Kids these days will never know the satisfaction of opening the bottom, removing the ball, and then taking an unfolded paperclip to remove all the built up crud and hair on the components inside. I would do this anytime I was left alone in my mom’s office while she had a meeting or something.
Some men are Baptists. Others, Catholic. But me? I’m a Godzilla fan. (Also, Episcopalian, but you get what I mean).
For real tho, I’ve been into kaiju films since I was about six and have introduced them to my kids. My 4 y/o daughter is probably the most obsessed of them. She really digs Godzilla: King of the Monsters. And we all had a blast with Pacific Rim. I even took my eldest to see Godzilla -0.1 in theaters.
Prey is great. It really mixes up the Predator franchise and feels super fresh. It’s pretty violent but, to me, just a smidge above typical PG-13 violence—there is animal violence, so keep that in mind if that’s a problem (you see a few animals get skinned and a wolf gets disemboweled, but it’s shown from a distance and is quick; there’s a pretty intense scene with a bear that gets kinda bloody, but honestly the animal scenes are kinda obviously CGI so it doesn’t look overly realistic). There’s also a bit in the middle that’s in untranslated French, but that’s a cinematic choice. My kids were kinda distracted because they thought the subtitles were broken lol.
Two people in trench coats pull a mass shooting in order to help the world “free their minds.”
It also happened to release in the Spring of 1999…
My Neighbor Totoro is magic for children. I have four kids and each one of them, starting at around 2, would go silent and sit for the entirety of that film any time I put it on.
Showed my 10 and 9 year old boys Alien a few months back. Followed by Aliens (and then AVP). 9 year old was way more scared by Aliens and AVP than the first Alien. But I tested the water on them with Prey, which they really dug.
I’m still Christian and I adore both bands. David Bazan (Pedro the Lion) is recording some of the most theologically rich music of his career now, back under the Pedro name, as he’s come through his whole wrestling with faith. Not sure what he considers himself these days, but it’s clear that he’s never going to shake his Christian upbringing.
Like MxPx, their inclusion of faith in their lyrics became so much more honest and less forced once they left their Christian music label. They introduced me to punk.
Amazing Grace is one of those songs that uses a particular meter that allows for these kinds of tune changes. You can sing it to the tune of House of the Rising Sun as well (among others). One of my supervising/mentoring priests (Episcopal) from when I was in seminary did a Lent study on Amazing Grace and had people listen to all these different versions.
Tracy Chapman’s version is truly excellent.
The security approach was what first drew me to Apple back in like 2005. The whole focus on proprietary software that resulted in practically zero malware was definitely worth me having to do file-type conversions on documents and all that crap to keep up with people on Windows. And I loved it. And I kept adding every device and loving how seamless they all interact with each other.
But then there’s that shadow side you refer to. The gradual dumbing down of software, the constant hand-holding. The walled garden began to feel like a lock-in.
My last new Mac purchase was in 2011. I still use that machine. But I was not getting security updates and other things I use were leaving me behind so I decided to give Linux a try. Chose Ubuntu and the hardware was suddenly like new again. Apple makes beautiful machines but waste them on some increasingly basic software. My Linux-run Macs have made me fall in love with computers all over again.
If this somehow results in me being able to run like Graphene on my iPhone in a few years, or even connect my Apple Watch to a non-Apple phone, I will be pretty excited.
I have four kids and I took ~6 weeks of paternity leave for each of them (which was in my contract—I’m an Episcopal priest, though I still went in on Sundays because I was going to go to church regardless so I might as well lead services and save the parish money on paying what we call a “supply priest”). It’s absolutely worth it and don’t let anyone make you feel weird about it. You’re doing a great thing for your partner and child—as well as yourself. Babies are a lot of work for dads as well! Acting like dads don’t need paternity leave is a form of patriarchy.
I switched over to LibreWolf recently. I discovered Vivaldi just a few hours before I learned about the Manifest v3 stuff for Chromium (which is a shame because I actually LOVED Vivaldi). I really want to try Zen Browser, but I’m using old, 2011-era Macs (running Ubuntu 24.04 on one) and it won’t install. LibreWolf is great because of its clean, minimal design and absolute privacy-forward thinking. I’ve enjoyed it so far (and I’m only running it on the Ubuntu machine).
Ah yes, my favorite literary index joke
The lack of Neon Genesis Evangelion on this list disappoints me.