I became one of those people this morning: I have a picture of my kid up in my cubicle.

It’s just a small, wallet-sized picture, but it’s a picture nonetheless. And I’m ok with that.

I’m back at work today after a rather lengthy, exhausting couple of weeks off. I have plenty more to talk about, but I also have plenty of work to catch up on, so it will just have to wait until I’m home this evening…or maybe this weekend…or maybe March. But I will return here to try to communicate even half of the things going through my head since January 11, 2008. A lot has changed and it’s pretty scary, exciting, and interesting.

So check back soon and I’ll fill you in.

As you all know, Andrea and I are going to be parents soon. Actually, if you want to get technical, we’re overdue to be parents. You see, Harper’s due date was January 3rd and, well, she hasn’t arrived yet. Now, obviously we weren’t expecting her to be here right on January 3rd, but we are both rather surprised to find ourselves kidless at this point. Not wanting to take any chances, at her appointment on January 3rd, the doctor suggested Andrea schedule an induction, which is taking place this Wednesday, January 9th, beginning at 5:30 in the morning.

With the induction scheduled last week, that meant that this weekend was our last weekend of irresponsibility for many, many years to come. From here on out we’re going to have to find a babysitter or take Harper with us wherever our weekend adventures may go. So how did we spend our last weekend of debauchery? I tried heroine for the first time, Andrea shot a hobo under an overpass in downtown St. Louis, and we both blew our entire life savings on a single spin of the roulette wheel at the new Lumiere Casino. We figured we’d get everything out of the way at once.

Actually, we spent the entire weekend watching movies…playing a little Wii…working on Harper’s room…reading (I’m tearing through a fascinating book on London’s 1854 cholera epidemic [No, really] and Andrea is almost finished with the His Dark Materials trilogy). If that’s the best we could do, we’re obviously ready to become parents.

However, we did do something special Sunday, when we went out for “The Last Supper.” We decided we’d go to a nice restaurant as a last hurrah. One last date night as just the two of us, before it soon became just the three of us. We had initially thought we’d hit J. Buck’s, but they were closed. So instead we went to Outback Steakhouse and had ourselves a couple of excellent steaks. I raised a toast (I had a beer, Andrea had her ice water) saying, “To parenthood. May it go as well for us as couplehood has.” To lower our cool quotient even more, afterwards we hit Wal-Mart to buy detergent, a small package of onesies, and kitty litter.

So this is it, folks. Wednesday – come hell or high water – we are changed. Some may lament our passing, but we’re excited about the possibilities our futures hold.

With that, I probably won’t be writing again until sometime Wednesday or Thursday. We have wifi at the hospital, so I’m sure I’ll be posting pictures and sending emails at some point. Check back then – here and at lammlelounge.com – to see our new addition, Harper Gayle Lammle.

It’s been quite some time since I’ve done one of these. For a while there I just didn’t have time to watch a lot of flicks, so I sort of fell out of the habit of doing the journal whenever I was able to squeeze in a film.

However, I’m going to try to remember everything I’ve watched since September and get it written down now. Better late than never, I guess. And because this list is going to be rather lengthy, there probably won’t be a whole lot of commentary on each one, but I’ll at least do a little.

Live Free or Die Hard
Just really fun like a Die Hard movie should be. I was with all of the insane, impossible scenes except for the stuff with the fighter jet, but otherwise this was a fun ride.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Bug
A mysterious stranger enters the life of a lonely woman and it turns out he’s nutso. Sadly, she gives in to his psychosis and they are soon going bonkers together. A really horrifying look at mental illness.
4 / 5 bananas

Transformers
I watched this one again to make sure I wasn’t crazy the first time. I wasn’t. Andrea watched it with me and she agreed. What was really funny was, the whole time it’s on, she kept going “Ok, now which robot was that?” and my only response was, “I have no idea. I can’t tell them apart at all.” This was just really, really bad and I couldn’t handle it no matter how much I tried to turn my brain off and enjoy the ride.
2 / 5 bananas

Juno
This one is getting all kinds of praise right now and I gotta say it’s mostly deserved. A cute, quirky little film with some excellent dialogue, an engrossing plot, and interesting characters. The dialogue is what’s getting the most praise and, for the most part, it is pretty excellent. It takes some getting used to – especially during the firs 20 minutes or so – but then for whatever reason it settles down and it’s much easier to take. Give this one a shot.
4 / 5 bananas

Knocked Up
Watched this one again and still find it very enjoyable. As with most Apatow films, I still feel like about 20 minutes could have been cut somewhere, but that doesn’t keep it from being entertaining in the long run.
4 / 5 bananas

Kill Bill Vol. 2
While I really like KB2, I have to say that KB1 is my preferred film. I like the more character-building scenes in this one, but the action in the first one puts it over the top. If there were no KB1 to compare it to, this one would be pretty hard to beat.
4 / 5 bananas

Cloak and Dagger
I hadn’t watched this childhood favorite in a while, so threw in the DVD one quiet weekday night. I’m still rather amazed at how violent it is when compared to a lot of kids movies today, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Without the violence, I’m not sure I would have cared so much about the characters when I was a kid because it never would have really felt like they were in any real danger. Great little flick.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Lost: Season 1
We bought Season 1 when it came out on DVD. We hadn’t even watched a single episode before lending it to someone…then to someone else…then to someone else…so now that we finally got it back and I had a little time on my hands, I decided to sit down and revisit the first season. It was interesting to watch this now because it only shows how much better and more interesting the series has gotten over time. In comparison to Seasons 2 and 3, this first season is boring. But when it aired, I was completely and utterly enthralled, just as everyone we lent it to has been. It’s the perfect example of how a network sometimes needs to allow a series to gestate, to establish its characters and then grow into something pretty amazing. Thank god someone had the foresight to do that with Lost.
4.5 / 5 bananas

The Incredibles
I love this movie. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s damn near perfect. I have to say it’s rapidly becoming my favorite Pixar movie to-date.
5 / 5 bananas

The Call of Cthulhu
This was such a cool film. It’s based on the excellent HP Lovecraft short-story that spawned an entire subculture, but rather than bring it into the modern age, they keep it set in the same period as the original story. But what I like most is that they made it into a silent, black-and-white film, marrying a lot of old film techniques (miniatures, stop-motion animation, forced perspective, matte paintings, sound stages, etc.) and modern ones (some green screen compositing, digital editing) to come up with something very original and very creative. Best of all they did justice to the original story. A cool little film.
4 / 5 bananas

300
I hadn’t seen this one since the theater so decided to check it out again. I have to admit that I fast-forwarded through all the political mumbo jumbo this time. I know why it was added to the film, but in the end I feel like it only hurts it. I just wanted to see the action sequences and the still-impressive cinematography. Not an all-time favorite film for me, but definitely a good time-waster.
3 / 5 bananas

Beowulf
If this is the future of animated cinema, count me in. While the computer-generated people might have been a little stiff at times, the 3-D technology was really impressive. I’m not sure I’ll feel the same way about the live-action 3-D film coming out that they advertised beforehand, but for animation this is pretty awesome. The story was pretty good to boot, which is always a bonus.
4 / 5 bananas

Vacancy
A fun conspiracy horror film where everyone is in on the big scheme to kill helpless travelers in a camera-rigged hotel room. Fun, suspenseful, and generally a good ride. I wasn’t a big fan of the ending, but the rest of it was pretty entertaining.
2.5 / 5 bananas

Ocean’s 13
These films are pretty much critic-proof. Steve Soderbergh gets his buddies together once every couple of years and they have some fun in Vegas. It’s nice that they invite us along. Better than the second one, but, admittedly, still not as good as the first.
3 / 5 bananas

Rescue Dawn
Dieter Dangler was a US Navy pilot shot down over Laos in the early days of the Vietnam War. From there he was captured, tortured, imprisoned, and eventually escaped, only to find himself stranded in the jungle for two months before finally being rescued. This dramatization of his story, directed by German film genius, Werner Herzog, who, ten years ago made a documentary about Dangler’s story, is pretty darn good. The acting is excellent all-around and the story itself is at times exciting and heart-wrenching. Definitely one worth catching.
3.5 / 5 bananas

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
This was purely a morbid curiosity rental from Amazon/TiVo’s Unbox service. It was only $.99 and even at that price I felt ripped off. Just bad all-around. As if the first one wasn’t bad enough.
1 / 5 bananas

El Topo
Holy crap. I loved this movie. The thing I love about Alejandro Jodorowsky films is that they are so completely open to interpretation. Sure there are some things that are rather simple to see, but there are other moments where you’re left wondering, “Now what was that all about?” As I was watching El Topo I kept thinking that it was like trying to build a vase with broken pieces from three different vases. Some of the pieces fit together easily, while others clearly didn’t belong to the same vase, yet you try to make them fit anyway. And in the end you get something that sort of looks like a vase, but you still have some pieces left over, and there’s no guarantee the vase you made will hold water. I could see myself buying this DVD someday.
5 / 5 bananas

Angel-A
I don’t really know what to say about this one. It’s the story of a man who attempts suicide, only to decide to instead save a fellow jumper because he doesn’t understand why she’s trying to kill herself. Because he saved her life, she promises to do whatever he wants her to for the rest of the day. Instead, she does whatever she wants to do to help him work out his problems. The twist is, that she’s an angel, sent down to help him straighten his life out. But what’s unexpected is that they fall in love. It’s an odd little film with some nice cinematography, making me wish I lived in Paris, but overall I can’t say I especially enjoyed the film. There was one scene I loved – when she is revealing her true nature – that I thought was very well-written and engaging, but the rest of the film felt a bit lost.
2.5 / 5 bananas

Shoot ‘Em Up
Shut off your brain, allow yourself to accept the ridiculous, and ignore the plot, and you might have fun with this one. While not something I’ll ever own or feel the need to see again anytime soon, Shoot ‘Em Up was everything I wanted out of a dumb action flick. Honestly, I felt like the whole thing was kind of a joke, like a bit of satire poking fun at the genre. Maybe I’m giving it too much credit.
2.5 / 5 bananas

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (w/RiffTrax commentary)
This was a really excellent RiffTrax. Hilarious throughout, it never got old. There was a bit of a lull during the Quidditch match, but then again things happen so quickly during that whole thing that it would have been hard to give shot-for-shot commentary. If you’re a fan of HP and a fan of Mystery Science Theatre, this one is definitely worth checking out.
4 / 5 bananas

Last night was the first night since I have been done with school that I had nothing to do. We watched a movie, Rescue Dawn, at 7:00 and then…nothing. I surfed for a little while before eventually going to bed around midnight and working on some writing stuff. It was weird. Good thing I’m going to have Harper around to keep me occupied for a while or else I might have started on that Master’s Degree sooner rather than later.