Zombie Culture Alive And Well In Portland (Of Course!)

An after-school activity, it turned out.

Enjoying a bite to eat and appreciating the scenery. Always something going on here in soggytown.

Teenager In House Forces More Reflection On Media (duh!)

Michale Rooker (blue) plays Yondu-Yondon't in Guardians of the Galaxy, a movie which reinforces gender stereotypes and unfairly depicts tree creatures as a thuggish, but ultimately kind, form of shrubbery.

I have a thirteen-year-old female roaming around these parts. She is my daughter which explains a lot, I suppose.

She has taken the high level of thoughtfulness I exert in the production and consumption of snack food and productively turned it towards identifying gender biases in media. She points out how society objectifies women, the media never missing an opportunity to sexualize women no matter what role they play.

I am proud she is becoming a nuanced critic of our dominant culture, but worried that joy will too soon leave her life.

Too often our favorite movies become merely status quo propaganda when viewed through the lens of gender equality. For example, Kung Fu Panda did a fine job of promoting body acceptance by having a fat (male) Panda as a protagonist. However, Tigress, a strong female kung-fu warrior, was relegated to being merely a supporting player.

I loved that movie. I know, I am shameless.

I hope for the kid that she can somehow accept the strata of high and low culture. No matter how progressive an animated Pixar or Disney movie may be, it will still conform to a conventional reality.

We must look to more cutting edge filmmakers and writers to bring about change in our culture. I still want to celebrate tree creatures, smart-ass penguins, and noodle-making geese rather than hold them accountable for not presenting a more palatable universe.

When progressive new ideas come along I hope to be in a position to promote them with a smile of enjoyment that comes from a fine cultural product. Stoke!

Self-important Blogger Admits He Doesn't Always Know What's Going On

Clearly there is a situation with narrative and context, but hell if I know what it is.

I admire helicopter parents. They have the certainty about what is best for their child from hours of hovering over their offspring and wearing attractive ensembles of clothing from LOHAS companies.

I've tried to be a helicopter parent but found my kids behave like children (this is true!) and my sartorial choices aren't up to scratch. The time is better spent hovering in front of the TV re-watching Battlestar Galactica and referencing Edward James Olmos as a role model for his portrayal of Commander Adama.

When the kids act weird I could scream, "Cylons!" and send them to the brig post haste.

A main conceit of the series is that Cylons are so human-like they confound us to detect them and challenge us philosophically with questions about what in particular makes us human. In a nutshell, these are my children. Several times I have sat down upon one not noticing the lump in the bed.

More to the point, I just can't keep up with all the things the kids are doing and saying. So rather than make a fuss and start 24/7 surveillance I allow a certain amount (a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE amount) of entropy to enter the system.

I suppose by doing so I have to give up my lordly Commander Adama role, but that's OK as long as I have a cool supporting part with plenty of special effects.

 

10-year-old Pushes Creative Process In Video

This is what being 10 is all about.

We were hanging out last Saturday and the kid wanted to make a video. Who am I to say no?

Two Things I Absolutely Must Tell You About

1) Last night I fit the leftover pasta into this container for a perfect fit.

Microwave friendly!

2) My friend still uses a memorandum-style calendar book.

He has an iPhone but refuses to use it.

 

Poncho Becomes "Gaming Faring" For Xboxing With Head Cold

Aerodynamics, warmth, style all contribute to gaming performance when under the weather.

Innovation does not stop when any member of the Portdaddia team has a cold.

As is often said here in mossy bottom: When the going gets congested, the congested drape their heads with knitted thingies of a non-religious nature.

With that I loudly proclaim stoke!

 

Kids In The Bed(room)

Close viewing of the above picture reveals a child in the corner.

As parents we allow kids in the parental bed. To not grant the kid bed access is to condemn the kid to a vast host of developmental disorders.

Eventually this has to stop lest the parent never get any rest and incur a developmental disorder retroactively.

We've been through a few rounds of kids in the bed, kids not in the bed. At the moment we have a new manifestation of this old-as-time-itself dynamic -- the kids just want to hang out in the bedroom as everyone has her/his personal screen and it's fun to be together.

Despite my attempts at being a curmudgeon, I like us all being together in a sloth-like pile of lethargy. This is a good weekend activity.

   

Shameless Portdaddia Video Promo

This is the Oregon State Capitol where I was recently doing stuff not necessarily related to blogging. Such a picture supports the idea that I do things out in the world.

I am always looking to expand the boundaries of human (my own) endeavor(s).

To that effect I have made a Shameless Portdaddia Promo. The goal is to bring happiness and joy to as many people as possible using multimedia and good-old common sense -- people just can't get enough of sloths.

The video marks my first attempt at musical composition. That's not exactly true as I have composed "The Hot Dog Song" and accompanying dance, but those are largely for home consumption.

Stay tuned for more musical madness thanks to Garage Band on the laptop.

10-year-old Writes Exciting Story

The kid wrote this essay which earned him praise from a teacher.

“One”

I have a vacation house in Hood River, I can tell that my parents chose the place for a reason. A good view, FRIENDLY NEIGHBORS, well… true (Kinda).

Ever since I was little, I had a neighbor named Mary, she was really nice and I often went to her house. We would have nice conversations, make a lot of things, go on her Playstation, and do many more

But, she had a tax dispute with Goldman Sachs, so they had to take away the house because it took them many years to clear it up.

They took away her house, and now the bank owns it.

One day, my dad was talking with our neighbor and the neighbor said “There was squatter reports”.

They walked into the vacant house and (To me) everything seemed really creepy. Imagine all your childhood, all those fun events, the grounds are abandoned. Creepy. 

They walked throughout the house and saw one room that had about a million bottles of beer and tons of mens clothing in a room. 

Every now and then, I wake up in the middle of night and can just hear a little bit of this and that. Or my imagination.

Whenever we are walking home from something in the small, bustling, Hood River downtown, I swear I can see some lights on, creepy.

 

I Set The Phone Down And Got This

Like bears to honey, kids like electronic gizmos.

I like never knowing what I will find in the photos on my phone.

We Now Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program: Stoke Proclamation

I like the way the flash bounces off my chrome face gear.

We were celebrating with friends recently and the event had a photo stand -- a place with a few gaudy props and tinsel background with a photographer pressing the shutter.

The party was excellent times ten and we now have this great memento.

Although photography is part of our daily lives as never before -- all of us have access to a camera-type device much of the day -- we rarely wear our better clothes and pose together.

The high spirits of the party, the fun picture, all help return me, Portdaddia, to my core mission of stoke proclamation.

I give thanks for all the blessings. Stoke!

Shameless Editmob Promo Post And Video

 

For academics and serious amateurs who rigorously study this blog you may have noticed that the above button has been appearing on Portdaddia for some time.

What happens when you click on the button (below) is that a screen pops up and you can easily submit any typos found here. The more typos one submits, the greater the chance one has of winning a pony. 

This is an awesome service. I have received emails pointing out typos frequently because blogging is a messy business. When an email arrives and begins with "according to the New York Times style guide ..." I am loving it. 

I chatted with Dave, founder and CEO of Editmob, this weekend. Dave spoke eloquently of his political philosophy, his philanthropy, his love of children, sheep, and freshly roasted candies. He was glad to have Portdaddia on board. The feeling is mutual!

I have made this video to illustrate what Editmob might look like if it dealt with the spoken word and "the mob" was a 10-year-old child.