New Year, New Adventures

I would like to start off 2016 by announcing the arrival of a new Baby Poop due in May.

Here's Chase and Julian's reaction when we told them.



"It's so crazy. I feel like it's not real."

We wanted to find out the gender, for obvious reasons, to figure out whether we needed to go out and buy a bunch of pink shit or just go up into the attic and bring down the blue shit.

So Mrs. Poop got the results of the test in an envelope, gave it to the people at Party City who filled an opaque black balloon with the corresponding color shredded paper.

We periscoped the big reveal:



Mrs. Poop was able to borrow an at-home Doppler, so here is the baby's heartbeat:



And to answer the question all of you are asking: No, it was not an accident or a surprise. This was the result of very careful planning.
We had to wait to buy a house to have another baby. We wanted to do DisneyWorld also. And Mrs. Poop had always wanted a May baby so she could have June, July and August off. Baby is due May 27th.

Thoughts on the Force Awakens

Do not read this if you haven't seen it but want to.

I liked the movie, but didn't love it. If I had to give it a grade I would give an A-, maybe a B+.

A couple of issues:
I thought Finn was too jokey. He wasn't wise-cracking like Han Solo. Just a little annoying, and didn't provide comic relief, just disrupted the tension.
I hate, hate HATE when a show or a movie seemingly kills off a character, the other characters believe he's dead, and then he comes riding in when he's needed most, as happened with Poe Dameron. It's intellectually lazy movie-making.

But my main issue is I felt that not enough was made of The Force. What has always separated Star Wars from other science fiction or action movies is they actually had a fascinating plot point. The Force, the good and evil inside all of us. Do you give in to your negative feelings, fear and anger, or do you let the good in you shine through. There were opportunities to do so here, they just passed on them.

Problems that in retrospect weren't really problems:
1) The movie was too derivative of the originals. Yes, a droid containing a crucial piece of information is being pursued across the galaxy by evil people and good people have to see that it doesn't fall into the wrong hands, culminating in the destruction of the super weapon. How many Death Star and Death Star-ish things can they possibly build.



Yes, but...if they had completely abandoned the earlier movies I would have been even angrier. I know there's some middle ground there but probably a very thin target to hit.

2) It was too predictable. As the movie wore on you knew Kylo Ren was the son of Han and Leia and you got a pretty good idea that he was going to kill Han. You knew they were going to blow up the Death Star and you knew they were going to find Luke.

Yes, but...if they had a serious of ridiculous plot twists I would have been even angrier.

In summary, it was a good movie. I really liked it. There were some chill-inducing scenes. The special effects looked great. It is one of the few movies I really think does need to be viewed on the big screen. I think they have set up the next movie to be phenomenal. It can leave behind the past and blaze its own trail. Is Rey Kylo's sister? Is she Obi-Juan's descendant? Will Luke train her, and a new order of Jedi Knights? Will Kylo Ren be redeemed in the end as was Darth Vader.

I can't wait to find out.

But the boys certainly seemed to like it:

The Old Dog's Still Got It

I hope I'm this spry when I'm 77.

Kitchen Dance Party

I accepted TON's challenge and had Chase and Julian perform a kitchen dance party to "Shut Up and Dance" by Walk the Moon (SOTW, 4/29/15).

The Disney Reveal

We sprung a trip to Disney on Chase and Julian right after we got home from trick or treating on Halloween.



So the reaction was very underwhelming to me. Chase reacted just as I thought he would, but I expected Julian to jump and yell like he did in the famous anywhere chair video

Leave Vabilla Ice Alone

6 years ago Billie, aka Vabilla Ice, performed his last hurrah at his own wedding, famously performing to "Ice Ice Baby" and doing two splits in one dance.
Shortly thereafter, I posted the video on youtube under the heading "Vabilla Ice Gets Married."



Today, I got a copyright claim since the video contains the music in the background.

Obviously the record companies do have a claim against me because my video does contain a portion of the work that they own the distribution rights to. But one of the considerations is whether the potentially offending usage impinges the copyright owner's ability to make money off the original work. So ask yourself, would anyone not buy the "Ice Ice Baby" because of the 90 seconds of poor quality audio that can be heard on my video? Seeing as how only 700 people have viewed in 6 years, of course that can be it.

The real threat, is that Vabilla Ice is such a good dancer, Rob Van Winkle is obviously threatened.

Thankfully they are allowing my video to stay on youtube, but may place ads next to it.

Julian and the Three Very Annoying Bears

This Hanukah we broke Mama Poop's heart. We told her no more singing bears. We hate stuffed animals of any kind because they are useless, never get played with and take up a lot of space. That goes double for stuffed animals that play a song when a tail, foot or paw is squeezed. Unfortunately those actually do get played with. And all at the same time. And since there is a dearth of Hanukkah songs they all play "Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel."
Watch the video and I am sure you will understand why we put an end to Mama Poop's short-lived tradition of buying a new singing bear every year.



What a fantastic cameo from Chase. He jumps in, screams nonsense and slaps Julian in the face.

Chase's Underwhelming Reaction to Something I Thought Was Really Cool

I have met many celebrities in my career, most of them didn't even register with me as anything more than a smile and a good to meet you. There were a few I wanted to get a picture with (Uncle Mick Foley, Jonathan Duhamel and Jon Bones Jones).

But never have I been more insistent on meeting a celebrity, tried harder to do it, and had a more unusual request than when I recently met Larry the Cable Guy.

For those of you without children, please understand that LTCG (nee Daniel Whitney) is the voice of Mater in "Cars" and the forthcoming sequel "Cars 2."

Chase absolutely loves Mater and is so excited to see the new movie (I will elaborate in a future post) that I just had to get him to record a brief message on my blackberry.

I had all my minions following his every move throughout the building but my schedule and his just didn't work out and I thought I had missed him. As luck would have it I was walking right past where he was, so I waited around and much to the dismay of his PR person, I accosted him and he complied with my request.

He couldn't have been a nicer guy to everyone, not just me. And his message was pretty awesome, even though Chase didn't react with the amazement I expected.

Look What the Cat Dragged In

A quiet California neighborhood is being terrorized by Dusty the Klepto Kitty.



My favorite part is Dusty coming down the street with a bra hanging out of his mouth.



But there are so many questions:
1) Why can't they lock Dusty inside the house? How does he keep getting out?
2) Why can't the neighbors lock up their stuff? I can see the bathing suits, but why are your tighty whiteys outside?
3) Why do his owners still have a collection of the stuff he's taken? Don't they give it back? Why are the holding onto their neighbors' dirty drawers?
4) Why do people own cats?

Julian Eats For the First Time

I think he'd rather have a steak

What Are Chase and Julian Going to Be For Halloween?

Introducing Julian

To follow everything that happens with Julian from that moment on visit JulianEdward86.blogspot.com.