It’s plain to see that this is a drawing of Spider-Man. If the red and blue doesn’t give it away, the webs coming from his hands should. Awesome!
He’s made such an improvement in coloring and drawing in just a few weeks. Suddenly he’s attempting to draw faces and characters and coloring almost completely inside the lines. We try to color or draw at least a few times a week.
Carter was ready for Santa this year. He went to visit him during the day on Monday and showed Santa his Wal-Mart Wish Book with the stickers on all the items he liked.
Say what you will about Wal-Mart. The wish book was a cool idea (and a good marketing one, as well). It gave Carter a visual reminder of all the things he liked and it made me remember being a kid and looking through the Sears and JC Penny catalogs at the pages and pages of toys. I would carefully make a list, listing the item and page number of each thing I wanted. Just like Ralphie, I had to have a specific item each year. Good memories and hopefully Carter will have them too.
File this under one more reason to want a Wii. Nintendo has created a Co-Star Mode in the new Super Mario Galaxy that lets parents help younger players navigate the 3-D world in the game. from the GameDaily story:
As the second player, you don’t get a character on screen, you get a cursor that is used to capture gems, gather coins, help give Mario jump boosts and distract would-be foes. So younger gamers still get to control the primary character, feel like they’re controlling a game and ensures that the game experience lasts longer than what would occur based on their current abilities.
Very cool. The few times Carter and I have tried to play any games (albeit, it’s the X-Box), he just can’t quite grasp the controls and game play just yet. I don’t know how old I was when I received my first NES, but I remember playing it for hours. Newer games (and especially 3-D navigation) can be harder for younger players, so it’s cool that Nintendo realized this and actually did something about it.
SlashFilm has posted a great article on 55 Must See Movies of 2008. There’s a lot of good films on there. So many and I know I’ll never watch half of them and likely only see half of that in the theaters. I do know I’ll see Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Dark Knight next year. With Carter, I’m sure Wall-E, Where the Wild Things Are and Horton Hears a Who will be sure bets. From what I hear, the Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer film will be G rated, so we’ll definitely be there for that one.
Fanboys, Be Kind Rewind, Fanboys, The Changeling, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button all sound interesting, but will probably have to wait for cable/DVD.
George Romero satirized American’s as a mindless, Zombie nation in his 1969 Night of the Living Dead and 1978 Dawn of the Living Dead films. I remember watching these films for the first time in a “serious” context in college and the message hitting me like a pile of bricks.
The more I think about it, the more it seems right. Just read the linked Vanity Fair article for a humorous look at the short-cut we are willing to take to make our life easier.
America’s Can-Do-But-Why-Bother spirit has produced a wave of gadgets that take the effort out of almost everything: vacuuming rugs, parking cars, walking dogs. In fact, why wear out those tongue muscles when a virtual assistant can order you a Motorized Ice Cream Cone?
I’m not saying I’m any better than the rest. We buy yogurt in a tube for Carter’s lunch and use any number of pointless gadgets and concoctions that will supposedly make our life easier. More and more, I’ve been thinking about how much things have changed since I was a kid. As I see more of myself reflected in Carter and as he develops his personality, I find myself thinking of when I was a kid and realizing that maybe things were better back then. Now, I’m really starting to sound like a parent…I remember walking to school (true) in the snow (not true) barefoot (not true).