Forbidden Planet

Feeding the kids (and then getting them to eat it) can be challenging. Today, we had vegetable soup (made with fresh vegetables and homemade chicken stock – we ate the chicken earlier this week) with tortilla chips and salsa. After the initial round of “Ewww! I don’t like soup!” they settled down and began to eat. To encourage them, I suggested a race to see who would finish first. My daughter finished first and my son became dejected that he lost (not to worry, he won the race at dinner). To encourage my son to finish his soup, I told him the story of Achilles (they already know something about the Trojan War – having watched the Crayola Kids version of it: The Trojan Horse). Of course, my version was a little … adapted. A long time ago there was a great warrior named Achilles. You remember him from the Trojan War. When he was born, his mother took to the Delphic Oracle (someone who was very wise and could tell the future) to ask what she could do to make sure Achilles was very strong...

Noticed worms today. It has been raining here for the past week, week-and-a-half - some days quite a lot. Since I take my daughter to the bus every morning and pick for lunch and after school, I'd been looking for signs of worms since last week. I guess the ground only got sufficiently saturated yesterday evening to persuade the worms to come out. Of course, they were mostly dead. Squashed and mashed carcasses lying everywhere. There were still a few writhing in their final death throes. Had to persuade my son that stomping on worms is not appropriate, since they are beneficial for breaking down organic matter as well as aerating the lawns.

Hugs.

My son has a frugal use of language. He prefers to say things in the fewest words possible. He also tends to mix English and Spanish freely, choosing the simpler word from either language. A few days ago, we were out driving and it was past lunchtime, so I asked, "Jason, are you hungry?" "Yes", he relied. "What would you like to eat?" "French fries, hamburger, juice, and a toy", was his verbless answer. As we continued along he blurted, "Look! McDonald's. There be french fries." I wanted to correct him, because I find "there be ..." rather jarring on the ears, besides, it makes him sound like a pirate. To be honest, I couldn't think of a better way to express it. Maybe I should have paid more attention in grammar class ... He has recently started saying "I don't care" instead of "I don't know". This leads to amusing conversations like: "Who Broke this?" "I don't care....

What kind of stories do my kids like? Tania (now 6) has always preferred stories with a happy ending. So, some of the more classic stories she has favoured over the years are: Rapunzel, Rumplestiltskin, Thumbelina, Twelve Dancing Princesses, The Princess Mouse, and Babba Yaga. I remember the first tiem I read her The Princess Mouse, you could she how delighted she was with the twist at the end. Jason (now 3-1/2) favours stories where some bad guy gets his comeuppance. So some of the more classical stories he has favoured are: The Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Puss in Boots. Jason often makes me change the lead character in stories to be him. Of course, we read many other stories to them, but those are the so called classical fairy tales. Rhyming stories are popular - they like The Cat in the Hat. [Updated on 28-December-2006 to fix spelling errors.]

So what are good movies for children? My daughter's favourite movie (she is 6) is "Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams". My son's favourite movie (he is 3-1/2) is "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Other movies they both like are (in no particular order): "Puss in Boots" (the animation is subpar, but the kids love it for some reason, it was produced by Phil Nibbelink) http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=182465 All the Spy Kids movies "James and the Giant Peach" "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" "Snow White" (classic Disney version) Have I forgotten any? Probably, the kids have too many videos (and of course, there are television programs as well). Movies they don't like are those in which babies or toddlers or young children are helpless and in danger - if there is a crying baby in it, they probably won't want to watch it (examples would be Willow, Labyrinth and The Ten Commandments, which all hav...

I have a problem believing things. Regardless of what I hear or read, I always question it. What is the source, what are possible motivations, are there any biases affecting the conclusions or observations? The next step is to determine if the information accords with my own view of the universe. If it does, and the source is reasonably credible, then I am likely to regard it as factual. If the source is not credible, or of unknown credibility (say someone’s webpage), then I look more critically at it. If it does not accord with my view of the universe, then I need to determine if my view of the universe is wrong, or the information is wrong. It really irritates me how uncritical most people are of information. Which leads into today’s title which is that once the information somehow makes it into print (which is quite easy in these days of the Internet), it seems to gain additional credibility. I suppose it has to do with the perceived permanence of the written (or otherwise recorded ...

I have just finished week 5 of my leave of absence without pay. As expected, I am much less stressed. An interesting side effect (and definite bonus, in my opinion) is that I do not feel the need to veg out. The common state I experience while working. Weekends and holidays were never periods of leisure for me – they were periods of recovery. I have long noticed that it took me 5 to 7 days to fully unwind from work. Only at that point did I start to indulge in leisure. A key component of vegging out is doing something which requires no user participation - watching TV, endlessly browsing the Internet for mindless diversion, or keeping up on the latest news (political, technological, entertainment, gossip, whatever). So, my ‘Danger Man’ DVD collection goes unwatched – I am certain that had I been working, I would have finished watching it by now. On the positive side, I spend more time with my family, read more to the kids. It is a nice change to have the kids fighting...

An unimaginative, but highly predictable first post from a computer programmer. For those who are not programmers, the first program programmers typically write is called “Hello World”, because, when you run it, it prints “Hello World” – you can get history on it here ).