He has my eyes

One of the things I like about Hyrum is that he has my eyes. Don't get me wrong, I would like it if he had Joy's eyes too. But since I have an easier time acknowledging my son's good looks than I do in thinking there is anything worthy of approval in my own looks, seeing my eyes reflecting from his handsome face gives me a little hope for me too.

Unfortunately, with the eyes comes the pink. I wouldn't say I regularly had pink eye as a child, but it was a frequent enough visitor that I know it when I see it. Hy is having his first bout with it, thankfully nowhere near as severe as what I had a few weeks ago. Little water, little discharge, little staying home from church, little glad there's no school tomorrow for him to miss, very little sleep as he pops into the bedroom several times a night to ask Mommy for help... good times. He's started asking for me to wash his eyes. We got a system going briefly that he liked, and when I did it differently the next time he said, "Daddy, you're not doing it right." I explained a bit further what it is we need to do, got him on board, and now we're working together much happier. I so have to keep trying to convince him to not stick his fingers in my eyes, though.

He also has a mild fever (100.6).

Meanwhile, I think I'm slowly passing another kidney stone, so it's time to be on Vicodin while moving boxes, mowing lawns, and trying to proof-read my textbook for the last time before publishing. For once, I was just as happy to spend church today lying down on the couch with him.

I've never been able to keep him laying down for as long as we just managed. We took turns watching half an hour of Prince of Egypt and Backyardigans. Each time we returned to PoE, he asked to start over and "see the horses going down." After the intro, teenage Moses and Ramses race each other in two-horse chariots. They nearly get themselves killed several times as people get out of the way, they jump gaps, and scaffolding crashes down around them. They pause the horses briefly at a barricade which suddenly collapses and they ride their horses down a tidal wave of sand in a scene highly reminiscent of going down a tall roller coaster. Pretty fun, but not the point, so I said no.

As we went along, I explained some of the parts of Moses' story from the Bible to be a bit more accurate than the film. He asked some pretty tough questions about why God sent curses and he correctly remembered and linked up the Passover with the Sacrament (score!). I was pretty pleased.

He told me several times that the movie was scary, but we made it through. It wasn't too scary, I guess. He and I had tried watching it last year, but it was too scary then. (I should note, he chose it from among the options I gave him.)

Afterwards, I asked him what was the scariest part. Imagine my surprise when he answered -- not the darkness, not the plagues, not the deaths, not the scary music -- "The horses. They go down WHOOSH. They go fast. Why did they go so fast, Daddy? Why did the horses go faster?"

I then asked him what his favorite part was. "The horses."

You liked the horses?
"Yes. They go fast."

I think I'm going to have a very interesting conversation with my Lovely and Gracious when she gets home....

----------------------

Hy-guy also apparently needs glasses. The school's best guess is that he has about 20/100 vision. We took him to an eye doctor for children in the area who demonstrated that he can read the top line of the eye chart, but nothing lower. We'll have to wait until the pink eye gets cleared up, though, to give him further testing to see just what kind of glasses. Happily, children who need glasses are a medical condition, while adults who need glasses need a separate vision insurance, so our insurance will cover his glasses if not mine.

I wonder when this will come to Nigeria....

Movie review: Farrell redeemed and other stories

I realize that the last thing anyone wants to hear about from the guy in Nigeria is movie reviews, but I haven't done much here yet ... just flown around on very little sleep and watch movies or work to pass the time. At least it shows I'm doing well and nothing interesting and terrible enough has happened to supersede my interest in the films. I'm really getting most of my movie watching or book reading done on planes this year.

1 - During my last trip home from Denmark, I started watching "The Seven Samurai," a black and white Chinese film about a poor village who hire seven samurai to defend them from bandits. On the plane to Germany "yesterday" they happened to have "The Magnificent Seven," Hollywood's western remake starring Yul Brynner that I'm pretty sure made it to a great film works list. Having watched the first part of the Samurai made the Magnificent much more interesting. Not only are most of the scenes taken directly from the Chinese version, a lot of the lines are direct translations. The villagers decide to "talk to the old man" who lives outside the village for advice. They decide who the good Samurai and Gunslingers are using the same conversations. Very interesting. I doubt a modern studio would get away with it. So I'm betting I now know which of the Samurai are going to survive.

2 - Once upon a time, I decided that no good movie could come from Jim Carrey (whom the Lovely and Gracious refers to as "Evil evil evil") or Will Farrell. I know my intelligence and probably a few other sensibilities will be horribly insulted and I'll probably be creeped out at some point too. There's just no point even watching them. Then one day I watched "The Majestic" and decided that Carrey could actually do a decent job if he wasn't mugging and abusing the camera every ten seconds. Yesterday I also found an exception for Farrell, whose movies aspire to sophomorism but he can't even manage that. I confess, "Megamind" is awesome. I loved it. Oh, was that Farrell? Well, good for him for picking one decent part. Farrell's impersonation of Brando needs a lot of work, and I can't help wondering how Robin Williams would have done it, but that was a great story, less predictable than most, and a lot of fun. [Mind you, I still avoid Carrey and will still avoid Farrell as a general rule, but it's nice to have something nice to say about them.] I look forward to watching Megamind again.

3 - "Green Hornet" wasn't bad either. Seth Rogen, who not only stars as the Hornet but helped write the thing, I think is really trying to ask himself, "How would Zack from Saved By the Bell play this role?" and then overdoes it deliberately. They admit to being campy and decide to have fun with it instead of trying to be a serious superhero film, of which there is just about only one kind (oh, what shall I do with this awesome responsibility that is thrust upon me? I'll ditch it to save those I love. No, I must take it up again for those I love.) The comedy occasionally strained my credulity, but not badly. Kato steals the show, as apparently happened in other iterations of the franchise (Kato = Bruce Lee). Not that the Lovely and Gracious would be interested in the movie, but if she were ever forced to watch it, I would advise her to skip the first fifteen minutes.

I'm pretty sure there was another film in there somewhere, but it apparently failed to capture my interest. Ah, the happy ways we while away the midnight hours without sleep. I did get some work done, but once I realized I was misspelling every third word and leaving sentences half-completed all over the place, I decided I had best call it done for now. I did also make several attempts to sleep, but none were successful. I got a very full night's sleep in my hotel and now it's time for breakfast.

Movie review: Harry Potter 6 and Tron: Legacy

I'm way late on reviewing this to do anybody any good, but I'd invite discussion if you think differently. I finally got to see HP6 on the plane in to Copenhagen and was rather disappointed. There are of course spoilers in here so I'll put it below the fold. By way of comparison, lest anyone think I'm a tough critic, I loved what they did with #4 and I liked movie #5 better than I liked book #5. This is the first of the series I thought really fell short.

I also got to see Tron: Legacy. My review of that is much shorter and I don't need to spoil anything. Here goes:

Tron 2 had some nice special effects and was great video game nerd bait. That was its job. Okay, so most of the plot and story elements were overly recycled. Okay, so they really could have done a better job developing the Tron character. Like, giving him a line? Okay, the obligatory romance was based on shared hardship instead of bonding over ANYthing they had in common other than good looks. So I could see the plot "twists" coming from 20 minutes away. So what? It was a summer action flick. With low expectations comes low responsibility. They even gave me a nice religious metaphor on our dual nature and godly sacrifice. I call that a win. Good job, team.

The Christmas Bride

For our church Christmas party, each organization was supposed to come up with a song or a sketch or something to perform. As I told the elders, I LIVE for this stuff. So I was put in charge of coming up with a sketch. I pitched several ideas and the one that stuck was a parody of The Princess Bride. I got my food policy textbook off to the publisher by Thursday and wrote the script. The main players rehearsed it that night and we performed Friday. So the fight scene is completely impromptu. A friend recorded it and put it on YouTube. Sorry for the background noises of children, but you can hear us pretty well for the most part. The video is below the fold or linked here.

Collateral Spelling

As part of showing Hy more and more movies to broaden his horizons, he sees a certain introductory movie quite regularly. So at some point he decided that THX was not only an essential part of movies but a theater experience all its own.

When we show him his ten minutes of movie in the morning, he regularly asks us to start the movie from the beginning just to see the THX sequence.

So it is little wonder then that he takes not-Scrabble tiles and spells out THX with them.

He's been able to read Bob, Disney, Mom, and Dad for a while now. He's recently also acquired THX, Wall-E, Toy Story, Pixar ["And you jump on the I!"], and most of the time Hyrum, but he also thinks Hanes spells Hyrum.

Thank you, Pixar and LucasArts.

The Amazing Spiderman Should be Mormon

I mentioned in my last post that I was watching Spiderman 2 for the first time. I finished it last night and really liked it. The first movie did a fine job introducing Spidey, okay. This one touched me deeply and talked about a number of issues that I've been struggling with too.

But I'm not here to talk about them. I'm here to talk about Peter Parker's issues. His main internal conflict deals with finding balance: how can he be a college student, a part-time photographer, hold down a second job, keep up with a social life (maybe even date), and, oh yes, be a hero? The stress of it all is just too much to that point that he really can't do any of it effectively. Not for the first 15 minutes of the movie anyway.

After watching the first part, I was convinced that Peter Parker needs a couple LDS missionaries to knock on his door, convert him to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and get this boy a calling in the church. Y'see, from the LDS/Mormon point of view, all of us are called to be "saviors on mount Zion" (Obadiah 1:21) - to assist the Savior in His work. (It's ... kind of like being expected to be a superhero without tights or powers - unless you're the guy on the left - just a faith that somehow God will magnify our feeble efforts to reach out, that the Holy Ghost will touch people's hearts, and the Atonement change us all.)

And there are a lot of things that assisting in God's work calls on a member of the Church to do. This goes way beyond 10% tithing and not smoking or drinking. One of our speakers in stake conference, a state trooper, referred to this as the "Marine Corps of churches."

• Visiting several families monthly and looking after their spiritual and temporal needs;
  
• serving in any capacity where asked - in my case an extra 10ish hours on top of the 3 hour Sunday meetings every week, plus priesthood meetings, and that's all just so that the branch president doesn't have to spend that time too on top of the who-knows-how-much extra he voluntarily does; [don't get me wrong: I love my calling and have loved all my other ones]
  
• driving up to the temple 1:45 away as often as you can to do vicarious work for the dead [picture right is of the angel Moroni statue on the Hill Cumorah near our local temple, who, incidentally, was modeled by two of Joy's ancestors];
  
• taking opportunities to talk to people about the gospel;
• dropping most anything most anytime when someone calls and needs help;
• moving 10 families out or around every May and another 10 in or around every September;
• feeding the missionaries a couple times a month;
• reserving every Monday night for family time;
• teach your kids the gospel;
• make home a temple;
• daily personal scripture study, prayer, journal writing;
• search out information about your ancestors so you can do their work in the temple too;
• filling random service projects and assignments as they come up, usually with little warning;
  
• keep up and rotate food storage;
• get out of debt and make sure you have several months' worth of money for emergencies [which they said long before the current recession]...
  

And even that doesn't cover all of repenting, "putting off the natural man," and striving to become more like Jesus. At various points, church leaders have reminded us to be politely politically engaged, to plant vegetable gardens, you name it. It is, quite literally, more than any one person can do at one time, particularly when you add family, work, social life, and maybe some me time into the equation, and all of which are assigned important roles this grand, eternal plan we get to participate in.

I think Peter Parker would relate. I think he would gain a lot by associating with a bunch of mere mortals trying to be superheroes. I think that in the process of talking - as our branch does a couple times every semester - about how to balance it all without being overloaded, he would learn to find more of a center in his life.

At a church meeting I was at tonight, one of the speakers mentioned that when Jesus was on the earth, He didn't go around to heal every person around the globe. He didn't even heal everyone in all Israel. He healed those around Him who had faith. I gather there were a lot of sick people at the pool of Bethesda, but only one person healed. As He said to the Pharasees, there were many widows in Israel, but Elijah was sent to just one.

Yes, Pete, you are a superhero. You have a responsibility. "Where much is given, much is required" is how your LDS Uncle Ben would've said it. But you aren't required to give more than you have. None of us has enough to give and do all of it. None. That's one of the reasons we need the Atonement. We do all we can, and we leave the residual in God's hands. With great power comes great responsibility, but not all responsibility. You don't have all power. Don't take on all responsibility.

Prof. Stephen E. Robinson likened it to weight-lifting: you keep adding weights until you can't do anymore, and you lift that weight until it becomes easier and then you can add some more. Your schooling, Peter, your jobs, and even some down time, are essential parts to making you a more effective Spiderman later. [My parents are probably reading this and thinking, "Oh good, the boy was paying attention to something we said."]

I know [oh yeah, from your vast experience playing City of Heroes, I suppose? Pfft.]... Okay, I imagine it's hard to justify seeing Mary Jane's play when there's someone out there who needs you. People need Peter too, not just Spiderman. Sometimes you can delegate the crime fighting to the boys in blue, who really do a good job in the real world. It takes faith and prayer and serious thought to know when to do what - that I do know from experience. I also know from experience something I learned by applying what Brigham Young taught: if you give God the time He needs, He will give you the time you need. I've found that to be true again and again.

Do all you can. Do the best you can. Leave the rest in the Lord's hands "and [He] will give you rest."

Can anyone think of an example.....

of a goatee-wearing lead in a romantic comedy?

You see, the vast majority of movie and TV characters with goats are bad guys: Humperdink's evil sidekick (the guy with six fingers who killed your father); anyone on an Enterprise ship other than Riker with facial hair comes from an alternate, EVIL, dimension or is a Klingon (evil until the Berlin Wall fell); Han Solo and Knight Rider's evil twins have goats; even the villain in Lion King adds a goatee to his mane. A website full of examples of the Beard Of Evil exists if you doubt the phenomenon.

I grant that there are 'anti-hero' protagonists whose job is to maim and kill as many people as possible or whose allegiances are clearly questionable who sport goats (Jack Sparrow, post-Gorbachov Klingons). Athletes do not grow goatees in order to show their caring, compassionate nature.

These are not romantic leads or traditional good guys. I mean, can you think of anyone in a goatee playing opposite Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts?

This is a matter of mild concern to an avowed goody-two-shoes whose wife likes him to sport the occasional goatee.

The first time she had me grow a beard and shave it down to a goat, I did a little editing of the picture to express my concerns about it...









UPDATE: In today's comics we see the emergence of a "second, evil head." Can you guess what it has?

Bad Movie Reviews - Jane Austen

I consider Jane Austen to be one of the greatest authors of all time. I thoroughly enjoy everything she did, have reread several of her works, and owned several movie versions of them well before I met Joy.

This week, I am sad to report, we have seen two of the most disappointing film renditions of her works we have seen. They were shown on the new Masterpiece Classic in January, and my mother thoughtfully recorded them for us. These reviews notwithstanding, we do appreciate it.

1) Northanger Abbey (2007) with Felicity Jones, screenplay by Andrew Davies - not our favorite of the books anyway, but this movie decided to add several scenes depicting the Gothic romance books the heroine fancies. This was rather dark for Joy. When Catherine then started reading aloud about a voyeuristic monk, in detail describing what he saw, we just shut it off and said, "NEXT!"

2) Mansfield Park with Billie Piper, screenplay by Maggie Wadey - I love M.P. I think it's my second favorite of her works, though Emma is close. If you assigned M.P. to a freshman English class and asked them to write a 3-5 page paper on the plot, this is the movie you would get based on their summaries. It's choppy. Scene shifts are sudden. There is no subtlety, whether in acting, stagecraft, or filming. They give you one blunt, bludgeoned sentence to give you the fullest character of each person and fail miserably to develop anyone any further. With such a view of it, you can imagine the snarky comments I might add when I discovered that Jane Austen was not even credited in the film for having written the novel - Maggie Wadey gets that honor.

Most of the main scenes are there, but in such a choppy fashion that it's a wonder anyone who hadn't read it could follow it. Fanny gives you a brief introductory narration, and from then until halfway through the movie she does not speak - she just looks a little severly at everyone. She spends most of her time pouting. Edmund, when he realizes who he loves, is feverish and frightening and does a terrible job emoting love and affection. He spends most of his time looking like he needs to run off to the lavatory, but has to look dignified until the director yells Cut. They almost completely removed Aunt Norris and one of the sisters from the movie (and how do you understand what Fanny has gone through without Aunt Norris??).

They also almost completely cut Mr. Crawford's romancing of Fanny. He says he intends to pursue and she says he lacks constancy. He then meets her in the garden and says he has proved his constancy! Did I blink and miss it?? The next scene is when they learn a plot spoiler. She doesn't even go home to her own family! Mary Crawford was done halfway decently but, lacking Ms. Austen's subtlety, her lifting of her skirt to show her ankle, her blatant come-hither glares, and her demanding air make her much more of a tyrannical temptress than a decided clergyman-to-be would consider. The one humorous note is that the oldest brother, Tom, is played by a Mr. (James) D'Arcy.

I could go on, but won't. We'll just settle back and be thankful for Keira Knightly's ability to do justice to a long story in a short amount of time (screenplay by Deborah Moggach), sip the rapturous tea of Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth, and delight at Gwennyth Paltrow's follies. As long as we have these, "Mr. Bennet, nothing you say shall ever vex me again. "
Mr. Bennet: I'm sorry to hear it.

(Thanks to PBS.org and IMDB.com for helping me get names and credits right and to Masterpiece Classic ... for trying.)

1461

I'm several posts behind the great events of the last couple weeks, so I'll keep this one shorter.

Happy Anniversary to Derrill and Joy! The 28th marked our 4th anniversary*. To celebrate, we took advantage of my parents being in town for my graduation (more on that later) to watch the new Star Trek movie with the Petersons on Monday while they held down the fort. I was somewhat skeptical going in, but realized at some point in the movie that I was pretty excited and am quite happy with some of the choices they made. Let the Final Frontier continue! My folks also took us and the sister missionaries out to dinner and we played some board games with my parents all weekend. And for our reminiscing pleasure, I made up a Facebook quiz about our courtship so we could have a chance to talk about that wondrous year together.

Thursday we went to look for a replacement ring for Joy, whose opal fell out of its setting a few months back. The search goes on. I needed some time to lay down because I've been a bit sick this week, so she went to the eternal marriage institute class by herself while I put the baby to bed. Then we had just some nice quiet time together. I gave Joy a new set of Amish romance books and -- big drumroll -- a new portable wipes container! She was very happy to get that.

Sounds nice and time, right? Well, that's in part because Joy decided that since this is probably (hopefully) the last year we get a large tax refund, we should plunk down a chunk of it for tickets to visit her brother's family ... in EETALEE! So we're looking at taking off for my two week vacation sometime in Sept to enjoy the post-tourist season with far flung family near Venice**. That's the other part of the anniversary celebration.


* - 4*365 + 1 for leap year is 1461 days for those needing an explanation of the title, and since we were married around noon in San Diego, it's still the 1461st day ... for about another 2-32 minutes. It counts.

** - That's why she was recalling being at the Venice of Holland in the last post.

But I repeat myself

Or Disney does anyway, back in the early 1970s.


t'other hand, it's not like this is THAT much of the movie.

t'other other hand, how'd you like to see the Mulan or Hunchback end of movie party done in the exact same style? Maybe for Shrek IV....

Boy Meets Girl

How many of these not quite traditional romances can you recognize?

1 - Boy meets girl. Boy discovers girl actually has two legs. Girl likes him anyway. Evil jack in the box feeds boy to a fish. Boy escapes, finds girl, and slays jack in the box. They live happily ever after.

2 - Boy meets girl. Boy kidnaps girl's baby brother. Girl chases boy just so she can reject him (ok, ok, and get her brother back). Heartbroken, boy becomes a stalker.

3 - Boy meets girl. Boy finds out girl is pregnant. Boy marries girl anyway. Evil king tries to kill the baby. They move around ... a lot.

4 - Boy meets girl. Boy gives girl a starring role in several movies. Girl karate chops boy a lot. And you wonder why boy hasn't ever popped the question?

5 - Boy meets girl. Boy kills girl's brother. They both commit suicide. We hope the rest of the cast has learned their lesson.

And what do they all have in common? I've seen or read them all this year - 3 of them this week. (Solution will be posted next week in the comments.)

Derrill of Arabia 5: Fin

On the flight to and from Kuwait, I saw the best Arab movie (twice!). It's called Reda, which means satisfaction, but I think the English title is The Good Life, or something like that. I watched with English subtitles, but missed the first 5 minutes or so both times. Since imdb.com has so very little information on it even if you manage to find the flick, I'll describe it while the other fish videos are uploading. It stars comedian Ahmed Helmi and Mena Shalaby.

Most of the time, this is a romantic comedy. Three physically identical twin brothers with neurotically different personalities fall for the same girl. Semsen is the closest thing to a main character of the three - intelligent, religious, socially backward, and cowardly. He's seeing a shrink to help him be more self-assertive. Prince is the over-tough guy who carries knives, smokes several packs a day, and wears a black executioner's hood at home. Bebo is obsessed with his soccer team and is the goofiest of the three.

Together they run some swindling schemes going under the alias "Reda." One example: Semsen goes in to a doctor complaining of a problem and claims that he has a miracle drug that will cure it. He goes out to get it and Prince walks in, takes the drug, and the doctor can't find the problem anymore. Doctor pays them Big Money. Bebo meanwhile is at the police station so that if anyone brings a case, they have an alibi since no one has any idea that "Reda," their united alter ego, is actually three people.

Early in the film, they each meet the girl. At first they try to outwit each other trying to spend time with her without the others knowing about it. When they realize and confess they are all in love, they try to share her, taking turns until it becomes obvious this won't work. Most of the comedy centers around their antics and trying to convince her that they are only one person. But since the brothers don't communicate very well, she gets very frustrated that they never remember anything she tells them.

SPOILER ALERT. The girl's mother is dreadfully ill. She needs an operation in England and their wicked rich uncle won't help them. So the brothers devise a scam to rob the uncle of the amount needed for her trip and operation. They deposit their illicet earnings in his financial corporation and then go to thee separate branches, withdrawing the money at the exact same time from each of them. This would have tripled their earnings, but Semsen dropped his case and bolted when the clerk called him back. They decide to give her all their money and she leaves.

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT. Then the film takes a decided left turn. Semsen sees her car one day. He goes to her shop and learns she was only a customer, not the owner as she claimed. He goes to her apartment and learns that she only rented it for one month. He talks to the other brothers and they figure out that she was going under an assumed name also. Semsen then discovers that his shrink is in on it too. The rest of the film is a remarkable thriller about how the brothers capture the girl and doctor, force the truth from them, return the money to the wronged "uncle" and live happily ever after as ... ah, but that would be telling.

END OF SPOILERS. I really enjoyed it. In Kuwait or underway, I also saw Wall-E which we then enjoyed for Valentines Day, plus Jurassic Park and a couple thrillers which were delightfully edited. I appreciated watching the thrillers in Kuwait much more than I would have in the US.

This concludes our Derrill of Arabia series.

Lesser-Known Gastronomic Treasures

So Joy took me out to dinner last night, and it was fun. We went to the Souvlaki House, a Greek/Italian place in Collegetown I've really enjoyed whenever I went but haven't been to in a couple years. While I was there, my alter Ego -- let's call him Anton, shall we? -- reminded me that I've always wanted to just write into a newspaper with a few gratuitous restaurant reviews. Well, I can do that here, can't I? So here are two short reviews, and hopefully later Joy and I will sit down and compare Chinese places around here.

I love The Souvlaki House. I discovered it my first year at Cornell just wandering about. They have a large tray of baklava on the counter, and they let me take a menu home the first time I visited so I could give it a good look over. I confess I haven't tried any of the standard Italian fare there, focusing instead on the Greek food, which I have always loved. I was leery about the eggplant parmigiana, but tried it anyway to be adventurous and loved it. It startled me. I've had their lamb Souvlaki and their Gyros, and this last time I had the Moussaka, which is a ground beef meatloaf with eggplant and Greek spices and potatoes. Greek shepherd's pie, maybe. It was heavenly. I'm about to go on a web search for a good recipe for it. I've never been a big fan of the feta cheese in their salads, but those and the sour olives are just part of the experience. The breadsticks are very good too.

The other place to bring to your attention is the Manos Diner along 13-S out of town. Now, there's a story. Back at BYU, I was introduced to what Mystery Science Theater 3000 calls the WORST movie ever made: Manos, the Hands of Fate. It's terrible. It's awful. It's very funny how they handled it. Quentin Tarantino calls it one of his favorite comedies. Torgo, pictured right, is the henchmen. "My name is ... Torgo. I ... take care of the place ... while the Master is away." I bought it for myself one year, I love/hated it so much. So when I saw there was a Manos Diner, I just had to go. The look Joy gave me when I told her I wanted to go to a restaurant because of the worst movie ever made was classic, and I'm sure most guys know the look I'm talking about. (PS - The restaurant has no relation to the movie. It was built by a guy whose last name is Manos. But I can see Anton over there is sharpening his talons, so best get back to the review:)

The polite term for the Manos Diner is a greasy spoon. The correct term is a dive. It is a dive for two reasons. The first is that the bright red plastic bench coverings are held together by packing tape. Now, a low-class establishment would have used duct tape, but Manos uses packing tape, so it's a high-class dive. The other reason it's a dive is that you can dive in and swim around in the sauces they put on your sides. My side salad could tread watery vaguely-white salad dressing for five minutes, all without acquiring any flavor! The marinara sauce on my pasta not only demonstrated a shocking disregard for cornstarch, or even tomatoes, but dripped off the sodden noodles like so much B-movie fake blood.

So why do I recommend you go anyway? Why have we gone back multiple times? 1) They have the world's greatest beef in au jus, as testated and tastetested by the Lovely and Gracious. In fact, we've taken to asking them for a styrofoam coffee cup and lid so we can bring the leftover sauce home. I guess since their specialite de la maison is watery sauces, it makes sense that one that's supposed to be would be perfect. 2) It's nearly impossible to get a decent burger in Ithaca outside of Friendly's, and they do good burgers and other very nice, well seasoned (if a touch lukewarm) entrees. They even profess to do a cordon blue I haven't had the gumption to sample yet. So when you go, stick to the french fries and you'll be fine. The fries are safe.

I've been tagged too...

Well, my friend Shari asked me to do this, so I'm going to try.

Name 4 or more...

Places I've lived:
1. Logan, UT (I lived more than 4 places there, so I could stop there, but ...)
D says: Then you'd have to give street addresses or something. Yes, I'm here too, just to take dictation and make snide... helpful remarks.
2. Orem, UT - close to the University Mall
3. Costa Rica - for my mission
4. Wendover and Tooelle, UT - teaching elementary school
D -- And she's never going back!
J -- That's the truth!
5. Provo, UT
6. Edinboro, PA
7. Titusville, PA
8. Ithaca, NY ... That's about it, isn't it? I guess I lived in..
9. near Flagstaff, AZ, only four months.

Places I've been on vacation:
1. Lagoon was always fun, in UT.
2. Christmases to California and Chicago
3. I took a cruise that was Jamaica, Mexico ... some other places, leaving from New Orleans. It was a Carnival cruise. I don't recommend Carnival for those who ... have moral standards? I skipped a lot of the entertainment.
4. Holland -- a one week tour, visited the Hague Temple, the tulips and the windmills :D
Joy loves windmills.
5. Germanies! My honeymoon with my sweetheart. That was very fun. Rented a car... drove on the Autobahn... Stayed in a wonderful bed and breakfast...
Visited dead people... I take my wife such romantic places, like the cemetery where Goethe's buried. Goethe popped up in the most unlikely places on our trip, come to think of it.... Though probably those two sentences should not be read in that order. Suffice it to say, we went to a lot of places where Goethe also went. To my credit, we also sailed up the Rhein most romantically.
6. Baseball Hall of Fame and Joseph Smith birthplace for an anniversary.
7. Disneyworld. We went with Derrill's parents. I want to go back! Sci-Fi Dine In Theater was awesome...
8. Disneyland a couple of times with Derrill's family.

Foods I like: Actually, that's a little difficult right now, with my pregnancy. So this is an unusual list for me:
1. French fries
2. Seafood Sandwich from Subway
3. Pumpkin Pie
4. Chocolate muffins
These are indeed the cravings. From September until Joy left I was making 2 pumpkin pies a week for my sweetheart. I'm looking forward to not having any until NEXT Thanksgiving.
Poor Derrills.

Hobbies I have: hmm, we're getting down to the harder stuff... My hobbies .... hobbies, hobbies, hobbies....
1. I like to read! Mostly historical fiction, some romantic fiction but only if it's clean.
2. Right now, for fun I create new projects for myself.
You might be surprised how fun a hobby that can actually be. ... Doing any of them is another story.
True.
3. I'm looking forward to watching my Little House on the Prairie DVDs I got for Christmas. I enjoy watching a movie or listening to a book on tape while I do work around the house.
4. Finding out what my husband's doing.
Now There's the favorite hobby! *lol*
*lol* Really, I like to spend time with my husband, that's the real hobby. I have some funny hobbies, don't I?
5. I like to spend time with friends.

Things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. I would put money into retirement.
That money has worked hard enough. It should retire.
2. I would pay off a house.
3. Go on a mission after my kids grow up with my husband.
It'll take a good 25 years more for me to grow up, it's true.
He's the only one I have to grow up right now.
4. Give some money to the Church.
5. Save the rest, I guess....

TV shows I like:
I can't do this one.
You can do really old shows.
I guess so. Alright. I haven't watched any real TV for about 11 years, so it would have to be old.
1. Little House on the Prairie.
2. Smurfs
3. The Cosby Show
4. Fraggles. I never watched it on TV, but Derrill is introducing them to me.

Places I'd like to be:
1. With my husband
That's a nice place. Can I come too?
2. Visiting extended family -- UT mostly
3. Italy -- I have some extended family there too
4. I've been thinking that Hawaii would be a nice place to visit.

Things people don't know about me:
1. I'm shy about many things.
2. I wanted to be a cheerleader in high school.
3. I don't expect other people to be perfect -- that one's for my brothers.
4. Something that was surprising to my husband: I don't like to clean.
That needs a qualifier. Her apartment when we were dating was pretty close to immaculate. And she talked about the importance and necessity of cleaning a lot. It was shocking to learn that she didn't actually enjoy doing it, just having it done.
Yup.
And that the chore she talked about most she liked the least too. So that became my job.

Now I'll tag:
I don't want to tag four people.
1. Derrills
2. Claudia doesn't have a blog. I would tag her if she did.
3. Steve
4. Emilee
There. That's four people. Guess that's it, hunh?

Enjoying the gifts

Checking it twice (There are advantages to having Santa visit the house)

The stockings were hung ------ Before the carnage

I Win: A few years ago, I put a board game "Wise and Otherwise" on my Amazon wish list. And there it stayed. Given that a hefty portion of my Christmas this year was going to be spent on practical gifts for being on the job market, we put a bunch of games from my list on Joy's so we could get them. Well, Joy managed to get us this one, plus Apples to Apples, Guillotine, and Pass the Pigs (between her birthday, a baby shower, and Christmas).
The way you play is that you draw a card with the first half of several ancient sayings from different cultures on it. You pick one to read to the assembled players. Each person then writes down an ending to the phrase while the reader writes down the correct answer. All the answers are read, and people vote for which one they think is the real phrase. I seem to be very good at getting multiple people to believe my endings. We've played it a few times now and I've won 3/4 times. I got all the women to vote for my ending to an old Yiddish phrase, "The smaller the gathering, the greater the gossip." (The correct ending was the greater the joy.) An old Bedoin saying tells people to "Entertain a stranger 3 days before asking any questions." We voted Joy an extra couple points for a terrible pun on a saying I think was Slovenian: "Though the dog has no work, he does his business often." It's a great game.

Lookin sharp: My big Christmas gift was two new suits for the job market this week. One was a gift from me while Grammy gave me the other one, plus some new white shirts and ties. For the first time, I really don't like the ties she picked out. I love nearly all the ties she's ever picked out for me, but not these ones. So I had a fashion show for the family yesterday, trying on the different suit combinations to get some input on which ties looked best with which suits. One of the new ties won widespread approval for each suit, but the the standby favorites I brought with also scored well. I really like the suits and they should help me feel more confident as I face Judgment Week in New Orleans.

Most Played With, but why?: Steve and Emmy (SnM) got "Animal Crossing" for the Gamecube. They got an old cube from a couple of their friends who from the sound of things have more games and game systems than they know what to do with. Animal Crossing is a bit like Joy's favorite game "Harvest Moon," and it's done by the same people, only it's targeted at younger audiences and has less of a point. In Harvest Moon you're a farmer, fisher, miner, and try to win friends and influence people. In Animal Crossing, you run around running errands for people (every single errand is "Groucho has never returned my camera. Go get it for me.") and chat with them or send them letters to be friends. Some of the characters are even really rude. I'm not entirely certain why this game has so addicted them. But they were very eager for Joy and me to join them in Watsonia, so we did. I learned online that the game only does a spell check on your letters, and if you spell everything right they like it. So on the one letter I sent, I was fairly rude and signed Steve's name, but the game knew the letter was from me and the person loved it. It was very thoughtful, they thought. This prompted Steve to start sending letters to people from "The Secret Police" which they all think are charming and sweet.


Christmas theme: Aside from the job market stuff I got, there was a definite theme to my gifts this year. I got a VeggieTales video collection plus their Silly Song collection, Ratatouille, and the second season of Fraggle Rock. A bunch of kid/cartoon movies for Daddy Derrill to enjoy! I'm honestly pretty happy about getting them, especially Fraggle Rock. We have determined that intelligently done little kid stuff heals my soul. There were other gifts too, like Star Trek: First Contact, a fatherhood shirt, and some M.C. Escher art/postcards. Joy also crocheted me a hat following a Russian pattern and gave me a small drill to pre-drill holes.

Family Movies: Given that all three Watson families got Ratatouille this year, we watched it together. It's a wonderful movie I watched with Joy for a date sometime this semester. I appreciate that it addresses a number of themes well. It's not just about "finding out who I am" or about "honesty" or "prejudice," but does a decent job addressing all of them and several more. The artistry is well done, the actors do a fine job, and the comedy is quite good.
We convinced Mom and Dad to get The Nativity last year too, but they hadn't seen it yet. So after SnM took a nap, we watched it with them. One of the things I appreciate most about it is their interpretation of Joseph, particularly that he had to stretch out on his own faith and mercy before he could receive the reassuring and instructing vision of the angel. I'm impressed over and over again in it of how good a man and father Joseph was, and hope that I can learn to be a father to Hyrum like Joseph. Joy and I are also quite partial to the wise men who do comic relief, and occasionally quote from them in daily life.
After SnM woke up, Joy recommended we all watch one of our Christmas Carols. Dad naturally chose the Albert Finney musical Scrooge. I prefer George C. Scott and Patrick Stewart's versions myself, but Finney and Rich Little are always fun. Joy really doesn't like ghosts, though, so she didn't watch it with us. But it was very nice of her to suggest it.
Joy and I also watched Work and the Glory III some late night when neither of us could sleep for Joy's allergies, and she and I also watched The Star of Christmas, one of my Veggie Tales movies.