Space Rangers All

"Matthew is Buzz, Lissa little dirl Buzz, Dada is Buzz, Mama is Buzz."

Matthew loves being Buzz Lightyear. In his 3 year old generosity, he extends the same honor to the rest of his family.

I'm partly responsible for encouraging this. Yesterday I told him to build a Robot Buzz out of his blocks. He did, and he's extremely pleased with the result. Since then it's all been about one Buzz or another.

In non-Buzz news, Rachel's brothers got me playing Halo in Washington, and I was hooked. I borrowed my neighbor's copy yesterday and despite breaks to watch kids, entertain company, and so forth, got almost halfway through by the time I retired at Midnight. (Which is an indication of what an old fart I've become, incidently. I remember playing Starcraft until 4 AM, back in the day.)

I'd avoided Halo partly because I'm not a huge FPS fan in general, and partly because it was rated M. But the gore level turns out to be really minimal (no "gibs", very little blood). I guess it is pretty intense, but I'd let Matthew play it in a few years.

I noticed another oddity in a different rating system the other day. I picked up a copy of Mad Hot Ballroom (a movie about middle school students taking dance classes) and noticed it was rated PG. This movie was less disturbing than Bambi, for crying out loud. Why not rate it G?

Rachel postulated that maybe parents assume that G = suitable for children, so they rated MHB PG since young kids would be bored stiff. I suppose that's possible, but I think using the rating system to convey that sort of information is a bad idea.

It turns out that the PG in this case is officially for "some thematic elements." What, kids need to be protected from learning about competition? That not everyone finishes #1 all the time in real life?

Wimps.