Watching Scooby Doo

I'm still playing around with my iphone camera. She was sitting so cute next to Daddy and was really focusing like she was watching tv.

Father's Day 2009

Father's Day 2009
Originally uploaded by Jamie Howell

We had a celebration weekend at our house!

Saturday we all got dressed up and went to Dodge's favorite restaurant, Sushi Zen, to celebrate his graduating from college! Elizabeth was a tad restless but was ok if Mommy held her the entire dinner. Food was excellent as usual and Dodge was happy which was the point!

Sunday was Dodge's first fathers day so Elizabeth and I decided the best gift we could get him was 8 solid hours of sleep. Well, I decided that. Elizabeth wasn't too hip to the plan. I ended up having to take her on a car ride out of the house for the last hour and a half to make sure Dodge kept on sleeping. While we were out we picked up some donuts and chocolate milk for daddy for a breakfast surprise!

His gifts he had opened earlier as I still can't wait when I have a gift in my hand. He got a new mouse pad with a picture of Elizabeth printed on it (nerdy mixed with daddy-ness) and a key chain with his favorite picture of Elizabeth and him on it. Oh and some Microsoft books that he asked for.

We spent the afternoon hanging out by the pool at my parent's house for a BBQ with my dad. Elizabeth did not like the idea of swimming. Oma tried dipping her toes into the water which started a screaming fit that lasted quite a bit. She'll like swimming when she's older.

By the end of the day, I was completely spent. I planned on staying up and watching a movie with my two favorite people but I went to bed early. Daddy cuddled Elizabeth until she went to sleep.

Immunization Day

Shot Day
Originally uploaded by Jamie Howell

Today Elizabeth had her 2 month check up with the doctor. She's now 11 pounds 10 oz and 22 inches long. Doctor says she's perfectly average for her weight and just slightly under average for her length. He said it's nothing to be concerned about and she's growing well.

He checked that she could pick her head up while lying on her belly and that she could follow objects with her eyes. He asked if she's smiling which she does quite often these days. He didn't have to ask if she's cooing noises as she was telling him a long story while he was examining her. All and all she's doing everything she's supposed to be doing for her age.

After that we had to get 3 booster shots. They were 7 immunizations but they were luckily combined into 3 shots. I don't think I could sit and watch her getting 7 shots! She took them like a trooper and although she screamed she calmed down soon and by the time I got her home she was sleeping peacefully. Poor little baby.

This is the last week I have home with Elizabeth as I return to work on Monday. I'm really not looking forward to it. I know she's going to be well taken care of with my mom watching her but I'm going to miss her so much!

Movies Redux

I used to have a bad habit of purchasing any movie that I thought looked vaguely interesting.  I would go to Amazon once a month or so and purchase 3-5 movies and spend an evening watching the movies back-to-back and enjoying a “nice” dinner.  Sometimes there would be a theme to the movies such as “horror”, “independent films”, etc.; sometimes not.  Sometimes the movies would be good; sometimes not.  In the end though, I ended up moving to Michigan with a healthy collection of DVD’s, but have since found that with the advent of Netflix that I don’t find it necessary to purchase nearly a fraction of the amount of DVD’s that I used to.  And considering that I don’t watch the movies that I currently own nearly enough to justify spending 20+ dollars on most of them; I’m OK with not owning most of the latest and greatest movies.  Of course if it’s a good movie that’s supernatural in its theme or based on a comic book, I’m usually prone to pick it up.

With my wife off work and with the demand that the baby takes on us, we find ourselves more inclined to watch a movie or read a book than we are to play a computer or console game.  In the past few years if we had a spare time we might watch a movie once a week, but most of our time was spent playing WarCraft.  Now we will probably watch a movie once a day, if not two.  And although it has crossed my mind to increase our Netflix rental agreement, that’s pretty expensive.  Instead we’ve found ourselves turning not only to streaming Netflix’s “instant view” movies from our Tivo, but digitizing our existing movies on a computer and streaming them from our XBox 360.

The bonus of digitizing our movies is that it not only brings new novelty to watching the movies, but it places the movies at “our fingertips” so-to-speak.  It also allows us to put the movies in a format that lets us carry the movies with us on our iPhones.  Of course I’ve played with this before over the years, but I would end up with movies that would have out-of-synch audio tracks, pixilation, or some other defect that would drive me insane and I would eventually stop encoding movies and give up the entire endeavor.  However, after reading guide after guide and trying different tools, all the while protesting any software that would charge me a fee to use it, Maximum PC finally released a guide on how to digitize movies using entirely free software.  (I however deviate from their suggested DVD Decoder, by using DVDFab which I discovered by reading another one of their articles.)

Another great feature about digitizing movies is that we can insert audio tracks into the digital movies, which finally brings me to the product that actually inspired this post:  Rifftrax. 

For those who were fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000, the names  Mike Nelson (Mike), Bill Corbett (The second voice of Crow, Observer/Brain Guy), and Kevin Murphy (Tom Servo, Professor Bobo, Cambot) are probably familiar.  If not, I definitely recommend looking into watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater (on TV or Netflix), The Film Crew (which has episodes on Hulu and Netflix), or Cinematic Titanic (DVD only).

For those who are unfamiliar with the project, Rifftrax is basically an audio commentary by one or more individuals (usually Mike, Bill, and Kevin) that goes along with a movie.  What you do is you purchase the audio file for around $4.00 and rent the movie it goes along with.  (They also have Video On Demand purchases for some movies from $.99 for short films to $9.99 for others, but since I don’t stream from a PC desktop or use a media center PC it’s not an option for me.) You queue up the movie and the audio and then play them at the same time.  What you end up with is a hysterical commentary on a wide range of movie such as Star Wars, Spiderman, The Dark Knight, Glitter, Next, etc.  It makes for a great evening and is a ton of fun, but most of all it breathes new life into a movie you’ve probably already seen several times before.  At my last count there were around 95 movies that have been “riffed”, and that’s not including the independent film riffs and the user-submitted (and Rifftrax approved) riffs. I personally find them hysterical.

But they’re also great because I can merge them into the digitized films I create as a separate audio track; meaning that with a little bit of extra work I can merge the Rifftrax with the video file and not have to worry about synching them together.  This makes for a better experience overall, and again makes the movies worth watching again; either in their original format or with a hysterical audio commentary.  Plus, although there are only a few of them, sometimes Rifftrax has special commentators such as “Weird Al" Yankovic and Neil Patrick Harris (that’s right.. I said NPH).

You don’t need to be a fan of MST3K to enjoy these and once you purchase the file it’s available from their website in PAL, NTSC, and .riff (the file needed for their desktop player) for quite a while.  I have purchases that are over 2 years old that are still available for download.

Anyway, this is obviously my latest passion and obsession which I thought I would share.  I think it’s a great project and worth supporting.

**Addendum**

It looks like the Rifftrax crew has been able to obtain the rights for some of the older movies and shorts and is releasing them upon DVD on June 16, 2009.  My fault for not looking this up!

Dodge is a College Grad!

Dodge got the good news today that he has passed his final class and has earned his Bachelor of Science in Information Technology/Information Systems Security. Elizabeth and I could not be more proud of him.

We have a very busy weekend coming up but we will be going out to celebrate as soon as possible! Congratulations!

Awaiting news

This past Monday was the last day of my last class for my Bachelor of Science in Information Technology/Information Systems Security degree.  It was marked by having to take the day off of work to finish my Learning Group project which the rest of the group decided to contribute little to no work; leaving me to work hurriedly upon it to ensure that I received a passing grade.  Now, I eagerly await news of my grade, which my teacher says should be posted in the next few days.  Technically he is allotted a week by the school to post the grades, but I of course find myself wanting to check every hour to see if maybe he has in fact posted it early.

Last night as I was talking to my parents over Skype about what I will do now with my free time since school is over with, I told her that I had several ideas of what to do:

1. Continue on with my education and obtain a Bachelor’s in Computer Science as well.
2. Continue on with my education and obtain a Master’s in Information Technology.
3. Work on upgrading my Microsoft certifications.
4. Do absolutely nothing.

I think of all the choices, I will work on my Microsoft certifications.  I enjoyed working on them, although I did tend to stress out about the tests.  So much so that after a test I usually came home and slept for several hours.  However, I think that this is the best choice for me and my family at this point since I can control for the most part when I take the tests and how long I need to study each day.  School has a regimented schedule of which I have very little control over, plus it is quite a bit more expensive.  I also miss the hands-on aspect of technology that studying for the exams entailed; where school (other than the programming courses) was usually more theoretical and procedural.

Also, the huge contributor to the equation is Elizabeth.  Since her birth most of my free time which was eaten up by playing World of WarCraft, which has fallen by the wayside, because such activities that are a) hobbies and b) take too much time and attention away from her.  This weekend while I was writing my paper, I was able to prop Elizabeth on a pillow beside me and work on the paper as she slept.  I found that as I was reading a Microsoft Security Resource Kit book that I own, that I missed reading and learning about technology.  The fact that I was able to watch over her, engage her when she was awake, and watch her while she was asleep seemed like an added bonus.  Plus it gave Jamie a well-deserved break as well.  It all seems very conducive to our lifestyle.

Of course there is still time for some gaming now and again, but it’s pretty impromptu and casual at best.  For now though, I see most of my time being spent with Elizabeth either watching movies or reading; and that’s OK with me. :)