Just a quick follow up.  After all the excitement on Friday, Kate was pretty exhausted on Saturday morning, even after a good nine or so hours of sleep.  So she got in a nap while we got ready to take her to see the doctor again.


In the end, removing the eye patch was the most traumatic part, I think.  I wanted to ensure that she couldn't pull a piece of the tape or gauze off and choke on it so it may have been a little, well, extra secure.  In my defense, though, she did have the same number of eyebrows after removing the patch that she did when it went on.

We got in pretty quickly to see the doctor.  I didn't think they were open on Saturday; they might have been open just to get caught up with one doctor out, I guess.  He didn't see the scratch at first so he put dye in her eye again.  After a moment he flipped the lights off, and pronounced her eye "perfect".  Which, of course, we knew already.  She even forgave the doctor before we left, grabbing his cheek to show she's still friends.  Or maybe as a warning - you can't really tell with that one...

She hasn't yet shown the signs of any other problems in that eye so it seems to have indeed healed overnight.  She was pretty worn out by the whole thing afterwards, though...


But after a nap she was back to her old self:

I thought for sure I'd mentioned this here before, but I can't seem to find any record of it.  So it's a little late, but you, yes YOU, need to go see this right now if you haven't already.  And if you have, go buy the videos and soundtrack off of iTunes.  And if you've done that too... well... ok then. 

Come on, it's a musical about a love triangle between a superhero and a villain.  Starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.  Created by Joss Whedon and co. during the writer's strike without any studio's assistance.  There's no way it can be anything less than awesomerrific.

Fine, if you want to see more before you drop any money on it you can see a Flash version first (embedded below).  Cheapskate.

Seriously, click on a link above and go see it.  Right now.  Now.  Just click on -- no, put down the damn sandwich and go look at it.  Now!  Go!

Really?

Yes, it's due out on 10/17.

...



REALLY?

Played with a remote-controlled car, no less...

The title pretty much says it all.

  

Well, mostly Kate. Natalie was pretty tired. But there's more Natalie coming shortly.

 

Natalie, shortly after birth:

Any time I ask someone if they've seen the movie Dreamscape, all I get back is a blank stare.  So, for the uninitiated, it's a fantasy movie from 1984 starring Dennis Quaid.  The basic premise is that there exists people with psychic abilities who can, with the aid of some technology, enter into the dreams of other people and interact with them.  Alex Gardner (Quaid) is one of these and he is recruited by Doctor Paul Novotny to... well, here's where my memory's a little fuzzy.

I'll be honest, it's not a great movie, so I've no real incentive to go watch it again.  In any event, it turns out that another of the dream explorer psychic guys, Tommy Ray Glatman (yes, really), is acting as an assassin - entering people's dreams and killing them.  The movie proposes that if you die in your dreams, you die in real life.  Kind of an overused, empirically-disproven premise, but given the movie's plot it could hardly have gone anywhere interesting without it.

Meanwhile, the President is being plagued by bad dreams of his own.  He seeks the help (I think) of whatever organization they all work for and it's then that Tommy Ray is hired to kill the President.  There's a big snakeman (see right) which is really more dumb than scary, and Alex wins in the end.  No surprise there.

So why talk about it at all?  Ah, to share a childhood trauma.  See, one of the dreams the President has is of the consequences of a nuclear strike.  Specifically, it has him wandering through a post-apocalyptic house while hearing the scariest freaking voices and music ever.  He does eventually find the sources of the voices, now mutated by the effects of the blast.

I'd like to say that in retrospect it's kind of stupid and not all that scary, but to heck with that.  It's still damn scary!  It's not AS bad muted, but, well, just see for yourself:



Thanks to this scene I still - STILL - to this day hesitate sometimes when opening closet doors.

Wow.  I have to say, a couple weeks ago I was pretty sure that Obama would win the election.  Now, after Governor Palin's speech at the Convention, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if he wins and she succeeds him as the first female President.

That great theologian and political strategist, Charles Barkley, on how conservatives aren't true Christians, and his bid for Governor in 2014.

Personally, I'm not going to be convinced until I hear Howie Long's opinion on the election.

Ann Coulter on Hannity and Colmes said that she would vote, even campaign, for Hillary over McCain if it comes to that.  I don't know if I would go quite that far (especially with news that Nancy Reagan is privately endorsing McCain) but if it came down to Obama and McCain?  Yeah, I don't know...

The idea is to stream the events of the Convention over the internet and allow more interactivity and such. I asked whether it was possible to save the streaming video and embed it for later play, and they said it would be possible. I haven't found a way to do it with the video of the press conference itself, however, so hopefully they didn't just misunderstand. After all, embedding streaming video is really only of limited use. The whole power behind YouTube and TiVo is that you don't have to be there when it happens.

You can see the page here but, of course, being streaming, there's nothing to see now.

Update: Just as they said, there is a place for "past clips" where you can see and embed previously aired video.  Very nice.  Look for a familiar mention around 13:30.

I have a whole diatribe on passive-aggresive holiday songs but no time to bang it out right now.  So here are some videos to tide you over.

An oldie but a goodie.

Ok, I never thought I would see the day where Whoopi Goldberg would be the voice of reason either.  But that day has come.

You may have read about the British teacher jailed in the Sudan.  If not, she was teaching there and had some teddy bears that the kids could name.  Well, one of them wanted to give the bear a name that many people share in that region.  Unfortunately, the name was Muhammad and while it's ok to name a person that, not so much a stuffed bear.  So this tolerant theocracy does what everyone would expect and throws her in jail over an innocent mistake.  Then there were protests, predictions of long sentences and lashes and protests calling for her execution.  She's safe now, by the way.

Yeah, so no surprises there.  Then everyone's favorite bastion of sensible thought, The View, decides to discuss the story.  Barbara Walters has the usual liberal response to terrorism, i.e. "Yes, it's a terrible, terrible thing.  But..."  Her point is that while it's terrible what's happened, the same attitude is present in this country.  And that there are places here where if you named a stuffed bear Jesus that people would be outraged.  She doesn't say people would be calling for executions (at least as far as I could stomach getting through the clip) but she does draw a moral equivalence there which is just absurd.  And, seriously, if Whoopi is saying she doesn't believe it then I think you're way off the deep end...



IMAO's Harvey has really the best response I've seen to the mess right here.

Ok, not sure what's going on with the Greek letters, but it's a nice video made for Tears of the Saints by Leeland.

You might think that the Writer's Strike is all Rush Limbaugh's fault.  But here are a couple writers from the Daily Show making a very compelling case as to why they deserve compensation when their content is used online.  And I have to say, I think they're right.  It's clearly a double standard.

That last video reminded me of this one that I meant to post a while back.

Still working on my review of the debate last week.  Since then, though, all six of the "undecided voters" that CNN chose to ask questions have been identified and, to no one's surprise, they are all involved with the Democratic Party or are political activists.  Not that there's anything wrong with that -- it is a Democratic primary debate, of course.  But the fact is that they were not represented as "undecided Democratic activists" or even "undecided Democrats".  CNN wanted us to believe that these people were ordinary, random citizens just yanked from UNLV and the surrounding area.  Don't believe me?  Can't bear to give up the CNN Kool-Aid.  Fine:

Mike Huckabee has a new ad out capitalizing on the Chuck Norris Facts internet meme that was popular a while back (but isn't really anymore).  So I'm not sure if it's kind of out-of-touch or brilliant.  But I'm leaning towards the latter.

Sorry, kids.  This is just the beginning...



Highlights:
0:15 - Baby B's heartbeat
1:28 - Baby A apparently planning to conquer the world
3:20 - Baby A's heartbeat
3:45 - Baby B trying to suck its thumb
5:09 - Baby B finally catching its thumb

* Times are from the beginning - click on the clock if it's negative and counting down

Somebody PLEASE come up with something better!


To the developers: I appreciate that you are trying to make a Biblical game.  And I can understand that it's hard: I've tried hard myself to come up with a fun game that would do what you're trying to do.  But, please, this is just awful.  Do you honestly believe, in your heart of hearts, that this would appeal to ANYONE who didn't want to play it already?  Some Christian kids will play it if they REALLY like the characters or the Bible.  Some people will buy it to mock it or for ironic purposes.  But I guarantee that not a single unsaved kid will willingly play the game because it looks like fun.  Not a one.

Even Captain Bible was more fun than this looks.  Did they just make you build this game and not give you any resources?  Were you just strapped for ideas?  What was it?  The gameplay looks like a mix of reading Bible verses and playing Berzerk, only with a clunkier interface.

I'm sorry, I don't mean to be negative, but either everyone was out of their league and out of touch or there was some real cynical development at work here.

As promised, here's the view from our window.

Yes, I'm sorry.  Nothing all day yesterday.  To make it up to you, here's a video of me looking very stupid in an indoor skydiving place at Pigeon Forge, TN.

Sorry, still lots going on at work.  And we're doing crafts at VBS this week.  And we're going to Vegas on Thursday.

So, yeah, should be an uneventful week.

Here's another clip from last year's SuperWow trip:

Tom Wilson ( ), probably best known for his role as Biff (and associated family) in the Back to the Future trilogy - though I still usually think of him as Maniac.  Today he's doing some really good stand up (especially considering he manages to keep it family-friendly).  He's also a man of great faith.  Anyway, among his other work he has a great piece called Biff's Question Song:

Still very very busy with work stuff so the video parade continues.  Here's one from last year when we took the Youth to SuperWow.  It's (my nephews) Jacob and Joseph playing with the DVD player's screensaver.  I'm behind the camera turning the TV back on every time they turn it off.

Huh.

Way too busy with work to do any kind of writing so I'm going to have to phone this one in.  Here's a video of our Shih Tzus competing for my attention for your amusement.

Edit: Now brighter.
Edit 2: Now playable!