Baby Got Target

So, I'm in our Target (actually, the Target that is second-to-closest to me, as it's a bit nicer) on Friday shopping for various items, when I took a short cut through the CDs to get to the new DVD releases. In this Target, we have one of those cool little listening stations where you can preview CDs. The listening station in this Target is sequestered away from the beaten path, but is visible if you take the shortcut that I, in fact, did take.

A movement, nay, a set of movements caught my eye as I wheeled the cart and cooed at the B, who was riding in my front carrier and grinning at me. I looked over, and there was a guy just grooving out. I took a moment and lent my musician's ear to the task, and discovered that he was listening to...

Baby Got Back.

No, really. Baby Got Back. I swear, I told you all that the midwest is about twenty years behind the coasts. This proves it. I'm not cool, and even I know that Baby Got Back isn't cool, and dancing to it in the middle of a Target is the epitome of not cooledness.

What's worse, is that he didn't look cool, like Sir Mix A Lot does:


He looked more like this:


Hard. Core. G to the E to the E to the K.

She's Growing Up Faster than I Am

I put the B in her crib about an hour ago, and she blinked up at me when I did it. When I checked on her a moment ago, she was absolutely sound asleep. Tonight was the first night I put her in her crib while she was still awake, but drowsy. She showed me last night (early this morning, actually) at 3:00 a.m. that she could put herself back to sleep after she awoke, so I decided to give her the opportunity to do it at bedtime tonight.

Now that she's asleep and cooing softly over the baby monitor, I find that I miss sitting in the darkness of her room and rocking her completely to sleep in the gliding rocker.

What happened to the tiny little baby who needed me in order to go to sleep? I looked forward to this milestone, to having a few extra quiet moments to myself each night while also being able to bask in the knowledge that she'd conquered another task of growing up. Now I find myself wondering if it'll jeopardize her progress if I rock her to sleep once or twice a week.

More Annoying Parent Videos

Ugh, the grammar in that title makes me cringe. Is the the parent or the video that's annoying? I can't think of anything better, so I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide exactly what is being modified there. (I vote parent and not video, but I'm no fascist...make up your own mind.)

Anyway, a fresh new series of B videos have been unleashed on YouTube. A link to all of those videos is available in my list of links, but here's a link to just the three new Brigid videos. If there are only two vids there, that means the third one still hasn't gone live yet.

And now for your embedded pleasure (that came out wrong!) viewing pleasure, my tiny B trying her first solid food:



There is a much cuter video of her playing in her exersaucer, but for reasons known only to Those Who Watch Over the Internets it hasn't shown up as "live" on You Tube yet. You should be able to see it, assuming you are one of the four people on Earth who wants to do so, by following the link above, assuming it's gone live by the time you click that link, and that I've noticed and added it to the playlist. Bother.

Do You Have HBO?

If you do, think about catching Robert Wuhl in Assume the Position. From the summary at hbo.com:

Appearing before a spirited classroom of actual New York City college students, guest "professor" and history buff Wuhl takes his audience on a lighthearted journey to show how legends are created, exploring familiar chapters in America's past that owe more to popular culture than fact.

I know it sounds like it might be boring, but it's really funny. Maybe you think Robert Wuhl is jive or something, but just remember him in Bull Durham. You have to admit, that was quality. I didn't like Arli$$ much, but my opinion of Robert Wuhl is a lot higher after seeing this comedy/history special. I highly recommend it.

Redefining Desolate

The Google satellite images of Chernobyl marking the 20th anniversary of the disaster are spooky, to say the least.

This Was Sweet

Okay, you could be cynical and make fun of this sweet little Flash animation, or you could remember what it's like to be seventeen or so and be charmed by it.

Good Quotes from my Google QOTD

Two great quotes today. I'm big fans of both of these dead guys.

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
- John Adams

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
- Aldous Huxley

Ah, the Ear

Forgive the quick 'n' dirty image editing. I wish I'd had the pride to match the font, but I just can't seem to summon up the anal retentiveness to spend the time doing it.

We found out yesterday that Brigid's cold is actually a cold plus an ear infection. She is, thankfully, our goofy little B, and is taking it mostly in stride. She does seem to be confused why she's not feeling the same as she usually does and her appetite is way down, but she is, on the whole, weathering it quite well so far.

I could have predicted this would happen sooner rather than later. Neither the mister, nor I, have the best record where our ears are concerned. Our genetics added together may have produced a wonderful little easygoing (Tom) and cautiously curious (me) little baby, but there was no way they wouldn't also produce a proclivity to the ear infection.

She is on medication now, as well as something to help keep her fever in check (no point in suffering through the fever if the antibiotic that is required to fight the ear infection will be doing all of the work) and she seems to be on the upswing already. I, on the other hand, need to go to sleep now if I want to get at least five hours of sleep or so in before she wakes up for the first time tomorrow morning.

Send me to Juvi Hall

Okay, so I'm about to link to something even more juvenile than the doctor's last funny link, and I debated whether I should post it or not. However, I laughed a bunch of times reading it and you might get some seventh-grade giggles out of it as well.

Work note: This fark thread deals with a person sitting on a wooden slat chair and getting an unfortunate bit of his anatomy stuck therein, then entreating the fark community for suggestions. This sort of talk and a few of the pictures are almost certainly not work-safe.

If you haven't read it already and you don't think you'll get in trouble for reading it where you currently are, then commence to reading about the plight of this poor young man.

Sicky the B

It's finally happened. The B has her first little bug.

For those of you keeping up with the mister, I'm sure you know he's had a cough and a stuffy nose for awhile now. I've had the B out of our room at night (we're transitioning her into her own room and the crib right now, with a lot more results on the positive side than the negative) but it seems as though she's caught whatever her dad has.

I got my first clues yesterday, when she sounded kind of stuffy. During the night, she began to cough. A check of her temperature this morning revealed it was normal, and a call to her doctor indicated that I should only bring her in if her temperature elevated, if she got extra fussy, or if she began to refuse food.

I should add here that one of the more difficult things about being a parent includes the stuff you have to do with that little bulb syringe and some saline nasal spray when they get stuffy. I'm not sqeamish about it, that's not what I mean, but having to put that stuff in her nose with her looking at me as if to say, "I thought you liked me, mommy!" while I do it is a special sort of sad.

She has now started a very low-grade fever and is starting to get fussy, so I think I'll be taking her to the doctor tomorrow whenever they can fit me in. Poor little sleepy sick baby. Few things pull at the heartstrings like this does.

Iran Past, Present, and Future

If 5% of this is true, then I'm scared as hell.

Google - Da Vinci Code Puzzle Game

The quest, which began April 17th, requires skill, intellect, and perseverance. Over a span of 24 days ending May 11th, you will encounter unique puzzle challenges.

I've done the first two...it'll get a lot harder than those, though.

read more | digg story

Shout Outs

Stuff I keep meaning to tell some of you, but I haven't had time to send individual emails:

1) Shocho: Technorati's search utility works really well. (Try mine, way down at the end of the right column. I searched a couple of words I knew it would find in several posts and it seemed to find everything.) You get it by signing up with Technorati, claiming your blog (their term, not mine) and then editing your account to insert their search box into your template. Have fun! I still haven't decided where the form should be in my template, so for now it's just shoved there in the right column.

2) Mkae: I saw little plastic Superman chairs at the KB Toys in our mall. I thought you might want to get them for your wee ones, so take a gander at your local toy shop.

3) Dr. H: I'm sure you have a more convenient way of keeping track of this stuff, but if you get a Google calendar, you can add information about all the DVD releases to it really easily, and it can email the info to you to remind you if you want it to.

Okay, that is all. But do look at the next post to see my offspring in her cute little Easter outfit, if you haven't already.

Easter with the B

Easter Outfit
Originally uploaded by lostonpurpose.

Really, this is just an excuse to make everyone look at the B's little Easter outfit. Please note the bunny slippers. They slay me.

She was very excited here because we were playing with her Kick'N'Play Keyboard. It plays The Farmer in the Dell waaaayyy too many times, but she loves it, so I do too.

By the way, does anyone know the lyrics to that tune, other than the farmer and the high-ho the derry-o part?

Occupancy Permits and Bureaucracy, Oh, My

So it turns out that occupancy permit I bitched about having to get wasn't just about my lil' ol' township making some extra scratch on each home purchase. No, no. It turns out it's actually about small-minded politicians deciding who should be allowed to live in a house together. Yes, that's right. They make you register who lives in the house so they can decide whether it's a fit arrangement to allow into their town.

(Update: The link to the article has now been replaced with a link to the Google cache of the article, as the original copy of the story is now gone from the hosting server.)

Insert explatives about living in the mid-you-know-what here. I know it's not the mid-you-know-what's fault, but sometimes things here seem a little...discouraging.

If you're too busy to RTFL, I'll summarize. It's apparently okay to have one child in your house if you are two consenting adults living together out of wedlock, but it's not all right to have more than one. That's just flaunting your lack of family values, I guess. Here's the best quote:

At the hearing, Shelltrack said, one board of adjustment member, Norma Mitchell, even pointed at her and asked, "I don't understand why you as a woman didn't exercise your right to marry that man," before being hushed by another board member.

I'm all for marriage. Hell, I'm sure you all know by now that I'm married myself, and happy that way. In fact, I'm all for any two people who love each other enough to work as hard as being married requires, marrying each other. But I don't see how forcing two people into an institution the bureaucrats in question supposedly hold so sacred strengthens the concepts of marriage, family, or, it gags me to type it when I'm using it like those gee-this'll-get-me-votes politicians use it, values.

I'm sure some people wonder why those two people don't just go down to the courthouse to pay their forty bucks and get a marriage certificate that will appease the powers that be and then put it out of their minds, going on with their lives in the same arrangement they had before. I'm sad to tell you that I'd probably do that too, just for expediency's sake. There's a pretty good argument for it. It's easier, keeps 'em off you back, and if you're committed enough to buy a home and live the life that would be described in many states as a common law marriage, why not get the piece of paper and frame it upside-down on your mantel just as a conversation point?

Why should they have to, though? If it didn't bother them (for whatever reason it does) they probably would already have done it. It's clearly a deeper issue. One that goes to the heart of why some people find it so satisfying to decide for other people who are causing absolutely no harm to anyone else (or no harm, at least, that would somehow be lifted by forcing them to simply go through a charade of a civil ceremony that means nothing to either of them) what is and is not "appropriate" or "moral".

I, for one, don't think it's particularly moral to force your own concepts of religion (because, let's face it, that's what every tetchy marriage-related issue goes back to) or sanctity onto others. I certainly don't think it's very moral enact a law that allows you to sneakily sit (ugh, I hate splitting infinitives, but rewording it makes me sound like Judi Dench) in judgement of each and every otherwise-happily living and breathing family that happens into your beloved little township.

(I realize, before someone says it in the comments, that laws such as these are usually on the books to prevent 100 people from squeezing into one house and causing actual problems with sanitation and the like. I realize also that this is the excuse these people sitting in judgement of this family are hiding behind, but that application of the law has no relevancy in this case. That may be the spirit of the law, but they are using the letter of it to decide who is righteous enough to move in, and that is where my stomach turns.)

Separated at Birth?

What It's Like to Go to the Final of the Frozen Four

I had the (for me) unique experience of attending two out of three games of the Men's Frozen Four this past weekend. (That's the championship series for college hockey, for those of you who don't know what the Frozen Four is, which I assume is just about everyone.) The championship was contested by Boston College, Maine, North Dakota, and Wisconsin. Yep, those are all rockin' places, aren't they? BC and Wisconsin made it to the finals, just so you can follow along.

Anyway, we were there to cheer on my mister's team, Wisconsin. Yes, I know he didn't go to college there. Yes, he knows this too. I don't understand it either, but we cheer for Bucky Badger. This is just The Way It Is, and I'm used to it now.

For those of you who will probably never attend such an event, and in the home state of the team who eventually won the thing at that, this is sort of what the final game was like:

Red.

Wait, that's not red enough.

RED

Imagine that everywhere in front of you, and that's what it was like.

Where there wasn't red, there was usually white.

Where there wasn't that, there were either a) bitter Maine fans in light blue, b) bitter North Dakota fans in jerseys that kept making me think they were Notre Dame fans, because they use the same N over D logo or c) hopeful Boston College fans, woefully outnumbered but plucky, nonetheless.

My seat was right next to two of the bitter light blue bedecked Maine fans. They, going steadfastly against the theory that you want the team that beat your team to win, if only to prove that it took the best team to beat your team, vehemently rooted against Wisconsin in the finals and glared at everyone surrounding them when Wisconsin scored both of their goals against BC. Now, I understand bitter. Heck, the Yankees will keep my Orioles out of the playoffs from now until doomsday and I'd rather stub my toe than see the Yankees win a game, but those two people could put up a 'bitter' that puts mine to shame.

Skating. Hitting. Your standard hockey fare.

Great goaltending at both ends. The poor BC goalie made something like 37 saves, and they lost. That's a lot of saves, and he was a big reason BC stayed in the game so long. 37, as it happens, as well as being a very important number from Clerks, is also the number of times it sounded as though the entire arena came to life and said, "Oh!" It is quite a thing to hear that many rabid fans express their wish that the puck could have gone in the net instead of the goalie's glove or harmlessly into the corner on the rebound. It is not, however, quite as much of a thing to hear than...

"Sieve! Sieve! Sieve!" This is yelled, nay, rhythmically chanted, at the opposing goalie when Wisconsin scores a goal. This is a Thing at Badger games, one of two main Wisconsin Things I will tell you about. Those poor opposing goalies have to endure a special song that is played after every Wisconsin goal, and "Sieve!" is yelled at the end of each line, and then at the end, it's said over and over until everyone tires of it. I can't imagine being the person standing there taking that abuse. I have no idea where you put your desire to punch everyone yelling it.

In fact, at the semifinal game between Maine and Wisconsin, Maine pulled their goaltender late in the third period to get an extra guy on the ice. An empty-net goal was scored, and then the goalie came back on the ice. Yep, you guessed it. The arena yelled "Sieve!" at the poor guy, and he hadn't even been on the ice when the goal was scored. I should note that it is also a Wisconsin Thing to chant, "Bet-ter Goal-ie" when the goaltender gets pulled. I don't think too many people did it that night, as the excitement for the impending win and trip to the final game was imminent and it was largely overlooked in the crowd's excitement.

The other main Thing that happens during a Wisconsin game, and it took me some time to realize exactly what was being said, happens as players come out of the box at the end of a penalty. The world's only arena announcer doubling as a straight man says something like, "Penalty to Boston College number 3 is now over, and teams are at equal strength." (Yes, later I could hear the italics, because the guy says it funny because he know's he's delivering the Gracie Allen line in this little running joke.) The arena rises to life and speaks as one enormous entity, "That's debatable!" Ah yes, that fine midwestern humor.

So the finals. Most of the game is just a blur of good hockey, one really glaring error that led to the BC goal, and a lot of good goaltending. I'll skip right to the end. It's 2-1 Badgers late (and I mean LATE) in the third period and the goaltender is pulled for the sixth man. There's this disorganized looking flurry of activity near Wisconsin's goal, and a shot screams in with about two seconds to go and it bounces off the crossbar. In the arena, no one was 100% sure as time expired that Wisconsin had won. If that puck had gone across the line before it bounced back out, it was tied up and there was overtime to be played. We were fairly certain based on the angle that the puck bounced off and where it landed that it hadn't gone in and Wisconsin did indeed start their celebration right away, but it did get reviewed. It was kind of sad to see the BC players waiting out there on the ice to see if they'd tied it up or not. Word quickly came down that it was no goal, and the sound in there was suddenly deafening.

There was initially a trophy brought out for both teams, but something weird happened and BC left the ice before theirs was presented. I don't know if the organizers meant it to happen that way , but I don't think it was some bitter, "I don't want to stay out there" kind of thing, because they all shook hands at center ice like good sports just before that. I think that BC was accidentally escorted away before the presentation, because some guy came out and spirited BC's trophy away before all the Wisconsin players were announced and the first place trophy was handed over.

All in all, I suppose I could have just written three words in this post to tell you what it was like at the Frozen Four.

Loud. Red. Sieve!

I Hate the Blues

Imagine that you like the show, The Gilmore Girls.

Imagine further that you live in a town where the NHL team officially missed the playoffs weeks ago...that's how poorly they're playing this season.

Imagine yet further that the first new episode of The Gilmore Girls for WEEKS is airing this very evening, yet you discover that it's being bumped to this Saturday night in favor of showing a hockey game featuring the very very lame local NHL team getting its ass kicked.

You'd hate them too, wouldn't you?

This might entice me to fire up the BitTorrent whatsit and try to spend the three days it will take to download the effing thing. But I wouldn't take any bets on my patience.

Why We Sing

I found this from Boing Boing, which means CK already thinks he's going to be bored by this since he always reads that stuff before I do, but this goes a little further than the Boing Boing-linked article did.

The post was a link to a rather interesting article about why we would ever have invented singing. I mean, on the surface, it doesn't seem to have much of a purpose, does it? From the article:

One of the fur-clad men started it, a rhythmic sound with rising and falling pitch, and others picked it up, indicating their willingness to cooperate both in the moment and in the future, when the group would have to hunt or fend off predators. The music promoted "a sense of we-ness, of being together in the same situation facing the same problems."

...

Music also promotes social bonding, which was crucial when humans were more often hunted than hunter and finding food was no walk on the savannah. Proto-music "became a communication system" for "the expression of emotion and the forging of group identities," argues Prof. Mithen.

Well, heck. I coulda told 'em that. You see, many of the toys I've bought for the B play little snippets of music. I, in my classical music snobbishness (so snobby, in fact, that I bristle at referring to it as 'classical', as that widely-recognized nomiclature is actually only truly representative of one period of the music that is lumped into that category) have striven to make sure there is some Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and other esteemed dead guys mixed in with the Mary Had a Little Lambs and Farmer in the Dells.

A recent purchase was a silly little keyboard you can set up at the end of a crib or bassinet, and when she kicks it, it plays one of several little songs. She is still quite amazed when something reacts when she interacts with it, so I usually stick right there by her side to reinforce everything she's learning by playing with it. I, being me, usually end up singing along with the songs because, well, that's what I do when I hear accompaniment. She seemed to like it, and I do so like to please an audience.

Over the past few days, though, it's become a bit of a sing-along. I get out a line or two, and then she looks up at me with her curious blue eyes and lets out a series of mid-to-high-pitched screeches. She stops inbetween the songs, and waits for me to start singing the next one before she joins in.

I have to say, I am feeling the "we-ness".

Spammers: WTF?

This is the "from" column from my Yahoo! mail spam folder.

Seriously, are there any mouth-breathers out there who wouldn't dare to doubt the veracity of these various types of service desks? I mean, come on. Beautiful? Enormous? Who would assume that one of these messages would get you a free laptop or gift certificate?

Are people really that stupid?