FML - Let the indoctrination begin



Already practicing the arm raise for "Hail"
in Hail to the Victors

 So today Michigan kicks off its 2012 college football season versus Alabama.  I've already started priming my son Jackson for loving all things Michigan.  It started in the womb, with my playing "Hail to the Victors" on my iPod and holding the speaker up to my wife's belly.  After his birth, he had a mobile over his crib that played "Hail to the Victors" instead of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" as his lullaby.  We brought him to Ann Arbor for the first time this past May on Memorial Day weekend.  He also has a Michigan hat and a pair of Michigan onesies that we love dressing him in (as you can see, to the left).

Tonight Michigan plays Alabama in a game that Michigan is expected by many (unfortunately including myself) to lose, as the spread is 12.5 points.  Win or lose though, this will be the first of every Michigan game that Jackson watches with me, so I am excited for kickoff to happen.  I'll actually be in Michigan today (though not at the game, they're playing in Dallas) so it'll be great to watch the game in the state where I met Jackson's mom.  I'm looking forward to watching games with my son for the rest of my life, so today a new Saturday tradition is born.  Obviously, he's not going to fully understand what is going on just yet, that will come in time, but the tradition stars now nonetheless.  Now, only 18 years until he goes to Michigan as a freshman! 

PCP on DVD - Attack the Block

Sometimes I'll pick up a movie completely on a whim if I have absolutely nothing else to watch.  Attack the Block caught my eye at the library, and I saw that it was from the producers of Shaun of the Dead, probably my favorite zombie movie, so I thought "why not?"  Thankfully I wasn't burned this time and actually enjoyed the movie.

Attack the Block - 2011; Rated R.  My rating:  7 out of 10. 

Attack the Block is a British film through and through.  Shot in London by first-time writer/director Joe Cornish (apparently a rather popular comedian there) the film focuses on a gang of youths that have to defend themselves and their neighborhood from an alien invasion.  As the characters are all British youths, they of course speak in the latest British teen slang.  A good portion of which flew over my head, but if you turn the subtitles on you can pretty much figure out what they are saying from context. 

For a low-budget sci-fi flick, Attack the Block is actually surprisingly pretty decent.  The special effects aren't terrible and the director overcomes some of the shortfalls of a low budget by forcing the audience to use their imaginations as opposed to showing us directly the result of screams and gunshots, instead just showing us the aftermath in one particularly well done elevator sequence. 

In short, if you like sci-fi and can understand a fast talking British teenager, then check this film out, you'll probably enjoy it!

FML - Fun with Sleep Deprivation

As I mentioned recently on the blog, my son Jackson is teething now.  He's had his first 4 break through the gums, and is working on a few more teeth.  In addition to him being fussier than he used to be, he has also begun to interfere with my wife and my attempts to get a good night's sleep.  He regularly wakes in the middle of the night again now, not hungry, just wanting to be held because of the pain.  This has caused my sleep deprivation to kick back in, making me less effective at work and at home, and increasing my feelings of zombiehood.  Also, I get migraine headaches when I'm sleep deprived for too many days in a row, I've now discovered.  So I've been having off and on migraines for the past 8 months, which sucks.  I have one this morning as I type this in fact.

I often find myself having to pull over my car while driving now, just so I can get out and stretch and get my blood flowing again, to help me to wake back up behind the wheel.  I have also cut back on my caffeine intake as part of a program to limit how much I drink, so the timing of the teething is not opportune for me. 

There is a funny story though about what happened the other day because of my sleep deprivation.  My son woke up at 5 and again at 645 on Saturday morning (and my wife and I had gone to bed around 1 AM so we were tired).  Both times my wife was able to calm him down and get him back to sleep without him needing to eat a bottle, but on the second wakeup I had already gone downstairs to get the bottle ready.  I took it out of the fridge, unscrewed the cap and nipple, and stuck it in the microwave to warm up.  When the microwave dinged, I opened up the door to find I had just microwaved the cap, not the bottle of milk.  Whoops!

Yesterday I also made the blunder of confusing the films Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty in a discussion on Disney movies, dropping the wrong name for which film had the dragon that breathes green fire.  My wife said that's like confusing Star Wars and Lord of the Rings because the two films are totally different.

I really can't wait until my son goes back to sleeping through the night again, he had been so good for so long, I really don't like how teething is affecting him.  Hopefully I'll be able to get caught up on some sleep this coming weekend, especially with the day off on Monday, but since Friday and Saturday night I'll be sleeping in a hotel and not my regular bed, I doubt it.