THE SHRUBRAG

Gadget Saturation

Check out my impressive list of 21st century toys:

Droid Primary Use: Communication (texting, phone calls etc)      Secondary uses: Taking and showing pictures, playing music. 

I love this thing. I can now listen to NPR at work, use a voice activated things-to-do list, watch YouTube videos at work, check the weather, use a timer for making the kids finish certain activites, find locations of businesses I need to get to, etc etc. Its the Swiss army knife of gadgets.

Sansa mp3 Player Primary Use: Playing music.    Secondary Use: None

Larisa uses this to play musical programs at school.

Nintendo DS Primary Use: Playing games    Secondary Use: Listening to music

I have a game cartridge that is effectively an adapter for a microSD card. I can load as many games as I want on it, as well as a rudimentary OS and music player. The Droid has taken over music playing for me though, it has better controls.

Sony Digital Picture Frame Primary Use: Showing pics  Secondary Use: None

I have at this at work and love it. It shows all my favorite kids and ba ckpacking pics, game screenshots, and movie scenes.

Camera Primary Use: Taking pictures and video. Secondary use: None

The Droid has somewhat taken over the picture taking role. Its just so much more convenient since I always carry it, I can take a picture quickly, which is great for kids. For certain scenarios, by the time I find the camera, the moment is gone. Of course, the Droid's camera is not great. Pictures taken indoors are sub par and the shutter speed needs improvement.

My PC "NEXUS" Primary use: Gaming, communicating, pic and music management, movie and Netflix viewing, and essentially all of the above. I built this badboy myself and am very proud of it. Its where I spend most of my personal time when at home after the kids are in bed.

Now all we need to do is integrate all these things into one unit, without losing any functionality. Considering how far we have come in 20 years, it won't be long before we only need one device, and thereby freeing up some space in our pockets, bags, and electrical outlets.

The Parenting Achievement in Video Games

I often feel paranoid about telling people I enjoy playing video games. I will be 40 in 4 years and God help me, I still love fragging noobs in Team Fortress 2. But I am a member of the Atari generation and I know there are others like me out there, especially now days since the explosion of portable and console gaming. Its only a matter of time before others join my ranks as an older gamer. Still, I have this deep-seeded fear of judgment from people who have more productive hobbies.

Of course the reason for my paranoia is retribution from people who believe I am wasting my time. I feel as if the stereotype of an overweight, under-achieving, and unmotivated wastoid, while beginning to crumble in today's digital revolution, still lingers in the minds of non-gamers. To those people I say, using the...uh, word of the great General Anthony McAuliffe, "Nuts!" Particularly in the arena of child rearing, I believe my experience with gaming has helped me stem the tide of stressful situations with which every parent is familiar.  As every parent knows, a major responsibility is ensuring the safety of a toddler. The art of walking is not learned all at once and can take years to master. Lyla has been walking for about 6 months now but still has the gait of a drunken sailor. Falling down is a leading cause of tearful outbursts, most of which is simply for attention from the parents yet can still be very efficient at significantly increasing stress damage to the parent's body. The ability to predict and prevent a fall could be viewed as a superpower when considering that doing so saves the parent from any further anxiety...every little bit counts. Now I may look like a big-headed goofball, but my reflexes are keen. There is quite a lot of data on the correlation between video game playing and improved reflexes. I can honestly say, as a scientist, that I believe this to be true, mostly from personal experience where I catch something falling before it hits the ground. Sometimes I do so with such speed that I can't believe it myself. Its like that scene in Ronin where DeNiro purposely knocks a coffee mug off the table to test the skills of Stellan Skarsgard. I even have empirical evidence: I have 20/15 vision, which is superior to 20/20. My point being, there have been several real instances where my video game-honed reflexes have averted disaster by catching Ellie or Lyla from falls which could have seriously hurt them. I remember one time in particular, I was playing with Ellie on the bed, she jumped in a bad direction and I lunged with lightning speed, and caught her leg as she was keeling over.

Feeding time is another prime example, but in this case, hand and eye coordination comes into play. Lyla was a particularly messy eater. She would squirm to no end and make herself a moving target for incoming spoonfuls of baby food. To this day, she hates sitting in the high chair for meals. Whenever Larisa was done with Lyla after a feeding, there would be baby food everywhere. When I, on the other hand, took the feeding responsibility, there was nary a mess....Larisa gave me warnings on how messy it would be before the feeding, but then gave me praise and disbelief at how clean she was afterward. The same goes for the changing table. Lyla hates getting diapers changed. Getting a kid diapered and clothed takes a fair amount of deftness, especially when the kid has some kind of "changing-table" neurosis and wriggles like a little monkey.

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, video games can help me on a more social level, specifically in 2 arenas. For one thing, playing them gives me an activity that I can enjoy with my kids when they get a little bit older. It will be common ground on which we can meet. Ellie has watched me play games since she was a newborn and has even dabbled in some DS games, but she doesn't quite have the development in her hand/eye coordination yet, nor the mature logic to deal with some of the puzzles you can run into. But once she and Lyla get to be about 7ish, I think we can all start playing stuff together more regularly. I look forward to that. I'm sure that won't last of course, as they get to an age where they won't revere their parents as much. This is when the other benefit comes in. I have mentioned in the past that playing these games gives me a small window into the lives of younger people: how they talk, what drives them....a very basic glimpse of their mentality and motivations. Even at this rudimentary level, I believe this will be helpful in many ways in the future.

Origins of The Shrubrag

"The towel is the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have...any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with."                -Ford Prefect, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

As surprising as it is, the name for my blog was not pulled out of the ether. There is actually a series of events which led to the title.

It all began in high school. Most of my teachers could not pronounce my last name, Schreiber, correctly. The C is silent, a concept difficult to grasp for these teachers. They would pronounce it "Skriber". Well, high school being what it is, the kids pounce on any little thing that is outside of their boundry of ordinary. If its not mainstream, it must be taunted. Someone turned Skriber into Scrubner....as in to be a scrub, which the Urban Dictionary has many meanings for, such as a person who sucks at life or someone below your level. And that was that, the name stuck, I was Scrubner from there on, for the rest of my inglorious high school career.

Fast forward to college. At the beginning of my sophomore year, I was hanging out with some new floor mates.  We were all just starting to get acquainted with each other. Jason and Todd were roommates and had invited me into their room with some other people to drink some beers and break the ice. They became close friends of mine for the rest of my college career. During this impromptu introductory imbibition, I told Todd about my experience with high school nick names. Later in the night, Todd wanted to say something to me using the high school nick name, and in his ethanol-fueled daze, he started by saying, "You know.....erm, Shrubs..." and we both bust out laughing. From that point on, the name stuck. And I mean really stuck, everyone knew me as Shrubs or Shrubby. It got to the point where it was weird if someone called me by my real name.

The "-rag" portion of the title came later. I began to get into hiking and backpacking after living in Colorado for a summer and I found the use of bandanas to be of great benefit, either for keeping sweat out of my eyes, cleaning cookware, draining pasta, or even nearly giving me hypothermia if you read my last post. I found the bandana to have as much importance as that seen by Ford Prefect in a towel while hitchhiking through space on the Vogon construction ship. It just so happens that Todd was backpacking with me and some other friends a long time ago and he noticed my infatuation with bandanas. He put 2 and 2 together, and hence, the SHRUBRAG was born! 

The name not only encompasses a large portion of my life but it suits as a good name for a blog with the double meaning of rag as a newspaper or tabloid. If the shoe fits, wear it. Or in this case, the bandana.

Winter Backpacking 2010 - The Roaring Plains, WV

This marks my third trip on a snow-shoeing sojourn with a group of friends who have made the annual trip for 6 years now. I have been fortunate to partake in 3 of them. Or unfortunate, depending on your point of view. I, for one, am in my element on these trips.

I missed last year due to the birth of my daughter, Lyla. And as a result of her birth and subsequent time usurpation, I am in the worst shape of my life. I did not think I would be able to make this year's trip. My fellow backpackers are all in terrific shape. The result of course was that I lagged on the caboose end of the hiking train for most of the trip. But I succeeded with mastering the snow-choked trail with a re-energized karma from peaceful white vistas, a brain full of fond memories, and a new purpose to shed this "baby" weight.

The final tally for the trip was about 14 miles in 3 days, with a total vertical gain of 2200 feet, 1800 of which was on the first day alone. Don't forget that we were snowshoeing in snow that was 2 feet deep most of the time, and as much as 6 feet deep at others. In short, this was no small feat.

I will spare you the hiking details. But I feel it would do myself a great favor if I were to tally some of my learned lessons, mostly regarding gear. As my snow backpacking experience mounts every year, so does my ownership of the proper gear for such trips. I always find on these trips, that its tiny little things can make your experience all the more tolerable.

The headliner for this year was a pair of gloves. I'm not talking about your every day boring gloves here. I'm talking about hardcore Winter hiking mittens made with down filling and heavily padded palms. Made by North Face, these mittens had long cuffs, nose-wiping fabric on the thumbs, and wrist straps to keep the gloves within reach when using your bare hands for something. On the last trip, I had bought a pair of Outdoor Research gloves. What a disappointment. The inside liner would continually get pulled out when I took them off, making for putting them back on a huge hassle to get the fingers back into the outside covering. Not to mention that they got pretty wet from general snow on my hands and I had to hold them under my armpits when I had them off.

Next would be my sleeping regime. My bag is rated to 15 deg F. That's pretty cold, but there have been instances where the temps get below that on some of these trips. The first time I used it, temps got below zero. I was chilly at first but eventually warmed up. Regardless, I did not sleep well. A liner makes all the difference, as well as doubling up the sleeping pads. I used a Thermarest air mattress as well as a closed cell foam pad. My butt never once caught a chill on this trip.

Probably the most important thing to manage on a snow back-packing trip is body temperature. Balancing the correct amount of clothes and temperature comfort can be difficult. I had always heard that sweating in a cold environment can be bad. I found that to be true the last day. Being the 3rd day, the entire hiking team was spent from snow shoeing in deep powder, thankfully the majority of the final day was substantially downhill. But there was a small uphill portion, just after crossing a stream and passing through a sparse wooded area being used as a communal home for deer, that lead up to the fire road out. This section of trail just about killed me and I was sweating my ass off. I decided to put on one of my trusted bandannas for comfort but forgot to take it off after hitting the road and descending the last mile to the trail head. This was a mistake. After getting into the car, I immediately began to feel nauseous and my fingers began to tingle to the point of feeling as though they were vibrating. One of my fellow hikers turned on my heated seat and we stopped for some hot chocolate. That got my core temperature back up. The point is, what you wear is probably the most important and annoying issue to contend with. I would suggest to my future self to seriously consider what I am going to wear for that day's trekking.

So ended another epic trip into the wintry wilderness. As always, it was an experience I will never forget. The pictures I took along with the movie that Trumbauer made were spectacular and will help make our trip into the Roaring Plains last a lifetime.

You can see more pics here and a video here.

Slacktivism

One of my most favorite sites to visit is Reddit. Its a social bookmarking and aggregating site much like Digg, except without the nefarious power users. Reddit is my principal means of internet perusal during down time at work. I love using it for discovering new internet fodder as well as being part of a smart and diverse community.

But Reddit has its faults. It is notoriously liberal to the extreme, so much so that it tends to be a breeding ground and safe haven for 9/11conspiracy theorists, a platform for the liberal version of neo-conservatives, and a soap box for naive idealists. I noticed this extremism immediately, especially in the Politics subreddit. Over time, I began to notice something else: the majority of posts tended only to complain or enlighten us about certain political situations and their impact on the populace or the world. Hardly anyone ever proposes a viable way to achieve the change they desire. They simply post a link to some liberal website with relevant content or make comments supporting those views. No one was getting involved and nothing was being done to effect actual change. There is a word for this phenomenon: slacktivism. Slacktivism is a form of support for a social cause that has little practical effect other than making the person doing it feel good about themselves and its probably more rampant than you realize. The red ribbons for AIDS is an early example, but more recent examples would be ribbon magnets on your car, internet petitions, rubber wrist bands, or even the recent "put the color of your bra as your status update in Facebook" campaign for breast cancer awareness. While all of these things certainly have decent intentions behind them, they don't really achieve much to fight the cause.

As someone who recognizes the lack of any real activism, I try to be a neutral, unifying and motivating voice on Reddit, and have even tried to instigate something more tangible than bytes of info in random blog posts, such as a marches, demonstrations, or writing letters to congressmen, old-school style. I may be an independent with liberal leanings but I try to work more as a devil's advocate for each side by forcing them to view an issue as if they are looking at it through the eyes of their opponent. You have to understand how the other person sees a situation if you want to be productive together. But its insanely difficult in the current political environment: Democrats are bitter about the atrocious Bush years, and Republicans are bitter about being severely marginalized. Both are acting like 2-year-olds.

My hope would be that the current populist revolt might effect some change, but I sincerely doubt it. One of the greatest problems which tends to impede progress in Congress is the inability of people to disagree with a party platform. People have a tendency to side with their party's ideals no matter how insane or wrong it is, simply for the fact of blind loyalty. I view it as an American citizen's responsibility to always question their leader's true motives, no matter what party is in power and with what party a citizen is affiliated. This is why I think the Daily Show is so good. Jon Stewart has no qualms with ridiculing both parties and frequently castigates Obama. This is called integrity and I fully respect it. "News networks" such as MSNBC and Fox cannot make any claim they have such a characteristic. The people of this country have to stop being so one-side minded.

In the end, all of this political recourse is a distraction. We are meant to think we getting issues resolved and problems fixed. In reality, things are getting worse. And no one can see it. For some strange reason we thrive on conflict and petty gossip. We wear our rubber bracelets, sign internet petitions and voice our political opinions to each other and it seems like our participation is achieving something substantial. In my humble opinion, nothing has changed, the status quo rules all, stagnation and declination march on, and the American public doesn't seem to care. We have been rendered numb by the explosion of personal pleasure, info-tainment, and internet ramblings. Meanwhile, innocent people in other countries die by our hands, super-banks and corporations rob us blind, and the education bar gets set lower every year. But we have 42" flat screen TVs, high-speed internet connections, dopamine-inducing processed foods, and comfy warm homes. Why should we want to change anything?

While Bush was in power, people often complained about his attacks on privacy, i.e. the right of government to tap any phone they want without a warrant. The users of Reddit were screaming about how this was the beginning of Big Brother from 1984. But I think a much more subtle means of control is being used. Aldous Huxley wrote a book called A Brave New World which I think captures our true current environment. This cartoon sums it up nicely.

The Devil Inside

"Everyone needs to take a walk to the dark end of the street sometimes." -Nero in "Strange Days"

"I may be bad, but I feel gooood." -Evil Sheila in "Army of Darkness

Hanging on my rear view mirror of the Grey Goose is this little trinket. Its a doll made completely out one piece of string and one of several items I own which are fiscally worthless but sentimentally priceless. There are 2 reasons for this: 1 - it was given to me as a gift from both Larisa and Gillian. They had bought it when shopping in San Francisco when I traveled there last. 2 - its the devil.

Now, before you go and call me a Satan worshiper, let me just say that I am not. I  don't worship any specific deity. Nor am I an atheist. I suppose I am one of the most annoying kinds of believers, the agnostics. We are wishy-washy and can't commit to either side, but that doesn't mean we do not have morals. My Dad said something once that stuck with me. He said, "I believe we are all born with God, a purely good concept, inside of us, that we are all born as good people, but that its outside influences that can corrupt that goodness". For the most part then, those of us who do not resign ourselves to a certain belief system, are good....we have positive morals, and have had them since birth. This I believe.

But I also believe that we are all born with the ability to do wrong. Its human nature to occasionally commit acts which may be seen as bending the rules of social conduct. This is evident in all children who constantly push the limits of the restrictions which rule their lives to see what they can get away with. These are not necessarily amoral acts I am talking about, just some harmless mischief. One of the reasons I liked the Matrix movies is the people who became enlightened were the ones who chose to bend and push the limits of society's rules. By being bad, they ultimately wanted to do good. By yielding to their inner devils, they were able to conquer evil (well, sort of, the end of the 3rd one leaves it in the air I thought).

Everyone has a devil inside of them. I don't care how perfect you claim to be, from the Pope down to the holiest bum on the street. We all have a dark side. Its called being a human being. Even the Bible acknowledges every human being is born with sin. It is how we manage that dark side which defines us as a person. I often think that people who acknowledge their dark side but do not let it control them tend to be more balanced individuals. The ones who decide to ignore it, deny its existence, and even chastise those who choose to flaunt a mischievous streak, are not only being hypocrites, but are also less mentally balanced. They cannot reconcile their innate temptations with their personal concept of moral goodness. This is why Republicans who are caught cheating, skimming a few dollars, or general ethic chastising are crucified. They tout moral purity and condemn amoral activities but in the end, they are just like any other human being who enjoys sex, drugs, and money. Democrats tend to be just as corrupt but are not as subject to public scrutiny since they are not known for upholding strong moral standards. Individuals who successfully integrate their dark side, embrace yet dominate it, they are more honest about themselves as well as know who they really are. And as I have said in the past, I truly, truly believe that if you want to be happy in life, you must first find out who you really are, know what you want out of life, being completely and utterly comfortable with your position in it. Coming to terms with your dark side is part of that journey.

My Manbag

If you were a part of the generation which watched Thursday comedy on NBC, you are familiar with Friends. If you were a loyal watcher, then you remember the episode in which Joey starts using a handbag to look more sophisticated. Everyone makes fun of him for carrying a purse, and to counteract it, he calls it a "Man Bag".

To consider Joey from Friends as a pioneer of anything is pure silliness, but in the case of the Man Bag, I think we have to make an exception. The ability of Joey to bring a man's right to carry a purse into the public spotlight was only a small part of a revolution. Before long, certainly as the as the new century started, the lines between the roles of men and women began to blur. I would say it is completely common today that a man is proactive in sharing housekeeping chores with his wife. You are just as likely to see a man taking his kid with him to the supermarket as you are a woman doing the same. This revolution against the pre-concieved notions of the role of the sexes and baby boomer customs, coupled with the explosion of hand-held devices birthed by the digital age, necessitated men to begin using purses to carry all of their toys. And in order to deflect any belittling of the oft-illogical male ego, we changed the "purse" name. Hence, the Man Bag was born!

Over the years, I have collected many things which I like to have with me at all times. Part of it is conceding to that male part of me which tends to get sentimentally attached to useless objects, part of it is living by my backpacker mentality of being prepared for anything, and part of it comes out of that little boy in every man who will always love playing with toys, i.e. gadgets and tools.

So here I present to you my man bag. And to defend my "right" to a man bag, I am listing its contents here as proof of a fully intact manhood. 

- A Nintendo DS modified to play tons of games on one cartridge as well as hosting a media player for playing music. An excellent source of entertainment at any time when boredom ensues

- A copy of the Watchmen graphic novel. I never tire of reading it, for times when I don't feel like firing up the DS.

- A notebook, for writing ideas and things-to-do list. Since having 2 kids and finishing my Master's, my memory is not so....uh, whatever that word is.

-Various memory keys....I think its time to admit I have a problem. One I use for a digital picture frame at work, another one carries portable applications, and the others are for back up.

-A charger for the DS and my phone.

-A thesaurus to help me with the creation of interesting posts.

-An old hacky sack I used in college and keep around for a good luck charm. I certainly don't hacky sack anymore...besides, I was never that good in the first place.

-A flashlight....you never know when you need one.

-A Gerber multitool, a Swiss Army knife, and nail clippers. Again, you never know what you will need them for. I hate having hangnails and I insist on being able to excise them immediately.

-Checkbooks and pens, mostly for emergency.

There you have it, a small and probably boring glimpse into my daily life. If any of you carry a Man Bag, please tell us what you carry in it day to day.

That's My Girl!

I was on vacation this last week at the cabin in Wisconsin. I'm not going to relate my entire trip to you all but I did want to mention a few things that made me really proud of Elora.

We spent our first night in the house of one of Larisa's relatives, her Aunt Lily. I was walking into the kitchen in the morning to catch the end of a conversation Lily was having with Ellie. It went something like this:

Lily: "Are you going to school next year?"

Elora: "Yes."

Lily: "Will you wear a backpack?"

Elora: "No."

Lily: "Why not?"

Elora: "I don't wear backpacks for school, I wear them for hiking."

I never told her anything like that, she said that completely with her own free will. Made Poppa proud.

 Next, we are at a zoo and walk into an area with cages full of various rodents, guinea pigs, ground hogs, ferrets etc. There was a zoo attendant there who announced that she could let anyone pet any of the animals if requested. So does Ellie first ask for the chinchilla or ground hog? No, with no fear at all, she immediately asks to pet the skunk first. Yes, there was a skunk (de-smellified of course). This was definitely an awesome parenting moment.

Not to mention how excited she was about fishing. She would get upset if she didn't get to help someone release a bass. She was also enthralled by the leeches we used for bait and at one point announced herself as Queen of the Leeches and would bestow baity goodness upon anyone requesting it.

Another Week Off...what gives?

The Fates smile upon me. Well, in their twisted sort of way. 

I get yet another week of responsibility and interruption-free time to myself. Just me and the dog and 3 cats in the house....well, 5 cats if you count Pippin as another 2. If you are a parent, you probably think a week alone sounds like some kind of kick ass gift of the Gods. While it is nice to have time to myself where I can lie on the couch, watch TV and get some actual, for-real, honest-to-goodness mental and physical rest, being alone after being a parent for close to 5 years is quite disconcerting. For the past 20 minutes, I have been desperately trying to talk anyone through Facebook, Skype, or Google Chat. Basically, its really weird to have the house, which is typically full of young daughters either keeping me awake in the wee hours of the morning or jumping onto my stomach, empty other than myself and Ripley the shaggy, skittish dog.  This time around, Larisa took the kids a week early to the Wisconsin cabin for more family functions, so basically the same reason as before.

So the question is put forth...what to do with my time now? As always, there are a multitude of mini tasks that need to be done that are impossible to complete with kids around. I was thinking, again, about painting the house, but this time, it is not rain preventing me, it was heat, and as we all know, heat plus humidity makes me insane. So I was forced to keep my activites inside, which certainly has its own set of neglected issues.

First off was cleaning the house. I find I am more mentally at ease when lounging in a obstacle-free area. I also did tons of laundry. And cleaned the tub. That was no small task....months of grime build-up had to be scoured off. Elora's room needed a thorough tidying up as well. Pretty sad eh? I get all this time to myself and I spend it on the most boring activities known to man.

So of course I am not going to waste all of my free time on medioacre house chores. I invested some time into little projects that I have wanted to do for myself, such as organizing my healthy photo collection, photoshopping some of those pictures (removing red-eye or improving the color etc), getting my vast array of home improvement tools in order, painting a picture for my mother-in-law, learning how to cut glass for picture frames, and working on my geek collectibles, namely a figure of Morpheus from the Sandman comic books which had to be leveled in order to stand straight and making a picture frame from scratch for a very cool portrait. Add some good wine and play some new tunes on your modified Nintendo DS, and you basically have as much fun as I can have when alone. Its common for geeks such as myself to have a small collection of nerdy memorabilia. Ever seen 40-Year-Old Virgin? Remember how he has tons of figures still in the package? Same thing here, I am just not as gung-ho about it. As I have refined my sci-fi and fantasy interests over the past few years, I have collected items which reflect those passions. To finish off this post, I shopped a picture with my shrine to geekdom and made a identifying list below:

1 - A figure of Gromit of Wallace and Gromit fame from the movie Curse of the Were-Rabbit, a brilliant movie I love watching with Ellie

2 - Morpheus of the Sandman comics, an epic graphic novel created by Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite writers and movie makers.

3 - The aforementioned portrait, of Hunter S. Thompson, one of my heros.

4 - A picture of Roxy and a flower bed in the shape of a mushroom I made in Hummelstown a long time ago with a friend, Bear.

5 - A small ceramic car I made ages ago in Scotland.

6 - Just to the right of the arrow is a little wooden statue of a woodpecker I got on my travels with my brother in Alburquerque NM.

7 - A small figure of Chewbacca holding C-3PO in pieces on his back.

8 - I call this guy Leet Monkey, my first computer case resident. He was mistakenly stolen by Ellie when she was only 2 from a bookstore. He kept her busy while I waited in a huge line.

9 - Lego and Star Wars, 2 of my favorite things. In this case, its Darth Vader and his TIE fighter.

10 - One of my favorite pics of me and 3 of my friends (Mike, Rob, and Ace) around a campfire somewhere on the AT

Ohh yeaaa*, THAT's why I don't go to theaters anymore.

*spoken with an inflection of recollection

Larisa and I were given some kid-free time this weekend to go see the new Harry Potter flick. The movie itself was the best Potter movie yet. The campy direction of the first movies is completely ignored in this latest version with darker overtones of revenge and violence. I did not read the books so I do not know what happens in the end, but the day after seeing the Half-Blood Prince, I ordered Deathly Hallows because it turns out Snape plays a completely mystifying and important role which is left unexplained at the end of the movie. I am so eager to find out whether Snape is bad or good (the way they leave it in Half-Blood Prince is brilliant, evoking conversation to which side he is aligned and make you thirst for more) that I can't wait for the last movie, I have to read the book. Several mysteries which were alluded to in previous movies are explained as well, which is satisfying for me, especially after going through my addiction and eventual boycott of the show LOST after being lead down dozens of nutty plot lines and never getting explanations for them.

Thank goodness the movie was captivating because I would have had a conniption fit otherwise. I can't remember the last time Larisa and I went to a movie theater by ourselves. We went to see WALL-E with Ellie last year. While the theater was full of people making noise and commotion, it was to be expected...they were mostly kids Ellie's age. For this most recent movie-going experience, there was no excuse for the interruptions and spectacles which dragged us out of the escape into the drama at Hogwarts.

First off, there was a guy right in front of us who would laugh at the dumbest things. If you were to see the movie, you would be surprised at how much humor they could fit into such a dark plot. There were genuinely funny scenes at which I found myself laughing out loud. But this guy would laugh when someone whipped out a wand. This was only a warm-up for the rest of the sideshow amusements.

Next, just 2 seats to my left was someone who basically texted throughout the entire movie. This may seem tame since there was absolutely no noise coming from their phone, which was one the newer phones designed for texting. But every time this person opened the phone to commit this heinous act, the brightness of the huge screen was an unavoidable sight in my peripheral vision. It was complete distracting. I had to hold my hand up to block the light so I could focus on the movie.I kept having visions of George Costanza when he decided to do everything opposite to his instinct and during a date at a movie, he told the loud patrons behind him to shut up. I, on the other hand, followed my instinct and let the abuse of theater etiquette continue.

But the pièce de résistance of the entire night was a married couple who brought in their 4 kids, one of whom was probably 2 years old. This, by far, was the winner of most distracting of the night. Those of us with kids know that unless the movie is something that will captivate that 2 year old for the entire time, then the kid will inevitably lose his attention and want to do something else. If that movie does not peak his interest, he will not sit still and be quiet in a seat for 2.5 hours unless he is heavily drugged. Just forget about the fact that this movie, although semi-geared to kids in their early teens, was not appropriate for a 2 year old. So every 20 minutes or so, the kid would start to cry because I think the parents were telling him to sit still and be quiet or he was losing interest in the movie, the themes of which would have been WAY over any 2 year old's head. And the father had the gall to get mad at the kid at one point! Can you believe that?! How can you take a kid that young to a long movie and not expect them to cause trouble? Not only is it rude to the rest of the theater but it is also atrocious treatment towards a kid to make them sit there and watch something they have no interest in seeing and also could have possibly caused some kind of trauma (there were some genuinely scary parts). Its selfish to a point of ignorance. Just wait for the frigging DVD to come out. I mean, what kind of sick glutton for punishment would bring their toddler to a scary and long movie? It goes beyond desperation to see Harry Potter and offends reason to the highest degree.

I'm sure when you read the title, you thought it was going to be another synopsis of the small sacrifices parents make for their kids. No, even if I was unlucky enough to not have Elora or Lyla in my life, I would still find the idea of going to the movie theater alone an abhorrent idea. This most recent visit, possibly our last, only reinforced that notion.