Cute Kid Pix August 2026

More photos that didn't make their own post...

Our son played in his first chess tournament. He was nervous but excited. He wound up with three wins and one loss, so that was encouraging. Since it was his first tournament, he was in the "unranked" group for his age. He is interested in going to another one.

Contemplating his first move

At home, we introduced our godson and his brother to Gizmos, a fun tableau-building game where players are making a Rube Goldberg device to win a science fair. 

Contemplating my next move

We went out to lunch with some visiting friends but forgot to take a picture with them at the restaurant. We exchanged photos via cell phone.

Our half of the photo exchange

Our daughter went to visit her grandparents in Minnesota. They had her working on a deck out in the woods. With enough work, it will be a tree house, though that will require a few more trips.

Working in the projects

Our dance studio, That's Dancing, had a 1980s dance, so we dressed up a bit.

Not too dressed up

Our son had a birthday outing at Urban Air, an indoor trampoline and adventure park. One of their favorite things was the battle pit, with a narrow beam on which competitors fight it out. 

Ready to challenge the champ

Blocking

The climbing area was also very popular.

So many choices

He makes it to the top

A close up so you can see him

Going down is easier

High ropes action

Spider-time

Jump and duck activity

Back home, we had some more celebrating. One of his presents was a Super Mario Chess Set, which was fun to play with. Fortunately the pieces are labeled with which chess piece they are, so you don't accidentally play Peach as a queen. For some reason, Mario is the king and Luigi is the queen, not Peach. Peach is a bishop, which is also weird. At least Yoshi is the knight!

Contemplating his next move

I was running errands and ran in to the BWI Airport to get a virtual geocache. I've been meaning to get it done every time we go to the airport, but we are always in a rush to get through security or to get home. The blue crab is a Maryland mascot and the sculpture has been there for a long time.

Glass sculpture and me

Book Review: Voices of the Winds by M. Edmonds et al.

Voices of the Winds: Native American Legends by Margot Edmonds and Ella Elizabeth Clark

This book is a compilation of folk tales from Native American tribes in the United States and Canada. The sets are divided into regions like Northwest, Southwest, Central Plains, etc. Each story is identified by the tribe it came from, often with a brief historical description of the tribe. The tales range from creation myths and tribal origins to anthropomorphized animals and tribal legends. Many a chief has a beautiful daughter whom most of the young men want to marry; many a rabbit or coyote pulls a trick on a larger, tougher, but dumber animal (including human animals). There's a lot of charm and some repetition on display here but overall it's an entertaining lot. Most stories are a page or two with occasional illustrations of various Native American artifacts, from weapons to pipes to baskets. I enjoyed the book but there's nothing ground shaking here.

Mildly recommended--if you like folk tales, this provides a ton.

TV Review: Wonder Man (2026)

Wonder Man (2026) created for television by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest based on the Marvel Comics 

Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is a hard-working actor who works too hard on his performances. He tries to dig into his characters' back stories, even on set when the rest of the production is ready to go, not to renegotiate the narrative. He gets fired from his current job. Desperate, he hears a childhood movie hero, Wonder Man, is being rebooted by a German auteur director, so he moves heaven and earth to get an audition. He happens to run into Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) who is also down and out. Williams idolizes Slattery, who helps him out and is also trying out for Wonder Man, though in another role. Slattery has ulterior motives. The Department of Damage Control has taken him into custody and blackmails him into befriending Williams so he can get the dirt on Williams. Damage Control suspects Williams is dangerous, which viewers see at one point when Williams stresses out and causes a bit of destruction in his apartment through some sort of superpower. 

The show has more than a bit of Hollywood narcissism--a story about actors and their tough lives, with lots of name dropping and famous locales. I found that aspect disappointing though I am sure others would enjoy it. On the other hand, I liked the growth of Simon's character, away from a self-defeating perfectionism and self-centeredness. A lot of it is due to his friendship with Trevor, which is all a front at the beginning. Trevor learns to like Simon and hate that he is betraying him. They have good chemistry together and their misadventures are entertaining if not always sensible. The ending is especially satisfying.

Recommended, especially for Marvel fans.

As I write (September 2026), this is only available on Disney+.

Book Review: Destroy All Humans Vol. 7 by K. Ise et al.

Destroy All Humans: They Can't Be Regenerated Volume 7 story by Katsura Ise and art by Takuma Yokota

The middle school drama continues as Kano stresses out over admitting his feelings for Emi. She is excited by the prospect but also wants to keep him at arm's length in school. Emi has already kept her playing of Magic: The Gathering separate from her school social life; she wants her relationship with Kano to be the same way. Meanwhile, Kuon and Yakumo have an epic showdown playing the game. If things weren't complicated enough, a female French exchange student shows up who also plays Magic and has all the boys' attention. She takes on Kano to practice for an upcoming tournament that will draw an international. Will romantic trouble brew on this front too?

The story has the usual blend of high school drama and Magic playing. The expected end of the world starts showing up again in the narrative, especially with the French exchange student whose family has left France because Nostradamus predicted massive disasters for 1999. The plot is still fun and the games of Magic have enough explanations for those who haven't played to follow along. And there's the imaginative depiction of the creatures from the cards fighting.

Mildly recommended--if you are already into this series, you will want to keep going!

Movie Review: Project Hail Mary (2026)

Project Hail Mary (2026) directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Middle school science teacher Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) wakes up on board a space ship with no recollection of why he is there. His memories slowly come back as he explores the ship and discovers its mission. Three astronauts have been sent to a star eleven light years away to see why it is not being devoured by Astrophage, a strange biological substance that is slowly destroying all the stars in Earth's immediate (so to speak) vicinity. The other two astronauts have died in cryosleep, leaving him alone. By the time he gets to the destination, he's recovered a lot, but not all, of his memories. He also discovers another ship from another planet with another sentient being on it. They make contact and work out a way to communicate, which lets them work together on the problem that may save both their home systems.

The movie is based on a book by the author of The Martian, so it has enough scientific street cred to be plausible. Even so, the science is the least interesting part of the story. Gosling's solid performance holds things together. His character's human interest story is more compelling than the science disaster back home. The script injects a lot of humor to balance out the drama which often threatens to get excruciatingly sad and bleak. The slow reveal of Grace's backstory benefits from this too. 

Recommended.

Game Review: Unlock! Supernatural Adventures by Space Cowboy

Unlock! Supernatural Adventures by Space Cowboy

This set of "escape rooms at home" use a deck of custom cards and a downloaded phone or tablet app to guide you through the adventure (and keep track of how much time you have used). Some of the games also require components in the box, including the occasional surprise set of components. Here are some supernatural adventures...

Nova City Under Threat

A group of superheroes hangs out at their HQ when the call comes in to thwart a bank robbery! Players use the heroes to save the hostages and end the threat, but that's only the beginning of the action as a supervillain behind the robbery enacts a bigger scheme that could mean disaster for Nova City.

The game has a great premise using a variety of heroes with different powers. Things started off a little slow, making it hard to figure out where the game was supposed to be going. The situation did not improve as we got frustrated with a lot of the logical leaps we needed to make to proceed through the narrative. We took a lot of hints, went down a lot of wrong rabbit holes, and went way overtime trying to solve this one. It was very disappointing.

Dia de Los Muertos

Ana's Abuela wants to celebrate the Day of the Dead, though not all the family ancestors were the most respectable people when they died. Ana has a brother and sister. They all dress up and go to the family celebration, which turn into an adventure in the afterlife, trying to set the situation right.

This game has a lot of fun puzzles that tie in well with the theme. The use of the app is very clever with some unexpected twists that move the story along nicely. We had the usual assortment of very easy and very inexplicable puzzles. We used hints a few times but did not think anything was too much of a stretch (well, maybe the one with dates). This was a lot more fun and a bit easier than the previous deck, which surprised us. We did take a really long time getting through it.

Raganrok

Players start off as a Viking warrior on a ship that fights a mighty sea beast. The ship is wreaked and you wander into the afterlife where Loki has kicked off Ragnarok, the Norse Apocalypse! Can you make it through the end of times and still be alright?

In addition to the usual card and app puzzles, the game includes a couple of cardboard weapons that are used with cards to solve puzzles. Players also use runes that they can cast in sets of four to solve puzzles. One card lists a handful of runes; later in the game another card adds even more. The app has a special spot to "cast the runes" by clicking their images in order. While very thematic, this mechanism was also very problematic. Many times it was hard to tell the proper order of the runes. Some were easily guessable, others were entirely cryptic. Occasionally, we had to guess at which runes were part of the puzzle, making it even more challenging. We used a lot of hints. After about an hour, we took a break to continue the next day. The app rebooted, meaning we had to repeat everything we had already done. That was a bit more frustration added on. We finally made it through, though we were more motivated by completing it than having a great time.

This was the first Unlock! box that was more disappointing than fun. It has some interesting ideas but the implementation did not work for us.

TV Review: Little House on the Prairie (2026)

Little House on the Prairie (2026) created for television by Rebecca Sonnenshine based on the book series by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Ingalls family heads out west to start a new life in the town of Independence. Charles Ingalls (Luke Bracy) took a flyer at its word and sought his own piece of land. The Osage Indians still live in the area but the federal government is working out a deal. The trip is treacherous, almost costing their lives. They find help from some neighbors and some of the Independence townfolk, including Doctor George Tann (Jocko Sims), who patches up some injuries on Caroline (Crosby Fitzgerald), the mother. Daughters Laura (Alice Halsey) and Mary (Skywalker Hughes) have a tough time adjusting. Mary is bookish and misses friends and family; Laura is more of a tomboy and has troubles being more lady-like. They go through various adventures as Pa builds the house and farms the land while the rest of the family interacts with the neighbors (including a Native American family with a much nicer house and Mr. Edwards (Warren Christie), a rough settler living on his own nearby). Trips to town put them in touch with the local women's club (creating social drama for Caroline) and the general store with its cute young boy clerk (creating romantic drama for Mary), and the James family with its two daughters about the younger Ingalls's ages (creating social drama for both Mary and Laura). 

The stories are loaded with drama thanks to the difficulty of frontier life. All the episodes are interesting and a lot of attention is given to side characters like the doctor, who gets romantically involved with the general store owner. The Native American family are part of the Osage tribe about to be displaced if the deal with the US government goes through. Most of the adventures have happy endings and the family's plucky American spirit often wins the day.

Another television adaptation ran for ten years starting in 1974. Starring Michael Landon as Pa and Melissa Gilbert as Laura, the show was a childhood favorite in my family. The two stars have a lot of star power, boosting an upbeat and family-friendly drama. This new series has fine acting but no one is particularly outstanding. The stories have a slightly larger scope, telling the experiences of side characters, especially the indigenous population who are more sympathetic than in the 1970s show. The old show did not do much with the Indians, though a scene of two males invading the Ingalls cabin and taking most of their stuff is in both shows. In the 1970s, it's a moment of unmitigated terror (Pa is in town, leaving the women alone to face the half-naked males who don't speak English). In the new show, subtitles reveal that one of the Native Americans claims he is justified in taking the Ingalls' stuff since the whites have taken a lot from the Osage. They still come off as bad people and get something of a comeuppance, but they are treated as more complicated than earlier. 

I haven't read the books, so I don't know how either series compares to the source material. This new series seems like a prequel because the 1970s series is set in Walnut Grove, the existence of which only comes in at the very end of the 2026 series.

I enjoyed this series though I think the original 1970s show is better. Maybe that's my childhood bias showing? I would watch more of this show if/when they make more.

Mildly recommended.

As I write (August 2026), this is only available streaming on Netflix.