Television and Me

Tonight was a viewing night. We finished watching some cool Olympic events, Sasha went to bed and I launched Netflix. Three hours later, I'm posting a blog about it. Kind of odd to be making that kind of transition, when I should be sleeping, but I'll get there shortly. It's important to start with the last show I watched, an older anime called Fruits Basket. An imaginative show that in 20 minutes introduces the main character (a high school girl) and all the hardships she had endured to this point and how she meets a family that turns into zodiac animals when hugged. Yeah, it's strange, but I had read the manga and wanted to see how it was animated. And Fruits Basket is like nothing ever seen on American television. And I thought, "These are stories told in an awesome fashion that cannot be matched by what we produce here!" Especially since, prior to Fruits Basket, I watched the intro to an episode of Last Exile, another anime series that is a little older. But instead of high school girls, it's huge flying ships that battle and the couriers that fly messages and all sorts of crazy things. Amazing story that I had seen before, but I enjoyed the intro enough to watch it and get the taste. Again, nothing to match it in our part of the world. "If only we had stories like that!" I thought. Then I remembered what I had watched right after turning on Netflix. Not an animated show. Nothing that wasn't filmed here in the good 'ol North American continent. (I think they flim in Canada.) The SyFy show Warehouse 13. Season three just became available on Netflix, so I finally could view it. And it took a supreme act of willpower to have only watched two episodes. Warehouse 13 is a light modern science fiction show about items that gained supernatural powers due to the cultural significance of their owners. The first episode I watched started with Jimi Hendrix's guitar shooting out lightning and it went from there. I could have watched until the sun rose. This is not a kind of story I have seen in Japanese anime or manga. Very American and very cool. So as my mind went over this, the next question was how can I share this love of stories with the kids? I want them to get that same kind of thrill from a new story concept. To be able to appreciate all stories and enjoy telling them as well some day. Everything I watched tonight was too old for the kids. But all of those stories I saw and appreciated required knowledge of previous stories to make sense. And thus my plan is to keep going forward with what I do now. Read to them a lot. Bedtime involves books and that is something that Sasha and I will never change. Once those stories take root, be it the basic fairy tales, or the creatively silly Olivia books, Alya and Marcus will have the foundation to build an appreciation of latter books/shows/manga/graphic novels. And that will be cool to share with them. Be seeing you.

Let's Make Some Choices, Daddy

Originally when I came up with this concept I thought, "That would be fun to put on Facebook." Then I realized it would take far too many words and Facebook, as we all know, is not a good medium for the short attention span. So it's off to the slowly, rolling blog that amazingly still exists. In the past three hours I have made many choices that impacted my life, my children and my wife, but it was nothing new or unusual. More like a survival mechanism or a method of trying to get things done before it has gone too far. Tonight I have a sample of choices presented in the classic Good Idea/Bad Idea format. Let's take a look. Good Idea: Managed to feed all three of us on five dollars and fifty cents. Bad Idea: It was McDonalds. Good Idea: Refuse the option of getting happy meals for the kids. Bad Idea: Go along with McD's apple pie for dessert. Good Idea: Make sure the lawn is mowed since it was already past due. Bad Idea: Let the kids eat crap food (and fresh apples) while watching tv to stay out of trouble. Good Idea: Convince the kids to go outside after dinner and run around playing frisbee. Bad Idea: Still have to finish mowing the lawn while keeping an eye on them. Good Idea: Stay outside with them when the lawn is done and play together. Bad Idea: I don't think crawling under a moving tire swing is something to encourage a kid to do when retrieving a thrown frisbee. But I did it anyway. Sasha and I both have solo nights with the kids and that's not a bad thing. But the number of choices and decisions that are made on the fly in these situations are astounding. And each one builds on the next. Alya was brought to tears twice - she's the crier to Mommy & Daddy - and Marcus was only made truly upset once. And that is all to be expected. After all, I am their Daddy, not their buddy. But I was also barking the instructions for them to make that belly crawl under a moving tire swing. I think we all got a kick out of that. And then that final choice. Write this post up instead of doing dishes/making lunches/sorting laundry. But once in a while I have to make a choice for me too.

Living the Classic Life

Today, I took Alya and Marcus to the Midwest Gaming Classic over in Brookfield. First time for them, but my third visit. It's a fun show with lots of great classic video gaming.

This is a place for the oldest of the old school - with a few modern splashes - and is a veritable museum for those who started young.

Now the kids have been playing the original Super Mario Bros on the Wii, they have not seen the rest of the old stuff I've got sitting around. However, this was the best place to show my roots without digging through a pile to stuff.

First priority was pinball, as that is something they cannot experience at home, nor most places we go to play games. While both of them got a thrill out of playing pinball - and we tried at least six tables, if not more - Alya summed it up with "I liked the video one best." The video one was a screen built into a pinball cabinet. Obviously, the physical game did not appeal to them.

On the flip side, Pong went over well. They quickly adapted to the paddle controller and proceeded to play two games against each other. But they both like air hockey, so it wasn't too far of a stretch for them to get into it.

Beyond that, there was lots of bouncing around from console to machine to old school controllers. Alya spent a lot of time with the Atari Jaguar playing first Rayman (which was still gorgeous to look at) then a little Tempest 2000. Marcus was playing a Super Nintendo game called Megaracer, which was much more basic, but Alya eventually joined in to play.

Super Smash Bros (Wii) was another Marcus favorite - but anytime you have characters fighting, he digs right in. Meanwhile, Alya watched a guy playing Mario Sunshine (Game Cube) and she really wanted to take it for a spin.

The cool thing was watching what games captured the kids attention. If there was fighting or shooting, Marcus was interested. Platforming and adventure, Alya. Which leads to their picks of the show.

Marcus was extremely excited playing the classic shooter by the Japanese studio Treasure, called Gunstar Heroes (Sega Genesis). The boy was bouncing up and down blowing robots up left and right and caught up in a gleeful rapture. Alya played for a bit, but then the siren call of Sonic CD (Sega Genesis CD) right next to it and soon she was sending that blue hedgehog around at warp speed, clearing levels like nobody's business.

So instead of buying anything at the convention, we came away with two games to get downloading this week. Games they selected and fell in love with - something I can relate to very well myself. Yeah, I'm a video game dad and I'm happy to share it with the kids.

So if you're in the Milwaukee area in March and want to take a stroll down memory lane, I would suggest going over to the Midwest Gaming Classic. It's a fun time, the games are free, and sharing those memories with others can rekindle a joy.

Be seeing you.