Last night my friend Mikey and I went to see Hayao Miyazaki’s latest film, “Howl’s Moving Castle”. It was excellent! The visuals were amazing as usual, and the music was wonderful. There were many signature Miyazaki elements, which looked like they were adapted from his other movies. For instance, in one scene Howl does a little wave with his hand as he flies off, just like Nausicaa did. The castle itself moved on legs that looked similar to No-face (Kao-nashi) in Spirited Away when he was in his monster form. And then some of the flying machines were reminiscent of the airships in Laputa. Also, when Howl and Sophie were flying in the beginning, it looked like Baron and Shizuku in Whispers of the Heart. Lots of similarities, but they didn’t detract from the movie, but rather gave it a familiar feel, at least to me.

Bay and Yuta have fun while watching Power Rangers.

Koa touches Magic, the horse.

Papa gets attacked by Bay and Mariko!

Koa likes to wear baseball caps.

It was a hot day, so we got out the inflatable whale pool.

There was a pony at Bay’s school the other day. He didn’t want to ride it at first, but later really enjoyed it.

Sometimes I hate playing Fantasy Baseball. I guess this is a common thing among Fantasy Team owners, but it always seems that when I pick up a player for my team, he immediately starts playing badly, and conversely, as soon as I drop or bench a player, he does great. For instance, I dropped Dodger outfielder J.D. Drew from my team, and that same day, he hits two home runs. In the pitching department, I have Kevin Brown on my team, and he loses four straight. As soon as I drop him, he wins his next four… Aaaarrrrggghhh!!! But, all-in-all, Fantasy Baseball is lots of fun, and completely addicting.