Today was a day. It was pretty uneventful. It kept threatening to rain all day long, which kept me from accomplishing anything outdoors, and of course it never rained a single drop. I was so bored at this morning I cooked some of our Easter dinner: a ham, scalloped potatoes, and a forgettable vegetable. Tomorrow it will definitely rain, and it's going to snow the next day, so expect more posts like this. The kids have already declared that Friday is movie day...
What I'm listening to
How Did This Get Made? (podcast) - In my humble opinion, this is the best podcast out there currently. Together the three co-hosts, Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, and Jason Mantzoukas, dissect terrible movies in just under an hour so that you don't have to watch them yourself (if you don't want to.) Paul is pragmatic in his study of film. June examines film with a feminist's perspective. And Jason is just Jason; if you've ever seen him on screen, you know what that means. Together they combine forces for an absolutely hilarious 60 minutes every other week. This week they tackled the Matt Damon epic The Great Wall. I'll admit that I avoided this movie when it came out, because it looked like a boring period piece with lots of cultural appropriation. (The Last Samurai, anyone?) Had I known about the sci-fi plot twist that the podcast revealed, I probably would have enthusiastically gone to see this movie. And then I would have been utterly disappointed, but that's beside the point. This podcast comes out every other week, and Paul does a mini-episode where he deals with corrections, omissions, and fan mail in the off week. He also gives out his phone number so that fans can text him questions and other things.
What I'm watching today
GoNoodle (YouTube streaming) - This is a series of children's videos that are made to encourage kids to exercise and be active. The 7yo has danced along to them at school during PE and indoor recess. Basically each short 2-5 minute video features animated characters, or a musical/comedy troupe, or both singing songs that usually involve some kind of dance or synchronized motion. Some of the songs are marginally educational, but that's not the point. The point is to get kids moving. Some of the troupes include Blazer Fresh, a Boyz II Men-esque trio that performs educational rap/Motown-style numbers; MooseTube a quartet that includes a beat-boxer, a moose, and two women who radiate a summer camp counselor vibe and sing goofy camp songs; and Koo Koo Kangaroo, a comedy dance-pop act that sings silly songs about fanny packs, and poop, and stuff. There are a lot of people online decrying GoNoodle for the sometimes poor video quality and typically nonsensical songs. These people do not get it. I thought these videos were fun, effective, and hilarious. Speaking of hilarious, the video Hola Bonjour Hello provided me with the title of this post, which would be perfect on a T-shirt.
What I'm doing today
Patrolling - My wife had an early morning online meeting scheduled for school, so rather than try to keep the kids quiet for an hour I just got them out of the house. Since it was warm and just a little overcast, we did a two-mile loop around the neighborhood. There weren't very many people out and about at that time so we breezed through the park just to mix it up.
Mailing - The mail carrier was stealthy today and I completely missed him when he dropped off our mail. As a result I had to drop off a package at the post office. I have a few options for where to mail stuff out. I could go to the Colorado Springs-Criterion post office where the lines are always long and the customers are always unprepared. No thanks. I could go to the Colorado Springs-Montarbor post office, which is more of the same plus a treacherous parking lot. Hard pass. Or I could go to the Black Forest post office (technically still in Colorado Springs) where the drive is nice and the lines are nonexistent. Seriously, the Black Forest post office is in the back of an old-timey country store, and on the way there you're almost guaranteed to see horses and pronghorns. So that's where we went. Once we dropped off our package the kids and I decided to extend the trip and drive around Black Forest to see what other wildlife we could see. We lost count of all the pronghorns, but they probably numbered at least 50. We spotted at least 20 deer. There were 12 horses and 2 cows. And there was one alpaca. I attempted to get a photo of the pronghorns for the east-coasters who might be reading this and don't know what a pronghorn is, but by the time I turned around and came back to the spot, the herd had moved along and was too far away to get a good shot.
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