Category: …And Little E Makes 3

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

Cry wolf and let slip the…um…wolves and stuff.

Jesus. You people are probably starting to think that I’m making all this baby stuff up by now.

With a number of factors in play, including the insurance angle which completely befuddles me, we’re in a holding pattern until Monday. No baby this weekend, sorry. My apologies for what must continually seem like crying wolf. I’d love to be cuddling up to a baby tomorrow. But I’d also like for my wife, who has to do the really painful legwork on getting him here, to be comfortable with the timetable. She’s in bed right now with Olivia purring her to sleep. Me, I’m agitatedly sitting here shoveling new game reviews into the PDF database by the half-dozen, and watching the anything-but-classic 1984 Doctor Who story Warriors Of The Deep as it dubs to DVD-R, and wondering, indeed, why anyone would want Warriors Of The Deep on DVD. But I’m a Johnny Byrne fan – he also wrote The Keeper Of Traken and, oh, about 70% of Space: 1999 (and still hasn’t gotten a royalty check from Berman & Braga for the number of Voyager episodes that completely ripped off Space: 1999) – and I’ll get Warriors whenever it officially comes out on DVD just to hear him go off (albeit in his own classy, eloquent way) on what a hash they made of his script.

I’m sure you guys think I’m barking mad to be casually going on about action figure collecting, old video games, and DVDs while waiting for the little guy’s arrival. Hopefully you realize that some of this is purely a coping mechanism, self-distraction at its most blatant.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

T minus 1 day?

Okay, so here’s the score at halftime.

We’re not in labor, but mom has been depressed and miserable for over 24 hours. So we’re back to plan “A” – she goes into the hospital at midnight tonight to begin the process of inducing labor so we can have a baby around this time tomorrow. Now, she’s still locked up tighter than Fort Knox, so I have very little doubt that a C-section is going to go hand-in-hand with the induction. Put simply, This Is Gonna Hurt. She’s been home from work for four weeks, out of six weeks of paid maternity leave, and my reading up on the subject has been that recovery from a C-section is a 6-to-8-week thing in and of itself – and that’s assuming that the woman can then return to a desk job, not something physical like delivering the mail. Also, if she’s recovering from a C-section, I’ll probably need to stay home to take care of her and Evan, rather than trying to keep part-timing. So…we’ve got a problem, and one whose solution I’m not sure of. I get no paid leave from my part-time gig – if I don’t show up, I don’t get paid – so we’re looking at a bit of pain on the purse strings here. (Hey, at least Evan’s got a ready-made food supply until further notice – I’d probably join him at the buffet line except I’m sure I’d get the crap slapped outta me.)

Please don’t anyone mistake this for a beg, solicitation, or anything else. This is really just me trying to work out in my head How We’re Going To Do This. Jan’s got some insurance paperwork in to claim disability on her random wild blood pressure from a while back, so that might help. I’m not a big fan of people who file for disability at the drop of a hat, but I think this one is perfectly justified. I’m already trying to set up something to do some stuff on a telecommute basis for my part-time gig, but that’ll probably put enough money in my pocket for half a cheeseburger, and I don’t even know if it’s the half with the cheese or not. The video work is variable at best, and while I placed one ad in Entertainment Fort Smith’s bridal issue that netted me two cold calls – one of which was hands-down one of the rudest jerks I’ve ever dealt with in my life – it’s clear that the video work is going to have to come from outside the area to make that a viable source of income. And I’m not sure how to start there when I can’t get more than two local cold calls from an ad in what was supposed to be the biggest issue of the year (though I’m not going to go into why a bridal issue would be published in July, a month after, oh, say, the big bridal month, but there ya go, says the guy who got married on July 1st). Guess my ad writing skills ain’t all that and a bag of microchips, eh?

Of course, for the moment, I’ll just be happy if I’m looking at my baby boy this time tomorrow. That’s what really matters.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3

You’re flirtin’ with time, baby

Still nothing to report. We’re having quite a bit of back-and-forth with the doctor on induction; in one week exactly, Jan will be ten months pregnant, so that pretty much seals it: the kid is part horse. However, there’s no fetal distress at this point – I mean, Jan‘s plenty miserable, but she’s married to me, so she’s probably used to that – so we’re looking at holding out. The push to induce is coming entirely from the doctor’s end, with no real basis other than that she’s on call this weekend. Add to that the pretty high likelihood that a C-section would follow the induction becuase things just aren’t physically ready yet down there, and I’m just not crazy about rushing into things this weekend.

I know everybody wants to see the little guy. I do too. His mom was going on and on this morning about taking pictures of him dressed up in every one of his little outfits (oh God…this is my son, not a dress-up doll!). 😆 I can’t wait to see him wear the bib that a friend of mine got for me that says “NOT NOW, I’M DOWNLOADING!” But we want this to happen on nature’s timetable. If he hasn’t dropped down, and the clearly-marked exit hasn’t effaced, then obviously something, somewhere isn’t ready. (Of course if it was a matter of endangering the health of mother or baby, I’d be lining up to beam him out of there.) I’d rather let nature be the determining factor than a doctor who wants to do this while she’s already on call. (Don’t even get me started on doctors thinking like that.)

Sorry, everyone’ll just have to wait a bit longer. Don’t worry, you’ll hear the shrieks when the real thing is goin’ down.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Music

Wow, a tuba would sound great here. Or a xylophone.

Click here for a big honkin’ Jeff Lynne interview in Yamaha All Access – it’s a nifty little magazine that you can read online or print to read at your leisure (even though I’d have to imagine that this sucker would eat a whole print cartridge). Great pictures – it’s like the man just doesn’t age. What a freakin’ house that guy has too! (Paid for in part, no doubt, by the gazillion copies of each one of his albums that I own; fortunately, thanks to Gapporin’s visit a few weeks ago, I think I’m down to just one copy of each album on vinyl, and I no longer own a vinyl copy of “Doin’ That Crazy Thang”…which may well be cause to rejoice.) It’s not the most insightful interview I’ve ever read with him, but hey, I’m happy to see him saying something about writing songs. You know, as opposed to, say, recycling “Mr. Blue Sky” for the highest bidder once a year. But I have to disagree with him on one front: there’ll always be room for the classic ELO sound. I think now it’s just going to be a matter of who’s delivering it – L.E.O., Jason Falkner, Roger Manning, Ben Folds, Paul Melancon, or even Jeff’s former bandmates still touring as The Orchestra. As much as I give him credit for writing incredible songs, he says it himself – the arrangements arrived at the same time as the songs when he wrote them, and they hit our ears the same way. Now, that first ELO Part II album in 1990 proved adequately that you can’t just arrange something like an ELO song and get the same effect, but it’s worth remembering that, as far as we the audience are concerned, we met song and arrangement at the same time, and loved it.

Still no baby news. And you know what? I’m not surprised. My wife is getting tired of hauling the little guy around, but I’m not even remotely surprised by his reluctance to come outta there. This is my son we’re talking about. I don’t like to get out of bed in the morning. You think any kid of mine is going to be eager to leave a nice comfy womb where he’s warm and cozy and doesn’t have to worry about a thing? Hell no. Just like his old man, the little guy’s just going to have to be prodded. Persistently. With a Nerf sledgehammer.

I think he and I will get along too fine. (And, in so doing, will probably get on his mom’s nerves a lot.)

EDIT: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that I found out about this article from the Showdown mailing list, covering all things ELO and Lynne. You can find the subscription details here.

… Read more
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...And Little E Makes 3 Cooking With Code Home Base ToyBox

All quiet on and/or near the western front

Nothing big to report. Did some more minor housecleaning today, and ran a lot of errands. One thing I utterly failed to get done was get the infant seat installed in the Mommymobile – the guy who does that for folks at the Van Buren PD was out of pocket when I got there. I’ll try again Monday.

There are few things as certain in life as death, taxes, and the fact that sooner or later, your Avid user settings will be corrupted. @#$%. (And this is without two other dudes using it – I don’t know what this machine’s excuse is.)

I’ve also been doing some WordPress-style remodeling on Phosphor Dot Fossils, getting the first few test entries into the system. I’m really, really happy with how that’s shaping up; basically, I’m categorizing every entry in a zillion different ways, so you’ve got a huge number of ways to sort through the database: by year, by platform, by the first letter of the title, by control scheme, even by game play elements. You want to look at baseball games only? Maze games only? Games by a certain manufacturer? No sweat. I think there’s a lot of value to the existing library of PDF reviews that has perhaps been buried without having some kind of sorting mechanism; this should redress the balance a bit. (Oh, and I’m gonna drop my customary anti-cut-and-paste code into place too, because let’s not forget that there are other folks who think that PDF is quite a valuable resource too. 😛 ) Head over there, try out the sorting options on the right-hand sidebar, and let me know what you think. It’s a beautiful thing.

Speaking of which, I have found a new use for one of the display cases I used to haul to OVGE every year:
Not the droids you're looking for
I figured I might just need to keep these little guys under glass (or in this case plastic) from here on out. (By the way, the giant droid god on the left isn’t Andrew’s – I found my own large-scale R2 while cleaning house.)

Move along, move along
I know these are a stupid vice to have, but they’re at least harmless. Yes, I know it’s just the same thing repainted in about a dozen different ways. That doesn’t make me like ’em any less.

By the way, speaking of geeky stuff, I thought I’d post my wife’s score from that Nerd Test a few days ago. If you’re reading this, you’ll probably be impressed:
Jan's nerd test score
Read it and weep, gentlemen. 😆… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3

Baby news

Okay, after Jan spent a night not sleeping because her blood pressure was all over the map, she went to the doctor this morning. Here’s the game plan:

1. Have a baby.
2. ???
3. Profit!

No, seriously, if we don’t have a baby on the ground by Monday (on the ground? okay, that’s proof right there that I’ve spent way too much time with baby horses and not enough with baby humans), then Thursday of next week will be scheduled for induction, and I only wish that meant “into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame”. We had been aiming for natural childbirth, no C-sections, etc. etc., but if I’ve learned anything, it seems to be that even attempting to aim for these things almost guarantees that they’ll never, ever happen.

So there you have it. Sometime in the next eight days, I’m going to be a daddy. Oh, and we’ll open that whole seventh seal thing around that time too. Just FYI. It’ll be a busy day.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Television & Movies

Two completely unrelated thoughts

Nothing new to report on the baby front. We went swimming today and we’re just generally enjoying this whole three-day weekend jazz.

We watched the Star Trek: New Voyages episode World Enough And Time today. I’ll analyze it more thoroughly in a review for the site’s fan film section at a later date, but as nicely-made as it was, it made me realize something: I’m starting to feel like the world of Trek fan films is a momentous wasted opportunity. They’re produced well (hell, some of the production values easily rival the last episodes of the last TV series), acted earnestly, and they represent a fantastic group effort of will. However, they don’t say anything to me. I have yet to see one hit on a social issue like the original Star Trek did, and that’s really bugging me. These people have even fewer levels of censorship to deal with than Gene Roddenberry ever did: it’s just them and the ‘net and the audience. That cuts out so many layers of network bullshit that it just boggles the mind. But most of what we’re getting is just stuff that connects the dots between points of Star Trek continuity, without doing the one thing that has actually kept the original series on the map all these years. I’m aware that the next New Voyages will be a restructured version of David Gerrold’s never-produced AIDS/gay-themed TNG script Blood And Fire, but that’s a 20 year old script. I’m convinced that Roddenberry would be jazzed that the fans are making Trek now, but I’m also convinced that he’d be doing 30,000 RPM in his grave to see that no one’s touching big modern issues with it.

I find the fan films entertaining, but there’s just a nagging feeling of fandom-with-its-head-up-its-own-ass here. Star Trek broke ground and made people think in the 1960s. Have the fans forgotten, or just lost their nerve?… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

Some people’s kids

We went to visit with an old friend of both of ours this weekend, who neither of us had seen since…I think it had to be my 10-year class reunion for Jan, and about five years ago for me. (She doesn’t live around here, thus the long gap.) She now has a five-year-old son (the last time I saw her, the kid was t-i-n-y!), and once he was finally coaxed out of bed with the promise of ice cream and Doritos 😆 , I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him. We’re about to have one of those. Holy cow. What’s really funny is that Jan didn’t meet this friend of ours until around college age; I’d known her since second grade and she was one of my best friends all the way through graduation. She stuck with me even when I went through a phase in high school where I was being incredibly stupid, selfish and hurtful to those around me. It just all reminded me of how much I want to make sure Evan has better, happier childhood than I had, and that he grows up to be a better person than I was at that age. My primary impulse anytime I run into someone from my high school days is, quite frankly, to apologize. I know teenagers are a hormonal mess as a rule, but I was a “special case”, with all that that phrase implies. Even what I was going through at home didn’t cover it and didn’t excuse it. I wouldn’t go back to those years for anything.

Speaking of hormonal messes, I was asked this morning if my wife had rounded the corner from Miserable and if she was now headed toward Really Miserable. Without really thinking about it long enough to censor myself, I said “She’s past Miserable and she’s well on her way to Make Everyone Around Her Miserable.” ‘Nuff said.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Gaming

The Baby Scare

I’ve got to be up in about 4 hours, so there must be some reason I’m still bloody awake at 3:30. Oh yeah – must be that whole business tonight where we thought Jan was going into labor or something. She was feeling craptacular in the early afternoon, and after getting some advice from our doula she laid back down. Then she woke up feeling craptabulous, and then it was pretty obvious we were heading to the hospital, despite the lack of contractions. A few hours and some lab tests later, she was sent home, both for tonight and for tomorrow (meaning she’s not going to work). She’s gotten to sleep already, but I’m still having a hard time coming down from that scare, despite being effing exhausted at this point. So look out tomorrow: I’m going to be really effing exhausted.

I rather stupidly suggested on the DP forums that next year’s CGE could feature a live MST3K-style treatment of some classic video game movies – Tron, Joy Sticks, take your pick. I also helpfully volunteered Tim Snider and Flack to help me (for which I’m sure they’ll be eternally grateful). The realization has since hit me that I may not be able to go next year, what with a not-quite-a-year-old child and all, but now that I’ve given voice to that idea, I’m seeing visions of replacing Crow and Servo with stuff like a talking Space Invader and a talking Yar (fashioned out of the most cheap-ass chunks of flexible packing foam you can imagine). This could really work. I just may need to start to distance myself from the idea that I may necessarily be the one doing it. (Sad thing is, we’d never, ever, in a zillion years, be able to include it on the DVD, which at the very least I hope I’m able to come and shoot for 2008 even if I don’t go all MSTie-eyed.) (Maybe I should finish editing the 2007 footage first before I get into all this crazy 2008 talk.) (Sorry about all these brackets.*)

I’ll have more to say later, maybe, if I get around to the whole regaining-consciousness thing. But I’m fading pretty fast now, so I think I’m blogging myself to sleep here. Probably having the same effect on you lot. If so, let me know when you wake up, and I can start selling my blog entries as a cure for insomnia.

* an in-joke that only a very, very few people will ever even consider getting.… Read more