Tuesday, March 24, 2009

It's Broken

As most of you may know, my 3 year old daughter likes to break things. Just about whatever she can get her little monkey hands on, eventually she will snap in half like a vanquished foe. Then she throws it down and spits on it declaring her awesomeness to anyone who dares to challenge her.

So it was no big surprise that my little Mongo came running up to me today screaming "Daddy! Daddy!" In her little hand she held a wheel. It's a green wheel, plastic of course because toy manufacturers love to drive all dad's apeshit by making all their toys out of plastic. They obviously have never let a 3 year old destructor road test any of their toys.

Screw plastic, we require cobalt steel. It should be able to withstand a mac truck running over it, turning around, running over it again and then the driver getting out of the truck to hit it with a hammer. I would so buy that toy. I don't even care what kind of toy it would be, but I would buy it.

So little Mongo hands me the wheel and says "Daddy fix it." As soon as I see it, I know that I can't. The wheel belongs to her little shopping cart that she has had for the last 2 years. Now I must say, I am quite impressed that this thing has lasted this long. But it's one of her favorites and now it has snapped. My guess is that she was trying to see if she could punch holes in the wall with it.

I'll also admit that I hate to break my daughter's heart. All the tough talk that I might do, she plays me like a violin and I hate to disappoint her.

"I can't honey. It's broken for good." I say as I examine where it snapped off. It's a clean break, but it's an actual break. No glue could hold this, no screw would make it through the plastic without ripping it apart. It's officially broke.

"No Daddy, you fix it." she sounds so confident.

"I can't honey, it's broken."

"No Daddy, I help." she says and then disappears. I have no idea what is coming next as I hear her in the kitchen going through one of the drawers. My first thought is that she is going to get a knife and hold it to my throat until I fix this thing. I'm already making plans for my escape.

I know that I will break down and go by her a new one. I'm weak, I'll admit it. She'll learn her lesson of not to play to rough with her toys and then daddy will go buy her a new one. Because I'm a sap.

She comes back in with something in her hands.

"Here you go Daddy. I help!" she says, she is so proud of herself.

She hands me a roll of duct tape.

I swear to all that is holy I have never been so proud of my daughter as I was at that moment.

The wheel now works fine.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Meltdowns were in water today

I don't know what the deal was today but it seemed like every child at playgroup drank meltdown milk for breakfast. A few meltdowns are expected but today was far worse than normal. The worst part was they were all over minor things. Now I understand minor to me and minor to a three year old are different but the usual meltdowns are over being told "no" or not getting to play with a certain toy.

Today we had new categories open up like the "I want something to hook to this truck" nevermind that he didn't know if there was anything that hooked to said truck he just wanted something to hook to it.

Another good one was the "I want to sit by my sister" now it has been my experience that most kids want to be as far from their siblings as possible so this one definitely through us all for a loop.

There were many others which led us all to believe that the best thing to do was to let the wives cook dinner and put the kids to bed while we filled out our brackets for March Madness.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Rebel Playgroup: Friday, March 13

Location: Debbie Howard's Gym.

Cost: 5 bucks per kid, parents free.

Appropriate ages: Kids 14 months and up--basically they need to be walkers to enjoy this.

Kids nap factor for after activity: Extremly high, most didn't make it from the parking lot before they were snoozing in thier car seat.

This was a great idea for a rebel group and one we might want to do again in the future. Basically, it's a gymnastics place that holds an open gym decently often. They had most of the gymnastic equipment you would expect (pommel horse, bars, etc) but also a ton of stuff just for kids. For the record: the iron cross is not humanly possible by a man who has two kids. The pommel horse though seems to be a great alternitive to a vascetomy.

There were all kinds of vehicles and balls that the kids could play around in. I taught my son how to dunk a basketball, hang from the rim, and then scream in triumph. And of course, a ton of slops, hills balance beams to climb. Even my 1 year old son, who never seems to leave my side, ditched me after about 10 minutes. There was a huge monkey climb thing that was about 2 stories high that the older kids could climb in and out of. We were taking bets and which father would get stuck up there first.

But the best attraction by far was the 20 yard trampoline run that ended in a big pit of foam. Every kid of every age loved the hell out of this and spent most other their time running down the trampoline runway to launch themselves without abandon into the unknown pit. An important note here: the foam pit is great for 4 year olds weighing under 50 pounds. However, 200 pound fathers find it very, very hard to climb out of this pit and I am sure there are wallets and car keys scattered on the bottom. One of our fathers termed it going "ass over head" as the best way to get out. He landed on his back and I cracked a rib laughing so hard. He just laid there a minute until his 1 year old son came to check on him. That should tell you something about this place: when your child has to check to see if you are hurt.

I think we had 4 members and 6 kids that showed up, not bad for a rebel. Staff was nice, facility was nice and the fact that one of our kids actually ASKED to take a nap at the end of the day, that was just icing on the cake.

Movie Review: The Watchman

I walked out of this movie not sure if I liked it or not. Then I remembered the nude scene halfway through and decided yes, I would see this movie again just because of that.

The Plot: It's a pretty complicated plot so I'll simplify it for you a little bit. The movie is set in the 1980's in a world where Richard Nixon is still president. But don't pay attention to that as it really has nothing to do with the movie. There is a lot of stuff in this movie like that. There is an impending showdown between the good old US of A and Russia and nuclear war seems to be inevitable. During this, a superhero gets murdered and some of his old superhero pals are trying to figure out the evil plot that brought this all on. Don't get bogged down to much in the details, you'll only get a headache. But here's your first twist: turns out that murdered superhero was a massive dick and the hits just keep rolling from there. His pals appear to be reminents of an old superhero team from the 1940's who were first known as the Minutemen. They (or thier decendants) are now known as The Watchmen. However, they are all retired because it is illegal to be a superhero.

But here is something you should know: no one, with one exception, appears to have any super powers. Dr. Manhatten (the blue dude) is the only one with powers. The rest just appear able to kick alot of ass.

What's good about it: For guys, this is a pretty good movie. The violence is way over the top complete with some 1980's style gore, like Vorhee's type gore. That's always a plus in my book for a guy movie. There are some pretty catchy one liners, especially by a guy named Rorschach. He's the guy with the creepy changing mask in the previews. He's a bad ass, no doubt but his only special power seems to be able to make his mask change around. I would also say that the special effects in this movie kick pretty good ass too. It's well done--big explosions, cool looking graphics and body parts hanging from a ceiling. Nice. But above all, the reason you should see this: The nude scene. Ms. Jupiter is hot and we all voted that she has the best ass we have seen in a scene in a long time. She gets it on with one of the guys in a flying ship thing. As the two characters were going into the ship, I leaned to one of our members that went to see it with me and said "I bet they have sex." Sure it was a joke, a joke of a immature mind, but that's what happens when guys go out together. Sure enough, they knocked one out that was worthy of Skinamax at 3:00am. It. Was. Awesome.

What's bad about this movie: There is a lot of blue penis in this movie. Seriously, it's everywhere. Not a big fan of the blue penis. In one scene, there were 3 blue penises. I know that it supposed to show the indifference of Dr. Manhatten (again, the blue dude) to the trivialities of the human race, but it's still a 30 foot blue penis. Put a cod piece on man. There's also a fair amount of cheese in this movie. Some crap lines, bad costumes, etc. I just didn't buy the hawk guy because his costume was pretty crap. There is also a smart guy who wears some metal headband. The whole movie I just wanted to rip it off. Finally, and get ready for it, this is a very, very long movie. 2 hours and 47 minutes--bring a coke bottle to pee in. Although I will give credit that I wasn't hoping it was ending soon. However, make sure you tell your wife that you will be gone A LONG TIME when you see this one. And with that said, chances are that our mature wives will hate this movie, very much so, don't bring her. Unless of course she wants you to go see the next Hugh Grant flick, then this is some sweet revenge.

Best line: "You don't seem to get it. I'm not locked in here with all of you. All of you are locked in here with me." That was Eastwood worthy, totally bad ass.

Worst part of the movie: Most of the movie you will be thinking: Who the fuck are these guys and why should I care? Also, I was not a big fan when Ms. Jupiter puts her costume back on. And the blue penis. However, and score this one the way you want it, Ms. Jupiter has some camel toe in her costume. That's all I'm saying.

Is It Worth it: For a bunch of guys having a rebel night out, I would say hell yes. There are plot holes, it's long and some of the costumes are total crap. But then again, so was Predator and that movie rocked. Great guy flick: B+