So. I just saw a statistic on Digg.com that said 70 percent of World of Warcraft players quit before level 10. I wonder if I'm part of that statistic after a half-hearted effort to bond with my son over a game he didn't really want me playing. I don't know what level I was at when I decided it wasn't for me, but every three months, my bank statement reminds me I could resume playing if I wanted to.
Then I saw The Unbelieveable World of Warcraft with all sorts of stats and facts and discovered that Mr. T plays. Mr. T! I can't be shocked that Elijah Wood or Macaulay Caulkin play, but Jessica Simpson? Is she preparing for a fantasy movie role?
I don't anticipate playing the game again anytime soon, if at ever, but a crazy number of people do (I still think they count people like me who forget to cancel their subscriptions). Pixlmonster.com said to embed this image, and I figured, why not?
20th Century Fox publicity shot for "Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lighting Thief" (Associated Press)
The reviews are a little scary, but I'm pretty sure I've suffered through worse.
Like 20 Darren Shan books, which were shockingly better than the "Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant" movie.
Ditto for "Eragon" the incomplete series, although I can't say whether the movie was more painful than the third book. I can tell you I'm dreading having to get through any more of the series in either format.
I’m still reading the “39 Clues” even though my son decided a few books ago that he was too old for the series, which makes me REALLY too old. And I hear there’s a movie on the way. But I persist because I need closure and I love Rick Riordan.
Rick Riordan is the author of “The Lightning Thief,” the first book in the Percy Jackson series, which is one that I actually loved reading with my son. And, in case you haven't heard, “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief” movie opens today. My son and Ihave been excited about seeing it since we first saw the trailer — even though a couple minutes of preview convinced my son it wasn’t going to follow the book.
I’m always leery of movies made from books, but there are some successes. Like "Lord of the Rings" (sorry Tolkien). And “Gone With the Wind” is one of my favorite books and one of my favorite movies, too. On the other hand, I didn’t really care for “The Godfather” book, but I loved the movies.
I don’t think “Where the Wild Things Are” should fit in this category, but I did love the book and the movie, too. I’ll move on to a different Spike Jonze movie for a better comparison: All I had to do was watch “Adaptation” to know that I’d like it much better than “The Orchid Thief,” which I do own but have never cracked open.
Where am I headed? I didn’t really read any of the reviews of “The Lightning Thief,” but I read the headlines and scrolled down to the star ratings. All the ones I checked gave the movie two stars out of four. Rotten Tomatoes had it at 55 percent yesterday. But, you know, it’s got Pierce Brosnan in it, which usually means the plot can slide a little, but let’s look at this publicity shot:
Associated Press
and this still from the movie:
Associated Press
Of course I’m still eager to see the movie and convinced my 6-year-old she wanted to see it, too, just so there won’t be any complications. And maybe it's good that the reviews I refused have lowered my expectations, because that means it can still be great, especially when you compare the Rotten Tomato scores. A 55 percent on the Tomatometer doesn't look so bad next to 17 percent for "Eragon" and 37 percent for "Cirque the Freak: The Vampire's Assistant."
Over the weekend, I told my son we were making quick and easy costumes.
I didn't say they'd be original. Just quick and easy. When he asked me what costume I was making, I said, "I think a cereal killer."
You've seen it. A poor cereal box bleeding milk. As I was prepping poor Boo-Berry, through some miscommunication, my son was in the other room making my costume.
Let's look at the results side-by-side:
A cereal killer in a serial killer dress? And my dress...
I'm not ready to contemplate whether that will come out.
These days I can’t seem to have a conversation about pop culture that doesn’t include a Jonas Brothers reference.
Who am I kidding? Lately, I’ve had to acknowledge I’ve developed a disturbing tendency to insert the three band members or Bonus Jonas Frankie into a conversation on just about any topic whether it’s appropriate or not.
It’s not that I don’t have lots of age-appropriate interests and peers to discuss them with. The problem is that my two kids have conditioned me to avoid most of these topics because at least one of them deems the subject:
• Too boring: Current events that don’t involve anyone at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, politics, music recorded in the last millennium and any live-action movie or television show that doesn’t star a teenager who wants to be a pop star.
• Too mean: Not only am I not supposed to say anything that might be construed as teasing, but I also can’t give unwanted instructions or constructive criticism at any volume without being accused of yelling.
• Too scary: Anything by Tim Burton or Neil Gaiman (sniff, sniff) and — except when they show up on “Wizards of Waverly Place” — supernatural creatures like shape-shifters, vampires and zombies, which is particularly painful since I just set aside “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies” to read “Mr. Darcy, Vampyre” instead.
• Too gross: Anything that hints that I might find someone attractive, with the exception of Spencer on “iCarly.”
• Too disturbing: Anything that forces the kids to contemplate what it would be like if they weren’t the center of my universe, perhaps because someone sucked out my blood or stole my heart.
Obviously these rules are broken all the time because I’m a big meanie, but in times of peace we have a few “safe” topics, all kid-friendly and unlikely to make sense to anyone who who doesn’t know Miranda Cosgrove is, or that her show attracts more viewers than “Hannah Montana.”
The exception would be ubiquitous Jonas Brothers, teen idols who have appeared everywhere from an inaugural concert to “Saturday Night Live,” and who are vanilla enough to be mostly inoffensive unless you’re an adult losing credibility every time you say “Jonas” because you’re old enough to know better.
With the price of a school lunch at $3.75, I'm more open to my son's request to start bring a home lunch, especially since at the age of 13 he can theoretically pack his own.
Regardless of what we end up deciding, I'm intrigued by the craft ideas I found at Disney's Family Fun, which uses gallon milk jugs and juice cartons to create reusuable lunch containers:
To make this sandwich box, you just need a gallon milk jug, a marker, scissors, a thumbtack and an adhesive backed velcro dot.
To make this reusable snack container, you just need a milk or juice carton, scissors and an adhesive velcro dot.
Click on the photos to find the instructions whenever you have the suppplies ready and a half-hour to spare. FamilyFun has a number of back-to-school ideas that parents and children can do together.
