BenSpark Family Adventures

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00799 Today we received The Legend of Korra – The Complete Series Limited Edition Steelbook Collection from Paramount home Entertainment nd Nickelodeon for free for a review that we will be doing soon. Opinions are our own. The Legend of Korra is one of Eva’s all time favorite cartoon series. She watched it before me and has devoured every bit of information about the series that she can. I knew that this Steelbook Collection would be the most perfect thing for her, so I requested it and emphasized how much Eva knows about the show. And now I know a ton about it too. We both watched the full series and now we are re-watching it with the commentary on. We watched 3 of the episodes tonight and if neither of us had to sleep we would have watched even more. We’ll be doing a full video review of the set and all the great features included soon. Today I just wanted to mention that the actual physical steelbooks are so beautiful. The entire set together and the artwork ...

  Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00785 When Avatar: The Last Airbender started on Netflix I tried to get the kids to watch. They watched one episode and that was that. Then Eva discovered the show on her own and loved it. She then watched all through, The Legend of Korra and couldn’t wait until I finished watching both series. Once I had finished we looked to see if there were any comic books based on the shows and found that there were a ton of them. So we bought a bunch of comics and that has been what we have been reading ever since.

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00571 Thank you IMAX® for the promotional materials that you sent me for free for several of your documentaries now airing on HULU. I’ve found that my children love to learn about the world around them. It is natural that children are explorers and they want to know so much about the world. For the past four decades IMAX® has been creating incredible documentaries of our world. What with the world being as it is right now and everyone being unable to get out and enjoy an IMAX® in its full glory people can still view these amazing stories on the streaming service HULU. I do not have HULU and so I have not see these movies on the service. I have, however seen some of the movies in the theaters. Seeing an IMAX® movie at the New England Aquarium or Boston Museum of Science of ever over at Providence place is always a treat. I do hope to go back to an IMAX® theater soon with the kids to see some of their spectacular movies. When the kids came home today they were thrilled t...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00507 A few factors came together to influence my decision to purchase a giant screen for the back yard. First and foremost is that the terrible neighbors that lived next door and who would should obscenities at all hours have been removed. I am hopeful to see who moves in after that building has been completely renovated. A whole lot of work has been going on there. It is quality work and I hope that quality people move in. The other factor is that we’re going to be home a lot more often because of the pandemic and there are no open movie theaters. I bought the screen from Amazon.com and while it was a bit pricey it goes up and comes down very easily and the picture looks great. I was even able to get everything back into the bag when all was said and done. The screen is 120 inches and it the screen snaps to a large light frame. There re ropes to tie it down in case of wind, which we had but it stayed up. In order to play our entertainment we used our Cinemood, a smal...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00501 While this is not necessarily a post sponsored by Warner Bros. Pictures I did receive some product plus free digital access to the movie. However, I had just purchased the movie an hour prior to the email letting me know that I had the movie. So I gave that one to my sister. We’ve been very excited to see SCOOB. Andy has seen the commercials over and over and he could not wait for the movie. I do not think that he’s seen much about Scooby Doo. Not like me, I grew up watching Scooby Doo and all the cartoons that are mentioned in the movie. There were so many fun Easter Eggs in the movie. I know that I may have missed some or not known exactly why they were Easter Eggs but I caught many of them. Since Scooby Doo was produced by Hanna-Barbera there were many Easter Eggs from other Hanna-Barbera cartoons and I loved seeing that. Scoob starts off telling the story of how Mystery, Inc formed, how Scooby and Shaggy became fast friends and their first cases. The story is...

Photo-A-Day 2.0 #00489 Before the Corona outbreak I was in and out of Targets almost every week and I always made a trip through the toy aisle. While there are many toys that I no longer collect there are some that I keep picking up whenever I can and mostly they are fun Hot Wheels cars. A few months back Hot Wheels released 5 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle character cars. They had the four turtles and a Shredder car. I found all of those ones and added them to my collection. the other day I was on Amazon.com and saw that there were some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles themed cars. These are different than character cars. Character cars are made to look like the character and character themed cars may have images of the characters on them. That’s what the ones above are. They are character themed cars. I am not sure if they will be doing more cars like this or more character cars. There are many iterations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and so far both the Character and Character Themed...

I seriously do not think that I am ready to say goodbye to She-Ra when the final season drops on May 15th. This has been a fantastic series to watch with the kids. It bridges the gap between the shows that I watched as a kid and modern shows of today. This series has been incredible and has been such a joy to watch. I got some goosebumps while watching the trailer for this season. The song is AJ Michalka’s cover of She-Ra theme song “Warriors”. There will even be a full series soundtrack available May 8.

I read on Pop Candy that both Vince Neil and Brett Michaels have reality shows coming out. The reason I mention this is that I am a product of the 80’s and I loved Motley Crue and Poison. I still enjoy many of their songs. The Vince Neil show is going to follow around Vince and his family. This will be on A&E. The Brett Michaels one will be called Rock of Love and will be on VH1. It will be a similar vein of the Flava Flav, Flavor of Love. I won’t be watching either one of these because I’m not exactly excited about these guys doing these shows. But who am I to talk, I record my life and put it on the Internet, at least they are getting paid for it.

One TV show that I have really enjoyed this year has been Heroes. The reason I enjoy it so much is that the characters are interesting. I even find the Nikki/Jessica thing interesting even though everyone else hates them and their husband and kid. I think it will be interesting to see Peter absorb that power. When that episode airs I think many people will want to see what happens. Last night’s episode was very good except I don’t like how angry Peter is I liked him better before he got so angry. He and Hiro are still my favorite characters, I am glad that Ando did not die and did you notice the cameo by Stan Lee. I love it when he jumps into movies and TV shows. Anyway Heroes s popular enough that people are taking the time to make parodies about it. Here is one called Zeroes.

TV shows are starting to kill off characters left and right. Within the past weeks we’ve seen Keppler die on CSI, Eric almost die on CSI Miami, some various Others Die on Lost and now there is a a deathwatch timeclock on poor Charlie. I just watched this interview form TV Squad with Sarah Chalke, Zach Braff and Bill Lawrence of Scrubs. Apparently a longtime character on the show will dies soon. I know that sometimes you need to make changes and it makes sense that if someone is leaving the show permanently to let them die, but it really stinks. I can’t think of anyone on Scrubs that I would want to leave the show. That show is great because of the ensemble cast. Oh and I guess it would make sense for me to mention that the title of this post has to do with Heroes, this Monday the creepy catchphrase voice that has brought us, “save the cheerleader, save the world” and, “are you on the list?” has now given us, “someone flies, someone dies”. So look for a character on Heroes to end up dea...

Lost is back on TV. After that long hiatus it is finally back. The first two episodes of the 16 straight with no repeats were great. I loved the one last night that focused on Desmond and the end blew me away. Nice twist. I have been spending some time getting my LOST fix. I have been listening to The Official Lost Podcast hosted by creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse. I also like reading the posts from Entertainment Weekly after the episode airs. I recently came across TV Squad and their posts about Lost and various other TV shows. I like those as well. Reading them lets me catch a few things that I may have missed in the show itself. I thought last night’s episode was fantastic and it really brought out a new way to tell the story. The whole flashback but not a flashback but maybe a deja vu was really cool. The transitions were also good. I’m not sure about the escaping fate thing, seemed very much like a Final Destination thing. If you cheat...

One of the more clever and interesting shows is not on network TV. It is PSYCH on USA. PSYCH is about Shawn Spencer, a guy who has trained himself to be hyper perceptive and he uses that to trick people into thinking he is psychic. Along with his boyhood friend Gus they open a Psychic detective agency and help the police from time to time. The show was on a hiatus until this past January 19th but now it is back. I just love the interaction between Shawn and Gus. They are good buddies and with one being a free spirit and the other being very uptight there can be some hilarious situations. USA is also doing something that I have seen other networks do. They are pumping up the website for the show with interactive items for viewers to go and see during the week between the shows. PSYCH has what are called Psych-Outs or rather outtakes from the show. These are set up but are very fun and usually involve some obscure 80’s song. Then there are the character blogs. Gus has a blog and so does ...

So the other day I posted about my newfound favorite iTunes Podcast, Best Night Ever from the folks that bring you VH1’s Best Week Ever. And today I get a comment from Fred Graver. Who is Fred Graver? He is none other than Executive Producer and Creator of Best Week Ever. He also runs the BestWeekEver.TV website. So why would Fred comment on this blog. Well, he let me know that Christian Finnegan (whom I really enjoy on Best Week Ever BTW) is not introducing ever Best Night Ever Spot anymore. I guess my comment of You are warned, if you watch this over and over you will begin to loath Christian Finnegan because he intros almost every single podcast. It is the same clip over and over. was noticed. So this is a lesson folks watch what you say and say the truth. I would like to clarify that I enjoy Christian Finnegan’s comedy. He is very funny. It was just that same clip over and over that drove me nuts. I don't want to loath Christian Finnegan. So I am glad that clip was changed. Bu...

One podcast that I really have been enjoying is VH-1’s Best Night Ever. I downloaded all the podcasts from April till now. I am in June at the moment. If you like Best Week Ever where not quite made it comedians get to be snarky and snide and sound much more intelligent than the people they make fun of, then you will be entertained by Best Night Ever. Since I am a completist in my podcast watching I need to watch every episode. It doesn’t matter that the episodes I am watching are about the season finales of TV shows that are now back on current episodes.  My favorite Best Night Ever personality is Shea Hess. She is so cute and happy and not as snarky as everyone else. There are also some special podcasts of outtakes and the Sizzler and other things. I like the Mike Britt rants and Paul F. Thompkins. They are some of the funny parts of this podcast. You are warned, if you watch this over and over you will begin to loath Christian Finnegan because he intros almost ever single podcas...

One of the TV shows that Allison and I really enjoy is Bones. The first season is now out on DVD and it is worth watching. David Boreanaz’s character of Seeley Booth is fantastic. And the main character of Dr. Temperance Brennan played by Emily Deschanel is one tough doctor. She is also bit socially inept and that makes for some funny situations and misunderstandings.  In the first season we get a look into the dynamic relationship of Booth and Brennan (nicknamed “Bones” by Booth). And I am very glad that this show survived to have second season. There is so much more for the characters to do with each other and create great character development. The website for the show also has some webisodes that you can watch that don’t have the main characters but rather a set of secondary, not even in the show, characters. Something to watch while waiting for the show to come back (I hate American Idol taking the slot for now) I guess. So if you like crime drama but with a little more humor ...

I have been so busy lately that I have not been able to do some decent posts about time wasters and fun stuff I have seen on the Internet or on TV. first off I got my iPod and have since been loading it with every available podcast I can think of finding for all of my interests. I have found podcasts for comedy, nature, Photoshop and much more. I am going to look for some on motorcycles and kayaking and cooking as well. This crazy thing we call iTunes has been a lot of fun to explore. I can’t believe I didn’t do this sooner, much much sooner. But I can change. I have embraced my previous Mac self. Yes, early on we had an Apple IIC and I loved that computer I spent hours working on Print Shop and animation studio and even a Toy Maker program. That was so much fun. I don’t think I’ll be trading in the PC computers anytime soon but I have forever disassociated myself with the notion of purchasing a Zune. It is all iPod for me now man. Last night brought back the return of one of my favori...

Yesterday I purchased a new monitor. The Viewsonic VX2245 with integrated iPod dock. I was walking through Comp USA looking for a new monitor that had integrated speakers and I came across this monitor. It is 22″ and flat screen. It has an integrated iPod dock with different holders so you have a custom fit for your iPod. The base is powered and houses a subwoofer, 4 USB 2.0 slots. One on the back, I plugged the webcam into that port.  The base also has a microphone and an 8 in 1 media card reader. I am all about saving space and this was the perfect monitor for me. I just wish I had the restraint to come home and check out what the price was on amazon.com because I would have gotten a much better deal. I hope that my iPod arrives soon so that I can take full advantage of this monitor.

Last night Allison and I watched Ralphie May: Girth of a Nation. Ralphie May was one of the funniest guys on Last Comic Standing and probably should have won. But he didn’t, so what, he still got a comedy special. His special Ralphie May: Girth of a Nation had us rolling with laughter. Ralphie certainly is not PC, he prides himself on it. His bit about being at a black movie theater watching the opening previews for Open Water was ridiculously funny. He didn’t lean on fat jokes, which we saw a lot of from the Last Comic Standing days. He had more material than that and the material he had was fresh and new and very funny.

Photo-A-Day #614 12/13/06 Today I am in Erlanger, KY. I flew out this morning from Madison, WI at 6:00am. That meant a 4:00am wake up call. I had the hotel alarm clock and the alarm on my phone. I was up in time, I got very little sleep because I just couldn’t fall asleep. I ended up sleeping for a while on the plane and still managed to read quite a bit of the Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic book. The story is fascinating. I still have a good chunk to finish but I should be done before the weekend. When I got to Erlanger I was able to check into my hotel early, so that was cool. I checked the blog, my e-mail and all the web comics I enjoy reading. Then I headed out for lunch. I went to Max and Erma’s. If you have never been there then you should go just for the fresh baked cookies and a tall glass of milk. Ever since Allison made a delicious batch of “Better than Sex” cookies I have been craving cookies and ice cold milk. For some reason milk tastes infinitely be...

I just read that Peter Boyle has died at the age of 71. You can read an obituary here at USA Today. I’m very sad about this. I really like Peter Boyle – my favorite role of his was Frankenstein’s Monster in Young Frankenstein. And who didn’t love him as Frank Barone on “Everybody Loves Raymond.” He will be missed. Drew: I just saw this and eerily I put up a post on the Flatwater Bookstore for Everybody Love’s Raymond DVD sets yesterday. I really liked Peter Boyle’s acting and he always made me laugh on E.L.R. He will be missed.