Today we become adults

Yesterday was a huge milestone for us. Especially for me. We accepted delivery from Ethan Allen of our overpriced but completely succulent leather chair for our living room. This completes the transformation of our living room from embarrassing waste of space to a comfortable room good enough to be on one of those design shows. Well, on one of those local access cable design shows. Not sure if it's HGTV-worthy, but close.

It also means we are officially adults. Gone are the days of ogling over Ikea's latest pressboard wonders (oh, sweet! Check out the OONGBLAT! It's black AND it's got shelves), as is the need to have milk crates anywhere within a 75-foot radius of the dining room. In fact, I just sent an email to my sister bestowing 6 milk crates upon her daughter, who's headed to college in the fall. That's right. We're giving up the milk crates, cold turkey.

Since the day we bought our house back in 1998, the living room has been a pit of despair. The room is 22 feet long but only 11 feet wide, and the fireplace on one of the long walls is not centered with the opposite wall. As a result, anything we've tried to do to make this room comfortable, livable, and stately has been a dismal failure. Of course, the puke-gray berber on the floor and the monkey-poop brown wood paneling on one wall didn't help any.

I remember we first tried putting a cheap particleboard entertainment unit on the wall opposite the fireplace. Nice, especially if you liked watching TV while sitting in the fireplace. Then, there was the computer desk. An Ikea special, I believe we moved it to different corners of the room eight times before we finally gave up and renovated the house. There were futon faux pas, bad choices in couches, and the ottoman. Oh, that ottoman. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Go to a local furniture store, pick out a swatch of custom fabric, and have an ottoman made to our specifications. Now we have this striped red rectangle that doesn't match anything we own, completely in the way no matter what room it's placed in.

When the kids came along, this room became even more hopeless. any previous post I've ever written here referring to a sea of Fisher Price was referring to the floor of this room. We'd surrendered to the madness and given up.

But then the renovation happened. And we decided desperate measures were in order. If you've read my blog you know we started off by putting built-ins surrounding the fireplace. This was our first major step of bringing this room into adulthood. Then, there was the Ethan Allen designer.

Ethan Allen has always been one of those stores I felt like I didn't dare enter unless I wanted to give up the idea of sending my kids to college. But after visits to half a dozen stores for new furniture for this room, we were desperate. So one night after dinner, I headed out to the local Ethan Allen, leaving the wife and kids at home in hopes being able to look around the store without having to stop at every easy chair while the kids did a recline test. But after an hour of talking to Patti, one of the store's designers, I realized I was entering this new phase of life.

Patti and I had a grand old time looking at different styles and colors, and pulling out fabric swatches to compare. That's right, you heard me. I'm comfortable enough with my manhood to say that. In the end I walked out of there completely giddy about the idea of telling my wife what I found (okay, giddy sounds a little fluffy, but still). I also decided that Patti HAD to come out to the house to seal the deal.

That was about three months ago. Yesterday we took delivery of the last piece we ordered. As I type this, I'm relaxing in the living room, my wife in the chair next to me reading a book, and the kids playing dominoes (the only toy) on the floor. All I need is a hound to fetch my slippers.

We already realize these chairs will be with us until the day we die, or at least until our daughters sell off our assets and commit us to a home. But until then, We're going to sit back, relax, and waste away into retirement. Maybe I can train Jessica to get my slippers.

Strangle Puppy

I would just like to report that since my post the other day (two down from this one) on Jessica's ballet class the song "Snuggle Puppy" has been running through my head endlessly. I thought I should get this in writing so that when I go completely postal and begin strangling small animals, the authorities will understand.

Vitamin water

By now you've probably heard about the tests that were done on major metropolitan water supplies, which found that many city supplies contain traces of various pharmaceuticals that were not removed during the water purification blitz.

What a media bonanza this will be. First, the bottled water companies are swooning, digging out the numbers of their advertising execs and telling them to get on the stick with new commercials. "Mmm, cold, clean, Deer Park. All the water and none of the ibuprofen!".

Then, the tree huggers are going to proclaim that this is the worst thing that could happen to the environment, because not only are we killing our babies, but we're killing or fish and polluting the earth with even more plastic bottles.

Next the water filtration companies are going to get on the stick, saying we all need to run our and buy PUR systems because our life depends on it (now ask yourself, what exactly can't an industrial water filtration plant do that a tiny cylinder of activated charcoal can?).

And finally, there's the cities themselves. This will take some creative thought, but I think we can spin all this bad news toward the positive side.

Indianapolis: Enjoy our late night entertainment with our new caffeinated tap water!

Philadelphia: If Tom Hanks had only had a drink of our water in that movie, he'd have been fine!

New Jersey: We still smell funny and the smog will cause deformities, but our tap water will mummify you nicely.

Who's going to be the first to capitalize on that peppy jingle by Joe Jackson, "Everything gives you cancer"?

As the story goes, people are taking meds, peeing them out, and the meds don't get filtered in the water treatment plants.

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Mood stabilizers? Honey, I'm sorry I pissed you off...here, are you thirsty? Have an ice cold drink. Anti-convulsants? That explains my lack of seizures. And sex hormones? Sign me up!

What I don't get is that millions of women take birth control. Therefore one would think there's a high level of birth control drugs in the water, right? Yet millions of other women have babies every day. Explain that one.

Better yet, don't. My mind is made up, please don't confuse me with facts.

Whatever doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. After all when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Umm, cool, crisp lemonade. Now with more roxithromycin!

BOX

We've been Nintendo Wii owners for about a week now. It was great fun, while it lasted. But the kids have moved on. That's because they've now got a BOX.

You see, we purchased a chest freezer this week. Once we got past the hard nipple jokes and mentioned what we were getting to the kids, Natalie replied with, "Hah!!! Does it come in a BOX?? Can we have the BOX? Can we??

So of course, once the unit was moved into the basement, we were left with the makings of a fine fort, just big enough for two small children. After a couple of arguments, a stern talking-to and a brief time out, the two finally agreed upon where the windows should be cut out and what color the door should be. I haven't heard from them for hours now. Beat that, Mr. Nintendo.

As long a we're catching up, I should mention that I had the privilege of taking Jessica to her ballet class on Sunday. Now, I am no fan of ballet. In fact I hate ballet. I think it might have to do with my inconsolable fear of tights. But seeing a bunch of 4-year-old girls in matching pink tutus lined up like a line of Necco Candy Dots, turning and smiling at their mommies and daddies through the window while they pick their noses and generally ignore everything the teacher is saying, simply redefines cute. They were practicing for their first recital, a dance number done to the tune of "Snuggle Puppy" involving a series of kicks, twirls, and something that seemed to be a cross between a shasay and a poopy-pants-run-to-the-bathroom move. However, rather than dedicated focus, mostly what the teacher got were silly questions and non sequiturs from 4-year-old girls. "Miss Ruthie? My friend Taylor lives on my street." "Miss Ruthie? Can I call you Miss Rooster?" "Miss Ruthie? I have a boogey".

Worth the half hour. Can't wait for that recital. YouTube, here I come.

Kids' Rock

This is brilliant. And safe for kids....


Kids Songs Sung By Rock Stars - Watch more free videos

Only 34 minutes til first Wii injury

We bought a Wii today. Which, by the way, is why you should expect very little in writing from me for the next several days. Also expect the entire family to be malnourished and unbathed the next time you see us. For those of you who live in a cave, the Nintendo Wii is a video game machine. It's strengths are the fact that, in order to use it, you actually need to physically move. That's got its goods and bads, which we'll learn about later.

The Wii is in high demand. If a store such as Target or Circuit City lists them in the Sunday circular, chances are they only received a couple dozen and they'll be gone within an hour of the store opening. Today I happened to be out and about before Circuit City opened, and I knew they had some in stock. So I drove by about a half hour before the store opened, and saw a line of a couple dozen people. I figured what the heck, I can stand in a line for twenty minutes or so. While there I learned they had received 23 in stock. It turns out I was #22 in line. Hey, I have a Wii. Folks, it's just that easy. And I had a real good laugh at the dumbass who parked himself at the beginning of the line at 5:30 this morning. He got himself a Wii, and likely a nice case of pneumonia to boot.

Back home, after about 15 minutes of the kids setting up their "Mii" online personalities, we tried out some games. The girls got hooked on bowling pretty quickly. That is, until our first Wiinjury. It was Natalie's ball and, on the upswing, she smacked her thumb on the edge of the coffee table. Nice and purple now. But no worries, the Wii remote is fine.

It's that most wonderful time of the year!

It's Girl Scout Cookie Season!. Trans fats be damned, it's that time of year when everyone's your neighbor, every officemate is your buddy, and every dentist gets busy. It was only a few short weeks ago that a veritable gaggle of little girls in their brown outfits and green sashes (or was that green outfits and brown sashes...I wasn't paying attention) knocked on our door every five minutes, thrusting glossy forms filled with cookies and columns in our faces. At work, at least a dozen dads hot-glue-gunned order forms to their office doors and cubicle walls, then dragged their coworkers by the Herman Millers over to their offices, threatening to blackmail them if they didn't order thirty boxes each.

Delivery day arrived, and now the office hallways are littered with shipping cartons with the famous shamrock logo on them. Trolling through the boxes are the forlorned, hungry worker bees who at one time felt they were being pennywise and diet-conscious by not ordering any cookies, only now hoping to find a Samoa scrap or two hiding amongst the corrugated.

I feel it appropriate to mention that in the time it took for me to write the above, I consumed twenty-eight Thin Mints and a Tag-along.

This week's calorie-fest got me to thinking...where, exactly, are Girl Scout Cookies manufactured, and how? I mean, how does a factory survive by delivering a massive volume of product, all at once, and only once per year? I really wanted to know more. So, I dug out my trusty internet connection, and did my research. Here's what I found.

It seems that deep within the Arctic permafrost, south of the North Pole but north of, say, Cleveland, is a massive factory, approximately the size of twelve Wal-Marts. The factory is staffed year-round by the elderly. New employees are found by recruiters who troll the Mall of America early in the morning, looking for elderly mall-walkers who need a hobby. These recruits are promised a warm bed, all the Matlock they can watch, and a free LifeCall alert necklace in case they fall and can't get up.

Once the new staffers arrive at the factory, they go through intensive training on how to cook millions upon millions of cookies, batch by batch, so that they all look exactly the same, without losing their minds. These training courses are led by Girl Scouts from around the country whose parents think they are at Summer Camp making leather friendship bracelets and riding ponies around the lake. During the training, whipping and demoralization is permitted, all in an effort to keep the breakeven cost at $3.50 per box.

The factory workers spend countless weeks baking their batches of cookies and flash-freezing them in the Arctic permafrost. This happens year-round in an effort to ensure there are enough cookies to go around when February comes.

It's important to note that, in America, the drug trade decreases tremendously in February. This is not because of cold weather, but rather because throughout the country drug dealers are contracted to get the millions of boxes of cookies delivered to the local schools and Girl Scout packs. The reason for this is simple. The right tool for the right job. If anyone knows how to deliver product efficiently, it's the drug cartel.

Think about all this while you chomp your Trefoils, knowing that with every bite you're helping the elderly and a drug dealer is temporarily distracted from his regular job of delivering addictive product to kids. Oh, wait....

Please note that no actual Girl Scouts were harmed during the research for this story. Plenty of Thin Mints were eaten though, and I brushed my teeth eight times today.

Proof postive that Elmo is, in fact, evil.

See here. IT seems Elmo DOES, in fact, have an EVIL switch after all. Was it not only a couple of days ago I pointed out the needless folly behind Elmo Live, and how we're destined to be overcome by furry happy monsters? This is the start, people.

Total Eclipse (not of the heart)

Took these from the front porch over the past hour. Cool stuff.

Man, I hope this thing has an evil-to-good switch.

Wow, this is definitely a sign of the coming apocalypse. It seems the inevitable successor to the Tickle Me Elmo bloddline (furline?) has arrived. And it's reached a point of artificial intelligence such that it puts Kevin Clash out of a job. Watch this.

I notice that this thing plugs in. That’s good because, a)we need a failsafe in case Elmo decides to kill its captors and take over the planet and b)this thing would probably eat Duracell D’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Whoda thunk that the end would come as a result of artificially intelligent and humorously ticklish fuzzy creatures that can't even speak in anything greater than a 4-year-old level of conversation? "Elmo Kill! Ha Ha Ha Ha! Elmo Crush! Ha Ha Ha Ha! Elmo very, very ticklish! Hee Hee Hee Hee!"


Note, I came across this on Engadget.

Bunnies-to-gore threshold

I believe my 7-year-old is reaching a transition point in her life. This is the transition from the world of Noggin and Disney to that of "real" TV, where violence is the norm. However that transition seems to be in contradiction with her threshold for violence that is fluffy versus bloody, as demonstrated by the following graph:



The graph can best be explained through the example of our TV viewing this weekend. On Saturday night, we watched Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. If you haven't seen this movie, definitely do so. You will never see a more adorable scene of bunnies getting sucked into a swirling vortex than in this movie. We also watched an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition about a single dad with 4 kids, former Iraqi marine, who got his leg blown off while on patrol. The descriptions and video regarding his story were surprisingly graphic (even Ty Pennington squirmed).

While both shows were "family friendly", there was definitely a "spectrum" of violence and gore here. On one end we have a movie with fluffy (okay, squishy, since they are made of clay) bunnies being sucked into a glass jar and staring longingly at their freedom outside the container. Even the actual Were-Rabbit was cute and adorable in galumphy sort of way. I mean come on, Nick Parks cannot do "dark" without doing "adorable" at the same time. On the other end was a documentary with graphic descriptions of war and destruction, including hospital scenes of the dad recovering and learning to live with a missing appendage.

My daughter, despite giggling uncontrollably throughout the rabbit/vacusuck scene, insisted she didn't like W&G and in fact ran out of the room in fear when The Were-Rabbit appeared. However when the images of the Iraqi dad became so graphic that mom wanted to shut the TV off, my daughter told her to sit back and chill, because this was interesting stuff.

Does this mean she's ready to watch Star Wars with me? I can't tell. I'm guessing Return of the Jedi is out. If she runs screaming from bunnies, imagine what trouble Ewoks would cause.

Freecycle needs to discover technology

I was banned from Freecycle yesterday. And boy am I perturbed.

Freecycle is a great concept, kind of a like a free version of Craigslist. if you've got something in your house taking up space, and you know it's not worth trying to sell, you can post it on Freecycle to see if anyone wants it before you toss it in a landfill. Through our local Pittsburgh Freecycle program, I've seen everything from old gas stoves, to goldfish, to books on The Rapture, to used menstrual pads go to good homes (I'm serious about those last two).

So why was I banned?

Well, I've gotten rid of a half dozen things over the past year, including used paint cans, old kids books, and (the latest) a broken-but-fixable Kenmore clothes washer. Freecycle has a number of rules for posting. Every email you send to the list must include the word "Offer", "Taken", or "Wanted" at the beginning of the email. Additionally, you must include the name of your local town in the title of the email so people know what are of the region you are in. And of course, no spam, porn, or marketing on there. Oh, and no money can change hands in the transaction. Seems reasonable, right?

I was given three strikes. The first strike was with my very first post. I posted a "Wanted" email looking for a trash can to replace one that got mangled in a storm. That's a no-no. It seems you must give before you can receive. The second strike was when I forgot to put the name of my township in the title of the email. Oops, but easily corrected when the moderator bounced the email back to me.

But the third annoyed me After I offered up the clothes washer for grabs, I got at least two dozen interested replies. it would be a few days before anyone picked it up, so I wanted to let additional folks on the list know to stop emailing me. So I sent another message with "PPU" in the title, which means "planned pickup". Except I failed to put "taken" in the email. That's it. I'm banned from posting anything else.

Now, I'm all for security measures as well as for keeping things orderly and systematized. But SURELY in this day and age the Freecycle gurus can think of a better way to handle this. Like, I dunno...maybe just automatically bouce the email back if it's not formatted correctly, so that the writer can rewrite it? Let's see now...here I am saving a huge hunk of steel from the garbage heap, helping out a family in need, AND even DELIVERING it to the family when he discovered his car trailer was not up to the task. And yet I'M EVIL for not including the word "TAKEN" in a fricking email!!!

I sent a couple of emails to the moderator, who essentially explained to me that rules are rules. I then emailed the overall Freecycle customer service email to tell them their rules are retarded. Now, I guess I'm going to register again under a false name so I can post again. Maybe I'll register under two names, and with the second send a bunch of spam and porn to the list in an attempt to give the moderator some REAL work to do.

A story by my four-year-old daughter.

The Butterfly Canyon/Ghostly Meadow (yes, her title has a slash)

Once upon a time there was a very pretty big butterfly. And the very big butterfly said to another butterfly who was little, “You are such a little butterfly but I’m bigger than you.” So the big butterfly flew away as fast as she can, but the little butterfly couldn’t. It was only whoosh and the biggest butterfly was like whoosh.

But then the beautiful little butterfly was beautiful and the biggest was so far away and she wasn’t even pretty enough. But then the little butterfly saw something. There was actually four butterflies and then they saw a unicorn with a very sharp horn and it was very pointy just like a pencil that was very long and then, um, uh, the lantern said “hi.”

And then the unicorn laughed but then soon they saw a beautiful light from the sun. And the sunlight was deeping down. It was very deep and no one could ever see the sun. But then the biggest butterfly thanked the little butterfly and the unicorn and the lantern. The lantern and the unicorn and the little butterfly thought that the big butterfly was funny.

But then they saw a sparkle of the sunlight and the sunlight was shining over them and a little sparkle that was pink was in the sun. But then they thanked all of the animals in the butterfly’s canyon and they thinked they couldn’t fly but they did. But then the lantern said something really funny. And it was about hearts. What he said was, “Hearts are very funny.”

But then one of the hearts came out and said hello. But then the other heart was still stuck together. But then the lantern said, “goodbye.” That’s all.

-After reading this, I now know what it must have been like to attend a Phish concert.

Build-A-Bear and the difference between boys and girls.

Last Saturday, my daughters and I went to Build-A-Bear as part of an Adventure Princess outing. Adventure Princess, you might recall, is the father-daughter bonding club sponsored by the Y. On this day's event, siblings of the little princesses got to go as well. In total 7 girls and a boy were in attendance. I can only guess the boy had a karate class canceled on him.

If you have kids, you know from Build-A-Bear, that arch nemesis of the Vermont Teddy Bear Company and of every parent a budget. What a shtick they've got going. Each kid gets to pick out an unstuffed stuffed animal, typically your basic teddy bear but occasionally something more advanced (if the parent wants to fork over the extra scratch) such as a unicorn, lobster, or fuzzy version of Zac Efron. The kids are paraded through the store to the stuffing machine, where one by one each empty bear receives its first proctology exam as it is inserted, ass-first, onto a cold, steel tube and inflated with white fluff from a giant machine that looks like a cross between a popcorn popper and an ultrasonic humidifier. Then, the kids each get to select a little fabric heart to place in the bear, they can wash their bear in a fake shower that blows air, and then...oh...then, they pick the outfit.

Let me tell you, if cell phone stores sold phone accessories the way B-A-B sells bear outfits, we'd all be carrying diamond Blackberries. This place is a bit of marketing genius. Your child can select from simple dresses, to Harry Potter costumes, to police uniforms, to cowboy outfits, to biker leather. In fact with a little creativity you could probably outfit a half dozen of them as the Village People done in bear. I noticed that the girls all picked pretty little dresses (my daughters got matching skirts with T'shirts that said LOVE on them...aw puke), but the boy in the group went with the trusty Spiderman outfit.

After the outfit is selected (basic outfits are part of the price, but they get you with the accessories), the kids sit in a circle and talk about their new members of the family. Each kid gives the bear a name. With 7 girls and one boy, most of the bears were given names such as Princess, Fluffy, Butterfly, Rainbow, and Patches. The boy? Optimus Prime.

(Look it up...you'll get it eventually).

If you're lucky, you can get out of the B-A-B store spending only $20 per child. However, there are a few things you need to watch out for. First, there's the bear club. Constant mail barrages of sales and specials, and extra outfits for your bear. God help you if your kid sees one of those in the mail before you get a chance to toss it. Second, there's the sudden need for extra accessories. "Mom, Butterfly Princess can't ONLY wear a ball gown...what's she gonna do on days when she has to stay at the palace? She needs the bikini!" And lastly, there is of course the online experience. I discovered recently that, rather than GOING to the store and getting your own bear made in front of your eyes, you can simply assemble a virtual one on their website and have it waiting for you to pick up at your local store. It's as if you were ordering a pizza. Time to get a password on that danged computer.

When it snows, it freezes

Boy, and I thought last week started off on a sour note. After things were taken care of with my rental car Saturday morning (I'm now driving a rented PT Cruiser, which I absolutely cannot stand), I settled in for a relatively productive weekend. I tore apart and remodeled my workshop, Took the kids to Build-A-Bear for an Adventure Princess outing (that's a future post), and built a to-scale model of the ancient Hebrew Temple for my daughter's Sunday school class (okay, that sounds more impressive than it actually was...it was really a paper cutout kit, the whole insert-tab-a-into-slot-b thing...). So the weekend went fine. But Monday was a different story.

We awoke to a frozen hot water pipe in the bathroom. This isn't the first time it's happened, and I blame the architect (my dad) because it's convenient. Actually, I'm the one who pushed for the idea of pushing out the wall of the new bathroom to make more room, so the water pipes are exposed to the elements. See "bump-out that looks like the side of an RV next to the ladder in teh pic below? That's the bathroom sink. And the pipes run through the floor of the thing, making it awfully tough to insulate properly.

From Flickr

After about three hours of space heaters, hair dryers, and thermostats set to 90, we got things going again...just in time for the clothes washer to crap out. Actually, it's the washer's own fault. It tried to escape. During the spin cycle, it decided to jump across the room towards the garage door with such gusto that a rather important plastic piece snapped off. I had essentially three options...call Sears Repair to get a replacement plastic piece, go shopping for a new washer, or call my coworker who told me he had a washer in his garage he was looking to get rid of.

I went for option #3.

This actually turned out to be a good option. It just so happened he was getting rid of a newer, cleaner version of our crappy old Kenmore, so it was simply a matter of disconnecting three hoses and reconnecting them to the new one (well, that and getting it in and out of the van, which wasn't too big a chore). Unfortunately, once connected, I tried a test load and discovered those three connections weren't quite water tight. Well, a trip to Home Depot tomorrow morning for some fresh hoses will solve that problem.

So by the time I was done with the day's events, it was eight o'clock in the evening. I sat down to the computer to discover that our internet was down. After doing the usual unplugging of stuff, I found it wasn't our problem, but Comcast's. So, I attempted to call Comcast Customer Support. I pulled out my Blackberry to make the call (our home phones are VOIP, so they're down too), and discovered that My Blackberry service (Cingular) was down as well. Well, that was odd, I thought. Someone snap another undersea cable? Terrorists taking over the grid?

I locate my wife's cell (also Cingular) and successfully called 1-800-COMCAST. That's when I learned that the number for Comcast is actually an "888" number, not "800". Dial the 800 number, and you'll get a sex line. Interesting, but not gonna solve my problem at this time, especially with the wife and kids still home.

After dialing the correct number I got the automated voice recognition at Comcast. I follow a couple of prompts to get to the point where I say, "I'm having trouble connecting to the internet". The computer voice then asks me, "Do you have a red button on your computer that says, "Install Downloads?" To which I responded, "What the fuck, are you kidding me? Is this a physical button on my CPU, an icon on my desktop, or a kay on my keyboard?? Specify, you automated wanker, and by the way I'm on a Mac!" Well, obviously realizing I was a being of greater intelligence than itself, the automated voice said it would put me on hold for the next available humanoid, but suggested that I could get faster service by going to Comcast.com and clicking on Support. I'm sure, at this point, all you fine readers realize the error of Comcast's ways here...I don't need to point out again that my internet is down, do I?

So I continued to wait for about two minutes. The computer voice then told me that "we are currently experiencing higher than normal call volumes, and cannot connect you with a support representative at this time. Please try your call again later. Goodbye." Then it hung up on me.

There is nothing that pisses me more completely off than a computer that says goodbye and hangs up on me. Word of advice...if you manage a customer service team and have an automated phone system, do NOT allow it to hang up on a customer. EVER.

Okay, giving Comcast the benefit of the doubt, I can understand why they would let this happen if in fact Armageddon is upon us, and the terrorists have shut down the 'Net. But you could at least let me hold for a little longer than two minutes before hanging up on me! And leave a notice on the phone system that says something like, "all our representatives are currently hiding under their desks while the bombs pass over our heads. Save yourselves while you still can!". Jeez. Where's my duct tape and my emergency wind up radio? C'mon kids, to the bomb shelter.

Good news is that about two paragraphs ago, the phones rang. That means that the internet connection is back up. Oddly, my Blackberry started working at the same time, which makes no sense. But at least I can post this to the blog instead of saving it in Notepad.

What an odd day.

Not my Autoweek

This has been somewhat of a below average week for me, especially when it comes to the world of autosports. It started on Tuesday. I was minding my own business, sitting at a red light during my commute home, when Wham! My car gets hit from behind. It turned out that some cowpoke from the rural north was behind me in his shiny new 2008 Chevy Silverado, daydreaming about getting back to the farm, when his foot slipped off the brake and he coasted into me. Okay, this doesn't sound like much of an accident, but when a Silverado meets up with a Mazda 626, the Mazda won't fare too well. Though there wasn't so much as a scratch on his cowcatcher of a bumper, I drove away with $3100 worth of damage to my ride along with a stiff neck.

Side note...Whiplash is a real phenomenon.

The good news is the insurance gods were with me...he was very apologetic, and promised me he'd take care of things with insurance ASAP. And he has. I'm currently driving a rented Nissan Versa and the Mazda is at the body shop, all on his insurance carrier's dime.

So about that Versa. Today, driving home through downtown Pittsburgh, I took a left turn a little too sharp and the rear tire met with the curb. One more steel belted radial for the landfill. Luckily I was only a block from a parking lot, so I pulled over and called Enterprise. They told me AAA would come and throw the donut on, and then I could take it to a Goodyear store and get the tire replaced. While on the phone I looked up and realized I'd pulled over into the parking lot of a Goodyear Store! The gods were with me again! But alas, it was 5:15, and Joe the garage worker had left for the day. So after asking how long I'd be waiting for AAA (within an hour, sir!), I told them not to bother and I'd just throw the donut on myself. That took two minutes. So tomorrow I get to drive back to Enterprise and trade in my Versa for rental car #2. Swell.

By the way, in case you were wondering, the Nissan Versa is a nice little car despite the tires obviously being made of crepe paper. However the horrible radio, lack of arm rest, and seats only big enough for the ass of a seven-year-old forces me to remove the Versa from my list of considerations for future transportation.

Reason #68 to take your Ginko Beloba

I love this.

Ever feel like you were all thumbs?

It could be worse:



Feel free to add your own captions, but here's a few to start off:

>Man, what a total knucklehead.
>Makes me wonder if his favorite food is hearts of palm.
>When he gives you the finger, he REALLY gives you the finger.
>He brings picking his nose to a whole new level.
>Don't feed the hand that bites...wait..no, that's not it...
>Hand-eye coordination was never his strong suit.
>I've gotta hand it to you, when you were told to get a grip on things you really took it to heart.

Note that I have no idea of the source of this image...it's another one of those mysterious email forwards. If you know the source, please, um, give me a hand, and I'd be happy to credit.

Coral The Algae Sucker: 2007-2008

Stop all the filters, cut off the bubbler,
Prevent the dogfish from swimming with a juicy piece of plankton,
Silence the crashing waves and with muffled drum
Bring out the plastic tupperware, let the mourners come.

Let toilet bowl water circle down the head
Scribbling in the pebbles the message He Is Dead
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My Roomba. My Algae Sucker. my buddy. The best.
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The Tetra-Min is not wanted now: throw out every flake;
Pack up the fishnet and dismantle the pebble rake;
Pour away the water and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

My apologies to W.H. Auden.

But alas the news is that Coral the Algae sucker has passed. That leaves me (Goldie the badass cichlid) alone in the world. Sure, I wanted it this way, but now that I have my freedom, my silence, what good can it come too.

I blame Skinny Guy. I overheard him saying something yesterday about cleaning this filthy stench hole. But no, he got lazy yesterday, and poor Coral just couldn't take it anymore. He checked out around dinner time. Now he sleeps with the fishes.

Thing#1 was devastated. Let me tell you, that girl has some lungs. Skinny Guy told her he'd come home tomorrow with a couple of new Algae Suckers tomorrow. Good thing. I can't be expected to keep this thing clean by myself, after all!

My new chum

Okay, it's me again. Goldie the badass Cichlid. I wanted to take a moment and give you my side of the story of when Skinny Guy decided to allow a lesser fish to infiltrate my home.

I'll be the first to admit that fish aren't overly exciting to humans. You can wrestle with a dog, take it for a walk, or train it to attack ner-do-wells, but you can't do those things with most fish (and please don't try). Cats suck too, but for altogether different reasons, the most important of which is they tend to enjoy folks like myself as hors d'oeuvres. So why is it that once you crazy people have one fish, you feel the need to have another? Do you think it's better for my own psyche, like I need a friend to play Chutes & Ladders with? If so, you're wrong. I like my space. I like my privacy. And, most importantly, I like having all the food to myself. (note that I'm not counting Coral, the algae sucker, as a friend. He's more like a Roomba.)

After being here for about two weeks, Skinny Guy, followed by the Things, showed up with a plastic baggie in his hand. "Look at what the cat dragged in" doesn't begin to describe this ridiculous excuse for a fish he brought home with him. "Bait" comes a little closer. The new guy, whom they decided to name "Dusty" after some horrible dog from Skinny Guy's childhood that I hear mauled little children until he was crushed by a Chevy Nova, was dumped into the tank and the family outside smiled, thinking they'd given me a life partner. Oh please. You may as well have bunked Luke Skywalker with one of the Tusken Raiders (check Wikipedia, you'll get it).

As soon as Dusty was freed from the bag, he got a good look at me and, rightfully so, swam to the opposite corner and cowered. Just for giggles, I swam over and gave him a little nudge, just to see what he'd do. Nothing. I nudged him again. Nothing. So I gave him a slap with my tail, called him my beeyotch, and told him to do my bidding.

At this point, Skinny Guy realized the error of his ways. He then got the fool idea of taking us out of the tank and putting us into a soup container for a couple of hours as a bonding session. Oh, we bonded. Dusty sat at the bottom of the container, and I sat on top of his sorry little ass until while he struggled to breathe. Meanwhile, Skinny Guy cleaned things out of the tank, rearranged the furniture, and put up posters from Switzerland in an attempt to make the place feel more like a neutral setting rather than the private domain of Goldie the Badass Cichlid, in hopes of giving Dusty a better foothold. Not likely.

For the next day, Dusty did nothing but smell up the tank. And that REALLY annoyed me. If you invited someone into your home who did nothing but sit on your couch and poop, how would you like it? Yeah I know, I know, "Invite him? Hell, I married him" would be the proper response there, but this is my stand-up routine, not yours.

The more he sat there, the more things started to smell. Now, had Skinny Guy done his research, he would have learned something important about me, and that is when I get pissed I turn black. No, seriously. This is like totally the coolest. You know how that Bruce Banner guy turned all big and green when he got pissed? I do the same thing, but in black. My face gets all cinched up, my fins and body turn a deep shade of the darkest night, and my fists and legs grow to twice their...okay, maybe not that last part, but you get the idea.

So Skinny Guy sees this, and starts to worry. Oh no, my poor little fishy is sick! Whatever shall we do! Sucker. After about a day of looking like Darth Vader, Skinny Guy removed Dusty (and I assume flushed him, as I would have), and I went back to my normal golden self.

If you ever want privacy, try that some time. Trust me, it's cool. Turning a different color is one of the better super powers out there.

Goldie's taking over the blog for now.

I'm in between home improvement projects. I'm debating what's next on the home improvement list. It's four degrees outside so we're not doing a whole lot other than catching up on last year's reruns on Netflix. So I've decided that for the time being, I'm going to pass the reins of my blogging responsibilities to someone else, who perhaps has a bit more to say. Meet Goldie.



This thing on? Hello? The name's Goldie. Now, before you go all, "oh isn't that cute, a goldfish named Goldie" let me say right now that I ain't no frickin' goldfish. I'm what's known as a South American Cichlid. Actually to be more specific, I'm a BLOOD PARROT South American Cichlid. Which makes me sound more dangerous. Like I kill small birds and eat their organs just for my own enjoyment. Don't even think about calling me a goldfish.

And, the name? Well, there are these two little monkey-like creatures running around outside my tank, which I'm going to call Thing#1 and Thing#2 (Yes, I'm a fan of Dr. Seuss. One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish was pure GENIUS). They seemed to have voting rights on the name, so it was their idea. Not mine. I would have preferred something far more manly, like "Doug", but hey, that's not important right now.

So, the blogging thing. Well, Skinny Guy and I were staring at each other through the glass the other day. I gave him my best hypnotic gaze, concentrated really hard, and thought, "Get me the heck out of here!". Suddenly he grabbed the net, scooped me up, and here I am in front of the keyboard while he's on his knees wiping water off the Pergo. Not quite what I had in mind, but if it gets the message out...

I've been in this joint a month now. During that time, I've noticed a few things. First, these people have no idea how to care for fish. Next chance I get I'm going to shove each one of their giant heads into a mayonnaise jar and then pound on it with a rubber mallet while saying, "here fishy fishy!" See how they frickin like it. Second, it appears that the pattern of daily life around here consists of the following agenda: Skinny Guy leaves for most of the day, leaving Thing#1 and Thing#2 to run around all day screaming, making a mess, and asking that one with the glasses and book in her hand for snacks every eight minutes. She appears to spend most of her day pouring Rice Krispies into small bowls. Skinny guy returns home later, yells at the Things to stop making so much noise, then joins the book lady as she follows the things around, picking up their crap and pouring more Rice Krispies until they are sent upstairs for the night. This leaves me with the rest of the evening to catch Jon Stewart on the TiVo and hang out with the world's most boring roommate, the algae sucker.

Okay, despite the fact that I've finally figured out how to work this keyboard thing with my fins, I'll sign off for tonight. Tune in next time when I give my side of Skinny Guy's couple's therapy story. He really, REALLY, had no idea what he was doing there. Let's just say this guy is about as qualified to perform psychological experiments on fish as I am to drive a Barracuda. And I mean the car.

The media cart...making shoppers obsolete

I can't decide if this is a genius invention, a natural evolution, or just the friggin stupidest waste of consumers' time and money to come around.

The invention is the Media Cart system. Take the love child of your average supermarket shopping cart and Robocop, and here's what you get. The cart has a video screen on it along with a user interface and keypad that provides a whole host of benefits (to whom I'm not sure). Among other things, the unit is outfitted with RFID, allowing it to be aware of its own location as you maneuver it through the store. Thus, when you pass the gefilte fish, and there happens to be a sale on gefilte fish, your shopping cart can now tell you, "Hey! There's a sale on gefilte fish. Reach down and to your left, and grab a couple of bottles whydontacha!"

The cart runs on lithium ion batteries. When it is "docked" in a line with the other carts in the store waiting to be used, it charges itself. It is wirelessly internet enabled, so when you begin shopping you can scan your rewards card and it will provide you more personalized options, including automatic downloading of your shopping lists from the store's website. This feature I see as a particular annoyance for me personally, as I foresee being sent to the store by my lovely wife for milk and bread, only to be buggered by instant announcements on the screen saying things like, "the lovely wife wants you to get cereal as well. And juice. And fruit. Oh, and dinner for tonight. And pick up the dry cleaning."

According to this article, the units will begin their lives in a test run at Shop Rite stores in Connecticut soon. I was born and raised in a Shop Rite in Connecticut. My mom taught me to be frugal (and by that I mean a cheap bastard), and she would often take me to Shop Rite with her to demonstrate her prowess in coupon-driven cost-saving. I was always amazed that no matter what store we were in, be it the Shop-Rite, the Food Mart, or the Stop & Shop, she always knew the exact prices of things at all stores. Let me give you an example. I'd come across a box of Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, toss them in the cart and say, "mommy, we need these." She would take them out and calmly reply, "okay, but they're cheaper at the Other Store." I'd put them back on the shelf, expecting that my Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs would soon be obtained from the Other Store for a price so low that it would make sense to stock up for the millennium.

To this day I have never been to the Other Store. In fact I'm starting to think that maybe, just maybe, she was trying to avoid buying those Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs. But I would think it would be a nice enhancement if the cart could tell you the prices at the Other Store. Maybe finally I'd be able to get my Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs

I'm trying to picture a future where my mom goes to Shop Rite and proceeds to use one of these newfangled cartons. I have a number of concerns.

For one, how well do you think those screens will hold up to folks (like me) who enjoy giving their cart the heave-ho into the cart corral in the parking lot? and, when it's four degrees outside, how well are those batteries going to stay charged while the await retrieval by some minimum wage slacker?

Will anyone over the age of 70 be able to handle one of these things without accidentally hitting the accelerator instead of the brake and driving it through the fresh fish counter?

While on the one hand I like the fact that you can ask the cart to tell you what aisle the Cheez-Its are, I wonder if the tracking will wig out and think it’s broken when my mom spends a half hour standing in one place, behind the fish counter, swapping stories of the grandkids with the mom of one of my friends from high school.

I also wonder if there is a button mom can push that gives her a direct interface to the store manager, to whom she can bitch about the fact that they don’t carry kosher turkeys. One of my mother's favorite things to do at Shop Rite is bitch to the manager about kosher turkeys...don't take that easy access away from her. That's why she refuses to use the self-checkout aisle.

But most importantly, I have to wonder if anyone's going to give a crap about these things. In an age where your digital camera will be obsolete by the time you're done figuring out how to synchronize it with your GPS system, do we really need another gadget that sucks up energy, makes our food more expensive, and annoys the crap out of people who just want to buy a friggin box of Triscuts without being bothered?

Science that Matters

Here's perhaps the most important study I've seen happen in a while.

It seems Polish scientist concluded through a study that legs 5 percent longer than average are most attractive to both sexes.

Pawlowski and his colleagues at the University of Wroclaw showed 218 male and female volunteers photos of seven men and seven women whose images had been altered to make them all appear the same height.

Those with legs 5 percent over the average came in first in the hotness rankings, while those with 10 percent over came in second. Average proportions came in third.

Surprisingly, legs 15 percent longer than normal were a turn-off.

Oddly, nowhere did it talk about legs that went all the way up to the neck. That's a whole other category.

Time for Timer!

If I said to you, "they're doing push ups in Peoria, they're jogging in L.A." would that mean anything to you? Somewhere in the recesses of your addled brain, does this spark a memory of childhood? Well if you're my age, and you didn't get out much on Saturday mornings, it should. In the age before infinite repeats of Zack & Cody, we had Schoolhouse Rock, Time For Timer, and Chopper. Yes, Chopper. The opening line of his medley has been stuck in my brain for around thirty years, and would crawl quickly out of its recesses every time someone mentioned Peoria, Illinois. Trouble was, I could never remember the rest of the song, or even the subject matter. Bless you, YouTube. Strap yours seatbelts on, we're going back again...

Back in my day lipsyncers were called singers!

This is just so sad. The buzz that surrounds Hannah Montana concerts, that is. I am happy to say that my kids only have somewhat of a passing interest in the Disney pop drug of the moment (after all, she wasn't one of the actresses in High School Musical, now was she?). Yet still, my wife had to ask me the token question...

"So, should we look into Hannah Montana concert tickets?"

Luckily she wasn't overly serious. I mean, tickets are selling for something like five thousand dollars apiece, and you have to lie about your father being a casualty of war just to be considered good enough to go. And then, once you're at the concert, you're treated to pre-recorded tripe so overly mechanized that a body double subs for the performer while she does a costume change. Really. Didn't Milli Vanilli teach us anything?

I want my daughters to grow up right. I want them to respect talent. To want to see a concert because they love the talent displayed by the performer, not because it's what a cable channel told them they have to do. I want to pay for a quality performance, not a duplicate of what I can get on TV in better quality.

Back in my day, when TV was called books and when having to Wii meant actually peeing, I went to only a few rock concerts. The two that stood out were INXS and Smithereens. I saw INXS with my older sister. It was my first concert and my ONLY stadium concert. But I saw them because they were my favorite band. Not because of who they were, but because of what they did. I didn't know the band members' names. I didn't have an INXS lunch box. I just liked their music. And the Smithereens I saw after their prime in the early 90's. I'd always liked their music, and got to see them in a club so small that quite literally I got to sit next to him on stage, with about thirty other people, while he played an acoustic version of "Behind The Wall OF Sleep". Twenty years from now, I would like to ask any girl that attended the Hannah Montana concert this year, to see what she remembers about the concert. I bet it's her hair.

There ya have it folks. I'm officially a grumpy old fart.

Pottery Barn Schmottery Barn

Well, it only took me 4 months. Two days with dad's help building the cabinets, and three months, 28 days doing the painting, tile, doors, shelves, etc. But at long last we have living room cabinets. Finally, a new place to hide crap. A new place to organize my wife's endless piles of books. A new place to crawl into and hide from the annoyances of daily life. If only I could figure out how to install locks on the insides of the cabinets.

Ask yourself, do you think I'm funny? Do you? Punk?

This message goes out to all three of my loyal readers as well as the 6.2 people per week that glance at my blog regularly in a misguided attempt to find illicit kiddie photos.

The message is, click here if you think I'm funny.

I'm often a bit torn regarding my status as a blogger. I write here as a way of plugging into my creative outlet. I write here because I don't write in a diary. And I write here in hopes that someone will come across my blog, think I'm the greatest writer ever, and offer to pay me millions of dollars for the rights to the movie "The Life, Kids, and Construction Projects of a Suburban Dad". But I've been wondering which is better: to have a half dozen friends reading what I write, or to have a random post circulate the internet much like that dude that wrote about finding the 1970's JCPenney catalog. As we all know, with great power comes greater responsibility, and I'm just not sure that I'd be able to keep up with the frenetic pace of becoming a rich and famous blogger.

Well, as Tom Cruise so wisely stated in Risky Business, "Porsche. There is no substitute." No wait, that wasn't it. Anyways, the idea here is that if you and hundreds of others like you were to click on HUMOR BLOGS, I would gain notoriety and popularity as a blogger of sorts. So click away.

Speaking of movie references, I was very disappointed with myself yesterday. My buddy called me last night. He and I have this habit of having entire conversations that consist of nothing but movie quotes. It annoys the crap out of my wife, who can't understand why on earth a guy would ever want to see a movie more than once, even IF it stars a young and dashing Harrison Ford. Anyway, my buddy told me he'd just joined "the steak club", which is some sort of high-falutin' guys night out gathering of overpaid doctors who want to avoid their wives.

And he of course said, "so what's the first rule of steak club?" Now, I know the proper answer should have been, "Never talk about steak club." I know the quote. I've seen the movie several times. I absolutely adore the whole Ikea parody with Ed Norton's apartment at the beginning of the movie. But no, I replied with, "um, wear pants?"

So what happened? Am I off my game? Am I getting Alzheimer's? Must be those meddling kids again. They've tapped the input lines to my brain and are pumping me full of High School Musical and Barbie quotes. All the useful ones, like those from Brad Pitt movies, are being pushed out the other side and landing on the floor in a heap of squishy gray matter. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go find a sponge mop and a bucket before my buddy calls again.

Boy things were different back then.

This sort of thing seems to come up at least once a year. Some teacher manages to screw her career by doing the same to a student. The latest is a local (Moon Township) teacher who had relations with a 14-year-old student, and even shared naked photos of herself with him for use on his cell phone. Brilliant. It makes me wonder, if one or two teachers get caught each year doing stupid things like this in America, how many others out there are doing it and not getting caught?

And, okay, I'll say what all the guys out there are thinking. Where were teachers like that when I was 14? Sure, it's horrible, it's inappropriate, and it's something that had better never happen to my kids, but those are the types of thoughts I am required to have after I'm grown up and have children. Back then, an opportunity like this would have been a growth experience.

I don't quite remember which teachers I had at age 14, but throughout my rather unmemorable high school career I can think of one or two that likely brought on some sort of Oedipal fantasy or two. Ah, Ms. Ammerman...conjugate those verbs for me! Of course, at my high school we spent most of our time wondering if in fact some of our teachers were either men or women. It was amazing to see what an ankle-length polyester skirt, flowered puffy blouse, and matching bow tie combination could do to hide any sign of femininity and keep the average teenager focused on his Spanish lesson rather than his new-found and puberty-driven fantasy life.

I do remember one scandal, where a popular male English teacher had a habit of asking young ladies to set up secret rendezvous. One actually took him up on the offer, but when he approached her car at the assigned meeting location he was greeted by the principal wearing a wig. Things kinda went downhill for him after that.

Those were some truly disturbing times, yes they were.

Couples Therapy for Goldfish

This year during the holidays we decided to forego the obvious gift of a Wii for our kids in favor of a goldfish tank. My theory was that if we could keep a goldfish alive for a few months, we could probably manage a dog eventually. Conveniently at the same time we presented the kids with the tank I came across a woman looking to get rid of a couple of fish. So we inherited a South American Chiclid (i.e. fancy goldfish) whom we named Goldie.

Goldie was a cute little bugger always with a smile on her face, but she didn't do much aside from hide behind a plant all day. Goldie came with one of those algae sucking bottom-feeders as well, but he didn't do much except, well, suck.

We decided to get Goldie a friend. On Saturday morning we picked up an additional fish, one that was slightly smaller than Goldie, but of the same South American heritage as the nice lady at PetSmart suggested. We named it "Dusty" (I wanted to name it "Bait" but got outvoted by my daughters). As soon as we added Dusty to the tank, Goldie bullied him into a corner and wouldn’t let him out for two days. Eventually we figured we’d be better off replacing Dusty with something bigger and more manly, a fish that could hold its own against Goldie's smackdown. But no, nice lady at PetSmart suggested instead that I take them both out and put them into a bucket for a while, then rearrange the tank. Basically, they’d be going into neutral territory, and when they got back into the tank everything would be all new, so it wouldn’t be like the new punk gettin’ all in Goldie’s space ‘n shit.

After a couple hours of tank cleaning, I dropped the new guy into the tank and let him check the place out. He seemed okay with it. Then I dumped Goldie in, and she got all, “oh no he di-int’” on Dusty's ass, chased him into the corner, and that was that.

We haven't seen Dusty since. My guess is Goldie offed him and buried the body under the coral reef.

I realized today that, even though the couples therapy session wasn't so effective on the goldfish, perhaps it might be an effective measure taken against warring children. You see, we have perhaps the two most angelic, sweetest children in existence. When apart from each other. But once they share the same airspace, it's like the French & Indian war broke out in the family room. First Jes is yelling about Natalie stealing a barbie. Then Jes won't share the beads. Then Natalie allegedly hit her. Then one frowned in the other's general direction. Then she hurt my feelings. Then she won't let me watch Franklin and insists on watching her fifteenth episode of Zack & Cody. For god's sake someone call Rodney King!

So here's my plan. I'm going to get a 55 gallon drum. Fill it with packing peanuts. Put both kids in it. Then, while they are fighting about who gets to make the little snappy-snap sound by breaking the peanuts in half, I'll go upstairs and rearrange their rooms. When I'm done, it will be like we moved to a new house, they won't recognize it, and magically they will just get along.

Nah, I don't think it will work either. But I like the idea of keeping them in the drum for a spell.

My camera barks like a dog

I came across two good examples of technology in need of problems recently.

For the holidays I bought my wife a new camera, a Canon Powershot SD1000. This camera, as is usual with Canon's tinycams, is a gorgeous marriage of art and technology. However it reaches well beyond the normal level of bells and whistles to a point of ridiculousness.

When I opened the box I was greeted with not one, not two, but SIX instruction manuals. Okay granted two were in Spanish, but still. Knowing fully well my wife would refuse to read any sort of printed product that explained gizmo usage, I figured it would be up to me to read the instructions and train my wife. By the time I'd reached page 17 of the user manual, I had learned to make the camera bark like a dog when I pressed the shutter button. I also learned how to change the splash screen that appears when the camera turns on. And I learned how to make it show me the time and date on the screen whenever I wanted it to, in a special animated graphic that flashed across the screen just long enough to be cool but not long enough to actually allow the user to read and process the actual time.

But one thing the book did NOT tell me how to do by page 17 was to take a picture. I flipped forward and found the first instance of picture-taking instructions on page 23.

In another demonstration of grand UI design, a George Foreman Lean Mean Toasting Machine appeared in the office kitchen this week. It appears that in a sudden altruistic act of re-gifting, an anomymous benefactor decided to toss out the grungy old office toaster and replace it with this gray, streamline hunk of plastic.

I never new toasting could actually be either Lean or Mean. But it just so happened that I had toast to make that morning (a bagel, actually) so I gave it a shot.

First of all, this toaster allows both pieces of toast to go into the same slot, rather than in two slots parallel to each other. This meant the toaster is about a foot long. Which, as you can imagine, is way to big for a countertop.

Second, just above the slide-down lever is an LED indicator. On the indicator is a picture of a slice of bread, with an "X" drawn over it. A couple of us pondered what that could possibly mean. We also pondered why on earth we couldn't get the lever to stay down or the Lean Mean Toasting Machine to start leanly or meanly toasting. Eventually we discovered that this indicator was actually a button, in fact the "Cancel all toasting operations and return bread slices to owner" button, and it was pushed in and jammed, causing the system to malfunction.

There was also a button on the side of the unit, with a picture of a snowflake on it. Oh joy! This must mean our Lean Mean Toasting Machine would make Lean Mean Slushies, as well. No, unfortunately not. After looking on the internet we found this button is a defrost feature. We tried it, and successfully turned a frozen piece of bread into a pile of soggy bread. Ah, so it DOES make slushies...bread-flavored ones.

Nice try, George.

Some people change...some don't

Last night was the annual get-together of the local alumni from my fraternity. After pretty much forgetting each other's existence for the past year, it's always great to gather for dinner and catch up. Who's moved where, who's doing what, how many kids are you on, what kind of Blackberry are you using...the usual stuff.

One thing I took note of is that this year was that, for the first time, it appeared that the "with kids" table was the same size as the "without kids" table. We're all growing up, and with each passing year the evening becomes far less about retelling stories of how many beers we used to consume on an average Friday night as an undergrad, and far more about who's kid managed to get himself in trouble on the bus ride home from kindergarten.

Some might find this thought depressing. I personally don't. I find it interesting to see friends move to the next stage of life, and as a result how much they keep in touch with or lose touch with their own pasts. Some become totally different people when they become parents. Others stay pretty much the same.

Speaking of which, I shared this thought with a buddy of mine from childhood, who is currently stationed in Korea as an officer in the Air Force. His wife and two small kids are there with him. I got this in reply:

...with the kids, I can continue to practice my wrestling moves (cross faces, double arm bars, leg scissors, full/half/quarter nelsons, pancakes, chicken wings, switches, reverse switches, one-on-one arm bars, inside & outside cradles set with the Russian grip, grab-regrabs, fireman carries, etc.). I haven't started on the WWF moves yet---that will be fun with some atomic knee drops, back breakers, and double arm bars with a chin to back, etc.... I like---no...love the fact that Elena can do a 25-rung monkey bar without touching the ground and Paul can hang on the monkey bar rungs while I do the ABCs and 1-20. He's starting to venture out and reach for the next rung on the monkey bar. But I think his Russian grip is getting extremely strong for a 4 year old. By the time his 6 or 8, it will be like super-glue and if he sets in the Russian around your neck, you'll basically have to have him surgically removed. As you can see, the "training" is going well.

This friend of mine would fall into the "others stay pretty much the same" category.

The IT guy at the South Pole

There's a very interesting article in Computerworld about the guy that manages the IT department at the South Pole. Quite literally the coolest IT job around.

When the dads get involved

Last week was another Adventure Princess Circle gathering, where my 7-year-old and I got together with other members of our tribe at one of the couple's houses. Typically, a circle gathering goes like this:

1. Arrive at house
2. Girls run around house determining who has the greatest vocal capacity
3. Girls play foozeball, dads enjoy a beverage
4. Dads and daughters gather in a circle to take care of a few business items, like what to do with the four dollars collected for charity or determining which girl helped their mom do the dishes this week.
5. Girls are herded to table, to enjoy sugary and/or salty snack
6. Girls do a craft of some sort
7. After achieving final sugar high, girls are driven home so the moms can deal with peeling the girls off ceilings and getting them to bed.

Our recent meeting went pretty much as planned. But an added bonus was that during craft time, all the dads immediately found the rare opportunity to become architects.

The craft was to create a gingerbread house. Prefabricated the night before by the host family out of graham crackers and a complex mixture of egg whites, polymers, and magic fairy dust, the kids' job was to decorate the house in the classic gingerbread fashion. Each child was given a full container of frosting, and an endless supply of decorative items. There were M&Ms, Snow Caps, pretzel rods, pretzel circles, pretzel squares, gumdrops, marshmallows, cookies, Twizzlers, and more. At first the kids were free to create and play, but once that first dad realized his daughter wasn't achieving a completely smooth and adhesive surface by creating an even layer of frosting on all surfaces, it was time to step in. Suddenly, a deck appeared on the back of one house. Then came a pond made of blue M&Ms. There were patios. Stepped terraces. Bell towers. Mailboxes. Hot tubs. Wishing wells. Roads. Hummers parked in the driveways. Soon, the dads were clearing the way for construction crews, in order to add 3-season rooms and master suites. These were no longer ordinary holiday gingerbread houses; they were ski resorts and mansions built with the architectural skill, attention and prowess of Franks Lloyd Wright or Gehry.

I can't wait to get the gang together and start building our pinewood derby cars. I already promised to bring the chain saw and caulking gun.

Avoid those Hotel Drinking Glasses

Here is a wonderful hidden camera story about the extensive lengths your average hotel cleaning staff goes through to ensure those bathroom drinking glasses are spotless. And I'm sure every word of it is true and the norm.

Last hotel we stayed at, Natalie accidentally dropped a glass in the sink, taking a large chunk out of the side of it. We left the glass on top of the wet bar that was in the main part of the room. I was going to leave a note of warning but forgot.

Later that day we came back and the room was cleaned. That same glass was back on the bathroom counter with the little paper cover on top of it again. Nice.

Not that I'm excusing this sort of behavior, but one little bit of irony here is that I'll bet your average household bathroom isn't nearly as clean as your average hotel room, and thus the dangers of germs in hotels are perhaps even less than the dangers in your own house. But then again, they are your own germs, not someone else's. Around here we wait until the towels start walking away on their own before we consider a scrubdown, but we haven't caught a disease yet.

Shopping Superheros

It amazes me to see people shop for electronics like it's 1988. Last night, I was in Target, searching for colored plastic bins with which to organize my daughters' hats and mittens (because I'm JUST that way). As I stood there searching for just the right capacity and opacity, out of the corner of my eye I watched a guy, whom I shall refer to as Shopperdude, standing in front of one of the end racks, looking at Target's sparse selection of GPS systems.

Shopperdude stopped a Target employee and asked for a recommendation. The kid said he had no real idea, but that they were all pretty good.

"Which ones talk to you?" he asked.

"They all do, I think," said Targetboy. At that moment the fur on my spine began to tingle. Targetboy was wrong. Sure, it's likely they all say things like "turn left" but not all of them would say, "turn left on Main Street". That's a big difference.

"Do they come with batteries?" asked Shopperdude.

"Umm, not sure..." Targetboy looked at the package of one, scanning for details, and said, "I think only this one does."

Huh? You moron! They all come with built-in rechargeables! Geezuz.

"Well, do you sell the Tomtom?"

"Umm....yeah....I think this Magellan is a TomTom."

Holy crap. This kid needed to be reduced to dust with a death ray. And fast.

I truly had the urge to stomp down the aisle, hipcheck Targetboy into the plexiglass, and take over. But now Targetboy had flagged down Targetgirl to help him. Targetgirl even arrived with her Superhero utility belt containing a bar code scanner and a remote communicator. Grabbing her remote communicator, she relayed Targetboy's questions to Stockman, the invisible answer-giver stationed in the Hall of Inventory. Stockman at least explained that TomTom and Magellan were two different brands, but as far as I could tell that was the only helpful information he gave.

After another five minutes of staring at packages, flipping them over, and hoping one of them would have "please for god's sake buy me!" written on the back of one, The man decided on the one that was on sale for $399.

That's a lot of frickin money to spend on a gadget without doing any research. As I posted previously, each brand has two dozen different models, and each model does (or doesn't do) specific things. Do your research Shopperdude, you'll be much happier. Never mind that you'll save money buying online.

I really thought about stopping Shopperdude on his way to the checkout counter and setting him straight, telling him the Garmin 260 was $120 cheaper on Amazon than it was at Target, but then I thought against it. If everyone did their research, everyone would buy online rather than Target and save money. Target would fail financially, and I wouldn't have any place to get my colored plastic bins. I'd have to buy the cheap clear ones at the Dollar Store. Instead, I let Shopperdude go, saluted him silently, and thanked him for keeping American consumerism going.

Howard has some work to do

I noticed my friend Howard posted that the reading level of his blog is "high school." I ran the same test on mine, and it reported back that mine reads at a college undergrad level. Hah! How 'bout them apples!


I guess my daughters haven't completely destroyed every last brain cell...yet....

Chinese Food for Xmas

That reminds me...gotta find out if the Dershowitzes want to go to Peking House with us next week.

New members of the family

New members of the family
Originally uploaded by daninhim

Our new adopted members of the family arrived today. Coral Pink (the goldfish) and Coral Blue (the Algae Eater) were rescued from a family moving to Germany, or something like that. We'll see if they survive the night. Coral Blue started off jumping around to different areas of the tank, but currently he's lying at sort of an angle on the fake rock around the barrel, and hasn't been moving a whole lot. Hmmm....


Oh, a note on the names. Obviously determined by a seven year old and a four year old. I would have chosen "Roger" and "Arnold" myself. But we convinced them that naming the Algae Eater "Algernon" and the goldfish "Algae" just wouldn't work.

Happy Holidays, a capella

This is very fun.

Our expectations have changed

I came across this article about a prototype hand-powered camera today. You spin the wheel for 15 seconds, giving you enough juice to take a snapshot. Really handy. Right. But it's a prototype, I'm not mocking it. But what got me in this article was the line, " As the camera has no screen monitor, users must connect the device to a computer to see their pictures."

In my day, cameras had monitors. They were called paper!

At a crossroads

I'm at a crossroads. A point of no return. And no, it's not because my new GPS broke (it's working quite nicely, thanks for asking). It's because I'm about to put doors on the new cabinets I've built.

You may recall I took on the project of built-in cabinets in our living room back in September. Dad came in, and in about two days we built base cabinets and bookshelves on either side of the fireplace, leaving me with the relatively straightforward tasks of tiling the counter top, cutting and hanging shelves, painting everything, and installing doors.

Well, after over three months, I'm down to that last step. The doors. And this is where I hit the turning point. You see, my wife and I have small children. Perhaps you were aware of this. Perhaps you have a few of your own. If you do, you're also aware that any room in which a small child plays becomes a cleanup project for FEMA within seconds of the child entering. I'm afraid that once the doors are up and the cabinets are officially done, there will be no stopping Hurricanes Natalie and Jessica from striking landfall in our living room.

You see, before the project began, this room was "the playroom". There was no furniture in there, only a sea...no, a swamp...of toys. Barbies. Puzzles. Blocks. Fisher Price animals. plastic playsets. tiny hair brushes, no more than a centimeter in length, used either to brush the hair of a Polly Pocket doll or to lodge in the windpipe of a puppy. There were times when it was quite literally impossible to walk from one end of the room to the other without getting a Mr. Potato Head body part wedged under a toenail. When the project began, we decided to completely empty out the room. All toys went to the guest room (speaking of which, please don't visit any time soon unless you plan to stay at a hotel. We have yet to hack a pathway to the bed in there). Since there was no furniture in there to begin with, the room has been a sanctuary from the daily clutter of living with children. A place where a dad could run free, and handily enough a place where a four-year-old could do multiple tumblesaults (her word) without injury.

Once I put those doors on, my project will be complete. No more, "Kids! Get your stuff out of here! daddy has to use the sander and doesn't want to get dust all over your Magnadoodle!" No, those doors will go up and suddenly a huge volume of stuff will make it's way back into the room. Those nice empty cabinets will be stuffed to the door frames with crap, crap and more crap. The kids wil find reasons to bring down Animal Bingo, Fisher Price Zoo, and multiple cans of Silly String. It will be chaos.

I'm thinking of putting a lock on one of those new cabinets, and saving the space for myself. Not so I can store stuff. But so I can hide in there. Sure, I won't be able to tumblesault in there, but it will still be my sanctuary.

Sigh. I guess there's no putting it off. To the workshop I go. Well the good news is, once this room is ready, I'll move on to either the office or the dining room. And that room will get its chance at a few months of heavenly order before that overwhelming force known as clutter takes over again.

Star Wars Toys that Didn't make the cut

These are the perfect gifts to complete any Star Wars fanatic's collection.

Child Logic

I thought this was brilliant logic.

My 4-year-old Jessica called us to the bedroom tonight to inform us her feet were hot. So she asked for socks.

We explained that socks would not make her feet cool. She said she knew that...she wanted socks because she knows they would keep her feet warm. And "warm" is less than
"hot" so it would be better.

You just can't argue with that.

Hannukah In Santa Monica

I agree with Bob, who forwarded this to me..."like a lot of Jewish meals, this one goes on a little too long." But fun anyway. Whoda thunk they'd ever hear Tom Lehrer and South Park in the same medley?

Buying a GPS

It's an odd thing to have my wife as excited about a new gadget as I am. but that's what happened when I borrowed a coworker's Garmin GPS unit for a trip to the other side of the state last week. After it successfully got us to our destination with nary a forethought by us she said, "Omigod, you are getting me one of these, right?"

Okay then! Time to shop!

Oddly enough, it was only a week before that the multitude of Black Friday shoppng circulars listed various TomToms, Garmins, and Magellans as part of their eearly bird specials, but I was more interested in sleeping in. Luckily there still seem to be many deals to be had out there.

I gotta hand it to Garmin and TomTom (the only two brands I looked at). They do a great job of making so many models of their product that it was virtually impossible to figure out which would be the best to buy. Garmin alone has over 25 models, each with incremental improvements (in some cases) over lesser-numbered models, but with little if any consistency in their numbering scheme. Once I hopped over to Amazon and such to check prices, it got even more confusing as the reviewers on Amazon themselves had trouble keeping track.

I went into Circuit City to put my hands on a few models. Again no consistency with what they displayed. I found it odd that the Garmin 260 (the one I ended up buying) was there on display, but the Garmin tri-fold brochure that sat next to the displays made no mention of the 260. Plus, I got the usual dork pestering me, saying things like, “I dunno, I usually work in the computers section, but I hear a lotta people return the Tomtoms.” Helpful.

So after rummaging through all the info, I narrowed it down to the following criteria:

-I don’t need Europe maps. If I go to Europe I’ll borrow my coworker’s unit.

-I need it to say the street names. “Left turn coming in 200 feet” is not as good as “In 200 feet, turn left on Wahoo Boulevard”. That’s a $50 upgrade from any model that doesn’t say street names.

-I don’t need the widescreen version. Cool, but expensive, and really not needed if the voice is telling me where to turn.

-I don’t need celebrity voices. As cool as it would be to have John Cleese telling me to take the roundabout, it’s up there with custom cell phone ringtones as something I can survive without.

-I don’t need an MP3 player. Many of the more advanced models take a memory card that dishes out MP3’s. Big deal.

-I don’t need an FM transmitter. That would make it tough to listen to the radio at the same time while driving.

-A picture viewer is not necessary, but pretty standard. Again the memory card can hold jpegs and be viewed on the unit. Actually, if it will work with a memory card formatted for my digicam, that might come in handy when we’re on vacation and want to check out the day’s pictures in a screen slightly larger than the LCD on the camera.

-Bluetooth connectivity would be nice, enabling me to use the unit as a hands-free speakerphone for my cell, but a)in some cases that’s a monthly payment option and b)in the case of the Garmin, reviews said the speaker sucks for that use and not to bother. Easy enough.

So in the end, the Garmin 260 was the winner. And it turned out I had enough Amazon credit card points to get the bugger for free.

I know someone on CNN

Friends of ours own a web-based store called Time And Space Toys that specializes in pop culture fun from our childhood. A while back they obtained the original Santa and Rudolph from the classic stop-motion specials on TV and had them restored. Their treasures have made it to CNN.com, here.

Last year I posted a video on youtube after they presented the restored Santa and Rudolph on a local morning show. See it here.

I've never known someone to make it to CNN.com before.I kind of expected the first person I'd know there would have blown something up, not restored something.

Are you smarter than a Chimpanzee?

There's a story on Yahoo News about a study that was done proclaiming that chimps have better memories than college students.

Like this is a surprise.

In the study, test subjects (human and primate) saw nine numbers displayed on a computer screen. When they touched the first number, the other eight turned into white squares. The test was to touch all these squares in the order of the numbers that used to be there. The study showed chimps could do this faster. And in follow-up tests, better.

I don't doubt it. I know Curious George could beat me. I can't remember what I had for lunch today, and the empty dish is sitting on my desk next to my monitor. In college, I seem to recall that the important things in my short term memory were the times the computer cluster was available, the quantity of beer we had available for the party this weekend, and the names on my fraternity family tree up to my big-big-big-big-brother. Who has time to memorize shiny boxes? That was before the age of the iPod, before the age of the Web, and before Doom and Halo. Now, with all the distractions of daily life, kids don't have a chance. Chimps have plenty more space in their brains to memorize things like this, because really the only other things a chimp needs to recall are when he last picked a bug from his mate's hair, and where to step to avoid the poo he threw earlier in the day.