Tuesday, July 17, 2012

This, That, and the Other Thing

Things have been what I would classify as eventful since the weekend. Though in at least one case, more like eventful stalled – but more on that later. This is going to be a long post since I want to record the happenings for posterity. Hopefully it will not be too boring for other to read!

It all started with the celebration of a five year old’s birthday party. One of the families I home teach (explained here) is a young family with small children. The oldest one is a boy who has taken a shine to me for some inexplicable reason and is something of a problem child. Being very big and strong for his age, he is also very willful. He is also a miracle baby who should not exist according to doctors, for his mother was not supposed to be able to have children.

I have a code I live by that goes something like this: If a person who is not a moocher or leech attaches themselves to me, I feel an obligation to be as good a friend I can be to them. Now this is not a reluctant, foot dragging kind of “I have to do this” kind of feeling. Rather it is a sign to me that I need to make an effort and that the likelihood that God set this up is high.

So in this case, I have a little kid doing it and that is a first for me. It is also terrifying for a hopeless bachelor such as myself. While I am told I am good with children, my lack of experience with them makes it a very scary experience indeed. Maybe one day I will get past that, but not today.

One of the things I have done with the family is the occasional bad movie night on a Saturday evening. The father works for a small studio that puts out bad movies on DVD and Blu-ray to discount stores, so there is a good chance people in the United States have seen some of them on display. Most of them end up airing on the SciFy Channel, so they are not even B-movie bad, but grade triple Z horrible. To make up for the that, I bring over older B-movies and the occasional top notch flick. In the process of doing that, the boy stayed up and caught South Korea’s attempt to make a Godzilla style film, Yongary.

Oh boy, I had forgotten the effect kaiju movies had on me as a kid. The child was immediately hooked and became obsessed about “the big lizard.” That was all he could talk about for days and even weeks later he was asking me to bring that movie again. His father got the 1990’s Gamera reboot for him and while he enjoyed it, he prefers lizards to turtles. He’s definitely a T-Rex kind of kid.

Okay, I figure I can introduce him to the greatest kaiju of all time, Godzilla. But the original film is a little slow moving for the very hyperactive boy, so that won’t do. It also had to be an entry that I actually had in my library, so that meant Godzilla: GMK. He is still talking about that one months later. Even more surprising is that his three year old sister watched that one despite thinking she would be scared and liked it a lot. Hey, it is hard to go wrong with a big lizard, a dinosaur, a big moth, and a dragon all in one movie.

With the boy’s birthday coming up and him wanting me to stay overnight for another movie fest, I ended up trying to figure out which Godzilla film to give him on DVD. Most of them are on the cheap end, so it would be an easy gift to get. But which one?

Since Amazon is my go to place for movies, I checked what they had. Just about every film was there and Godzilla vs. Megalon was to be released. Aha! But it was not meant to be, since the studio releasing it keeps delaying the release and may go under soon. Foiled there, I surveyed what was already out.

At first, something with a large robot was my main focus, since I may have started tales with the boy about giant robots roaming the local countryside, hiding behind hills and knocking over trees. I will neither confirm or deny that.

So that meant a Mecha-Godzilla appearance, but the latest movies just did not seem appropriate. Then I ran across something that brought up memories of my childhood from when I was a few years older than the boy. It involved getting up to see a movie at midnight on a Saturday, a movie I could not wait to see.

Nothing beats a crossover in comic books, except maybe a cross over in movies. So when ads on TV came out on one of the local stations that King Kong vs. Godzilla was going to air, I was determined to see it, especially after the fiasco of missing Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which is a story unto itself. I will never forget watching the giant ape and radioactive lizard brawl, or my disappointment with the ending.

Thirty years later, I got to watch the reaction of two little kids to the film this past Saturday. That was more of an experience than seeing the film after all these years. It went over even better than I had hoped and I would not be surprised if the boy was still talking about it. He could not stop recounting all the fights even during church on Sunday. In a way, it was look back into my own past, but through a very different filter via this young child. What amused me most was how the more intense modern films did not scare him, but he had to hide under his blanket a few times during this older and milder film.

We also watched Whisper of the Heart, though I warned him it would be slow and might bore him. But he and his little sister were determined to watch it with us adults, because it is awful to be left out of things to a young mind. He somehow stayed awake through it, mainly due to the scenes featuring the Baron. I really do need to review that Blu-ray, it is superb.

That was another highlight. While I am a fan of slower and softer movies, I did not know how well it would go over with the parents. I suspected the wife would like it and identify with the main character, but I didn’t expect the husband to like it as much as he did. It shows what powerful magic Miyazaki has, in my opinion.

Being in the midst of another heat wave, sleep was fitful for all, but I did get some. So the family and I dragged into church, with the kids being quite a handful. From what I have observed, kids and small animals get ornery in the heat, so this was no surprise. Lately, I have been helping the couple out with the children, so they at least get something out of Sacrament Meeting talks. It might only be snippets, but that is more than they usually get thanks to the kids.

This had been an educational experience to say the least. While I intellectually understood the difficulties parents of young children have during church, there is nothing like directly experiencing it. Members who criticize have either not experienced it or have forgotten how hard it is to corral children under eight. Also, parents who think they are the only ones having these problems may not get a chance to see all the others having the exact same problems, simply because they are in the middle of child wrangling.

Church was good, as usual. The Elders Quorum lesson was on home teaching, so that meant I talked too much again. It is a subject I am very passionate about and something I consider to be a lynchpin of the Church functioning properly. I also found out I will be teaching Gospel Essentials for the next three weeks, so that will be nostalgic.

I forgot to mention that while I had the stay over and birthday party attendance set up well in advance, a group of my friends threw together a short notice cookout for Sunday afternoon. That meant I was going to be pushing my limits after getting over Lyme Disease.

We went back to my home teachee’s house for lunch and the birthday cake, plus I did get the monthly lesson in. It is always a good experience there and very spiritual despite the mayhem. Things ran a little late and I called to get details on where the cookout would be, because there was talk it had changed locations. I didn’t connect, but left a message.

Figuring that I had fifty percent chance of going to the right place, I decided to head for the farthest location, which was a good forty minutes away. If it was not the location, I was sure I’d get a cellphone call or text within that time span. Well, I arrived and nobody was there. Okay, too tired to keep going, I decided to head home. Ninety minutes after I called, I finally got a text message…

…When I was fifteen minutes from home. The moment my foot crossed the threshold to my house, I felt every erg flow out of me and realized I had gotten myself dangerously tired. If I had gone to the cookout in this heat, I would have been in serious trouble from it. Sometimes things do not work out for the better.

In fact, I ended up going to bed just after eight PM and slept for twelve hours. Yesterday, I ended up gaming online with some of those invited and I forgot to ask if they made the gathering, so I was still tired. But at least I was functional, which I would not have been if I had guessed correctly on the location. Such are the trials and tribulations of having Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Energy management is all important when you do not have much to begin with.

Speaking, or more accurately, writing of Monday, it was fairly decent given that Monday’s tend to burnout recovery days for me. Gaming was good with the exception of a disastrous attempt at PvP in League of Legends by the group. We made up for it in Dungeon Defenders, a game we just started playing. There is nothing like starting a level and realizing is says “boss fight” with no clue on what is going to happen. Yet there is also nothing like killing said boss in your first attempt and picking up epic loot. Even better is when you are the MVP for that level.

I figure we will be playing this one awhile, so I picked up a leprechaun skin for fifty cents during Steam’s summer sale. It fits my apprentice, since I had him in shades of green anyway.

Monday was also productive, because I managed to sit through and take notes on all of the extras on the next review I am desperately trying to get written before Friday. Screen capturing and editing is next, with writing following. So this is likely to be the only post before it goes up, but one never knows.

RightStuf sent me a postcard ad for Fractale and I received that yesterday to my amusement. Today is the official release of the Blu-ray/DVD set, but I already got it early from them. Still, it is a nice memento and I put it inside the slip case. It heartens me that they and Funimation are advertising it.

Now to the biggest news and that started on Sunday too. I got a call from my father that he had just gotten off the phone with my sister, Ann. She was in the maternity ward a month early and the doctors were giving her drugs to induce labor. That had my dad in a tizzy and fortunately for me, I was with the young couple at the time. Having been through all sorts of medical issues regarding pregnancies, the wife told me that it was nothing to worry about and the situation was not abnormal at all.

As of last night, labor had subsided and the drugs failed to do their job. So it is time to back off and let nature handle things for the moment. A lot is up in the air right now, which means all we can do is wait and see.

Not a boring weekend by any means and it brings to mind a question I asked of someone: Would you rather be bored or overwhelmed by things?

I know my answer.

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