The Last Airbender review

I got to go to a screening of the Last Airbender tonight (Thanks Ty!). As I was walking to the theater I started to go through the checklist of things I was going to pay attention to so I could rip them apart later: The casting in Aang. The canned dialog. Vaguely Asian setting and architecture. I sat down and after about a 15 minute martial arts demonstration by ATA Martial Arts, the same school Noah Ringer (Aang) studies under, the lights went down.

Here's a point by point breakdown:

1. This movie sucks big time.

2. Holy crap! Is that...Aasif Mandvi from the Daily Show?

3. Noah Ringer does his best to get through this movie and he deserves a lot of credit. As much controversy as there is about the casting of this movie I think it would be unfair for this kid to feel any hate for it. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

4. This movie really, really sucks.

5. It's amazing how Asian a movie can become when you surround the mostly white lead cast with actual Asian supporting actors. Give them slight accent and gold.

6. That IS Aasif Mandvi! For the rest of the movie I just kept expecting him to turn it back over to Jon Stewart.

7. I think if I knew more about the original series there would be more to criticize but in the end I came away disappointed by yet another whitewashed Hollywood film, happy that I didn't pay to see it, a slight headache from the HORRIBLE 3D and relieved that the movie was so bad that it took away any threat of doing real damage. I'm keeping my eyes on this Leonardo DiCaprio Akira movie. Now that's gonna piss me off.

Invitation to SPAM

So it looks like the comments stretching out on Charlie's blog are Engrishy Chinese phrases. Get your degree in Engrish here. So I'm asking you the reader to do what any sensible person would do in this situation: post your own Engrishy nonsense!

Shhh...check this out

Back in March, Charlie published a blog post about Michio Kaku, the "SciFi Science Guy". Since that post a strange thing started to happen. Comments started slowly trickling in and are now completely in what looks like some dialect of Chinese. Check it out. Anyone know what they're talking about? Charlie is so freaked out he hasn't posted anything since then. Help the guy out!

SAM's growing family

And baby makes four. Having two kids is a whole new ball game and SAM and I are going to be learning as we go. So far it has made me wish I could create another me so I can hang out with the kids AND get some work done. But just when I think it's all too much, I see the two kids interact and all the pressure evaporates. Kids rule.

Dragons are real

This struck me while reading a book about mythological creatures to my son. Strange how so many cultures have dragons in their mythologies but can have different takes on them. Personally I think they're pretty damn cool and would like to think they'd be fun to hang out with.

Quick! Gets the bags! It's time!

We had our second son a few months back so this strip is more of a reflection of that time. And as stressful as it got it seemed a lot more calm the second time. I left for work with the feeling that today was going to be the day. I sit down and just as I start getting into the day's work the phone rings and my wife tells me we should go to the hospital. I gather my things, get home, meet my wife and older son (it was right before school was to begin), we get in the car (that we didn't have last time), I drive to the hospital (with my brand new driver's license), we check in, our son gets picked up by my sister-in-law and we're off to the delivery room.

OK, OK. I wasn't the one having the baby but the atmosphere was a lot less hectic and scary. Although at one point we had kind of a weird and creepy nurse.

Having two kids is definitely different than just one and surely there are plenty of misadventures ahead.

So...what am I?

Being a mix-ed race/multiracial/bi-racial/mutt/HAPA was not in my experience growing up but I'm learning all about it through my son. It's still very much in the background but I know as he grows older I'm going to have the pleasure of tackling a whole new set of issues!