August 2007

Debbie and I have known since the end of June that we’re pregnant. We wanted to keep it pretty much to ourselves until we had our 12 week scan and told all our family.

We had decided very recently to start a family after years of ‘thinking’ about it. I’ll spare you the graphic detail but we didn’t have to wait too long for a positive pregnancy test.

It’s been a bit of a bumpy road so far which a lot of stress and a lot of worry but we both hope that’s behind us and we can look forward to March when our baby is due.

We’ve both been keeping blogs of the experience so that we have a true record of our adventure. Feel free to read them, although you should note that they are a very personal experience and full of things like feelings and emotion. We’ll continue to update them as we go.

My blog…
Debbie’s blog…

Here’s our 12 week scan picture, showing our little baby ‘Flump’ at 11 weeks and 2 days.

We’re both excited and words cannot describe what it feels like to have created a life.

I’m a huge Sigur Ros fan.

They’re releasing some new material over the next few months. A compilation album featuring some previously unrecorded songs (including the beautiful Salka) is due out in November and the band have a website up for their ‘Heima’ project which is a DVD of their recent Icelandic tour.

They’ve released a trailer for this which showcases a song that I’m not familiar with. If the hairs on your neck don’t stand up during the key change at around 3:00 minutes then you must have just had it waxed.

The website is already up.

So, does the movie look any different from an average episode?

Yes, and no. Thankfully live-action and CG concepts where thrown out years ago and the movie sticks to the 2D animation so well known of the series. Having said that, some effort has gone into making it shine. There is excellent detail work and more shading than in an average episode which gives it more depth. Also, some ‘camera’ work has been added to complete the cinematic experience. There are some breathtaking pans and swoops mixed into the action.

But frankly, who cares when you finally have Homer Simpson on the big screen.

The movie focuses on our favourite dysfunctional American family and the rest of the Springfield characters are pushed to the margins for brief appearances. The movie manages to make an early dig at Fox and Homer makes an even earlier dig at the audience.

The first act is hilariously brilliant. It’s top form stuff from the writers and they revel in the PG certificate showing more of Bart than we’d really care to see and Homer gets to flip the finger at several people over and over again.

After the much advertised “Spider Pig” scene, things slow down a bit as the heart of the story develops which sets up a hilarious and quite thrilling final act.

Excellent stuff!