Category: Video

Corralling cats and words

Yes, it’s a commercial, but it’s still pretty funny (and kid safe–my kids loved it). It occurs to me that everyone else has already seen this except for me, since I don’t watch television.

In any case, enjoy!

 And by popular (?) demand, I’ll post that 490-word sentence, but below the cut. Click through if you’re curious/bored. And yes, it’s one big fat paragraph because, after all, it’s one big fat sentence. It also features Dating on the Dork Side characters.

Continue reading “Corralling cats and words”

Thank you very much, Mr. Earworm

I don’t know where Andrew picked up on this insidious bit of 80s music. He’s been singing: “Dōmo arigatō, Mr. Roboto” for a week now, over and over again. So I finally asked, “Have you heard the entire song?”

He hadn’t.

YouTube to the rescue! But first, a little background. From Wikipedia:

The song tells part of the fictitious story of Robert Orin Charles Kilroy (ROCK), in the rock opera Kilroy Was Here. The song is performed by Kilroy (as played by keyboardist Dennis DeYoung), a rock and roll performer who was placed in a futuristic prison for “rock and roll misfits” by the anti-rock-and-roll group the Majority for Musical Morality (MMM) and its founder Dr. Everett Righteous (played by guitarist James Young).

The Roboto is a model robot which does menial jobs in the prison. Kilroy escapes the prison by overtaking a Roboto prison guard and hiding inside the emptied-out metal shell. When Jonathan Chance finally meets Kilroy, at the very end of the song, Kilroy says,I am Kilroy! Kilroy! ending the song.

Aren’t you glad you asked? Okay, I realize you hadn’t. Enough, then. I’ll leave you with the musical stylings of Styx:

Unintended consequence of the baking club

So today during her allotted TV time, Miss B decided not to watch cartoons, or the Disney channel, but surfed on by those to watch …

The Food Network.

She was enthralled. An entire channel where they cook! It was a baking club! On TV!

She watched a couple of shows. One was with some beefcake guy. I want to say he had an Australian accent, but I’m not sure about that. He did have the tight T-shirt to show off his gym-sculpted pecs and biceps, oh, and this faux hawk looking hairstyle. Tommy, Jimmy, somebody? I don’t know.

Whatever. The woman he was professing to help with her dinner party looked like she wanted to smack him upside the head at one point. But the fondue they were making looked pretty good. The next show, some woman claimed we could cook an entire meal in thirty minutes. Sure we could.

The second she popped some kind of exotic peppers into this recessed grill type thing in her stove, she lost me. One, if it’s not in my fridge, it’s not happening in thirty minutes. Two, dude, that stove thing. I can’t find it on Google, so I’m pretty sure we’re talking science fiction. Kyra, however, loved it.

Hey, if she’s destined to be a foodie, more power to her. She can start cooking dinner. I think we can all agree that’s a win/win situation for everyone involved.

Thanks to the little Coming Next feature, I knew we were threatened with would be treated to Semi-Homemade with Sandra Lee. Fortunately, true disaster was forestalled. Miss B decided to go play pretend and forgot about the Food Network for the time being.

I mean, you’ve seen this show, right? Even I know this isn’t cooking. Below is the (in)famous Kwanzaa cake. She doesn’t sprinkle it with corn nuts in this version, but I know I’ve seen that. Corn nuts! On a cake!

Oh, the humanity.

Baby, it’s cold outside

The reason: It really is cold outside.

Why this particular version? Because nothing says Christmas like Zooey Deschanel singing in the shower and Will Ferrell in an elf costume?

Actually, it has to do with Andrew. The movie came out in 2003, when he was seven and Miss B was one. In the trailer, a little baby crawls into Santa’s sack, and then is spirited back to the North Pole.

He hated that trailer, hated the idea that the little baby was taken away from its family. He worried that Kyra would wake up on Christmas Eve, crawl into the living room, and the same thing might happen to her.

However, in the movie, the baby is an orphan and ends up being raised as an elf at the North Pole. Andrew enjoys the movie now and it’s pretty cute. Okay, so it’s not It’s a Wonderful Life, I still think casting Ed Asner as Santa is genius.

And the beat goes on

So, yesterday, Miss B and Bob came back from Home Depot. On the ride home, Kyra discovered a new song on the radio. Bob said, “Tell Mommy what you heard.” And Miss B sang:

Girls just want to have some fun!

That’s right. Cyndi Lauper was playing, specifically, this:

Girls Just Want to Have Fun (link only, I can’t embed it).

Check out the awesome choreography at the 1:30 mark. They dont’ make videos like that anymore. Because she enjoyed that so much, I introduced her to the Go-Go’s:

She really liked this one. Once Bob left the room, we danced around like Belinda Carlisle, which isn’t all that difficult but isn’t something you necessarily want others to see. All that was missing were the off-the-shoulder sweatshirts, leggings, and giant earrings.

Ah, 80s pop music–bridging generations.

It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Super Girl

So today, since it was so lovely out, I once again put together the kids, their Halloween costumes, my digital camera, and the guest of honor, Microsoft Movie Maker.

But when I first grabbed my camera and checked to see what was on there, I noticed Andrew had used it to take several pictures of himself and the cat. I give you a new take on human/animal relations:

 The Blair Witch Cat Project

Just be glad I spared you the photo he took of the cat using her litter box.

On to the movie. Last year, it was Snow Princesses and Werewolves. This year, we call this one Super Girl vs. Freddy Krueger (aka Revenge of the Marvelous Miss B).

You are the music in me


Your Taste in Music:


Eighties: Highest Influence

Adult Alternative: Highest Influence

Alternative Rock: High Influence

Nineties: High Influence

Punk: High Influence

Hat Tip to Marianne for the quiz.

I’ve always suspected that whenever someone refers to “adult alternative” they mean “lame alternative.” I mean, is there a difference? Maybe it’s just me. I also realize the 80s were a long time ago, and I should do something about that.

Like learn to play Guitar Hero and put that knowledge to good use. Actually, Andrew’s guitar teacher likes Guitar Hero. He says it has renewed interest not only in guitar playing in general, but in music written for the guitar. He’s spent the past couple of years explaining to his students that this or that pop song doesn’t have a guitar part–it’s all synthesizer.

He seemed quite happy that Andrew wanted to learn how to play Iron Man and the opening to Green Day’s Holiday. Yes, this would be the 21st century version of a classical music education. What? You don’t know Bohemian Rhapsody? You heathen.

As an aside, Andrew’s guitar teacher also has a soul patch–omigod, could-you-just-die?

So, in the spirit of all that, I give you The Ramones, another band Andrew knows (I’m so proud *sniff*). Those of you who don’t want to listen to that last entry on my list (that would be punk), don’t click play, k?

Wow. The music video. She has changed over the years. No cgi for us. No, in my day, we didn’t have special effects. We made everyone wear their crappy Halloween costumes and we filmed up hill, both ways. Kids these days …