Monthly Archives: October 2007

The Knack

Posted on October 16, 2007 by Kevin

Posted in Amusements, Geek | Leave a comment

Star Wars viewing order

Posted on October 3, 2007 by Kevin

A very important question was raised on kottke.org last week –

Let’s say you’re a new father and a movie fan. When your child is of an appropriate age to start watching movies, in which order will you show him/her the six Star Wars movies? By original release date (Star Wars, Empire, Jedi, Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith) or according to the intra-movie chronology (Phantom Menace, Clones, Sith, Star Wars, Empire, Jedi)?

In the comments section, Jeffrey Veen gave what was arguably the best answer:

Actually, I guess I do have a preference for order: Show him Episodes 4 and 5 together and let him know that “They find Han – he was ok.” Leave it at that. Let him experience the later disappointments as we did – all grown up.

Amen.

Posted in Amusements, Geek, Parenting | 1 Comment

Changes to Scarry's "Best Word Book Ever"

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Kevin

When I was a kid, my favorite book was Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever. The book was originally published in 1963, a few years before I was born. The pictures were beautifully drawn, there were lots of interesting little things to search for (ala “Where’s Waldo”) and I never grew bored with it.

Fast forward 30+ years. We had purchased a new copy for our kids, and while paging through it I discovered that in many instances it was very different. This was a new edition published in 1991 that was much more politically correct and in many ways much less fun (at least IMHO).

Here’s a Flickr photo set comparing the two editions – http://www.flickr.com/photos/kokogiak/sets/1425737/

Posted in Interesting, Parenting | Leave a comment