Stand down, gentlemen. Your tour of duty is coming to an end.

I love the Wiggles. I’ve said it before, and I’m saying it again. Sadly, their time in my life is drawing to a close as Max’s interests turn to other shows. For 3 consecutive days, he has chosen some new upstart show over his once beloved Wiggles. I quietly lobby in their favour each time, but he remains unmoved.

I have already talked about why I think they are great childrens performers, and all of that holds true, but I’ve stumbled upon another reason for my affection :they kept me company. For months now, they have been a source of simulated camaraderie, just a bunch of dads helping me entertain my boy and passing the time with me. It gave me something to research on my tiny iPhone screen. I read their Wikipedia page, and followed up with info on their dancers and other associated folks. Being a fan of the guys gave me something to do, and something to look forward to, and I will miss them when we move on for good. The wife felt the same when Blue’s Clues passed out of favour with the little dude. I guess it;s natural to find a touch of fondness for the shows that your kid watches. It’s either that, or be an obnoxious parent who belly aches about kids TV whenever they get the chance, and  no one likes that guy.

When words get in the way

I am going to complain about Tron:Legacy right now, and there’s bound to be some spoiler-grade information in here, so consider that your warning.

A little background: I am not one of the loyal audience who hold the original TRON movie in a place of reverence in their heart. I don’t even know if  I’ve seen the whole movie, to be honest. My parents took me to very few movies, so most of my childhood exposure to motion pictures was on tv, and I tend to flip channels aggressively as soon as my attention wanders or a commercial comes on. Nevertheless, I do appreciate the aesthetic of the movies. The soundtrack of Legacy is fantastic, crafted by the robotic duo in Daft Punk. It’s a shame that the script gets in the way of the visual and musical presentation.

Oh, the ruinous dialogue. Scraps of sentences swept up from the big pile of terrible action movie clichés, mashed together with awkward exposition and terrible hippie nonsense, to form a continuous string of cringe-inducing mouth noise. If only they had removed the dialogue and double the soundtrack.

The plot is also a mess, cribbing elements from other popular movies but adding nothing new to the interpretation. There is a huge setup for a plot twist involving the self-interested program named Zeus, but that potential is thrown out the window in a big,pointless explosion.

The actors do  the best they can with the awfulness forced upon them, but Jeff Bridges can only do so  much. And the rubbery computer version of young Jeff is stuck firmly in the uncanny valley and is uncomfortable to watch, though this is considerably amplified by the wretched speeches compu-Jeff has to deliver.

As a dad, I have a personal beef with this movie. The main characters father is trapped in a computerland for 12 years. He has not seen him since he was 12. His father has realized during his exile that his son was the best part of his life (“Perfection was right in front of me the whole time”). And yet, at their reunion neither one of them says ‘I love you’. Not once. Not even at the big climax of the movie where the fate of the electro-world is being decided. THEY GO THE WHOLE MOVIE WITHOUT TELLING EACH OTHER ‘I LOVE YOU’. I can tell you that the first thing that comes out of my mouth after I’ve been away from Max for as little as an hour is ‘I love you’. But these two jerks can’t be bothered.

Oh sure, you get the cliché Hollywood man-tear in the corner of their eyes, but that does not cut it. Especially from a father character who is spouting terrible hippie talk throughout the movie. Hippies tell their waiters they love them when the food arrives hot.

Me Versus Turkey Versus Family

Today I will embark on the battle royale that is my family’s Christmas dinner. We’re hosting it, and I’m cooking most of the meal. I started cooking yesterday, making the cranberry sauce, and fighting a pile of dough until I figured out how to make pierogis.

Did you know how elastic and stubborn dough can be? I do now. The handles on a rolling pin aren’t on there for esthetic reasons: You have to lean into the dough and teach it who’s boss. My first batch of pierogis were ultra-doughy, thick slabs of dough with a hint of filling inside. I was suspicious at the small amount of pierogis I was going to get out of a batch of dough that was supposed to make 50, so I tried an experiment.  I took one of my little circles of dough, and rolled it out further, and by doing so I found out that my first batch were about twice as thick as they needed to be. Oh well. They are still edible.

So, two and a half hours later, I had a pile of pierogis, a sore back, and achy knees.  Keep in mind that I could have bought the same amount of machine-made pierogis for about 5 bucks. Of course, we did spend a little of that time cooking together as a family, and that was nice.  If anyone out there is going to a festive meal soon, show some love for cooks. A round of applause for all of the grandmas, grandpas,babcias, babuskas, nonas, gam-gams, gammys, dziadeks, and bubbes who roll up their sleeves and cook up a storm.