While browsing the parenting (or the Expensive Guide to Sanity) section of our local bookstore, I found a brightly-colored little tome entitled The Toddler's Owner Manual.

This is, by far, my favorite parenting book yet. I wish I had found the baby version earlier. It's written in the voice of an owner's manual and comes with full-color diagrams. It's easy to skim and doesn't give a vast saga of history and explanation for every issue. The bullet-list style of text is straight-forward and the book offers many various solutions instead of just pushing one philosophy of parenting.

Plus, I love reading a parenting book with chapters with names such as "Programming Toddler for Self-Waste Disposal" and "Jacket Installation."

Here's part of the opening chapter:
"Units that have been upgraded to toddler will require frequent bug removal and reprogramming."

Apparently, tantrums are a known bug in all toddler models. I wish they'd release a patch for that or something. Unless that's what Prozac is.

One who doesn't know video game-to-movie history has DOOM to repeat it.

Following in the grand tradition of video game movies such as Wing Commander, Street Fighter, Double Dragon, House of the Dead, and countless other unwatchable piles of celluloid is DOOM.

It's almost worth sitting through the predictable, recycled story to see the first-person shooter point-of-view sequence. It was surprisingly effective in building suspense in an action sequence and was a refreshing change in style. Unfortunately, it went on a bit too long and, as I mentioned, one has to sit through the rest of the movie. A feat I would not advise.

I'd say the biggest mistake of the film, by far, was a botched one-liner opportunity. As the Rock's character, Sarge, grabs the BFG he says, "Oh, s#!t." I don't think anyone could possibly argue that the line should have been, "Damn. Now that's a Big F@*#ing Gun."

Georgetrooper
From the Echo-7 flickr collection.

A George Lucas action figure! My only question: Is it 1977 Lucas or the portly 1997 Special Edition version?

Apparently, it's young Lucas. Thank you, RebelScum.

Back in the mid-'90s, I remember being barraged by sketch comedy shows. "The State," "Exit 57," and "The Vacant Lot" all debuted in the early part of the post-"Kids in the Hall" era (somewhere between '93-'95). They all had pretty short runs and some very forgettable skits, but they also had some hilarious high points.

One of my favorite sketches of all time comes from "The Vacant Lot." Zeb recently tracked it down for me. I still can't hear the song "Blinded by the Light" without giggling.

Used books are great. Not only do you get a good book and do a little recycling, but it's always entertaining to see what previous owners have written. I love it when I open a used book and find a touching dedication with a date.

Although, nothing beats the writing in the copy we have of "Han Solo at Stars' End." Our friends picked up this gem for us knowing we'd find it as fascinating and amusing as they did. Bound in the worn spine of this collection of pulp is something that we are still trying to explain.

The previous owner, let's hope it was a teenage boy, made all sorts of notes in the inside of this paperback. It's somewhere between a how-to guide at becoming a scoundrel with a heart of gold and lonely geek manifesto.

It starts off innocently enough with some underlined passages. As the pages flip, the underlining becomes thicker. Whole passages and then full pages of text have blue lines under them.

I'm not quite sure how underlining "Where's the pickup?" helps illuminate anything. Maybe it's helpful to refer to when someone asks you to pick something up and you're at a loss for a reply. In any case, it's marked for future reference.

The confusion compounds when one flips to the back of the book where this kid made a ming-bogglingly large amount of goal lists for all the things he needed to accomplish. As far as we can figure, the first block of text is a list of professions he needed to master. This list includes "astrophysics," "mechanical enginning," "astromedic," "weaponeer," "commando," and "metallurgy."

His "Things to do" list only has one item -- "dairy log." This, we can only guess, is supposed to be "diary log." We could very well be wrong, but I shudder to think what a dairy log might actually be.

Among his "Long + Medium + Short Goals" list (wouldn't that just be a Goals List?) are the following items: "books," " insigna," "rugs," "drapes," "video+camera," "stamps," and "martail arts." All I can say is that is going to be one sweet pad when he gets done. Or one sweet mailing campaign. Or one sweet vigilante outfit. Take your pick.

The final page of scrawled lists includes a few other insightful bits. First, from the "What Do I Have To Learn" list, the item "wisdom" appears. Yes, he has to learn wisdom. Only after he learns "space science" and "warrior," though.

The final list ("What Do I Have to Do") is very base-themed. There's "tech base," "spy base," and "poc base" among several others. I can only assume this pre-dates the popular internet catch phrase, "All your base are belong to us." If it does, this kid was well ahead of his time. Hell, maybe he went on to popularize that phrase.

That's just it. We don't know what happened to this anonymous, lofty-goal-oriented, Star Wars fan. Is he currently living out his dream of being a wise warrior astromedic living in his poc base? I choose to think so.

Changing of the Cons
From the Echo-7 flickr collection.

The brand new Converse All-Stars next to the old, worn-out Not-So-All-Stars.

The best anecdote from the "NewsRadio" (seasons 1 & 2) DVD commentary:

The cast of the show is in the audience for the Emmys. Phil Hartman was up for an Emmy for his work in "NewsRadio" (this was after he was killed). And the Emmy went to...someone else. Dave Foley leans over to Joe Rogan and says, "What does a guy have to do to get an Emmy around here?"