Review: Wall-E
Well, I can not hide the fact (especially since I mentioned it last week) that I was really looking forward to seeing the latest Pixar Studio creation, Wall-E. This is of course, a double edge sword. On the one hand (and I have no problem admitting it), I am a Pixar fan. They have completely redone animation, and made it not about creating a cartoon, but about using the animated medium to tell real stories, with solid plotlines (much to the chagrin of some that can’t seem to get past the fact that the story is animated and I guess would prefer a mindless slapstick piece instead.)
On the other hand with high expectations, comes the potential for a monumental disappointment. I mean, Pixar hasn’t thrown a clunker (in my opinion) since A Bug’s Life.
So, this weekend I piled the family into the car and we headed off to see the latest installment. The one thing that concerned me, and I did not fill in TheWife and LatteGirl in on ahead of time, was that the first 1/2 hour or so of the film has absolutely no dialog, and I wasn’t sure how this would play out. We also had the issue that LatteGirl was uncertain about going to see this movie. Her friends had already tagged this a “boys film” because it deals with space and robots. So, she was leery to begin with, and was the complete opposite of my “highly anticipated” vantage point, and I thought would or could pose an interesting alternate views of the movie.
I won’t hold out any longer to let you know.. I loved this movie. Pixar once again showed, that not only are they masters at animation, they are excellent story tellers. But what did the skeptical 8 year old think? She loved it even more than I did. How much? Well, before we actually got home from the theater, she asked if we could go see it again next week, and even offered to use her birthday money to pay for everyone to go again.
It really didn’t take long for me to get past my original complaint about how Wall-E looked like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. I completely forgot about it very quickly and just saw the new character. The graphics in this film looked a bit more… I don’t know… “cartoony” than some other Pixar films, but that was probably a conscience decision as it really fit the scenery and futuristic theme and feel of the movie quite well.
There were some message’s in this film that people who are so dead set against having a clean planet that any message along those lines is a battle cry of “subversive,” “anti-consumer,” “anti-corporation” and other such non-sense. It is true, there is certainly a stance being shown, how we need to care for our planet and care for ourselves. But, only if you are so hell bent on being “anti-human” does it really affect your movie experience. (I could go on about this for some time, but this is about the movie, so I will stop here on this particular matter… for now)
I am not going to try and break this film down. One, I never do “spoilers” and two, there is just no way (without the spoilers) I could do this any justice, other than to say this. For those with “boys” (I put that in quotes, because I am sure there are some girls that enjoy this stuff as well) there is space and robots and slap-stick comedy. For the “girls,” there is the pre-adolescent sort of “chick flick” love story angle. For everybody, there is a good time to be had. Load up the family and take ‘em all to see Wall-E.
Ideas that were better on the drawing board
Pants in a Pinch – a pair of pants that is vacuumed into a disc the size of your palm that is actually a pair of pants for your 3 to 36 month old child (up to 6T supposedly available by special order). I get the idea that these are “In case of Emergency” pants, but at $20 pair I am not so sure how great a deal it is. I mean how many people travel with a small child, and don’t have some sort of backup apparel in a bag, the trunk of the car, etc where you can stash something for these types of situations? And I guess whether you used them or not, you would have to keep buying a new size as you go along, as with the rest of the clothes, but then what do you do with the old one? Pass it along? Maybe I am being too hard on them, but it just doesn’t seem to make a heck of a lot of sense to me.
BabyPlays – I heard this described as the “Netflix of Baby Toys.” I dunno, to me this sounds like an idea that would have (and perhaps should have) come (and more importantly GONE) during the dotBomb era of bad business plans. Let you child play with toys that come in the mail, play with them, then send them back and get new toys. Oh sure, at a marketing meeting this sounds great, it is a great pitch story. Keeps parents from having too many toys around the house, and reduces clutter, of toys that have a limited life in a child’s world. Marketing. But it starts to fall apart in practice as I see it, especially with infant and small child toys where you would think this makes the most sense.
Toys from small kids are generally soft and contain lots of foam. It doesn’t take much to immediately think about every child that has drooled, chewed and spit up on that toy before it arrives in your mailbox. Of course the company says that they sanitize the toys, but how becomes the big issue. Too little santizing, the surface is clean but everything that is caught in the foam remains behind only to be reconstituted when your child’s wet drooling mouth comes in contact with it. Too much santizing and the foam breaks down, and the toy rendered less that appealing. $36/month gets you 4 toys per month (and plans go up from there). I don’t know about you, but with a minimum plan of 3 months or $108 total, I can get an awful lot of toys (especially baby toys) for that price. Again, I guess there is a market of some sort for this type of service, but the thought of rental toys just doesn’t work for me.
Scan-It Operation Checkpoint Toy XRay
Photobucket Faux Pas – The photo sharing site Photobucket ran into a heap of trouble with users, when they deleted pictures of diaper clad babies by Good Mama Diapers, as claimed it was because the pictures depicted ‘nudity’ They have since, backed down and admitted it was their mistake.
Seen a dumb product (or an awesome one) that you think should be highlighted on TechParent (look for the new separate blog coming soon), e-mail it to me at jaymonster at the gmail dot com.
Game Decisions made Easier
OK, so your kid wants a new game for their PS3 (Xbox360, Wii, PS2, GameCube, etc). Check out WhatTheyPlay.com. Sure there are plenty of sites out there that give you information about games, what is good, what is hot and what is not. But that is not what this site is about.
WhatTheyPlay tells you in plain English what the ESRB categories are (for those that don’t already know), and some of the explainations that go along with it, so that you can get enough unbiased information to make your own decision, because honestly, while the ESRB ratings are generally a good guideline, there are some areas that are a bit murky, such as some of the warnings about things like “Alcohol References.”
What exactly does “Alcohol References” mean? After all, you may not want you kids playing a game that glorifies drinking, right? And based solely on the box, with other point of reference, even though the rating may be right, that “Alcohol Reference” may give you pause, because there is no way of knowing. And this is where WhatTheyPlay comes in. Now a couple of examples from the site that I have seen include the games, DiRT a rally game, and Cooking Mama: Cook Off. Both of these games have “Alcohol Reference” listed on the box. But according to the site, DiRT’s only alcohol reference is your passenger mentioning “cracking open the champagne” when you win, and Cooking Mama mentions cooking with wine. Obviously not what most people thing of as “Alcohol References” in a game.
There is also an “Ask GamerDad” column, where you ca read questions and answers from other parents, or you can ask GamerDad a question of your own. The Site not only covers the PS3, Xbox360 and Wii, it also covers the PS2, Gamecube, PC and Macintosh as well as the handheld games like GameBoy Advanced, Nintendo DS, and the Playstation Portable. If you want to find out “What is hot and what is not” go to someplace like 1up.com. But for information to make your own decision on titles you may or may not wish your children to play. Don’t depend on gossip around the water cooler about who got there kids what game, and whether or not it was appropriate, check out WhatTheyPlay.com and get the facts you need to decide for yourself.
While, this came off more like an advertisement than I intended, this is not some PayPerPost type promotion. Matter of fact, there is no advertising here at all from WhatTheyPlay at all. I was just that impressed with the whole idea, it is an excellent tool for parents.
I can make no guaratees as time (as previously mentioned) has been at a premium, but it has been my long standing (and hopefully now coming to fruition) idea to start a Tech Tuesday for Parents. Next Tuesday, I am currently looking at posting some information and doing some research on Blu Ray now that the format war is over. If you have any questions you would like answered, or information on a particular Blu Ray product, drop me a note over at JayMonster and that is at Google’s Gmail with a dot com ending (just let me see a screen scraper try to harvest that!)
Eye in the Sky
If you are out and about over the next couple of evenings, and if the skies are clear in your area, you just may want to look up and see what you are missing. Over the next couple of days, the Spy Satellite that is in a decaying orbit, will make several passes over the U.S. To see when and where you can see it where you live, go to Heavens-Above.com, enter your Lat. and Long. (you can do it by selecting a map, but make sure you do it, it doesn’t quite make it clear that you need to follow this step. But if you don’t, you will not get the correct views for your area). Of course, the current plan is for the Satellite to be shot down on Wednesday, so your time may be limited.
Also, tomorrow (Feb 20th), will be the final Lunar Eclipse until December 21, 2010. It should be fully visible according to Space.com for virtually all of the US (Alaska, Hawaii, and Western Oregon may miss various amounts of the beginning), and Western Europe (although western Europe would have to rise early Thursday morning to see it). More details can be found at the Luna Eclipse information page on Space.com.
You don’t need a telescope or any special equipment to see these events. As a matter of fact, since the satellite is in such low orbit, it will probably move across the horizon too fast to really enjoy (or get a good lock on) through the telescope (though it would certainly be fun with the Lunar Eclipse).
Exert a little control
We all know it is dificult to exert control over your kids. But there are certainly places where, regardless of what you or they want, you have to maintain some control. And one of those places is certainly controlling how, where, and how long then spend on the Internet. Yes, some obvious rules apply such as keeping computers that you allow the kids to use to be in common areas where it is easier to keep an eye on them. But let us be honest for a moment. Can you really keep an eye on them every second? Do you really want to?
There are already of course some worthwhile programs out there like NetNanny, and they are even built in to some Anti-Virus packages these days (I know Symantec has it in their Suite, and I am pretty sure McAfee does as well). But they all have costs.
For those either economically challenged, or just don’t need another expense (or just want another, possibly better) program, Crawler Parental Control software just might be worth taking a look at. It does what the other programs do, prevents your children from visiting sites they should not be looking at, and prevents them from installing software (as an option) so that they can’t inadvertently install a virus.
What made me look at this originally was the other additional features that the package had, including ability to schedule time. You can create pre-set periods of time that the computer can be used, both online and offline. So, say if you want to limit you child to 1 hour of Web Surfing, but don’t mind if they are on the computer for 2 hours doing homework, you can set that up. When time expires, they can not access anything any longer (without you entering a password to override it to allow more time).
This program is probably useless for teenagers and older that can find ways to circumvent the application, and there are some bugs and few things that are quirky, but for free it is worth checking out. I put this on LatteGirl’s computer, and so far have been quite satisfied with the results.
You can see a more complete review of the product at Confessions of a freeware junkie.
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