This past week Jack and I were wrestling in the front room as we do from time to time, and during one particularly complex rope dive, Jack messed my hand up pretty good. As he came soaring through the air at my head, I reached up to grab him before he landed on my nose and the pinky finger on my left hand somehow became entwined in his clothes and felt as though it was almost ripped off. The direction it bent was definitely not normal and the sharp “snap” sound I heard let me know that something wasn’t right (as if the pain wasn’t enough to let me know). After gently setting him on the floor, I then proceeded to clasp my hand and whimper for the next five minutes. The following day it turned a nice shade of yurple (that’s yellow and purple mixed) and was rather swollen for the next few days. Now that it’s been almost 2 weeks since the incident, the swelling has almost gone down, but I’m still experiencing sharp pain when my finger gets bumped. I’ve decided there’s not much point in going to the doctor because they’d just tell me to be careful with it, but I just hope there’s no seriously permanent damage. Cause that would suck.

As a kid there were many cartoons I considered to be part of a well balanced animation diet. These included shows like Transformers, G.I. Joe, Scooby Doo, G-Force (aka Battle of the Planets or Gatchaman), Voltron, Thunder Cats, Dungeons & Dragons, Spiderman & His Amazing Friends, Robotech, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Superfriends (aka Justice League) as well as many other short lived shows that came on during the afternoon cartoon hours after school. However, over the years, there was one show that became my favorite. This was the show that I watched the very most. This was the show for which I owned the most action figures. This was the show that I considered to be the best bit of cartooning of all time (at the time). And this week I made an awesome discovery! It was completely by accident but it very well may change my evening tv habits for good…

Since the switch to digital signal this past year, there is a new “kids” channel called Qubo. This channel is designed specifically for kids and tends to show the cheaper range of cartoons and kids programming. Most of the shows they broadcast are the rejects from Sunday morning pbs, but recently I found that they have started a “Night Owl” session akin to Cartoon Networks “Adult Swim”. The Qubo version is much less adult, but they are catering towards a more adult crowd with their selection of programming. And this brings me back to the greatest cartoon of all time. It seems that Qubo has obtained the rights to the Filmation library and along with Brave Star and The Ghostbusters (not to be confused with The Real Ghostbusters), they have begun showing He-man and the Masters of the Universe. It’s truly an awesome thing!

It’s always interesting to go back and watch shows again that you enjoyed as a kid to see if you can try to figure out why you liked them so much, but with He-Man the answer is obvious. He’s a friggin’ barbarian with a magic sword that kicks the crap out of bad guys during every episode. Not to mention the fact that all the women on the show are of the “Amazonian” type that share the ability of bad guy butt kicking and all while wearing rather skimpy armor. There’s no question that the show is a bit cheesy, but unlike other cartoons from my childhood, I find myself enjoying the nostalgia of it. And the funny thing is, my kids love it too. I must admit that it’s kinda fun to share one of my favorite childhood shows with my kids and watch them get just as much enjoyment from it as I did when I was their age. I guess a good thing never goes out of style. So if you’ve got a hankerin’ for some good old fashioned Eternian barbarian butt kickin’, tune into Qubo around 10:30pm and enjoy.

I HAVE THE POWER!!!

Annie’s new word lately is “Seriously!”. She uses it to add emphasis to pretty much everything she says of late and pronounces it without the “i” in the middle. For example:

“Serously! Jack put his trucks under the bed. Serously!”

or

“Serously! My pony’s hair is crazy! Serously!”

I’m sure this was a word that she picked up from me as I do tend to use it now and then when I’m exclaiming at the absurdity of some of the things that the older girls do. For example:

“Seriously?! Did you really just throw your whole dinner in the garbage? grumble, grumble…”

But now Annie has adopted it as her new favorite word. It’s awesome!

The most serious picture of Annie I could find:

Jack got into Emily’s mascara… but at least he didn’t try to use it on his eyelashes.

During a conversation about skin care this morning, Emily asked Jack where he got his dry skin. She asked “Did you get your dry skin from mommy?” Jack didn’t like the sound of that and quickly replied “No, its mine own!”