clouds of pollen if you are an oak tree.

I'm taking the next couple days off work to hang out with some out-of-town friends staying with us and try to catch some new music.  The conversational go-to around Austin during this whole month is "so what are you going to see during SXSW?"***  I honestly have no idea what I'm going to see; other than a day party tomorrow and a showcase that night, I have nothing planned -- but the best times at SXSW are usually the ones that come up at the last minute.

* As far as guilty pleasures go, I could do a lot worse than Yelle, but I have also found some good stuff lately.

** For people in LA: in many parts of the world it is considered unusual to wait in line at a bar on a weeknight.

*** By the way, it's always pronounced "South by Southwest" and never spelled out.

Five karaoke anti-jams

The key to karaoke, as I think I mentioned before, is commitment.  It doesn't matter that your voice is bad if you know the words and you can sell your song.  However, there are certain songs that should be avoided unless you really know what you're doing.  These are they:

1. Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen); Other people would like to use the stage sometime tonight.  Also, if you're picking this song, you probably think you're being original.  You're not.  Attempt this only if: you hate humankind and want to inflict pain others.

2. Virtually any rap song; Even the worst rappers have better flow than you.  I promise.  You just don't know it because you've never rapped in front of a crowd before.  Also, you don't really know all the words to Gin and Juice, let alone City of Compton.  And there's nothing less entertaining than watching you laugh and read the lyrics off a TV.  Even your friends aren't laughing with you.  Well, except the really drunk ones and the ones who have a secret crush on you.  Actually, maybe that's a good relationship test -- if s/he laughs through your shitty rap karaoke, then s/he's still in the infatuation stage.  Hold off on any major decisions until s/he is at the "politely feigns amusement" stage.  Attempt this only if: you are a rapper.

3. Any song you don't know the words to; Arkay and I once did Whitney Houston's "I want to dance with somebody." Did you know that song has bunch of parts that aren't the part that says "I wanna dance with somebody, I wanna feel the heat with somebody?" Yeah, it does. And those parts suck.  Attempt this song only if: you are drunk and you think you know all the words to REM's "It's the End of the World As We Know It."

4. Born to be Wild (Steppenwolf); Not just for the obvious reason -- namely that beer commercials and movie trailers have turned a halfway-decent rock song into a cliché so overused that it now represents exactly the opposite of what it was originally intended to -- but also for the fact that is has a two-minute guitar solo in the middle of the song, during which you have to figure out what you're going to do with your hands. And the thing about karaoke guitar solos is that they're not the original songs, so even a good solo sucks in the karaoke version.  This rule applies to pretty much any Steppenwolf song.  Attempt this only if: it's the only song available.

5. The Friday the 13th theme.  Well, I mean, it doesn't have words.  What's the point?  I just had to say something about the fact that it's Friday the 13th.  Attempt this song only if: you are a conductor, standing in front of an orchestra.