The adventures of a zany mom

We went to see Avatar with a lot of anticipation after hearing a lot of kudos for the movie.... The good... -The amazing CGI. The facial expressions of the na'vi were amazingly well captured. -The amazing scenery and the imaginative use of land - imagine a mountain floating in the air and a water fall on that mountain! or imagine the earth using roots of trees to communicate with the people -The IMAX effect. You fly as they fly on the birds and you plummet as they plummet - awesome experience -The cat-like lithe effect of the Na'vi - I want to move like them! The bad... -The 3-D effect wasn't really complete. On comparing it to ... say Journey to the Center of the Earth, or even Harry Potter - this didn't have rocks falling on you... -The bland expressions on almost everybody except for Sam Worthington and Stephen Lang. -The length of the movie - definitely parts could have been cut to make it crisper -The movie was predictable The ugly... -The dialogue was, at best cli...

When Suvedh was little, we didn't think he'd play much of anything -he was so happy just whiling away his time at doing nothing! Then we got him a "How to play chess CD" for one of his birthdays - I think when he was in 1st Grade. This was a computer game that he loved. He didn't do much in Ohio - but when we moved to SL, he joined a chess club which he enjoyed playing in. This slowly turned into a love for playing chess that never went away. He played in his first USCF rated tournament in September of 2007.... and has played in over 90 tournaments since (these include the Friday chess where they play rated games). Going to tournaments is not easy - for the player, and mostly for the parent/guardian... this is spent in pacing and worrying! Of "oh no that just didn't happen" to "oh wow you pulled it off". He is now at the nationals - and I'm able to follow it in spite of not being there! Check out the 6th Grade Pairings/Standings/Results...