I love a lot of things about “Web 2.0.” Websites just look better, for one thing, and I firmly believe that “form” is a key part of “function.” The increased interactivity both between user and site and between user and other users has made the whole thing a lot more engaging.

But some people seriously need to shut the hell up. Read more »

Since I was in my mid-20s when Pokémon was created, I never really “got” it. The only thing I knew about it was the whole seizure thing. But then I had kids. Just before he turned 4, my son went through a brief-but-intense phase of obsession with the Pokémon cartoons and toys just before he discovered Mario and the video game floodgates opened, leaving all past obsessions (Thomas, Star Wars, etc.) in the dust (if you’ll pardon the mixed metaphor).

So as the video game thing took off, I bought him Pokémon FireRed for the Game Boy Advance, thinking I could tap into his pre-video game interest. I vaguely knew that the games were RPG-style, but I didn’t make the connection that, unlike in many games, where there’s reading but it’s fairly inconsequential, in a Pokémon game it is absolutely essential that you be able to read in order to play. Since my son’s still a pre-schooler, that didn’t work out so well. Read more »

…separate the sorrow and collect up all the cream…?

*WHEW*

As a longtime lover of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (and, until last night, only a one-time reader of the Roald Dahl children’s novel it was based on), I had been deeply suspicious about Tim Burton’s new screen adaptation from the beginning, but word of mouth plus superlative reviews convinced me that I must see it, and my expectations were high.

I was disappointed.

I didn’t hate the movie, mind you. I just didn’t think it was all that great. In particular, I felt Johnny Depp’s take on Wonka was way off. Too cold, too misanthropic. Rereading the book last night confirmed this for me.

All of this brings me to my point… after seeing the new film on Sunday afternoon, we decided it was time to bust out the sugar-coated-acid-trip Gene Wilder version that night. And we figured our 2-year-old might like it. But we had no idea just how much he’d like it. He’s watched it at least 15 times in the past 48 hours. For the last two days the first thing he’s said upon waking is “Wonka! Wonka!” and it’s the last thing he’s done before bed. (Of course we don’t give him everything he wants… but he’s learning the value of tenacity at an early age.)

As a result of these round-the-clock screenings, I naturally have much of the music going through my head over and over and over and over… which brings us back to the beginning of this post.

(Oh… in case you’re wondering, it’s the candy man.)

I am a lazy bastard. My laziness naturally leaves me inclined to stop right here, but I will fight it, because the only thing I cherish more than my laziness is the untold fame and glory showered upon me for my brilliant rants. (The fame and glory are untold because they don’t exist, of course, but please allow me my pipe dreams.)

Now where was I? Ah yes, my laziness, and my, uh, bastardness.

I have moments when I am, briefly, not lazy. And in those amazing and rare moments, I frantically bounce among my countless incomplete projects, hoping to push one of them far enough toward completion that I can coast to the finish line when I return to my inevitable state of lazy-librium.

Such is the case tonight. Wired on coffee and deluded about my own creative capabilities after skimming the latest copy of Print magazine at Borders, I returned home with grand visions (or at least murky hallucinations) of what wondrous new graphical overhauls I would undertake on this very web site.

Then I made the mistake of looking at what I already have.

Hmm… that’s not so bad, I thought. And maybe those grand murky hallucino-visions wouldn’t really work anyway. And besides, well, this one is already done. How can I argue with that? (Or could I, if only I were suffering a split-personality disorder?)

So instead, I took the usual lazy route… writing a rambling, incohesive, boring rant.

At least there’s one thing I’ll never be too lazy about, and that’s unnecessary parenthetical asides (like this one) and excessive use of italics!