Kyle Minor’s Neighborhood

I'm 6

Another birthday in our house!  Zuzu Frances turned 6 on December 5th.  We want to thank all of her adoring grandparents, aunties, uncles, friends and family who helped us to give her a wonderful celebration.  She had a 2-day celebration, which began with a special breakfast of pie and apple juice served in mom's fine china (Z thought she was "da bomb"). 

first breakfast as a 6year old

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In the afternoon, Zuzu and her friend Cassandra (and Christine) attended a performance of "The Velveteen Rabbit" ballet in San Francisco.  The girls enjoyed themselves silly and followed up the performance with a sleep-over!

Time to open the many, many presents!  Thanks to Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop, Grandma and Opa, Aunt Yas and Uncle Mark, Uncle Darin, Aunt Jackie & Uncle Bob, Aunt Lise and Uncle Kevin, Uncle Rich and Aunt Kris, Aunt Lori, Aunt Karen and Uncle Shawn, Uncle James, Kyle & Christopher, Julie and Cassandra for making it an abundant affair.

And finally THE CAKE!  Z and mommy made the cake together.

Happy Birthday, big girl!

Happy Birthday Z!

Trickster2

You read that correctly. According to the Russian news agency Ria Novosti by way of the Huffington Post, a 25-year-old student in the Ukraine has been killed by an exploding stick of chewing gum.

"A loud pop was heard from the student's room," a police officer explained. "When his relatives entered the room they saw that the lower part of the young man's face had been blown off."

What might have caused the incident was the student apparently was working on an experiment and had covered the gum in a chemical solution before chewing it. The student had the unusual habit of dipping his chewing gum into citric acid. He liked his gum sour, I guess. Police believe the student may have confused the chemical packet of delicious and nutritious citric acid with an explosive.

While that may well be the explanation in the Ukraine, in comic books, this would definitely have been the work of some gimmick themed villain like the Joker or the Trickster.

King Kandy Saves the Day

Candy weapons are not new to comics. Perhaps the most famous candy powered character was Kandy King. No, not the despotic tyrant of Candy Land, but the Dial H for Hero character from House of Mystery # 160 (which reintroduced the world to Plastic Man!) King Kandy used all sorts of goofy candy-themed weapons like a lollipop bombs, exploding gumdrops, and licorice lariat. Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t a regular, rope lariat be better? I mean could you eat your way out of rope lariat? Of course, Kandy King was actually teenager Robby Reed, who was a good kid, transformed into the oddly dressed adult King Kandy, who has something against the standard spelling of “candy” despite the fact that in his world, his name had never been spelled. The worst thing Robby ever did was annoy the crap out of his readers by constantly shouting, “Sockamagee!” whatever the hell that means, so he surely would never blow the face off a Ukrainian college student.

A couple of 4-year olds

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The boys wanted to send a great, big, wet thank you for all of the wonderful gifts and wishes they received for their 4th birthday!  Huge thanks go out to Grandma and Opa, Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop, Aunt Jackie & Uncle Bob, Aunt Yasmin and Uncle Mark, Uncle Darin, Uncle James, Aunt Lise and Uncle Kevin, Uncle Rich and Aunt Kristine, Aunt Karen and Uncle Shawn, and Aunt Lori.  Thanks again!  Here are some pictures from their special day.

Peer is 4!

It's good to be the king

Of course, the Bea loves a carousel ride. She especially loves to ride on the zebra on a carousel, however (as there is no zebra on the carousel at the San Francisco Zoo), this time she made do with a cat holding a fish in its mouth. Baby sister got her first ride and was in awe ... watch for her face in this video. All in all, it was a very fun day at the zoo for all three of us.

Poor Carrie Prejean, you are another victim of the anti-Christian majority minority. You said, “No one came to my defense really.”

How true. How true. No one came to your defense really ... other than:

The people who applauded you when you gave your answer,

Donald Trump who said you could keep your job even after the Pageant Officials found that you had breached your contract,

The National Organization for Marriage who sang your praises and booked you at their events,

All the other groups who have hired you as a speaker for all those events you’ve been (not) going to,

The legion of right wing radio talk show hosts and all their devoted fans who called in and praised your bravery and devotion,

Every anchor and guest on Fox News including Sean Hannity who had you on his TV show right after the hoopla began and wrote the forward to your book,

Which reminds, the publishers of your book, who paid you big money to state your opinion again,

Umm, your family, I presume, like the sister you mentioned on Hannity who you said was disgusted by how you were treated,

And Jesus.

Jolly, Carrie, don’t any of those rich, powerful people count?

Not even Jesus?

Carrie Prejean wants us to know that her sex tape of her as a minor masturbating isn’t that bad a thing because she “loved and cared about” the guy she sent it to. And that when you think some guy “is the one,” it’s understandable that you’d do something like this. Even Hannity suggests that “a boyfriend you loved” is something that should be considered when we look at the act of creating such a recording.

So just to recap, according to Prejean and Hannity, loving and carrying about someone, who you think is the one, is a justification for creating and distributing child porn, but not for allowing consenting adults to marry each other if they are of the same gender.

Thanks for clearing that up, kids.

The Lost Tomb of Jesus

Amazon is having a having a sale on their science fiction material and in the 60% or more off section of the scifi sale section, they are selling The Lost Tomb of Jesus, described on the site thusly:

Product Description

The feature-length widescreen Director’s Cut of the Discovery Channel special – executive produced by James Cameron. In 1980, a bulldozer accidentally uncovered a first-century tomb in Jerusalem. Of the ten ossuaries (stone coffins) found inside, six bore inscriptions: Jesus son of Joseph, Maria, Mariamene (the name by which Mary Magdalene was known), Joseph, Matthew, and Judah son of Jesus. Dismissed by archaeologists as coincidence, the ossuaries were warehoused and forgotten. Twenty-five years later, filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici and his team took a fresh look at this astounding cluster of New Testament names. Granted unparalleled access, they went in search of the ossuaries…and the lost tomb. What they found may well be the most controversial archaeological discovery of all time.

 

Features 80 minutes of exclusive bonus materials including:
Interviews with executive producer James Cameron and director Simcha Jacobovici
Expert Interviews: The Discovery 1980, Judeo Christians, The Early Christian Cluster of Evidence, The Sign of the Cross, The Chevron Symbol, Mariamne
The Recreations: Behind the Scenes
The Lost Tomb of Jesus Epilogue featuring James Cameron and Simcha Jacobovici
Photo Gallery

Trailer

It’s right between Hunter X Hunter, Vol. 2, the manga based story of a boy who trains for his Hunter license that will allow him to hunt magical treasures, mythical beasts and even people, and Dreamscape, a film about psychics who battle in the realm of the President’s nightmares with the threat of a nuclear holocaust hanging in the balance.

Thank you, Amazon, for putting the Jesus myth in the same category! You are decades, if not centuries, ahead of your time. Prepare for the hate mail that I'm sure will end once you've explain that it's only there because it's producer, James Cameron, also directed The Terminator. Yep, Fox News and the wingnuts will completely fail to see an anti-Christian conspiracy.

Also super cool was that there were a lot of photos on the site for the recreations of biblical scenes that were included with the DVD. The recreation photos were entitled things like “Recreations - Jesus preaches in market,” “Recreations - Mother Mary & Mary Magdalene morn Jesus' death,” and “Recreations - Jesus' family and followers grieve, skeleton is prepared for ossuary” and then there was the photo captioned  "Recreations - Simcha directing Jesus."

Recreations - Simcha directing Jesus

I think we all remember that scene in Luke, chapter 12, were Simcha Jacobovici told Jesus to try the scene again but this time with more feeling. And it is great to see that it has been recreated for this DVD.

Spidey's Angels

October 2009, Spiderman visits the SF Zoo.  'Nuff said.

Here's one of the kids favorite spots in the zoo - the spider web outside the bug exhibit.

Spidey-hands:

at the zoo

boys at Fairyland

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Lots of fun with Uncle Darin at Fairyland in Oakland, CA.

They have a small chapel and Till was a natural at giving rousing sermons...

Till's Fairyland sermon

Till sermonizing, Peer checking nail beds

Zuzu and Uncle Darin have a good time together.

Peas in a pod

Aprons

Child labor laws be damned!  Let's make some banana bread boys!!

Brothers Baking

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I did it!