It's called 'art', mister

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Oddly enough, on the same week I was having a conversation about how much I hate modern art, and am not a huge fan of impressionism, the Fruit of My Loins decides to emulate Picasso.

She's reached that age that the child development experts tell us she's developing the motor acuity and visual acumen to the point that she can draw actual things. Things that resemble something besides random scribbles or dots. Things like 'Daddy'. That's right. That beautiful work of art you see is me. See, that's my hat on top, and my eyes are plainly obvious. Those little circles next to my hat? Those are my ears. I know because I asked. Why am I frowning? 'Because you need to go the store and buy Diet Coke.' Damn, my daughter knows me really well.
Me: And who's that one?
Critter: That's Auntie
Me: Really? What's that line up there at the top?
Critter: That's her hair.

Notice that she's got bigger ears than me, but no hat. She's also quite short, which is very true to life. I'm telling you this kid's a genius.
Me: Who's that with Auntie?
Critter: Mommy!
Me: The similarity is astonishing. I don't know why I didn't see it immediately. But why is Mommy turned around like that?
Critter: Auntie's lying down. She's tired.
Me: A bad hair day will do that to you.
Me: Can you draw a picture of yourself?
Critter: OK - there.
Me: Oh, that's very pretty. But why is your mouth sliding off your face like that?
Critter: I drew my inspiration from Salvador Dali, I call it La Persistence de la Critter. It symbolizes my disappointment with the cognitive develpment aids you and Mommy have provided. Any fool could see that. Now get me some more juice in this here sippy-cup, if you please.

No more 'Sesame Street goes to the Met' for that kid.
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Movie Review

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I think I've mentioned before, it's a rare treat for us to see a movie in an actual theater. With all the movie goodness out of late, though, we had to steal away to take in a summer flick. My bride had been itching to see War of the Worlds for weeks now - every time the trailer came on the tv, she had the same comment: 'that's a different role for him.' 'What, action movie, dodging explosions, trying to save the world?' 'You know what I mean.' While the movie starts off as only vaguely interesting, it quickly degrades into the sci-fi equivalent of the Blair Witch Project. Apparently, what she meant by different was 'makes me want to scrape the memory of that movie off my brain with a dull spoon.' I've rarely seen an action movie in which so little actually happens - Not to spoil the movie for you, but humanity survives, and it's no thanks to Tom Cruise. Halfway through the movie, I found myself rooting for the alien invaders, in the vain hope that if they killed off Cruise the movie might return to interesting. The heroes of the movie are freaking protozoa (my 9th grade biology teacher would be proud that I recognized them). Seriously. Protozoa. I don't care if the plot is a remake of an H.G. Wells classic. If your hero is a single celled organism, your movie's in trouble. To do a better job of keeping up with movies, we signed up for the UK Netflix equivalent - Screen Select. DVDs shipped right to our mail box, no late fees. I love living in the future. The only problem with this kind of service is that I tend to update my rental queue with a dozen of whatever's struck my fancy at the moment. Which leads to us getting every movie Danny Kaye ever made in one continuous stream. This time, my bride has her own login. And it's her responsibility to watch my selections and make sure we don't end up with a Chris Rock screen fest.
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