Todd Lyden

Take a minute to listen to a "sweet" story from the daughter...

Look, I am glad that kids love Frozen. My daughters are on the bandwagon. They LOVE it for most of the reasons that everyone else is saying they love it. We took the family to see it and 3/5 of us were just "meh"- I seriously would put "Tangled" well ahead of it in terms of story, singing, etc... but apparently I'm in the minority. So I am going to use an article from WhatCulture to explain my beefs with it: 1. The Songs. WhatCulture writer tries to suggest that the songs are the most memorable since the '90s hey-day of Menken and Ashman. Most of it feels REALLY forced. And while I agree it has a more "Broadway" feel, it is not necessarily a good thing. In particular, the song (see I CAN'T remember which) where Anna falls for the prince, is cute and might be memorable to others, but the jump cuts DURING the middle of the song as in a montage made the sequence in the movie very odd and off putting. The rest... are "meh."  2...

Well, the experiment is over. I wanted to try something and it sort of worked. "socialmediawannabe" is going to die tomorrow (if you want the domain name, knock yourself out). I've transferred all the posts over toddlyden.com and will shut down the whole blog shortly. Thanks for riding the wave. My sabbatical this past year has been mainly due to personal changes. Most of you that know me, know I never stopped paying attention, but I just could not devote the time to regular writing like I wanted. As I move forward, I am going to consolidate everything on the personal site and see where it takes me. Thanks again for sticking with me... hope to see you around.

sabbatical Pronunciation: s - bat-i-k l Function: adjective 1 : of or relating to the Sabbath &; sabbatical laws&; 2 : of or relating to a leave granted usually every seventh year (as to a professor) for rest, travel, or research While my post title might imply the first part of the definition, the real reason is closer to the second. I've got bigger fish to fry for the moment. Nothing groundbreaking or monumental. Just stuff that needs tending which means something has to give. Which will be my posting here and here . I've been sporadic at best lately anyway. Hope I have something cool when I come back to posting regularly. You can still find me here . Or even Google Plus me! And no, it won't be in a year, despite the definition- it just seemed apt to describe what I need right now. Related articles You say sabbatical, I say vacation (emptlaw.wordpress.com) Digital sabbatical? Look within. (alwayswellwithin.com) Tips on ...

I should have been giving Google Plus a little more attention in the first month of service. It still feels very much like it is reserved for the special people, but that's probably a good thing. I've decided to experiment operation out of Gplus primarily for the next week. I set up my feed to head over to Facebook and Twitter . I will still address stuff that is in those places as if I were still posting from there, but I am going to try to do all the posting from Gplus and see how it works. You can selectively send posts from Gplus to Twitter and Facebook, but I don't want to worry about that. I generally share tech and specific stuff to Twitter and more personal stuff to Facebook, so that might get a little dicey. Thoughts? How can you keep the fans on either more popular site happy, while integrating Gplus?

Cover of The Road to El Dorado I love animated film and cartoons. This means my kids must tolerate my abhorrence to much of what passes for cartoons on TV today but revel together in such fun things as the latest Pixar movie. I love lists, so Richard Corliss of Time putting out the top 25 animated films is right up my alley. But he is WRONG on so many levels. 1. he places Pinocchio and dumbo ahead of Snow White in the Disney pantheon. I don't care for the three movies all that much, but seriously? 2. Lion King? He puts that in and leaves out Bambi? 3. I guess he doesn't count " Who Framed Roger Rabbit? " as animated - strike 1 4. He includes both Toy Story 1 and 3- no love for 2? 5. Pixar owns 1/5 of the list when it could be conceivably more. 6. I'd have found a place for " Road to El Dorado " or "Sinbad" - just sayin'. 7. " Happy Feet ?" Ugh, I'd have sooner seen " Despicable Me " or " ...