LEGO Research Institute playset

Looking for a cool female-empowerment LEGO playset for the science-minded little girl (or boy for that matter!) on your Christmas shopping list? Well, look no further, because the recently released LEGO Research Institute just might be the geek chic LEGO playset of the year!

Featuring LEGO minifigures of a female astronomer, chemist and paleontologist, the set was developed through LEGO's hugely popular LEGO Ideas Program by real-life geoscientist Ellen Kooijman. And whether you're an Adult Fan of LEGOS (AFOL) or a parent hoping to nurture your daughter's interest in science and the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), this is the set for you. I happen to be both of the above, so, I guess I'll need two sets!

But, seriously, if you are interested in purchasing a LEGO Research Institute, you'd best act fast. Available for just $19.99 at the LEGO Store and several places online, the set is selling out fast and already going for as much as $92.00 on Amazon, so, shop now or forever hold your peace…or dinosaur bone, or, you know, whatever else you're holding.

Girl power 4eva, smart girls rock!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Backpack Envy!

We've already got Greta a very cool My Little Pony backpack and matching lunchbox for school, but, if we hadn't, these adorable new animal backpacks from Land of Nod would be at the top of our “must have” list! So freaking cute!

They might not light up like Greta's new backpack, but, man…these are so awesome (and relatively inexpensive at $29.99), that I'm seriously reconsidering our decision to go full Pony this go around. Urgh…too many choices. Backpack shopping is hard, yo!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Mercury Retrograde Meltdown…

I don’t know if I really believe in the whole Mercury in Retrograde mumbo jumbo that everyone’s been talking about for the past few weeks, but I do know that I have been breaking literally everything I touch lately.

Last Friday I dropped my iPhone — which, BTW, I have dropped hundreds of times! — and broke the LCD connector inside. The screen was fine with nary a scratch or crack to speak of, but all I could see were the dreaded vertical blue lines. Urgh…such a bummer! Luckily, Siri still worked, so, I was able to have her read me my emails and text messages and I even had her call people for me. Of course, I couldn’t hang up when the call ended, but, hey, at least my phone was still kind of moderately usable.

In the meantime I weighed my options with AT&T. I am about six months away from an upgrade, so, my pickings were slim and expensive and just thinking about it made my brain hurt. In the end, Mrs. Yeti and I decided to bite the bullet and lay out the cash for a new phone…and then, something glorious happened. I found a place called uBreakiFix in Glendale, and not only did they fix my LCD thingy, but they did it in an hour and fifteen minutes for $86. To say they saved my bacon is a serious understatement. Those guys rocked!

Of course, the iPhone was only one small part of the shit I broke last week. Aside from breaking two, count ’em, two of Greta’s water bottles, I also broke my longstanding contract with my internet provider Earthlink. I know, that doesn’t technically count as breaking something, but, let me tell ya, changing all of your shit over to a new email address is a freaking nightmare. Especially when you’ve had said address since 1998!

Yep, I signed up with Earthlink during the Clinton administration! Crazy, huh? Anyway, you’d be amazed at how complicated is to reset all your accounts on all your shit across the entire internet. I had to start a handwritten list after a while to keep track of it all and even that got confusing! But, at the end of the day, I emerged a much happier Gmail user.

Oh, and if I somehow forgot to send someone out there my new email address, don’t take it personally, I tried to hit everyone in my book, but, by the end, my brain was mush. If you really need to reach me, you can always comment here or text me or something. I’m pretty easy to find…

Anyway, hopefully all of that insanity is behind me now that Mercury has left retrograde or whatever, but, man…what a week. The Fourth of July weekend in San Diego cannot come soon enough. Seriously, bring on the booze and BBQ, baby!

Posted with Blogsy

“Country: Portraits of an American Sound” at the Annenberg Space for Photography

Last weekend, we headed to the Annenberg Space for Photography in Century City to check out their spanking new exhibit, “Country: Portraits of an American Sound” and lemme tell ya, it kicked ass. Seriously, even people who don’t like country music will enjoy the very cool array of photographs on display. And if you love old school Grand Ole Opry stars like Ernest Tubb, Loretta Lynn, George Jones and Patsy Cline as much as we do, well, prepare to be dazzled.

Featuring work from a number of photographers covering the country music scene in Nashville and beyond, the show spans the post WWII period straight on through to today. One of Greta’s favorite shots was a very recent portrait of that little firecracker Kasey Musgraves. Musgraves took home the Grammy for Best Country Album earlier this year for her boot-stompingly good major label debut “Same Trailer Different Park.” And of you haven’t heard her music yet, well…you will!

My favorite pic was the insanely cool Tammy Wynette shot featured on the poster below and an action pic of Loretta Lynn jumping for joy after hearing that she’d been asked to join the regular cast at the Opry. Classic! And if you love Johnny Cash like we do, there are some great photos of him through the years as well. Honestly, every photo in the show is amazing and the documentary the Annenberg produced in conjunction with The Country Music Hall of Fame is positively riveting. Seriously good stuff all around.

And those with wee ones will appreciate the show’s super cool hidden item game which encourages kids to find items from a brochure in the photos on display. Greta loved it and actually, it was fun for adults too. In fact, some of the items were so difficult to find that we had to ask for help.

So, if you live in the area (and even if you don’t!) get thee to the Annenberg Space for Photography and check out this little gem of a show for yourself. The cost of admission is free and parking, with museum validation, is only one dollar. So, how can you lose?

I should warn you though, this show will fuel your desire for country jams like never before, we’ve been playing nothing but Dolly, Emmylou Harris and Porter Wagoner all week…it’s been awesome!

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

While I probably still credit Steinbeck and Dickens for sending me down the road to crazy writerville, I must admit that Maya Angelou is the writer who taught me the most about the vivid, colorful way that people talk on the page.

I first read “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” in high school and I loved it so much that it was the first adult book that I actually read twice. If I remember correctly I finished it and started reading it again straight away. It was that good!

Rich, layered, funny, sad and sometimes completely weird, Angelou’s characters (which were mostly based on real people from her life since it was a memoir) and their distinctive voices literally popped off the page. It was, and still is, a truly amazing read.

Even if that was the only thing she’d ever done, something tells me we’d still be celebrating Angelou today. But, luckily for us, Angelou was so much more than a writer and a poet and the bold, fascinating way she lived her life should be an example for us all. There will never be anyone quite like Dr. Maya Angelou. So, thank you for the inspiration, the words and most of all, the priceless life lessons you shared with us along the way. RIP sweet lady…

“Star Wars” Sneakers!

Any Star Wars fan worth their Adegan crystals knows that today is Star Wars Day, or, as some prefer to call it: “May the Fourth be with You” Day. And while there are probably millions of celebrations taking place around the globe today — Greta and I have been playing the LEGO Star Wars video game on the Wii — perhaps one of the coolest involves the release of a brand new line of bad-ass footwear by Vault for Vans.

That’s right, Jedis, the slacker geniuses behind the world’s favorite skater slip-ons have upped their cool factor once again by releasing a limited edition line of sneakers, backpacks, hats and accessories featuring characters from the Star Wars universe.

My favorites are the pair with the stormtrooper helmets and the slip-on’s with the AT-AT Walkers, lightening bolts and little palm trees! Talk about the perfect shoes for summer! Awesome!

To check out more of the very cool stuff Vans is doing to celebrate Star Wars day, click here. And however you chose to celebrate today, rest assured that the fourth will be you…always.

Watching vs. Documenting

A friend of mine who has a son around Greta’s age gave me some really great advice recently. He said that over the years he realized that he spent so much time documenting his son’s soccer games, music recitals, etc., that he had never actually seen his son do anything. You know, in real time with his naked eyes.

So, the next time his son had an event, my friend left his iPhone and camera in his backpack and actually watched his son perform — no camera, no zoom, no video, no flash, just straight up watching — and it was magical. So, last Thursday at Greta’s annual ballet class parent viewing day I did the same thing.

As you can see, I still took a few pictures here and there, but, for the most part I simply watched my daughter dance and it was lovely. Seriously, I never knew what I was missing…Greta was amazing!

If you haven’t tried it yet for yourself, I highly recommend you do. Handing off the camera to someone else (or even just not taking pics or video) and actively watching your kid perform is pretty damn incredible. Try it!

“Star Wars: Episode VII” Cast Unveiled

Star Wars fans everywhere rejoiced this week at the news that director J.J. Abrams had finalized the cast for his upcoming and still untitled, Star Wars sequel. Even cooler than the confirmation that old favorites like Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford would definitely be returning was the news that such bad-ass actors as Girl’s star Adam Driver, Inside Llywen Davis lead, Oscar Isaac, Max von Sydow, and the man who plays Gollum, Andy Serkis will be joining the franchise as well.

I mean, seriously, just the idea of Serkis — an actor from one of my all-time-favorite film franchises: The Hobbit/The Lord of the Rings — joining the cast of another of my all-time-favorite film franchises is enough to make my big geeky head explode! So cool!

And even though there was only one new female cast member announced (newcomer Daisy Ridley) Abrams has hinted that there may be more to come in the weeks ahead, so, you never know.

I’m just hoping they cast someone to play Anakin’s former Padawan, Ahsoka Tano. Tano was, by far, the coolest character to emerge from The Clone Wars animated series and her fate was left very much in limbo at the end of the televised series. So, the thought of her character re-emerging in the live action sequels is almost too cool to contemplate. Seriously, I get goosebumps just thinking about it! Go, Ahsoka!

To read more Star Wars: Episode VII casting news, click here. And in the meantime enjoy this amazing pic of the new cast at a “table read” with Abrams. I love how R2-D2 is there in that little packing crate too…so rad!

Record Store Day 2014

I know Record Store Day actually took place a couple of weeks ago now, but, I had such a blast celebrating it this year, and I took so many cool pics, that I simply had to share them again here. So, bear with me…Facebook friends.

Unlike in previous years, Record Store Day 2014 fell on Easter weekend this year, and since we always spend Easter at my Mom’s place in San Diego, we got to check out a couple of different record stores this go around. So, yay for us!

First up was a cool little place in the grungy-hip North Park neighborhood called Off The Record. And though the selection was pretty decent — but nowhere near the awesomeness of our local Amoeba Records in Hollywood! — the prices were fantastic, so, I would totally hit them up again. I bought a brand new Nina Simone CD for $5.99 and my brother-in-law walked away with a handful of very cool used CD’s for around $10-$15 bucks for the lot of them. Not bad.

But our next stop was even cooler. San Diego’s M-Theory Records has been rated one of San Diego’s Best Record Stores for years and it’s not hard to see why. Although their selection seemed much smaller than Off The Record’s, the depth and quality of M-Theory’s inventory was amazing. I’m not kidding, man…they had some really eclectic shit in there.

Even more surprising than M-Theory’s artfully curated vinyl stash was the totally disarming coolness of their staff. Friendly, smart and totally knowledgable, the clerks at M-Theory seemed determined to dispel the myth of the surly hipster record store clerk once and for all. And all I can say to that is: “Amen, brother!” Record Store Day or not, I can’t wait to spend more money in that joint next time we’re in town!

And even though I wasn’t able to find that David Lynch record or the Original The Muppet Movie Soundtrack vinyl reissue I was looking for, I still had a blast. So, rock on, San Diego record stores…see ya next year!

Greta’s glasses: Update

Sorry for not posting for a while, but work and the rigors of raising a tiny human being have been keeping me on my toes more than normal. I don’t know if it’s the pre-summer rush or what, but, life around the Yeti household has been pretty insane of late and, for better or worse, time has been flying by these days.

That said, I wanted to take a minute to give you an update on Greta’s eyeglass situation. We had our one month follow-up appointment with her eye doctor yesterday and not only did Greta do better on every vision test she took, but, the doctor said her eyesight has improved almost three times over since she started wearing glasses! Yay!

I know we still have a long way to go, but, I could not have been prouder of my little bespeckled biscuit that day. Hearing her rattle off the shapes on the eye chart — most of which were too blurry for her to identify last time — filled my old withered heart with joy. Seriously, it was really cool, especially considering the fact that she’s only been wearing glasses for a little over a month!

But perhaps even cooler than the results of her most recent eye test is the fact that Greta genuinely enjoys wearing her little green and black Hello Kitty glasses now. And if I needed any further proof of that, her response to a little girl at the park, who asked why Greta was wearing glasses, totally sealed the deal. “My glasses help me see better.” Greta proudly replied.

And who can argue with that?

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad