WWdN: In Exile

down the rabbit hole, into tomorrowland and beyond

Don't you love it when you chase some links down the Internets rabbit hole and discover something hawesome you wouldn't have discovered on your own?

I started at boingboing, where Cory linked to a blog created by Pixar employees who offer advice to Disney on how to improve Disneyland. I love Disneyland (I've been a nerd for MiceAge, Laughing Place, and Yesterland for years) and I really hate what they did to the park in the last decade or so, especially the absolutely horrifying "updating" of Tomorrowland. It was cool to read this post where Merlin Jones says many of the same things I've been saying for years:

The utopian, ultramodern design of 1967's New Tomorrowland, gleaming like a moonscape in stark white, black and cool shades of blue and silver, was unsucessfully updated in 1998 to reflect a bronzed Victorian/Vernian mechanical view of the future. While this was great at Disneyland Paris, where the concept was fully realized, it never gelled here in Anaheim, particularly as a layover to the modernist original.

[. . .]

Tomorrowland's apocalypse is the elephant-in-the-room at Disneyland. It should be fixed immediately - - and before any new expansion or additions. This decay impacts the guest's experience and memory of the park. The imminent return of Submarine Voyage and new Monorail trains will help get the ball rolling. Why not drop the other shoe and revive the entire land at the same time? It would be a marketing coup.

The blog is still relatively young, and I read the entire thing in about thirty well-spent minutes. I hope that the new management at Disneyland will listen up: it's not about selling plush toys or trading pins, guys. It's not about "synergy" with whatever movie is going to be forgotten in two years. Disneyland is about escaping from the cares and troubles of real life, and immersing ourselves in a world of Adventure, Fantasy, and a great big beautiful Tomorrow.

Continuing down the rabbit hole: I looked at some of the links on their blog, and found myself at Don Shank's blog, which has some really amzing artwork he did for The Incredibles (one of my favorite movies of all-time) as well as some ultra cool artwork he's done for himself. I can do a lot of things, but drawing is a skill that has always eluded me. As far back as fifth grade, I remember my dodge ball nemesis Jimmie Just could draw the most amazing monsters and things, while I struggled to do a step-by-step Garfield (which Donald Garwood could draw flawlessly.) I've favorited and bloglines-ed Don's blog, and some day I'll get the courage to ask him if he'll do a drawing for one of my books.

I hope this illustrates how cool the internets is: I never would have seen Don Shank's blog if I didn't read boingboing, and I wouldn't read boingboing if I hadn't met Cory at the Boxing with Barney EFF event several years ago. (Even though I read the 'zine version of boingboing back in the day, I didn't know it was a website until 2002-ish.) It's sort of like following real-life hyperlinks to a website, where you follow traditional hyperlinks long enough to find that place down the Long Tail that seems to speak only to you.

Photo of Space Mountain via Flickr user Sky Traveler
Image of Noobly Squirbulette via Don Shank's blog.

Is it actually just about a sandwich? Yeah, I guess it is.

From time to time, I really enjoy a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Melt a bit of sharp cheddar (Tillamook extra sharp is my favorite, if I can find it here in LA -- there's some embargo which usually prevents anything better than plain old sharp from making it to our stores) and dip it in a spot of French's plain old yellow mustard before each bite, and I am a happy, happy guy. (I just wrote "man," then erased it. Then I wrote "dude" and erased that and tried "man" again. Then, I wrote "Dennis," which made me laugh really hard. Then I settled on "guy."

So. I'm trying my very best not to get some sort of unhappy cold thing which currently involves a whole lot of coughing and this weird heaviness in my chest. It started after the 5K yesterday, and by last night it required the use of some Advil. Today, I've mostly felt like shit, but this afternoon, my body said, "Hey! You there! Old Woman!"

Nah, I'm just kidding. I really want to go into a whole Holy Grail quote-fest, but this entry is already far too silly.

My body said, "Hey, guy, dude, dennis, man, dude, manguy, guymanndude, guy, I want a grilled cheese."

"Whatever you say, Mr. BIllboard," I said.[1]

I grabbed two pieces of the best bread ever, which is called Sheepherder's Bread (it comes from Trader Joe's.) Then I grabbed two slices of Tillamook sharp cheddar and shook my fist Northward at whoever is preventing the extra sharp goodness from making its way to my door. I decided that since I'd be burping cheese the rest of the night (gross!) I may as well burp ham and cheese, so I grabbed some ham out of the meat drawer and put it on the bread and closed the whole thing up. Then, I did something really white trash: instead of butter, I sprayed some cooking spray on the pan . . . and on the bread, too.

I know. Gross. Deal.

So I turned on the burner, and began turning this mass of meat, bread, cheese, and cooking spray into the glory which is a grilled ham and cheese.

Until, uh, I forgot to turn the heat down after a second, and the bread charred a little bit.

No worries, I thought, I'll just flip it over, turn the heat down, and when it's time to eat this bitch, I'll do it after-school-1982-style: scraped with a knife into the sink. Yeeeeaaargghh!

I flipped it, turned down the heat, and walked to the dining room hutch to get a plate. When I came back into the kitchen, there was far too much smoke coming off the skillet to be good.

I learned an important lesson: spraying with cooking spray may be easier than slathering with butter, but it burns at a much lower temperature than butter does, which results in an after-school-1979-style grilled ham and cheeese: scraped with a knife into the sink, with most of the cheese still cold and unmelted except at the edges. And the ham is lukewarm too.

Not even the mustard could save it, and I'm burping ham and cheese for nothing.

[1] After the abomination that was last night's sad attempt to do a tired old parody of My Fair Lady, I hereby announce that The Simpsons has leaped the shark, and harpooned it from orbit. AAaayyy.

Sark defends port deal

via Bruce Schneier:

More on Port Security

From Defective Yeti:

Sark Defends Port Deal

Sark today sought to quell the growing controversy over his decision to grant the MCP control of several major ports throughout the region.

"I believe that this arrangement with the Master Control Program should go forward," Sark told reporters aboard Solar Sailer One. He emphasized that security would continued to be handled by Tank and Recognizer programs, with the MCP only be in charge of port operations.

But Dumont, guardian of the I/O towers, voiced skepticism. "I could understand ceding authority over ports 21 and 80," said Dumont. "But port 443? That's supposed to be secure!"

The public's reaction to the plan has also been overwhelmingly negative. "No no no," said a bit upon hearing the news. "No no no no." Others were more blunt. "Sark should be de-rezzed for even proposing this," said Ram, a financial program.

Sark, who has repeatedly denied having ties to the MCP, has insisted that the hand-over go through, and says that he will vigorously resist any effort to block it. But programs such as Yori are equally adamant that the deal be scuttled. "My User," she said, "have we already forgotten the lessons of 1000222846?"

race for the cure

Anne and I ran in the Race for the Cure at the Rose Bowl yesterday. It was a perfect day for a run: mostly cloudy, not too humid, and around 65 when we started. I haven't run very much the last year, thanks to this stupid chronic pain in my right hip (the Miracle Balls are helping a lot. I'll write about that another time) but I've been jogging and walking almost every day for the last couple of weeks, so I was able to run the entire first mile, about half of the second mile, and about 2/3 of the last mile for a time of 35:21. It's not my best 5K time, but considering how little training I've done, I'll take it. Anne jogged the entire way, and she finished right around 38:00. Go Anne!

I don't know for sure, but I think I heard that there were about 17000 people walking and jogging in celebration of and in memory of their loved ones who have fought breast cancer. I remember this from the Avon 3 Day, the Rock N Roll Marathon, and the Race for the Cure last year: there are people of all ages, at all levels of fitness, who are walking, running, and jogging with the names and pictures of people they love pinned to their clothes, and it is impossible to be unaffected by them.

A few WWdN:iX readers sent some small contributions to me, which I've collected and will pass on to the Susan G. Komen foundation later this week. If anyone else wants to be added, you can send whatever you'd like to my paypal address (it's my first name at wilwheaton.net). I'll add it to the total I send on Friday, and I'll post the names of everyone who contributes in a special post at the end of the week.

Did you know that 1 in 7 women in America will be diagnosed with breast cancer sometime in her life? I had no idea it was so common, and I am proud to support the people who help women and their families, as well as the people who are seeking a cure.

Twenty-third in the WPT Invitational

I finished 23rd (or 21st, depending on who you ask) out of 317 players in the WPT Invitational last night, and I was the last "celebrity" player left standing, so I won $10,000 for the City of Hope in Duarte. It was really weird when I did my exit interviews, and they kept trying to get me to say I was the best celebrity poker player. I told them that I was probably the only player in the entire field who hosts two poker tournaments a week at PokerStars, and I owed a lot of my success and confidence to honing my skills online, and discussing the game with the WPBT.

I'm working on a write-up of the event, but this has been a rather hectic morning and I doubt I'll get a chance to post anything in-depth until later on. Until then, I absolutely have to thank Ryan Kallberg, aka Absinthe, who sent me a Dannenman-esqe strategy sheet that seriously helped me out. In fact, I'm confident that I wouldn't have made it past the first level of the day without Ryan's advice and support. There's a reason he cashed five times in the LA Poker Classic, including a first place finish in event number one. Thanks, Ryan. I owe you several beers.

If you missed it yesterday, and you'd like to retroactively view the action, you can head over to Pauly's blog, and read the live-updates from last night.

(Photo Credit: Dr. Pauly)

WPT Invitational, Day One

Well, I survived the first day of the World Poker Tour Invitational, and I've written up a recap of the day's action over at CardSquad:

If Maxim did a poker issue, it would be this tournament: the room is filled with big celebrities, beautiful models, and virtually every poker pro you could imagine. The atmosphere is more like a party than any other tourney I've ever played, and everyone is having a good time.

At the end of day one, there are 98 players left. I am in 68th, with T17500, which is just about half of the average stack of T32000. BJ has a complete list of the players and their stacks over at PokerPages, and of course Pauly has the best live blog on the Internets, which includes a ton of pictures.

I didn't get many cards to play all day, but when I did, I got paid off nicely. I took a couple of pots from Jason Alexander, and I even busted John Juanda when he ran his KQ into my pocket Aces.

Some of you may have read that I busted John. This is true, but it's not as exciting or masterful as you may think. John was crippled when Jason flopped Broadway for the nuts, and John made aces up on the turn. A few hands later, Daniel Negreanu came running over to our table with some guy I didn't recognize, and said to John, "Can you eat ten Saltines in sixty seconds?"

"What?" John said, and everyone else at the table thought.

"Saltine crackers. Can you eat ten of them in sixty seconds?"

John thought for a second while he looked at his cards.

"Yeah, I think I can," he said.

"Okay!" Daniel said, with a little hop. "Juanda is my horse! You get half my action, John."

"Let's do it!" John said, and shoved his last 1000 or so into the pot. It was folded to me, and I figured that the BB and I were calling based strictly on odds and probably checkint it down. That is, until I woke up with pocket aces.

"I have to raise," I said. While I thought about what amount would get the BB to maybe call with something that I could survive, he folded J2o face up.

"Go ahead and play it out," he said. "I'm not playing this."

I flipped up my aces, and John flipped up KQ. I flopped an ace, busted John Juanda, and ended up with about 16K after the whole thing was said and done. John and I shook hands, and the WPT cameras captured the whole thing. Daniel was putting on quite a show for them, calling for cards and stuff, and it was pretty funny, so it stands a good chance of making the broadcast, especially if I make it deep today.

I have a tough table today, with Scott Fischman immediately to my left, but I also know that I essentially have one steal, and after that it's push-or-fold time. If you're interested in tracking my action, Pauly will be live blogging me and the rest of the field at Tao of Poker.

this was no boating accident

I was up way too late last night, because I played in a 180 player Sit-n-go tournament at PokerStars, to warm myself up for the World Poker Tour Invitational, which I play in later today at the Commerce Casino.

I finished tenth, one off the final table, when I made a great call with A9 against QT when I flopped a pair of nines and he pushed. Sadly, he paired his queen on the turn and I didn't catch up on the river. I made $43 bucks for my trouble, though, a bunch of my WPBT friends sweated me through the whole thing, and I confirmed that my large-ish field tournament strategy is solid. I'll take my iRiver with me to the tourney, and put together an audio diary for RFB #5.

Anyway, the tourney went super late, and I was wound up when it was done and didn't settle down until well after midnight, so I ended up sleeping much later today than I normally do. I'm in a bit of a panic about hitting my various deadlines since I have two less hours to work with, but I wanted to point you all to this week's Games of our Lives: Shark! Shark!

In the great console wars of the '80s, Mattel's Intellivision was severely handicapped by its weird controllers and faux wood-grain finish. The Atari 2600, though technologically inferior, had a lower price, plus companies like Activision and Imagic cranking out tons of future classics for the system. But in 1982, Intellivision released Shark! Shark!, a game that was so successful, it even caught Mattel's marketing department off guard.

I loved playing Shark! Shark! and I'm going to do lots of Intellivision games for future columns. I wish I'd been able to get over its weird controllers and faux wood-grain finish -- oh, and had the $299 to purchase one -- back in the 1980s, because those Intellivision games rule.

a dream can mean anything

Nolan and I ended up brushing our teeth at the same time last night, and while we stood next to each other in the bathroom, he looked at me in the mirror and said, "I had a really good time this weekend, Wil."

I dumped toothpaste foam all over the place as I said, "I did, too."

Friday

I was supposed to head out to the Infamous Murderer's Row homegame for some crazy poker action, but several events conspired to keep me home, where I played in the Donkeys Always Draw Heads-Up Championship. My results are over at CardSquad.

Saturday

My brother has this hawesome remote controlled car that he got from woot last year. Nolan has this equally hawesome remote controlled car that he got from the remote controlled car place last month. I have this cool barbeque and a freezer filled with meat.

Nolan put those things together and planned on a Saturday barbeque and car race, but the weather babe on KCAL kept telling us it was going to rain, so Jeremy and Nolan rescheduled Saturday's festivites for Monday, which was a school and work holiday.

Anne was out for the day with her friend, so the kids and I spent the day in true guys-home-aone fashion: even though it didn't rain, it was freezing cold here (by Los Angeles standards) so we spent most of the day inside watching movies and playing Pirates! on Xbox. I think we reheated some food, but mostly ate chips and salsa. Hawesome.

Late in the afternoon, while I stood in front of the refrigerator and tried to talk myself into preparing dinner (rather than ordering pizza), the kids walked into the kitchen together.

"Hey, Wil," Ryan said, "can we play D&D?"

"Yeah," Nolan said, "you keep saying that we'll play, but we never do."

"Guys," I said, "you know that I haven't had time to put together an adventure."

Their shoulders slumped.

"But!" I said, "I have an idea that may be even more fun than D&D."

I closed the refrigerator door, and went to the phone to order pizza.

"Go to my Big Trunk of Games, and bring out Munchkin."

I ordered a large pepperoni, and met them at the dining room table. Nolan held the box in his hands.

"So this is just like D&D," I said, "without any of the annoying role playing."

I opened the box, and split the cards into treasure and door piles.

"The thing is," I said, "you can't take this game seriously. At all. Even a little bit. The whole point here is to screw with each other and come up with really lame ways to beat each other up."

"I think I'm going to love this," Ryan said.

I walked them through the rules, and we started our first game. I desperately hoped that they'd grok the game, and wondered if they'd get into the spirit of Munchkin.

A few hands into the game, when I was at about level four or five, I used up a few cards to defeat a level 10 Floating Nose.

"Uh, that's an Ancient Floating Nose Ryan said, tossing down a card an pumping it up to level 16. Okay,  Ryan gets it.

I played a most of my remaining cards, and said, "Okay, I defeat the Floating Nose!"

"Yeah, you sure did," Nolan said, "but guess what?" He drew a card from his hand and slammed it down on the table. "It has a mate! Ohhhhh, sorry about that." Okay, Nolan gets it, too.

"Aw, crap!" I said. I looked through my hand, and pulled out a +2 Buckler of Swashing, worth 400. "Okay, I bribe the Floating Nose's mate and make a masterful escape."

"Oh man!" Nolan said. "I'll get you next time!" He made a fist at me and shook it. I couldn't recall the last time I'd had so much fun with the two of them.

During our second game, I asked Ryan to help me defeat a Pukachu, which Nolan had made Humongous.

"What's in it for me?" He said.

"Well, how about I let you take half the treasure, and I give you this +2 Singing and Dancing Sword?"

"Well, I'll ask heem, but ah don't think he'll be very keen," he said, in a bad French accent, "he's already got one, you see!"

I blinked at him. Did he just quote Holy Grail at me?

He snickered into his hand. "I told heem we already got one!"

"You realize there is only one +2 Singing and Dancing Sword in the game, right?"

"I don't want to talk to you no more!" He said. "I blow my nose at you, and fart in your general direction!"

I glanced at Nolan. He looked back at me like we were speaking a foreign language. Which we were.

"What are you talking about?" He said to Ryan.

"Oh my god, Nolan, it's from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. It's the funniest movie ever." He turned to me. "You're on your own there, big guy."

I looked at Nolan. "Little help?"

Nolan just laughed, and  I had to discard my entire hand when I rolled a two.

We played several games, messing with each other, helping each other, double-crossing each other, and scarfing down an entire large pizza. Yes, it was just like D&D, but without all the annoying role playing.

We finished the night on the couch, watching the Super G from Torino in HDTV. We may have played some more Pirates! too, before we all went to our respective beds around midnight.

Sunday

The kids organized a football game with their friends, and I stayed home with my dogs and watched the Olympics. I may have played Pirates! for three hours, too, but the record is unclear on that. I can confirm that I jogged a little bit, wrote a little bit, washed some clothes, and told Anne over and over again how much fun I had with the kids on Saturday night.

"It was more than just playing games and goofing off," I told her, "it was that they could have gone to  a friend's house, or watched TV, or played games without me, but they both came to me to do stuff together. After all these years," I said, "I'm really feeling like they're bonding to me."

Monday

Nolan got up early, and built his race course in the front yard. Jeremy has a street car, and Nolan has an off-road car, so Nolan had spent a lot of time during the week beta testing various designs which he felt would balance Jeremy's speed with his own off-road advantage. The rain on Friday night had compacted down a lot of the soft dirt at the edge of the driveway, so Nolan worked on a quick redesign, which he was certain would be perfect for the two of them when Jeremy arrived.

Sadly, when my brother got here, they discovered that their cars have the same frequency, so they settled on time trials instead. Ryan and I threw a football around in the grass while the two of them raced, and though I love my brother, I have to say that he never stood a chance. Nolan is a master of the remote controlled car, and he pwned Jeremy.

A little past noon, I headed out to the barbeque to grill some cheeseburgers. I'll spare you all the details, but I managed to turn the lovely little sirloin patties into carbonized drink coasters. We ended up driving to this place on Hill called Tops, which is an awesome hamburger joint, in the style of Tommy's or In-N-Out.

We took it back home, and made a real mess of ourselves. And by "we" I mean "me," because the whole point of eating a chilicheeseburger is to wear as much of it as possible.

After Jeremy left around 3:30, Ryan made some really cool songs in Garageband (which I'll probably include in a future episode of Radio Free Burrito) while Nolan watched me play Pirates! a little bit more. I was determined to get the Governor of Maricaibo's Daughter to marry me, which I figured would be a slam-dunk since I was such a great dancer, and captured the damn city for the Dutch in the first place. It turned out that she wanted all these presents, and for me to waste her fiance and for me to rescue her when she was kidnapped. Sheesh! Women! Good thing she was beautiful (and I had to marry her as a Pirate Quest) or I think I may have married the Governor of Trinidad's rather plain daughter, who wasn't so high maintenence.

We goofed off until Anne came home from work, and we all had dinner together. They all sat together and watched House, which I'm not that into, while I went up to my office and caught up on all the e-mails and bloglines subscriptions I'd been ignoring while I had the best weekend ever with my kids.

When it was time for bed, Nolan and I ended up brushing our teeth at the same time. While we stood next to each other in the bathroom, he looked at me in the mirror and said, "I had a really good time this weekend, Wil."

I dumped toothpaste foam all over the place as I said, "I did, too."

talkin' baseball

Hi, my name is Wil, and I'm a baseball fan.

It all started when I was a little kid, and my dad took me to Dodger Stadium for an afternoon game. I don't remember much about the game itself (I couldn't tell you the opposing team, starting pitchers, or final score), but I can close my eyes and instantly hear the din of the crowd, the ever-present Vin Scully coming out of a thousand hand-held radios, and feel the warm summer sun on my face. I can taste the Dodgerdogs and Cracker Jacks, and hear Nancy B. on the Dodger Stadium organ. Yeah, they say you never forget your first time.

As I got older, just watching the game wasn't enough for me. I needed to take a scorecard to the game, then I needed to take a transistor radio, then I found myself with . . . binoculars.

I knew I had a problem when I couldn't get tickets for opening day, so I bought hot dogs, beer, cracker jacks, peanuts and red vines, grabbed my booklet of score cards, sat in front of my  television, and pretended that I was in Chavez Ravine.

Luckily, I was able to get some help for my addiction, when Kevin "Dodger Boy" Malone came to Los Angeles, and thoroughly fucked up the team on the field and decimated the farm system. The new Dodger ownership, by turning my beloved Dodger Stadium into a a series of billboards with empty rich jerk seats where the foul territory once was have helped me maintain my sobriety.

I have a bit of baseball methadone, though, and it's still on TV. Well, on Playstation and Xbox, actually, and this week, I put on my best Rock Star impression, and turned my addition into cash.

First up, a review of MVP06 NCAA Baseball:

Overpaid, underperforming marquee players, steroid scandals, Scott Boras... Major League Baseball isn't exactly the classic summer pastime that Ken Burns made it out to be. So where do fans go when they long for a simpler time when stadiums were smaller, players didn't wear enough body armor to walk straight from the dugout into a joust, and batters actually hustled to beat out that grounder to short? College, of course. There, kids who have benefited from a lifetime of screaming Little League dads finally have their shot at meeting Scott Boras and becoming an overpaid, underperforming marquee player embroiled in a steroid scandal.

And to dovetail with that review, I made Champion Baseball the subject of this week's Games of our Lives:

In 1983, most arcade denizens were looking to live out lives in space, magic mazes, or other extraordinary realities. Other than lackluster efforts like Extra Bases, America's pastime was curiously absent from arcades until Sega released Champion Baseball, giving Leo Durocher wannabes a chance to manage one of 12 MLB-esque teams to victory in a pixelated little field where the weather was always perfect and the stands were always filled to capacity.

Kids today might not like it because: They choose to play as California, (which is what the Angels were called before they were the Los Angeles Angels of we're-really-in-Orange-County-but-want-Los-Angeles-in-our-name fame), and find that their pitcher is "Bert" instead of Nolan Ryan. Sorry, kids, it's 1983, and licensing for video games is still a decade away.

So, does anyone know when pitchers and catchers report to Spring training? I have, uh, a friend who wants to know.

a moose bit my sister once

"We are no longer the knights who say 'Ni!' We are now the knights who say 'Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-pikang-zoop-boing-goodem-zoo-owli-zhiv'!' We must give you a test."

"What is this test, oh Knights of . . . Knights who until recently said 'Ni!'"

-Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Night before last, Ryan and I got some take out for dinner, and ended up spending about three hours sitting at our dining room table, talking about all sorts of things. Our relationship grew several levels, and while I'm keeping the details of that to myself, I will do something I rarely do: I'll take some credit for being a good parent. I will also do something I quite often do: I'll marvel at how wise Ryan is. Both of the kids have their pod-people days, of course, but over the last several months, those days are fewer and farther between than ever before, and I'm grateful for that.

Late on Wednesday night, while we cleaned up our dinner dishes, Ryan said, "You know, I've wanted to watch Monty Python for a really long time."

"I have Holy Grail in the living room," I said.

"Do you think I'll like it?" He said.

"Well, I'm not sure. It's a blend of absurdity and dry British humor. It's one of those things that you either grok right away, or just don't respond to."

"Will you watch it with me?" He said.

"Sure," I said, "we'll watch it tomorrow after dinner."

And that's what we did. Anne and Nolan went back into our bedroom to watch TV, and Ryan and I fired up Monty Python and the Holy Grail on our home theater.

I was unsure if he'd like it or not, because his generation has been raised on the comedic stylings of films like Anchorman and televison shows like MAD TV -- not exactly the type of humor you'll find in Flying Circus.

I dimmed the lights, and hit play.

"Why are there subtitles?" He said.

"Just watch."

Around the time "a moose bit my sister once . . . " came up on the screen, he was holding his stomach, convulsing in giggles.

"Ah, good. He gets it." I proudly thought.

He loved all the things I loved when I was his age: the French Taunter, The Black Knight, The Castle Anthrax, and the Killer Rabbit.

"I can see why you liked this so much," he said when it was over. "How many times have you seen this?"

"Between eighty and a hundred, I guess," I said.

"Will you watch it with me again?" he said, "I feel like I missed some funny stuff that I'll catch next time."

"Of course," I said.

"Okay, I'm going to bed now," he said.

He walked back to his room singing, "Brave Sir Robin ran away . . . bravely ran away, away . . ."

He laughed to himself as he closed his bedroom door.