But these guys do. And enthusiasm is even more ingratiating than a British accent. I love watching geeks and nerds dork out about their passions.

Besides, they race cars against fighter planes and roller skaters wearing jet packs. Plus  they have a mysterious masked test driver named “the Stig.” Who doesn’t want to see that?

Wonder Pets from Nick Jr. The show is made for preschoolers, but I absolutely adore it. It’s full of charm and laugh-out loud humor.

Three preschool classroom pets, a guinea pig, a duckling, and a turtle, become superheroes when the children leave. Animals from around the world call on them for help.

The kicker though, the magic, is that they sing almost everything. It’s a moralistic and educational adventure opera for kids. Glorious.

The boyfriend introduced this show to me. From the very first Wagnerian notes of “The phone. The phone is ringing,” I knew this was a winner.

What Not to Wear from TLC It’s along the same vein as Top Gear. Who would have thought that I would care about clothes? Although at the heart, I still don’t care that much. The difference is—this show is not so much about fashion as it is about clothes.

Stacy and Clinton, the two experts, don’t teach people how to be fashionable. They teach people how to find and wear the right clothes.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but I have learned and am applying a lot from this show. It’s entertaining and lively, but at its base, it seeks to teach. That’s what makes it watchable show after show, year after year.

The movie turned out to be better than I expected though. There are no major gaffs, but there are many things they could have done better.

Job one would have been to speed up the pacing. The story needed editing, and as a general rule, once you hit the climax, the rush to the end of the movie should be headlong and breakneck. The talk-fight-talk pattern may work for video games, but in this movie, it just made everything drag.

That would be my basic critique of this movie—It felt like a story that was written for a video game. The mission is strong. The political and military strategies are surprisingly sophisticated and coherent. But after every fight sequence, there’s a lot of talking that sets up what we’ve just learned and what still needs to happen.

Look-wise, the main detractions are the characters. A lot of the fighting machines looked really cool and were well designed. The landscapes and cityscapes are passable. But the characters, especially the human ones, looked wooden and strangely carved.

Still, there is a fair bit of humor in it. And it is Star Wars. So I did not mind buying my ticket. I’ll probably go see the next one too.

Remember China’s presentation during the Athen closing ceremonies? After the classic and austere white of Athens, China came bursting in with acrobats and lion dancers. The performers shot vivid reds and golds into the pasty monochrome of the Greek infield. And with that performance, people were psyched about the Chinese games.

London came in with a double-decker bus and a dozen or two dancers. Now no one is going to compete with the sheer manpower supplied by Beijing, but comparatively, this effort was a little sad. With all the colors provided by the Chinese, the grays and blacks of London’s dancers ended up dropping the mood. The modernity of the tableau was a let down after the romantic and epic scenes from the Chinese.

Ah well. We’ll just have to wait four years for the official final product. Luckily, I don’t think anyone is expecting England to challenge Beijing in terms of spectacle.

I did realize that had the double-decker bus opened up with the “wolf, wolf” sound to reveal the Tardis, I would have completely lost my s—.

For some great Olympics inspired tomfoolery, check out the Guinea Pig Olympics.

Now about these gymnasts. I held off commenting on this issue because I wanted to give China the benefit of the doubt. Now though, the International Olympic Committee has officially opened an investigation into the age of one gymnast, He Kexin. If she is found ineligible, then China’s team gold should be returned. They won it with her so her loss needs to be their loss.

Incredible.

And that’s why I wanted to think better of the whole thing despite all the evidence. First, I find it difficult to tell how old any of these gymnasts are just by looking at them. We all know that gymnastics does weird stuff to growing girls. Yes, she looks too young to me too, but …

Second, how does China expect to pull off such fraud in a marque sport? Just attempting it would be a huge insult to all the competitors, not just to the US athletes. This level of dishonor seems incongruous to what we’ve been told about the new China. NBC keeps telling us that the Chinese consider these games to be the most important event of their modern history.

Third, I absolutely believe that China could field a perfectly competitive legitimate team. And finally, the subterfuge would have to be forever. If any evidence came up in the future, the medals could be stripped years down the road. There is too much to lose.

Thumbing your nose at, and then lying about, the rules is a huge slur. There may be those who think as Owen Slot does—that this uproar is a case of American sour grapes. But it’s not. It’s about blatant cheating that, if proven, it will shame an entire movement, people, nation.

Remember the Chinese factory owner who committed suicide during the lead paint recalls?

This is about authorities cheating. The fact that it is in a sport where adults are controlling children just makes it that much more skeevy.

Personally, I think the evidence exists that this girl (if not some of the others) is underage. The IOC needs to conduct this investigation to its end and apply the proper consequences. If that is the outcome, I hope China will realize that all this was brought about by a few of their citizens and that most of the world is not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This has been an exciting, inspirational, and magnificent Olympic Games.

And perhaps that’s the real reasons I didn’t mention this seemingly obvious flouting of the rules. A few private decision makers are going to sully a national effort. And I don’t think the US gymnasts are going to fair any better with it. Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson are pretty well set in their reputations. Now, in every biography and highlight reel, this controversy will be mentioned. For some of the lesser known girls, they may eventually be able to say that they are Olympic gold medalists, but there’s always a chance that the listener will say, “Oh yeah, the Chinese got disqualified didn’t they? I remember that.”

This is not about gold at all costs for either the Chinese or the Americans. This is about fairness, sport, and the Olympic spirit.

They made it very clear that the $5.00 suggested donation (and it really was a suggestion) and the funds raised from the event went to updating the park’s playground. In line with this community focus, there was a large kiddie play area with inflatable slides and a moonwalk. There were also pony rides, face painting, and rock walls.

The food and entertainment took up only one block, but I thought it was a good start. The massive communal tents with tables and chairs were a great touch. These became especially helpful if you wanted to get a slab of ribs from Cordis Brothers. Mmm. The litter pick-up crews went through consistently to keep the areas clean. For the most part, the attendees controlled themselves and didn’t dirty up the environment. This was another fine byproduct of a looser, friendlier crowd.

The music line up was also impressive. Rather than all the Chicago street fair staples and some weird cover bands, The Raven had some really talented independent acts from across the country. I caught the sets of Tulsa (from Boston) and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin (pictured). Music began at the top of the hour on alternating stages.

I hope the organizers will build on their promising start this year and continue this tradition. It’s only unfortunate that every time I hear or say “The Raven,” my mind wants to follow it up with “Nevermore.”

Browsing through Office Max one day, I couldn’t help but notice all the back-to-school supplies by Schoolio von Hoolio. It’s obviously a fussied-up generic brand from Office Max, but … seriously?

Schoolio von Hoolio?

Her work often has a fanciful, urban-adventurous quality. They capture city life at magical times.

She says she’s inspired by Japanese animation, and I think you can see that. In both the European and Japanese traditions though, magical creature are connected with nature. They appear in art and illustrations of woodland scenes. Sometimes they are the physical manifestations of nature’s souls. (fairies, Princess Mononoke, etc.)

In her art, Martinez’s monsters are urban creatures. They accompany urban girls. The pair often appear in natural settings with trees, flowers, and rolling hills, but these patches of nature are still urban ones. Fences and background buildings say it to be so.

These paintings seem to tell about unwritten folktales. Whereas Hansel and Gretel, Peter of Peter and the Wolf, and even Hester Prynne left society and entered the wild forests to meet their adventures, Martinez’s girl and monster find those elements within today’s sprawling cities.

There’s a quiet and a stillness within the scenes that make them feel a world apart. There’s an isolation that reflects what many of us want when we enter our imaginations. The artworks show that within the noise and aggressive energies of urban life, there are moments and glimmers of fancy and magic. You just have to be open to them.

I know that Brazil is going to be really tough. By not having watched a single game, I can only guess that the US women are probably not favored to win. They have had some offensive sources, such as Angela Hucles, step up, which was exactly what they needed but is there enough consistency to win Gold?

This book can mean and symbolize all sorts of things to all sorts of people. This is what it meant to me, now.

The protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is having a crisis of faith. He’s not questioning the purpose or existence of God. He’s questioning the purpose of modern society and his existence within it. Although he’s a schoolboy and today we assign this book to be read by students his age, the story is not confined to an age-specific audience, and it is not merely a coming-of-age story.

Holden is a bright boy who has seen more of life than many his age. He’s lived in a number of places and experiences a deep guilt and cutting loss from the death of a younger brother. He sees the superficiality of the world around him and feels lost.

His family is wealthy and successful. This affords him environments and peers free from the struggles of survival. But since they are wealthy from work, he will still need to make his own way in life.

And that idea, that he will have to live amidst the phonies, is making his spirit revolt. Put on a suit. Go out for cocktails. See prestigious plays. Talk about stupid things with stupid people.——All to get along.

Since he’s not inspired by this future, he’s not getting along in his present either. The other boys are doing what boys in his lifestyle should. Holden is getting kicked out of another private school for failing classes. The book is about his post-news two-and-a-half-day existential crisis.

It may seem indulgent and immature. I think the reader always knows that he’s never in any real danger and that his problems are mainly large in his mind.

But I think that is part of the draw of the book. It is very modern. For many of us, this is the life we have. We’re not in danger of starvation. We’re not in danger of a bleak future. But we are in danger of an empty one.

What are we doing that we actually want to do? What are we doing that we really enjoy doing rather than just being phonies—whether its to get along or whether its because we’re supposed to like doing it?

There’s a strong through-line of nostalgia in the narrative. Holden’s most hopeful moments are with the young, his sister and his own younger self. The joys are more real for them. They know what they like and don’t question it. Even if, as you’ll see, the younger was just a few months ago.

I’m trying to figure out my future right now. Sometimes a book finds you at the right time.

And these are just the performances that I saw.

Watching the Olympics this year, I have to ask again—Why are the floor routine tumbling passes constantly shown straight on? When they come straight into the camera, the viewer can’t get a sense of speed, rotation, or height. We need to see it travel across our screen instead of directly at us.

Figure skating has the same problem with the jumps. Show us the jumps in profile!

Once upon a time, when it seemed to matter if someone’s legs were not completely together in a layout position, it may have made sense to see a flip along the horizontal axis. Now, since those little form things do not appear to be worth mentioning, the straight on shot makes even less sense. Imagine watching the balance beam routines straight on rather than from the side. Why does this unhelpful perspective continue?