Category: Holidays

Costume Fun on Halloween

Doctor Who, Holidays

For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved Halloween.  As a kid, of course, everyone seems to love Halloween.  You dress up in fun costumes, go around the neighborhood, and get tons of candy.  What’s not to love?  I still remember my mother putting makeup on my face to complete my hobo costume as I couldn’t wait to fill my sack with sweets.

In college, I still loved Halloween, but my love of dressing up was diminished because all of the costume shops seemed to only stock costumes for thin people.  Any costume I tried on, I would have trouble squeezing into.  Finding a costume that fit meant that this would be my costume for years to come.

In my adult years, costume makers seemed to have accepted that people came in sizes other than Medium and Small.  Large and XL costumes began to be more common.  Furthermore, with the birth of my kids, getting dressed up for Halloween became even more fun as I experienced the wonders of Halloween as a child through their eyes.

My costuming wasn’t all store-bought, though.  One year, when NHL was little, he dressed as a monkey.  I decided to complement his outfit by dressing as The Man In The Yellow Hat.  I did some shopping and got a yellow shirt and yellow tie, but couldn’t find yellow pants or, more importantly, a tall yellow hat.  I wound up compromising the pants by wearing tan (as close to yellow as I could get).  For the hat, I took a cheap hat and added foam blocks and yellow felt until it was a yellow hat.  Quite honestly, the outfit looked ridiculous.  Still, I made it myself and NHL loved seeing me in it.

Last year, I decided to dress as Matt Smith’s Doctor from Doctor Who.  I had the pants, shoes (well, as close as I was going to get to them), and shirt.  I bought a pair of red suspenders.  As for the bow tie and fez, well, I made those.  I liked it so much that it has been my Twitter avatar ever since.

This year, I’ll be breaking out my Doctor outfit for another year.  I’ll scan people with my sonic as the boys go trick or treating.  Then, as people ring our doorbell.  I’ll greet them with my small TARDIS and a bowl of candy.

No matter the occasion, I love dressing up and pretending that I’m someone else.  Someone who has grand adventures and doesn’t need to worry about such mundane matters like jobs and bills.  It’s like putting on a costume helps awaken the kid in me.

Who are you dressing up as for Halloween?

Guardians of the Galaxy Deleted Scenes And The Upcoming Marvel Movies

Comics, Geeky Pursuits, Holidays, JSL, Movies, NHL

This past weekend, we found some deleted scenes from this summer’s hit Guardians of the Galaxy movie.

Here is Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, spending some downtime between beating up bad guys trying to solve a Search-A-Word puzzle.  I’m unsure if his mask is helping him find the words.  No cheating!

Star-Lord_Word_Search

This is the scene where Star-Lord falls through a dimensional rift and winds up in the Angry Birds Star Wars universe.  He has to battle Lard Vader before making his way back to his own realm.

Star-Lord_And_Lard_Vader

Ok, so these were scenes from a weekend Halloween activity and not Guardians deleted scenes.  Still the boys had fun and are looking forward to Halloween.

Speaking of looking forward, I just read the “Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 3” plan and neither I nor my boys can wait.  In case you haven’t seen it, here’s the rundown.

  • Avengers: Age of Ultron (5/1/2015) – This one already has a great teaser trailer out. (Update: Right when I posted this, a “Special Look” went live also showing some of the heroes trying to lift Thor’s hammer.)
  • Ant-Man (7/17/2015) – It will be interesting to see what big adventure this little hero will have.
  • Captain America: Civil War (5/6/2016) – In the comics, the Civil War story arc started when Iron Man advocated for a law requiring all superheroes to register with the government (and have their secret identities exposed).  Captain America, meanwhile, was against this and the two (as well as the superheroes on both sides) clashed.  Sure enough, I’ve heard Iron Man/Tony Stark will be in this movie.
  • Doctor Strange (11/4/2016) – According to rumors, Benedict Cumberbatch (aka Sherlock Holmes from the BBC’s Sherlock) is being asked to become the Sorcerer Supreme.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy 2 (5/5/2017) – JSL is already asking about trailers for this and was disappointed that he’ll likely have to wait two years for one.
  • Thor: Ragnarok (7/28/2017) – Ragnarok is the Norse concept of the end of days, but in the comics (according to my Wikipedia search) it dealt with a cybernetic clone of Thor being made when the original was thought dead.  Will we see Thor and Evil-Cyborg-Thor duke it out on-screen?  And what will this mean for the state we left Asgard in at the end of Thor 2?
  • Black Panther (11/3/2017) – Another favorite superhero of ours.  He will be played by Chadwick Boseman (whose previous works I haven’t seen).  Interestingly enough, Chadwick’s IMDB page says he will also appear in the Captain America: Civil War movie.
  • Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 (5/4/2018) – Finally, the Infinity Saga comes to a head.  We’ve been seeing the Infinity stones here and there and I’m sure we’ll see more before this movie comes out.  What really struck me is that this is Part 1.  They are going to do this right and take their time with the story.  My best is that Part 1 will conclude with Thanos getting the final Infinity Stone and the heroes looking like they’re beaten against his tremendous might.
  • Captain Marvel (7/6/2018) – There are many incarnations of Captain Marvel.  I’m hoping they opt for the Carol Danvers one.  It will be nice to see a powerful woman kicking some bad guy keister.
  • Inhumans (11/2/2018) – The Inhumans are a society of individuals with fantastic powers that keep hidden away from “normal” society.  They aren’t really fully human but aren’t mutants either.  Their leader, Black Bolt can’t speak.  Well, he can, but his voice is so powerful that a mere whisper of his could bring buildings crashing down.  He’s definitely the strong, silent type.
  • Avengers: Infinity War, Part 2 (5/3/2019) – This is the conclusion to the Infinity Saga.  Expect heroes from many movies, not just Avengers, taking part in the final showdown against Thanos.  Just picture Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, and Black Panther fighting alongside Star-Lord, Drax, Gamora, Rocket, and Groot.  It will be quite the team up.

Where the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes from here, I don’t know.  On one hand, I can’t wait to see it all.  On the other hand, by the time Avengers: Infinity War, Part 2 rolls its final credits, NHL will be almost 16 and JSL will be almost 12.  Maybe I can wait after all.

What upcoming Marvel movie are you most excited about?  What superhero would you love to see made into a movie?

Belated Father’s Day and a Munchkin Video

Father's Day, Games, Geeky Pursuits, Holidays, Videos

fathers_day Yesterday was Father’s Day.  I meant to write a post about it on Thursday night, but then I was hit with bloggy writer’s block.  I knew what topic I wanted to write about, but the words just failed to appear in my head.  In addition, Angry Birds Epic had just come out, so I wound up playing that until I went to bed.  (More on Angry Birds Epic another day.)

On Friday, I took NHL out for a dad-son day.  We ate breakfast and lunch out and saw How To Train Your Dragon 2 in 3D.  The latter was a rare treat because 1) I usually don’t pay extra for 3D movies (movie tickets are expensive enough in 2D) and 2) JSL doesn’t like 3D movies so we’re not going to pay extra for him to sit through the movie without his glasses on and seeing a distorted picture.  I’ve got to say that the 3D was nice, but it did hurt my eyes by the end and I’d be just as happy paying less and watching the movie in 2D.  For the $4 extra per ticket, I’d rather go to the 2D showing and then buy the boys a small movie-themed toy afterwards.

Saturday was a pretty normal day.  Sunday, meanwhile, was Father’s Day.  I got to sleep late/relax in bed until 10am.  Then, I made breakfast for everyone (yes, even on Father’s Day I cook).  Around noon, we headed out to lunch.  After a quick lunch – including a dessert at Menchie’s where they had Dole Whips, we planned some other activities, but sadly had to change our plans.  Instead, we went home and had a quiet, relatively uneventful rest of the day.

Except for one more thing.  Which was the one thing I really wanted to do yesterday.

Ever since I wrote my Do You Wanna Play Some Munchkin parody song, I’ve wanted to make a video of it.  With the day winding down, I set up the tripod, video camera, and got the props in place.  JSL, NHL, and I ran through it a few times before trying to video the song.  In the end, it wasn’t quite what I envisioned, but I think it came out pretty good.  Here are the lyrics in case you want to sing along:

I hope all the dads out there had a happy Father’s Day.

Matzah Time Is Here

Holidays, Judaism

matzahI’ve spent the past few days in deep-cleaning mode.  You see, Passover is coming so this means I need to clean the kitchen up.  The stove and oven needs to be scrubbed.  The fridge and microwave must be cleansed.  Cabinets and countertops need to be washed down.  All non-Passover foods must be put away and the Passover boxes (pots, pans, etc) need to be taken down from the attic.  It’s an involved affair that leaves me exhausted with little time for anything else.

Add in that I’ll be offline for the next few days thanks to the first couple of days of Passover being a holiday, and you’ll see little in the way of posting from me this week.  Rest assured that I’ll be here happily munching matzah.  (For some values of "happily.")

To those that celebrate Passover:  I hope you have a fantastic Pesach.

To those that don’t celebrate Passover:  I hope you have a great week.  And please try not to flaunt any bread you might be eating in front of us that are matzah-bound.

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