Boys’ weekend in
It’s been an interesting extended holiday weekend here at Schloß TB - the girls have been away at a softball all-star tournament, leaving us hearty males (and dogs) to fend for ourselves.
In different times, under different circumstances, we might’ve all gone to the the tournament, which was down Indianapolis-way. Finances (hotel/food/amusement costs), sibling attention/amusement issues, dog care issues, and other types of logistical stuff made it reasonably clear that it would be best for this to be a split-duty weekend: “girls’ weekend out” & “boys’ weekend in”. And it’s turned out pretty well, from what I’ve heard & experienced.
I’m very proud of my daughter, who has represented both herself and her league quite honorably — the girl has talent, and she has worked very hard in these past weeks since earning her way on to the all-star team representing Valpo. Unfortunately, Valpo has not been playing at this level for long, their league doesn’t play with the same rules (stealing, lead-offs, etc.) as the tournament, and their team hasn’t had as long to gel together, which resulted in a rather quick two-loss & out tournament. That said, the girls (from what I’ve been told) all had a good time, played hard, and acquitted themselves very well. They’ve had lots of fun, and my girls have had a nice mother & daughter weekend, with (from what I’ve been told) a minimum of snarling, which is a pleasant & welcome development, given the often mercurial natures of the Territorial Queen & Princess! 
As to the boys, we’ve had a full weekend of activities, beyond even the normally outstanding hanging around the Schloß watching tube, playing the Wii, reading, & going swimming (him, not me…). We’ve gone bowling, gone out to eat a few times, gone to the library, we’ve got some yard work on the docket for tomorrow, and we caught a flick on Thursday. I would’ve liked to have taken him to a White Sox ballgame at some point this weekend, but didn’t for two reasons: 1) the games were all night games, and I didn’t want to keep him out that late, and 2) the tickets were just too darned expensive. It’s too bad, because he’s getting to the age where he’s ready to really enjoy his first big league game (he’s just a little bit older than when I went to my first game at Tiger Stadium…).
The movie we saw was WALL•E, which was not all that bad - maybe not as great as it’s been hyped to be, but then what is? It kept his attention throughout, and it worked very well on the level of a kids movie, which is good. It’s very clear, however, to any reasonably aware adult that this movie is pretty blatantly designed with two main intentions: 1) as an entertaining piece of eye- & ear-candy for little kids to be adequately entertained for 97 minutes, after which they will want to buy all the merchandise, and 2) as a blatant piece of pro-environmentalist, anti-capitalist propaganda.
On both levels, WALL•E is successful. It is very good eye- & ear-candy — technically very well-crafted, very well-made, & undeniably very entertaining. Why, it’s even possible to willingly suspend disbelief enough to anthropomorphize the robots WALL•E & EVE — that’s pretty good animation production.
As to the propagandistic nature of the flick, I’m willing to forgive it, because it’s so ham-handed & obvious about it that I can use it as a way to easily talk about it, should I ever need to. I didn’t really expect it to be subtle in its satire, but goodness, neither did I expect it to be so boldly cynical & conspiratorial. For a movie that was made by a huge conglomerate, and will make gobs of cash off of merchandise that will clog landfills, well, it’s hard not to view it as at least a little, y’know, hypocritical…
Anyhoo, like I said, it’s been a good, albeit different, weekend.
-ghp
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