Tag Archives: Xanadu

Our Weekend

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This weekend, Dave taught Catie how to develop game apps for the iPhone.

Catie's really into learning how to develop iPhone game apps

She’s totally into it, and taking it very seriously.

I love this because it looks like Catie has a freakishly large man-hand

She’ll probably design the greatest app since “Words With Friends.”

Oh, and I got an iPhone 4! Which shoots video! Related: we sang happy birthday to my sister, and filmed it since Tracy is currently celebrating her birthday with friends in Italy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_dJWOwLBBU

Of course, it didn’t really occur to me until later that my sister can only access her email on her Blackberry, which doesn’t have YouTube capabilities, so she won’t actually see it until she gets back to the US. Oh well. Happy birthday, Tracy!

We also watched a heck of a lot of Xanadu. (And I learned that if you turn the phone to a landscape setting, it automatically adjusts when you copy it over to your laptop. Nice job, Apple! I won’t make any more oddly narrow videos.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF38NO646cg
(I’m still trying to get a video of her really singing it. So far, she kind of goes quiet as soon as she sees the camera. You can still see her lip-syncing it, but hopefully I’ll get a real video of it soon.)

(Also? This is how she always watches Xanadu – with lots and lots and lots of random questions about the plot.)

Sunday afternoon, we went to see the Wiggles in concert.

Catie & Dave at the Wiggles concert
At first, Catie wasn’t too sure what she thought about the whole concert thing. But she took the popcorn very seriously.

Honestly? That might’ve been one of the most fun kids’ concerts we’ve been to (and I’ve been to a lot of them). You can tell that these guys have been doing this stuff for 20 years, and they just have fun with it and throw in all kinds of improv lines here and there, which makes it really funny for the adults in the audience.

That said, I’m glad I didn’t take advantage of the chance I had to get closer seats, because Catie got a little claustrophobic from the crowd, so we spent a lot of the show toward the back where it was emptier. She usually reacts that way in crowds, same as Dave, so I wasn’t too surprised by it.

I did manage to get one decent picture of all three of us, although the weird iPhone flash thing makes it look like we’ve been dousing ourselves in self-tanner.

Catie, Dave & me at the Wiggles!

Also? Sweaty. It was HOT in there. I don’t know how those guys on stage do it.

Catie with the Wiggles

Overall, though? A pretty great time was had by all. But I can’t quite believe it’s Monday already.

a million lights are dancing, and there you are, a shooting star

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Last night I was looking for something to watch on TV that didn’t involve either Caillou or Dora. Catie was still awake and I was trying to get her to eat a pre-bedtime snack since she’d hardly eaten any dinner. It’s our typical Nightly Bedtime Struggle.

I happened to see on the cable guide that over on HBO, Xanadu was on. This was one of my favorite movies as a kid. Between Xanadu and Grease, I wanted to be Olivia Newton-John. All of my toys were named either Sandy or Kira. Because of Xanadu, I roller-skated in a dress while wearing leg warmers, and I had my mom braid ribbons into my barrettes. (If you haven’t seen the movie, that probably makes no sense to you.)

And yeah, I’ve seen Xanadu again as an adult, and I’m fully aware that it is not exactly a high-quality film. In fact, I’m pretty sure the people involved in the production were doing massive amounts of cocaine. (It was the 70s, after all.) It’s cheesy as hell. The acting is terrible, the storyline is convoluted and bizarre, and the weird “dissolves” between scenes look SO corny now. But whatever, I still love the music. In fact, I still have the whole soundtrack in iTunes.

Catie is just getting to the age where she likes musicals. The kid-oriented ones, of course, like the Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and the Wizard of Oz. And she’s seen a couple of (not risque) songs in Moulin Rouge and really liked them. So I thought I’d click it over to see what she thought of Xanadu. We missed the first half of the movie, and came in right around the beginning of the “All Over the World” song.


If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to watch that to get an idea. It’s supposed to be a simple, “Let’s take Gene Kelly shopping to find him a snazzy outfit for his nightclub opening” montage, and instead it turns into… that. I don’t even know WTF that is, 30 years later.

(Also? Poor Gene Kelly. The guy is probably one of the most talented dancers of his generation – he did freaking “Singing in the Rain,” for God’s sake – and to get a gig in his old age, they put him on roller skates. Did your investments really turn out that badly, Gene?)

Catie was absolutely riveted, because… well, probably because it looks completely surreal and bizarre.

And then, there’s the finale. Oh, the finale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr6WidQqhu4
(Apparently if you want the full 8-minute finale and not a chopped 3-minute version, you have to deal with poor video quality. Oh well.)

Y’all, I couldn’t get Catie to sit down and eat her snack because she was too busy dancing around the living room (while keeping her eyes glued to the TV the whole time). As soon as it was over, she kept saying, “Again! Again!!” I had to search for the videos on YouTube for her to watch a couple more times.

This morning, as soon as she woke up, she asked, “We watch Xanadu again?” I said, sorry baby, it’s not on-demand and I don’t have the DVD, so we can’t watch it now. She said, “We can buy the DVD?” I told her I’d look to see if I can find it.

Since we couldn’t watch the movie, I turned the soundtrack on my iPod in the car when we drove to daycare. I had to explain to her daycare teacher why Catie might be singing, “Xaaaa-na-duuuuu” all day today. (Her teacher is in her mid-20s, has never heard of the movie, and likely thinks I’m completely insane based on my explanation.)

But you know I’m totally ordering the DVD on Amazon today, right? The only problem is that I’m not sure if Dave will ever forgive me for turning our daughter into an Olivia Newton-John fan.