We saw FInding Nemo The Musical in Animal Kingdom. Dragon was fascinated by the characters and didn’t sleep during the show, despite the darkness of the theatre. She DID fall asleep during the Lion King show. (no pictures)
Guitar Lessons Part 4
July 18: woo!
I used up all my practice time on the app today!
I started off by playing the melody from yesterday. I wasn’t satisfied by the first couple times, so I played it a third time and got four x three stars, two of which were gold.
Then I moved on to the next melody. This one had a variety of rhythms, switching strings and switching frets. It was hard.
I slowed down in practice mode and played it at 75%, 85%, and 95%. I didn’t get a chance to perform because my practice time was used up. (I get half an hour in the free app.)
Then I sang my song again, no guitar. I’m still liking it.
I practiced all the chords I know. I had fewer dull notes on the first strum, which was nice. Still having trouble with G. My fingers may be long, but wow by third and fourth finger do not like being separated that far.
On a positive note (pun intended), my fingers didn’t hurt until I started playing the chords!
July 19: Look at the pretty!
I didn’t think I was going to get to practice today (although I did play through yesterday’s song once through) because…
Dun dun dun!!
I bought a guitar!
(I just realized I’m wearing the same shirt as the last guitar pic. Oops. I swear I have more shirts!)
It’s a Fender ¾ and it’s red and it’s so pretty!
There’s going to be a bit of a learning curve when it comes to the higher strings because my new guitar has metal strings and wow they’re thin! The highest is practically a garrote!
I’m looking forward to practicing on my new guitar tomorrow!
July 20: Chords really hurt
I passed the melody line that I’d been working on the past two days after playing it twice today. I ended up with 2x three gold stars and 2x three stars. I’m very pleased with that result.
Then I moved on to the C chord.
My new guitar has a much thinner neck than my dad’s, so the reach isn’t as painful. However! The metal strings (bronze) really hurt and I have to get right up on my fingertips so as to not touch the strings on either side.
So I had a lot of trouble getting past the chord review. E, Em Am, and C. I had to play 9 in a set amount of time. The best I did today was 7. And then 6. And then 5. And then my fingers hurt too much to continue.
I’ll get callouses eventually and then it won’t hurt anymore, right?
I practiced singing my song, no guitar.
July 21: Passed the chords!
I figured out that I had to strum more than once in order for the app to pick up the sound. So after I had done a few tries and only succeeded at getting 1-5 right, I figured out the strumming thing and I got 14 right! I only needed 9 to move on.
Rather than moving on with the chord lessons, I went back and re-did a whole bunch of the melody songs. I was very pleased at how well my fingers responded to them. I did a couple twice because I stumbled on them the first time.
My fingers hurt from the chords, but the melodies didn’t make them hurt worse, so I’m calling that a win.
I also was able to play through the entire half hour of free play time. Woo!
I am loving my new guitar. I’m definitely finding it easier to reach the chords like G (not that I’ve learned that one in the app yet).
I didn’t sing today during practice, but I promise I will later.
July 22: Bad day
Today was a difficult lesson day. I tried the next chord lesson, which was a song with C and Em chords, and it did not go well.
Just switching between them is hard enough, but I keep being slightly off the strings and that messes up the chord. So I didn’t pass the lesson at all. It was very disheartening. And my fingers hurt.
To try to cheer myself up, I tried to do one of the melodies, and I kept messing up on it, too.
I did sing my song though, so at least one thing went well in my music lesson today.
July 23: Boo
I still have not passed the C/Em chord lesson. I have a feeling I’ll be stuck here for a while.
Plus side?
I’m finding it easier to switch between them. I just need to be more precise with where I’m pressing on the strings so that I don’t make a dull note. Because this app? It picks up EVERYTHING.
I’m rather frustrated.
I did play 3 of the melodies from the previous set of lessons and did pretty well on them.
I sang my song again. Still happy with it. Still not ready to try to put music to it.
July 24: Success!
I passed the C/Em chord lesson!! I played it about ten times today, and finally got three stars in both sections (two times). I’m very proud of myself for sticking with this.
Then the next lesson was Em/C chords. I’m very proud to say that it only took me four tries to get three stars in all three sections (twice).
My fingers were very sore by the end of these two lessons, but I wanted to check out the next lesson, so I gave it a shot. It is Am/C, and I did not do very well, despite it being incredibly easy to switch between these two chords (only one finger needs to move). It’s probably because my fingers were tired.
I sang my song at the beginning of the lesson. I still love it.
I think I’ve figured out how to write out the music. I’m going to print out the song and figure out which notes belong with each syllable, writing them down with a pencil. Then I’ll figure out the chord progression from there.
We’ll see how that goes.
Anyways, positive lesson today, despite the fact that my fingers are still tingling.
July 25: Bruises or callouses?
Yesterday, I was all excited because I thought I was developing callouses.
Today, I realized they’re bruises.
It really hurt to play today.
I played the Am/C chord song a few times today. I did not pass. I kept making mistakes like shifting my fingers too far or not pressing hard enough on the string.
I printed out the song and wrote out the melody for the first line of the first verse.
It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be. I used to be able to do this sort of thing easily when I was in high school. Funny how skills vanish after twenty years of not using them. (Twenty?? 😱)
If I figure out one line a day, I’ll finish the song in 11 days (because the verses are practically the same and the chorus will only need a minor tweak at the very end of the third chorus because of a difference in syllable count). Fingers crossed?
Change in Schedule – Dear Pegasus and Dragon
Dear Pegasus and Dragon,
Your mum and I had a plan. It was a good plan. Until Dragon went to school we’d have your schedule be 11pm sleeptime and 11am wake up. This meant we had more time with you and the grandparents after dinner.
It worked really well and we were getting mentally prepared to change it when the pandemic and first lockdown hit. We decided that since mum was mostly homeschooling Dragon that we’d keep going.
Now that Dragon is going to be going to full time digital school next week (Yikes) we’ll be switching your schedule to 8pm bedtime and 8am wakeup time.
I’m kinda terrified about how it’s going to work. Worried that we’ve messed up your internal clock or something. Hopefully everything will be okay, but I definitely expect it to be a hard first few weeks.
As much as this past year or so has been terribly scary and more than a little frustrating, I’ve enjoyed the extra time we’ve had together. I’m not sure you’ll remember much from this year but between the homeschooling activities and the extra time at night to snuggle, I’m not going to forget.
This feels like a big change for us, but if we do it right you won’t remember it.
Love you both,
Papa (Éric)
Girl Vs. Monster – JenEric Movie Review
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2012 film Girl Vs. Monster.
Story
This is a fairly simple story about facing your fears. It’s surprisingly well thought out with lots of fun throughout. It has aged much better than I expected.
Score: 1
Charaters
When I first watched it I really liked the assistant and the main character. Watching it now, the best friend is seriously the most awesome character. The parents are annoying but understandable and most of the characters are good but a little shallow. The movie could have done with less secondary charters.
Score: 0.5
Dialogue
The dialogue is often a little bit too much on point and is interestingly already dated. It has some nice layers but its mostly just okay.
Score: 1
Visuals and Music
The movie uses its sets, cinematography, and special effects very well. The special effects are cheesy, but the sets are well done and I was impressed with the camera work.
The music was good. It was obvious that they had 2 songs and a small score, but it worked and helped move the plot forward instead of just taking time.
Score: 0.5
Fun
I liked this movie the first time I saw it and still liked it this time. I had both kids snuggling into me during the scary parts and both really liked it. They both got really excited at the big music scene. It also kept both of them interested the whole time without snacks. The day after, the 2 year old asked, “Watch Scary Movie?” which is super cute.
Score: 1
Overall
A good intro to horror adventure movies for kids, few scares but no trauma. With it’s strong message and wonderful soundtrack it’s a great cheesy Disney scary movie.
Final Score: 4 Stars out of 5
11 Years?
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
Yesterday was the 11 year anniversary of me finishing my first ever novel. Viridian Skies was poorly plotted, filled with contradictions, and the only thing more cringy than the sex scene are the fight scenes. Its very much written like a D&D game and not like a proper novel.
I’d like to revisit the core concept of the story someday, but for now it’s locked in my writing folder.
I have to give the novel credit though, it taught me a lot about how to write and helped me start to develop my style. It also taught me to avoid three-chapter fight scenes.
Most importantly it taught me that I was able to to finish a novel and that gave me the push I needed to do NaNoWriMo and write a novel called The Mitten Wizard (Available now from your favourite bookstore as A Study in Aether.)
Since 2010, I’ve finished another 6 novels on my own and co-wrote two.
One Wednesday, I reached a milestone of 2/3rd done in my current writing project. I started it in 2018 and I’m so close I can taste it. I’m hoping to have it done by mid-September to submit to my publisher for a spot in their 2023 catalogue.
So if all goes well, I should have another 2 novels completed by the end of the year. (Jen and I are writing the sequel to Assassins! Accidental Matchmakers in October and the last one took us 2 & 1/2 months.)
The world might be shit right now and I’m feeling like crap (I hate ragweed season), but I’m proud of the writing I’ve done this year.
I hope your creative endeavours go as well or better than mine have.
Stay safe and be kind,
Éric
Location and Time
Why Westmeath?
It’s set in the city of Westmeath, Ontario, which is a real place, but in real life is a small farming area. In our book, something significant was discovered there and a very large city popped up very quickly (think 3/4 the size of Montreal, about 1.1 million people) in the 1970s. The sister city is Demers, Quebec, which is about the same size. There are about 60 high schools in Westmeath.
We wanted a fictional city so that we could add areas, streets, and stores without worrying about real locations. There are certain areas that are based off of real-life locations (Kennedy’s apartment is based on the apartments at Lees in Ottawa, for example).
The characters were originally from a table top role playing game we played in 2010 and at the time, Éric wanted to have a city that could be a pastiche of Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto, and Gotham.
Why 2002?
The book is set in 2002 to avoid conflicting or crossing over with too many elements of the rest of the Aetherverse, specifically events that will happen in summer of 2016 in book 7 of Elizabeth Investigates Her Last Bow.
Beyond wanting to avoid giving away the series ending (not to mention not wanting to deal with the pandemic) we also were in late high school and early university at the time and have some fond memories.
Ready for Flight!
We are now travelling back in time to January 2017, when Dragon was 3 months and we visited Disney World. There are not many pictures. We were so exhausted and trying to figure out how to travel with an infant. There will be more from our next trip.
Guitar Lessons Part 3
July 12: chord lesson blahs
I played the same lesson the entire lesson today; Em and Am. I need to get three stars on all three parts of the lesson in order to move on to the next lesson.
I have yet to succeed.
My fingers hurt.
Silver lining? I’m feeling a lot more confident switching between the two chords.
I guess that’s the whole point.
July 13: new chords
I have finally succeeded at the Em/Am lesson!!
Now I’ve moved on to E/Am.
I succeeded on the first attempt, but I like to play it twice because my fingers need the practice switching between chords. I don’t want to move on too quickly.
And then I couldn’t pass it again.
Sigh.
I appear to be on a downswing for my song too. It sounded all off today.
So now my fingers hurt and I’m not feeling great about how today’s lesson went at all.
Very disappointing.
July 14: moving forward
I beat the level!
Well, it’s not a video game, but it kinda feels like one.
So I completed the song with Am/E. Then I moved on to an Am/E/Em song. I completed it twice, passing both times.
I feel a lot better about my progress today.
That was the end of the chords lessons, and they moved on to basics about the guitar: the names of the strings, half steps and whole steps, and pitches.
I completed all of those easily.
I played my song again. Still not super happy with it today. That’s ok, though. I’ve got time to figure it out.
Yes, my fingers still hurt.
July 15: level 2
I completed the knowledge lessons. It’s nice to know that I haven’t forgotten things like how to count 4/4 time.
That meant that I got to move on to LEVEL TWO!
The first set of lessons are Melody 2. Single fingers, picking and not strumming. I completed the first few melodies with very little trouble (twice each, to make sure I had the lesson down properly).
The fourth melody really picked up the speed and switched from the 2/¾ frets to the ¾/5 frets and wow was that ever difficult! I completely failed (couldn’t even get to the end of the song) multiple times before I finally managed to pass. I only passed once though, so I’ll be playing it again tomorrow and hopefully succeeding.
As for my song…I seem to have stalled on it. I hope it’ll get easier to write the music for it as I learn more.
My fingers don’t hurt too much today. They sting a little.
July 16: slow down
Today I repeated the melody I was having trouble with yesterday and I only made one mistake. I was very satisfied and moved on to the next set of lessons; Melody 2.5.
Wow.
That was a dramatic increase in complexity.
Changing frets AND strings and much faster than the previous songs.
So I took the time to run through the song on practice mode and slowed it down to 60% and tried again. Then I increased it to 75%. And then 85%. And then I tried again in perform mode. I wasn’t perfect by a long shot, but I got 3 stars (not gold stars) and I’m really thrilled with that.
I am not considering myself as “passed” though. I’ll try it again tomorrow and if I can get 3 stars again, then I’ll move on to the next lesson.
As for my song, I didn’t play it today.
However, I sang it. I think it’ll be easier to get the melody down on the guitar if I have it firmly in my head first.
We’ll see how that goes.
July 17: mostly positive
I started today’s lesson with the melody I was having trouble with yesterday. It took two tries, but I succeeded to my satisfaction.
Then I moved on to the next melody. The app told me I passed on the first try, which was, frankly, astonishing. The melody moved between the first 3 frets and the next 3 frets, switching between the bottom 3 strings. I don’t think it was quite as fast as the first melody I did today, but it was close. Then I tried it three more times before i finally passed it again on the fourth try.
I practiced the chords I know, both with a strum and finger picking each string to make sure I don’t have dull notes.
Again, I sang the song rather than play. I think I’m getting more consistent. I hope.
Fun is a good enough reason
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
As a parent, I have often been told that a toy or activity promotes something. (Eg: Playing with blocks promotes small motor skills and spacial awareness.)
It feels that our current society is very focused on the end goal. There are extremes where parents will structure and plan every activity towards a specific goal. But even the laid back parents fall into the trap of assuming that their kids will want to do a job because they enjoy an activity.
I’m guilty of this for myself and my kids. It’s a dangerous attitude because it turns everything that you can do as a stress reliever into some form of marketable product.
Even things that were once just hobbies have started to be marketable. There’s an entire new economy for Professional Game Facilitators for table table games. (AKA Dungeon Masters or Games Masters) Video game testers, reviewers, and streamers are huge.
It’s an attitude that made me choose to give up hobbies because I’d never be “good enough” to make money from it and I didn’t want to waste the time it would take to get to that point. Poetry, bass guitar, drawing, soccer, fencing, photography, and I’m sure I’m forgetting something.
When I was in high school, I took music. I had to take it in the English school since mine didn’t have the option. I must have been okay because I made the cut for the band and we won several competitions. I played the tenor saxophone and my first exam the teacher told me I sounded like a tortured cow. Despite that “tough love,” I continued to play and enjoyed it. That was the thing, I enjoyed it. I’d play waiting for the late bus or on Sundays. When I graduated, I had to give back the instrument and a tenor sax is not cheap.
It’s now been 19 years since I touched a sax and I doubt I’d remember how to do a scale. I’ve seen used ones and considered getting one, but it never seemed worth it.
In university, my brother wanted to start a band, so he bought me a bass. I practised, but wasn’t great. After a while, I just decided I wasn’t good enough. Also in university, I was in the residence life choir.
I made some great friends and had lots of fun. I did karaoke with my brother (who was super supportive) and my roommates (who were hyper-critical).
Like the sax, I liked singing and since I was being told I wasn’t that great (I wasn’t), I decided it wasn’t worth doing it anywhere but the shower.
This summer, to avoid copyright infringement, my wife decided to write an original song for a novel she was writing. It turned into her deciding to learn guitar so that she could include the chords in the book. At the same time, we were binge watching High School Musical: The Musical The Series.
I watched the show and my wife learning guitar and something inside me became sad. I wanted to make pretty noises. I wanted to recapture the joy I had at playing the sax or singing.
I struggled with the idea that I would have to dedicate a lot of time, which I didn’t have, to become good enough to perform or join a band. How could I make money or show that the work was worth it if I did decide to learn or continue with music.
That’s when I realized that enjoyment can be enough. I don’t have to be good, I don’t have to make money, I don’t have to do anything with it. So I decided:
Fuck money, fuck side hustles, and fuck society’s need to monetize everything! I’m going to learn the ukulele.
We bought a used tenor ukulele which will come in the next few weeks and a really cheap soprano uke that I’ve been learning on. It’s fun and frustrating, but when I get into the groove, it’s just as wonderful as I remember.
I’m terrible and I have a lot to learn, but I’m having fun. I’m still struggling with the idea that doing something for just me isn’t selfish or silly. It’s stress relieving and fun.
And you know what? To paraphrase Dragon’s current catchphrase, “I’m allowed to have fun.”
Stay safe and be kind,
Éric
Chicken Little – JenEric Movie Review
How This Works – Read Other Reviews
Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2005 film Chicken Little.
Story
This is three shorts in one poorly transitioned and linked by nothing but characters. Instead of transition scenes to bring us between family drama, baseball, and aliens; we get fat, fart, ugly, and useless jokes.
Score: 0
Characters
Someone threw darts at a board filled with clichés then picked the ones with the best mock-able attributes. I have never seen so many jokes at the expense of the main characters in any Disney movie before.
The parent who doesn’t believe their child trope needs to go away forever.
Score: 0
Dialogue
There was a lot of clever meta-jokes about the genre. From jokes about the movie Aliens, to Indiana Jones, some were clever, others not so much.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
I’m not sure what style Disney was going for, but the visuals are average to mediocre for the time and abysmal for now. The character design was poorly thought out and the scaling was odd.
The music was a lovely nostalgic hit of the mid-aughts.
Score: 0.5
Fun
The urge to scream at the screen was hard to push down. So much about this annoyed me. The kids liked it enough, although the two year old wasn’t all that interested after an hour.
Score: 0
Overall
This is one of the movies people forget is Disney. I think we should just forget it completely. Abysmal jokes with no connections between the sections. Its writing is more concerned with insults both to its characters and its audience’s intelligence.
Final Score: 1 Star out of 5