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As you may (or may not) have seen me mention on Facebook or Twitter over the weekend, the Better Half and I are expecting our second child (currently known as The Sequel) in May 2012 – current ETA is May 19, but Jack showed up about a week early so we’ll see.

That’s the wee one last Friday, just chillin’ in his/her crib. It’s actually an iPhone pic of the printout the scan technician gave us, so apologies for dodgy quality.

The most important person to be affected by this, Jack, doesn’t know yet – as he’s not even two, telling him at this point that he’s going to be a big brother in six months seems a little mean; it’s not like he’s got a handle on deferred satisfaction yet. He can barely wait ten minutes to get a banana, let alone six months for a sibling.

Having a second child is going to turn our world upside down – again. We’ve been running the numbers and we simply can’t afford to continue living where we are with another daycare tuition fee every month at Manhattan prices. It kills me, actually, because Jack is so happy there with his friends and teachers; he’s been going there since he was three months old so moving him away from that is going to be a wrench for him. So on top of the arrival of a little brother or sister, he’s also going to have to cope with a change in home and daycare. It’s a lot to push on the little guy.

So – very, very happy about the impending addition – but also kind of nervous about how we need to change things to accommodate her/him.

In the UK it’s Armistice Day, or Remembrance Day, or even Poppy Day. In the US it’s Veteran’s Day.

In either country (and others) it’s a day for respecting and honoring the men and women who serve their country now and in the past, and remembering those who fell in service of their countries. Most years I write a small piece about World War I – that war’s armistice being the origin of the day – and the number of dead. Sometimes I post the end of Blackadder Goes Forth and the reason that in the UK and other European countries it’s become known as Poppy Day. But I really can’t say it better than Lt Col John McRae did in ‘In Flanders Fields‘.

I know, this has nothing to do with raising your kids – unless your kids are old enough to be introduced to these things (and really they’re never too young) but some deals are too good not to mention.

Over at the WB Store, which I don’t usually go to as it has very little that interests me, are two good deals:

Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.: The Complete Series – $12

Brisco is one of those shows that confounded expectations; critics expected this to lead the pack back in 1993 when it debuted but instead it was the show that Brisco functioned as a lead-in to that took off – a little-heard of show called The X-Files. It also looked like a Western but contained a lot of sci-fi elements and a little bit of time travel (co-creator Carlton Cuse would go on to showrun Lost).

The eponymous hero is played by one Bruce Campbell, who you may be familiar with from…well, everything. Not unlike every other character Campbell has played, Brisco is a cynical, sarcastic smart-ass who falls head-first into trouble but ultimately comes through it with a heart of gold (still hidden under that smart-ass exterior, of course).

Brisco – a lawyer who turns bounty hunter after his US Marshall father is killed – gathers a revolving cast of off-beat friends and villains, with the late Julius Carry as bounty hunter Lord Bowler and Christian Clemenson as twitchy lawyer Socrates Poole being the most common allies (or enemies, as the case may be). Other recurring cast members include The Addams Family’ John Astin as eccentric inventor and Kelly Rutherford as Dixie Cousins, Brisco’s on-off love interest.

The series never really caught on and became a one-season wonder but it’s still very entertaining TV, and better than a lot of stuff on today. At $12 you can’t go wrong.

Flash, The: The Complete Series – $10

Another one-season wonder – in the wake of Tim Burton’s Batman, some bright spark decided that it would be a good idea to turn the Flash into some kind of neon-come-gothical TV show; they even got Batman composer Danny Elfman to write the show’s theme. And you know what, it’s pretty damn good. Don’t get me wrong, it’s camper than a row of tents but that doesn’t stop it being good.

The ridiculously muscular John Wesley Shipp (probably better known to people of a certain age as Dawson Leary’s dad) filled out an even more ridiculously muscular Flash suit and battled crime as the titular super-fast hero with the help of STAR Labs’ Tina McGee (an overly plummy Amanda Pays) and her assistant Julio (Alex Desert, also known as ‘the “This place is dead anyway” guy from Swingers‘ or ‘the blind guy from Becker‘ or ‘the voice of Nick Fury in the new animated Avengers‘).

The Flash himself in this version is Barry Allen and, just like the comics, he’s a police scientist. A lot of his traits, though, seem to be Wally West’s (ie he’s not as dull as dishwater) – and McGee herself was a love interest of Wally’s, so things got a bit lost in translation between comic and screen.

The show stuck rigorously to a villain of the week format – a couple featuring Mark Hammil as the Trickster and one with David Cassidy as Mirror Master – but the charm of the cast and the writing provided for a good season – and at $10, it’s a bargain.

Fun Flash Fact for you – the show was developed by Paul DeMeo and Danny Bilson; the same team had a run (ho ho) on The Flash comic a few years ago. It wasn’t very good. Bilson is also the father of Rachel Bilson, who is not unattractive and once dressed as Wonder Woman in The O.C. (which is also awesome).

The Flash and Wonder Woman are co-founders of the Justice League. There’s a circular tedious link for you…

I totally stole the idea from a Google ad (actually, the one embedded at the end of the post) but lately I’ve been emailing my almost-two year-old son.

I actually set up his gmail address just after he was born – I figured he’ll probably need it some day, assuming Google is still around – so I could make some charity contributions in his name. So for his first two Christmases, he got emails from the World Wildlife Fund telling him we had adopted an animal in his name.

When I saw the Google ad, though, it occurred to me that it might not be a bad idea to use his mail to set up things for him to look at later.

So I’ve set up a Picasa Album for him and I’m adding pics from it to his Google Maps account to map some interesting points for him that he won’t remember – his first home, his first daycare, where we went on his first vacation, that kind of thing. It’s kind of an online picture album with some context.

I’m also emailing him on occasion. Just yesterday I sent him an email telling him that although I was sick the day before, going to pick him up from daycare and getting a big hug was the best part of my day.

When he first starts using the account, I don’t think he’ll be old enough to appreciate what I’m doing – but I hope, one day, he will.

Is it shamelessly sentimental? Absolutely.

But I kind of like it.

Wearing a red shirt does when going somewhere new is not a good idea.

Everyone knows about redshirts. In the original Star Trek, your average landing party consisted of Captain Kirk, Mr Spock, Doctor McCoy and…a security guy in a red shirt.

Their names were unimportant. Their rank was unimportant. As soon as one of these poor schmucks stepped onto the transporter platform, or boarded a shuttlecraft, or laughed at the weird kid the Captain was engaging in a little Greco-Roman wrestling with, you were guaranteed one thing: they wouldn’t be coming back for the next episode. Or possibly even the next scene.

The obvious in-story reason for this is if you want to prove how deadly the alien of the week is then the best thing you can do is to have it kill someone but, of course, you can’t just kill a regular character so the guy in the red shirt gets it instead.

It’s tough being in security on the NCC-1701.

It’s even been suggested that there’s a correlation between Captain Kirk’s romantic entanglements and the number of redshirt deaths in any given mission:

There’s a life lesson to be had here; if you’re going out with a bunch of people you kind of know, but they’re all close friends, then watch your back – especially if the ringleader is eying up the local talent. You never know when disaster will strike and you’ll suddenly be on your own at the bar because you went to the restroom and nobody noticed and they all left and didn’t say where they were going and you’re left to deal with half a dozen angry bikers.

Or, er, something like that…

It also helps not to wear anything that stands out too much.

I know, I know. My comics blog is archived and I’m not blogging about them any more. Well, in this case I’m making an exception. Available in your local comic store (and, I suspect, any big-box bookstores carrying comics), is Peanuts #0 from KaBoom, Boom Studios’ kids’ imprint.

I love Peanuts dearly and although I’m extremely wary of anything done with the characters following creator Charles M Schulz’s death, I’m willing to give this a shot. Jack also like Snoopy (and is coincidentally wearing a Snoopy top today) so is a book I’ll be giving him to look at.

He’ll probably tear it to pieces but hey, it’s only a buck.

Glad to report that Halloween was a success with Jack’s teachers managing to get Jack into his Superman outfit with relatively few hiccups.

And if you give Superman some cupcake, he’s happy beyond words.

Halloween outfits for Jack are tough.

Well, not last year. Last year, 11 months old and just starting to walk, he was pliable enough to be put in a Darth Vader costume and enjoy waving a way-too-big-lighsaber around. One of his classmates at daycare was dressed as a ladybug or something similarly cute and inoffensive. As my wife commented, “He’s going as a gentle woodland creature, Jack’s going as Dark Lord of the Sith.”

Start him early, I say.

This year is a different story. He’s too young to truly ‘get’ Halloween, but old enough to be contrary when it comes to costumes. We decided to go down what we thought would be an easy route with a Buzz Lightyear costume, the kind that pulls up over his legs and then over his head, over the clothes he has on. He was all excited when he saw it, but then as soon as his arms were in it and it was round his neck he started pulling at it, crying, and making fake choking sounds.

No go.

Plan B was a Superman outfit – same idea but with less round the neck. Same as with the Buzz, he’s not happy with it and it looks like he will not be wearing it to the Halloween parade at daycare.

Next year should be easier, if only because I hope as he approaches three he’ll get the idea behind the costume. Hopefully.

In other news, I carved my first pumpkin this weekend. When I was younger in the UK (which at that point had a marked lack of pumpkins, though I suspect that has changed now), I carved a turnip or two. When I mentioned that this weekend, my wife pointed out that this must be a northern (as in northern England) thing and laughed. Well, wikipedia tells me that turnips were the original Jack O’Lanternswell before the tradition got exported to the US.

So there!

There’s Lego and then there’s Lego imitators; wannabes, rip-offs. I never had much time for them when I was a kid, and as I’ve been pretty much Lego-adverse – at least until recently – for my adult life, I never gave them much thought.

Then I saw the Doctor Who not-Legos while I was back in the UK several months ago by UK-based company Character Building.

I couldn’t help it; I picked up the TARDIS set with the 11th Doctor and Amy, a Dalek army-builder pack consisting of 5 red Daleks, a couple of the blind character packs – ending up with a Silurian, a Weeping Angel and another red Dalek – and the really-rather-awesome 11 Doctor set in TARDIS packaging.

Since then, through the wonders of eBay, I’ve managed to get hold of all the series 1 and 2 blind figures and a limited Cybermen army-builder pack (limited in the sense it was available from a single UK retailer and features different Cybermen to the regular army pack).

And they’re good. Very good. Granted, the figures aren’t quite Lego compatible (although you can switch heads with regular Lego minifigs) but they’re well designed and can be switched around with each other if you so desire to make a Cyberman-Amy.

The blocks are completely compatible with Lego, and perfectly sized so you can finally have Darth Vader execute his raid on the TARDIS that you always dreamed of.

There are a number of additional playsets available at varying prices; a Dalek Progenitor Room set, a Dalek Factory, a Cyberman Conversion Chamber, a pretty crappy Weeping Angels one (although some of the rock pieces may come in handy for regular Lego dioramas) but the big Kahuna of them all is the TARDIS Console Room set…

The main drawback of these for US buyers is that they’re pretty damn pricey. Entertainment Earth has a bunch coming into stock soon but depending on shipping costs you may be better off buying direct from the manufacturer in the UK.

So far, with the exception of the 11 Doctor set, the series has focused on the adventures and characters of the 11th Doctor but I imagine that as it moves forward we’ll get more characters from earlier incarnations of the Doctor. While I think I’d rather have had the characters more in line with regular Lego minifigs, I understand why they’re not and they are quite cute. I also understand why Lego passed on the license (if they were ever even interested) since Doctor Who isn’t quite the worldwide brand that Star Wars or even Pirates of the Caribbean are.

Regardless, I’d recommend these to any Doctor Who fan, or parent of one. As for Jack, well, he’s a little too young for these right now so I’ll just have to keep them.

Until he’s old enough. Of course.

As you can see, I’m back blogging on my own domain. I know that only a few weeks ago I said I’d quit blogging about comics – and I did. My intent was to let this domain sit with it’s original posts. In the meantime I started www.raisingjack.com – my attempt at what I think is usually called a ‘daddyblog’ but with a slightly geekier bent than most.

It occurred to me that hit-wise I might be better off combining the two sites, since I still have people on rss readers here and I still get a few visits a day regardless of if there’s new content or not.

So…the main blog page (and most of the categories on the menu above) will be my new blog, as reflected by the changed masthead. However…all the old comics/movies/TV/other posts are still accessible above under the ‘Archive‘ tab.

Clever, eh?

So, expect updates (almost) daily from me here – just of a different flavor than before.

Edit: Well, bugger. It appears the Force is with Lucasfilm’s lawyers as the trailer has disappeared for now. But trust me: there’s no Jar Jar in it.

Second Edit: Found a Youtube version – at least for now.

Apparently, the following trailer for Star Wars Episode I‘s upcoming 3D re-release played in front of Three Musketeers this past weekend. However, as nobody went to see that unnecessary remake, I figure very few people saw the trailer. I assume it played in 3D in front of the movie, but the embed below is in good old fashioned 2D.

I note the complete absence of the much-maligned Jar Jar Binks in the trailer (although the Gungan captain – who I believe is named Tarpals and I didn’t even look that up – does sneak in there) but I suspect that he will still be in the movie because, let’s face it, who else is going to get to flick his tongue around in glorious 3D?

In spite of this being by far the worst of the Star Wars movies, I’m actually looking forward to this. Why? Because – assuming I can get him to wear the 3D glasses – it’s the first Star Wars movie I’ll be watching with Jack. I know that I said that the correct order to show them to him is IV, V, VI and then I, II and III but I’m pretty sure that he won’t have too much of a clue what’s going on here story-wise anyway.

Obviously 3D won’t redeem the vast swathes of the movie which are pretty much unwatchable, but I do think that some of it should look pretty good in 3D – especially the pod race. Yes, I’m a sucker for Star Wars and I’m more than willing to use Jack to justify seeing it in the movies again. Even if it is Episode I…

Just a very quick post today. I am not a single parent; the Better Half and I co-share virtually everything on the Jack-rearing – but after the past two weeks I am more in awe than ever of single parents.

The Better Half had a business trip to Europe for almost two whole weeks – from Sunday through the Friday after – leaving me on my own with Jack and Lola (the dog).

Well, not exactly on my own, as my brother-in-law was there till Friday the first week, and my niece arrived two days after he left – but for all intents and Jack-rearing purposes, I was on my own. The only assistance they really were (aside from scintillating company, obviously) was being able to stay with sleeping Jack when I took Lola for her night-time walk just before bed.

Which means that I was getting him up, feeding, playing, preparing food, dropping off, picking up, entertaining, doing laundry, putting to sleep, and generally everything else for him as well as the same for Lola. While I certainly don’t begrudge doing any of those things for him (or her, for that matter), at the end of the day I usually got about an hour to myself before I passed out. After all I had to get up early to shower before he woke up and started yelling…

Seriously, these two weeks made me think of what single parents with no back-up from family must go through all the time. It’s exhausting. Hats off.

Apparently the American Academy of Pediatrics have released a report saying that 90% of children under the age of 2 watch some TV every day and would be better off not doing.

Okay, I say. That’s fine. We started Jack on UK-import In The Night Garden when he was about nine months old to calm him before bed. It also kept him in place long enough to drink his milk in the morning. He still watches it, although it no longer has the same hold on him it used to. We also have Sesame Street on in the morning while we get ready for work, although it doesn’t usually hold his attention and he tends to play with it on the background when he’s not pooping/eating/getting dressed/brushing his teeth/tormenting the dog/raising holy hell.

I’ve also already said he loves Toy Story and the like, and if the weather’s bad and he’s bored of playing we’re not above putting it on and letting him watch it.

So while I understand what they’re saying, I don’t entirely think it’s fair. We don’t leave Jack in front of the TV on his own; we’re right there with him watching it. We talk with him about what he’s watching. We certainly don’t use it as a substitute for play – and he doesn’t watch TV at all while he’s in daycare.

We’re both working parents with a limited amount of time to spend with our son. We try to get outside as much as we can, we play as much as we can – but there are times where he simply isn’t that into it and he just wants to chill out.

We also make a point of not watching our own programs while he’s up (with the occasional exception of some news) as we don’t want to expose him to things which are beyond his age range – but believe me, there will come an age where he’s subjected to the full range of Star Trek, Buffy, Lost, BSG, Veronica Mars, Vampire Diaries and many other shows – but at ages where he’s appropriate. Right now, we’ll stick with Sesame Street and In the Night Garden.

Although remind me to post about the social inequalities and rampant sexual and political messages in In The Night Garden sometime….

via Deadline

…at least, his first movie in a movie theater. At home or in the car – thank you, thank you, Steve Jobs and Apple for the iPad! – he’ll quite happily sit through any of the awesome Toy Story movies or Monsters, Inc and laugh away at things he finds amusing, but we’ve yet to brave an actual movie theater with him.

Parents who take their babies and toddlers with incredibly short attention spans to movies are a pet peeve of mine, especially when they ignore the child’s screams so they can watch a movie themselves. It’s annoying, it spoils the movie for everyone else and it’s just plain rude. And, unfortunately, in New York it seems to happen quite a lot.

That said, I get the impression that Jack is approaching an age where he can sit and watch something in the movies if it holds his attention. I’m not sure this will actually do that the whole time, but judging by his reaction to the trailer it stands a pretty good chance…

…plus it’s a movie that the Better Half and I actually want to see – bonus!

I was at New York Comic Con part of this weekend, although for considerably less time than previous years. I skipped preview night on Thursday and went to see Real Steel instead (which was far, far better than it had any right to be thanks to some great performances from the two leads, Hugh Jackman and 11 year old Dakota Goyo, and also due to Evangeline Lilly wearing some very short shorts). Friday I spent a few hours on the show floor before heading home as my wife was coming back from a two week business trip, Saturday I spent most of the afternoon in the IGN Theater for movie and TV panels, and Sunday I didn’t go at all, instead staying home with the family.

It’s probably a good thing, too; the lure of Comic Con is strong when it comes to spending money on things I do not need and have no room for – witness the completely pointless Compound Hulk that I bought Friday.

See? Completely pointless.

However, I do see a point in time where buying these things “for Jack” will be a legitimate excuse as, hopefully, he’ll be playing with them then.

Or if he’s not, I will at least claim he is…

There are four kinds of people in the world.

There are those who have no idea what you mean when you say ‘Klaatu Barada Nikto’.

There are those that think you’re referring to obscure Return of the Jedi aliens.

There are those that are glad you’ve remembered all three words.

And finally, there are those that know the real meaning of them – that they are the words you use to stop your overly protective robot sidekick from kicking the puny humans from here to eternity.

I feel it’s my duty as a parent to make sure that Jack belongs to three of the above four groups.

Wait. There’s a fifth group. The ones who saw the remake. But we don’t talk about them.

We tend to bumble out of the apartment around 8am-ish on weekdays. I take the dog for a quick walk so she can take care of business while the Better Half takes Jack to daycare (luckily literally around the corner from our apartment). After I drop the dog back at home, take some trash out, give her some water and biscuits, I then walk round to daycare and we head towards work – or at least the subway – together.

One morning a few weeks ago was different; Better Half was taking a day off to prepare for an upcoming work trip (two weeks – which she returns from tomorrow!) so I took the dog out early, then took Jack to daycare – on the way to which he proceeded to melt into a quivering mass of frustration.

He wanted to walk but wouldn’t hold my hand, wanted to be carried but didn’t want to be held, wanted to sit on the floor but didn’t want to stop screaming and crying as loudly as he possibly could.

You get the idea. Even in the doorway to daycare he threw himself down on the mat and cried his lungs out.
It hit me then that I had been in this situation before – only I was the child in question.

Way, way, way back in time when I started going to school – it was called reception in England and I think maybe Pre-K over here in the US – I only went for half days. My mum (or as you Americans say, ‘mom’) dropped me off every morning, said her goodbyes and picked me up to take me home just before lunch.
Not this day. This day she broke the news to me as I was being greeted at the front door by the headmistress that I was going to be there all day. At which point I distinctly remember throwing myself onto the floor, screaming and kicking indiscriminately against all the injustices of the world.

And I took out the headmistress with a well-placed kick to the knee.

I’m hoping that it doesn’t come to that – because I can only imagine my mother was completely mortified – but honestly, I think John Lennon was pretty much right on the karma thing. Only sometimes it’s not that instant.

I’m finally getting the message that sometimes in order to win the big battles, I need to concede the smaller ones.

For example on Monday after a couple of pretty exhausting trips to Central Park Zoo (the penguins and the petting zoo being the main attractions for Jack) and the American Museum of Natural History (dinosaurs, and the stairs in the big room with the whale) I returned home with the boy and hung out for a bit before heading back out with him to take the dog for a walk.

The mistake I made there – and more experienced parents will likely see it straight away – is that in order to hang out, I let him out of his stroller. And he didn’t want to get back in.

Stupidly, I hadn’t even considered this and wasn’t in the mood for a screaming fit as I struggled to strap him back into the stroller – but luckily he gave me a solution by running over with his green froggy wellingtons (or are they called galoshes over here? I never can tell) and trying to pull them on.

A deal was struck and, even though it was in the mid-80F, we soon were out walking the dog. With Jack in his wellingtons.

You know, now that I think about it, I’m not sure if that was a small victory for him or for me.

Lately I’ve been spending some not inconsiderable time thinking about Lego*. It does feel like I may have traded one geeky hobby (comics) for another, but I swear – to myself at least – this isn’t the same thing. For one thing, I’m not actually spending money on it. Yet.

A few months ago while picking up some Duplo for Jack in the Lego store in Rockefeller Center I picked up a couple of those little blind minifig packets that they have.

Then next time I passed I picked up a three pack of Lego Star Wars figures on magnets.

Last week I ordered a little set of Lego Star Wars Imperials on Hoth as it was cheap on Walmart.com and I was getting a few things anyway.

And I’m seriously considering investing in some of the Lego winter sets – like the toy shop, below – to use as a Christmas diorama this year, and then getting a different one each year to add to it.

I envision creating a tradition where we build it with Jack (starting next year or the year after when he might be able to help and not eat the pieces) while It’s A Wonderful Life and The Muppet’s Christmas Carol play back-to-back on loop in the background. Possibly with eggnog and roasting walnuts somewhere. And a big Christmas sweater. And a fire roaring away. And small Victorian-dressed children running around screaming and yet being very polite at the same time.

So, basically, I’ll be having Christmas in the Nexus.

I think…I think I may have a problem.

*I know, I know; Lego should be capitalized. But I think it just looks weird if you do it all the time. I’ll do it in blog post titles, okay?

Last weekend I came across an excellent video full of good advice on Star Wars for parents (well, for dads but it applies to anyone raising a child) which I wanted to post.

The Better Half and I have discussed this at length, actually, and way before she got pregnant. Between us we have (I think) maybe four or five copies of the original trilogy and one of the new – and that’s without the brand-spanking new Star Wars blu ray set which I’m coveting but waiting until the price drops at Thanksgiving or Christmas or something.

We both agree that we’ll be showing Jack the original trilogy first, then the prequels. I’m not as big a hater of the prequels as many I know – and even once defended Jar Jar Binks by pointing out the potential that he had. I also think that the prequels play well to young kids – and that alone makes them worth showing.

What I don’t want to do, however, is deprive Jack of this moment:

Because that right there is pretty much exactly what I did about 30 years ago…