She's Two

Our girl turns two today. I can spend the day, no matter how much work we have to do on the house, secure in the notion that I have no chance of being busier today than I was two years ago.

I Fought the Balrog and *I* Won

My LOTRO kinship took down the Balrog! Hardest fight in the game. :)

I'm the one in the front on the left, playing my lute. Click for larger version.

Did she pick out the dress with this in mind?

Maybe, just maybe you haven't seen this. Most of you who might read this have day jobs and I found this via my good friend Ellen DeGeneres. It reminded me of Dr. Heimlich and his Thriller story, but this also has a charm all of its own.



You have to play through the first part. Bear with me and wait for the awesome.

Oh, Realtors

You sit and listen to us and nod. You seem like normal people. Then you talk out loud, and the following becomes apparent:

a) You don't hear inconvenient details.
b) You willfully ignore anything you don't like.
c) You especially ignore anything that will reduce your commission, even if it's in the best interests of all (say, in getting a house bought or sold in the first place).

You're all very warm and huggy, signing off emails with "warmest regards", but you'd suggest conveying our kids along with the house to make the sale if you thought you could get away with it.

Worst Advice Ever

DEAR [author name redacted]: I haven't had a boyfriend for a while now, and I'm not sure why. Everyone says I'm cool, funny and outgoing. I play video games, sports, and do things that boys think girls would never do (like paintballing in the woods or bungee jumping over and over again).

All my guy friends think I'm awesome, and I do get compliments on my looks as well. I'm not a tomboy, I wear nice clothes and some makeup, but for some reason, whenever I get a crush on a guy, he says it would be "weird" because I'm a "really good friend."What am I doing wrong? I love who I am and so do boys. So why don't they think I could be "girlfriend material"? [advice-seeker name redacted]

DEAR [name redacted]: It may be that "guys" see you as one of them. And because of it, they don't consider you in a romantic way. Therefore, it's time to emphasize your feminine side and present yourself in a different light. This may mean temporarily downplaying your involvement in boys' sports and paintball games, and amping up your "girlishness." Give it a try and see what happens.

-----------------

What a total load of horseshit. "Be yourself" unless you happen to not be girly enough, and then you'd better run off and bake a pie/do your nails/flip your hair if you want a boyfriend, honey. That is such total crap.

How about this:

You haven't met the right guy who is attracted to you for who you are and the things you like to do. Keep being you, keep looking, and don't amp up a single fucking thing that isn't a true portrayal of who are. The right guy will like you even if you *gasp* like to bungee jump.

Want

I'm boring those of you who read Boing Boing, but I want one of these bookshelves REALLY BAD. Enough that I'm starting to wonder how much a scroll saw would cost so I could make the brackets and parens myself.

Oh my god the math geek in me is screaming out for justice. I need to own this, and the flash site for the original designer doesn't say anything about options to purchase one, which either means I can't buy one or it would cost much more than I can reasonably set aside for a purchase like this.

Expelled

Oh, Ben Stein. WTF is this supposed to be?

How can you be so repressed when you're the MAJORITY?

The Explosion

The game is on. The avalanche of new words coming from the B has begun, just as everyone kept telling me that it would. We knew she understood a lot of what we were saying, but now so much more of the noises she makes are actual words instead of gibberish.

No matter how prepared you think you are for it, when she suddenly pops out with "butterfly" (well, okay, "buh-fwy!") while pointing to the embroidered outline of a butterfly on her sleeper, it's still a little mind-bending.

We've been writing down new words on our wall calendar, on the day we're sure she's saying it with intention. That went from a bit of ink on the calendar in September, to a smattering in October, to "oh my gosh, we're running out of room every day" in November.

This morning, she said, "pants" when we were getting out her clothes for the day. She's a little person! She feels more and more like an independent being every day, but it's moments like that when you realize exactly how far she's come.

Dvorak Schmorak

I've had a passing interest in the Dvorak keyboard ever since I first heard of it. The notion of being able to type faster than I already do (~90 wpm) is extremely compelling. Mind you, I've used QWERTY since I was (literally) three years old, learning how to spell in front of a manual typewriter with my mother asking me to find letters and type words, so I would guess my QWERTY typing is so ingrained that it would be impossible to supplant with another system.

(Learning to spell on a keyboard is clearly why my handwriting is so horrible, but I'd pick fast typing over good handwriting any day.)

I stumbled over a Dvorak keyboard article, and went to our old friend, Wikipedia, to get a look at this superior layout. I have to say, I'm unimpressed.

Look at the placement of some pretty commonly-used characters, like "r", for example. Ring finger on right hand, not on the home row. Not exactly a power placement. Common punctuation like (" , .) on the left hand, and not on the home row. Bleh. "L" might not be the most-used consonent ever, but how does it rate being in the gulag up there? The "l" key is the top-row equivalent to the bottom-row key for the same finger, which is "z". Madness.

Writers of any discipline that includes dialog wouldn't benefit from the " moving, would they? To say nothing of ' being so far away from a power position, because I personally cannot say that I would enjoy avoiding contractions and sounding like Data from "Star Trek" all the time.

Vowels all jumbled together on the left hand. Ugh. Every word has a vowel in it. Most people's left hand is weaker than their right. So why overstress the left hand with all that typing? QWERTY puts two on the left and three (or four, if you count "y") on the right, which is a nice balance for most people.

I can't believe programmers of most of the modern programming languages would benefit from this setup. Lots of ":" and ";" used in coding, you know. There are some disciplines that probably use ";" more often than letters like "h" and "n".

And on a personal note, I think all of us would have to look at the keyboard layout above to see how inconvenient typing our names would be, as it's something you usually have occasion to type, especially if you regularly use it in your email address or business correspondence. I have to say, typing my full name would be a complete bummer on this keyboard.

I'm at a loss as to why this keyboard is supposed to be so efficient. Looks like a horrible design to me, but people swear by the Dvorak layout, I know. I guess it works for them, but I'll stick with what I know in this case.

I wanted to like you, Dvorak keyboard. I did. It'll just never work out between us.

The Rumor on the Street Is...

EGM says that Samba de Amigo is coming to Nintendo Wii. Who wants to have some exciting maraca-based rhythm game fun?

Let Science Win

If you give a rat's ass about scientific principles, and about keeping the planet habitable for humans for upcoming generations, for cryin' in the sink, go here and vote for the Bad Astronomy blog.

The blog currently in the lead is a shill operation for political pandering to big corporations who are putting their fingers in their ears and yelling, "La la la! Humans have zero effect on the ecosystem, because that would be financially inconvenient! La la la!" A lot of people from that part of the political spectrum (ahem, that's as nicely as I can put that) are being sent to the awards site to vote for the pseudo-science site, and now it's winning.

I realize in all irony that I'm essentially doing the same thing, and telling you to go and vote blindly in a contest you didn't even know about a few minutes ago. Listen. I'd tell you to check all of them out and vote for the one you like, but in this case, Bad Astronomy has the best chance of winning AND representing the true, unbiased scientific process.

So if you give a crap, go and click. Thanks.

I Fought a Balrog and the Balrog Won

Lord of the Rings: Online just released a content patch that introduces a huge new raid instance of 9 major bosses, including a Balrog as the last one. "You shall not pass!"

My kinship cleared "The Rift" to the Balrog two nights ago and got our first real shot at the fella last night. I honestly think we did really well to even get to the Balrog part of the fight. It's a mind-bendingly difficult instance that isn't very forgiving of anyone's attention wandering.

Gaquin

That's as close as I can come to spelling it the way it sounds. This is what our B is calling her father, and no, it wasn't just a couple of times. She's saying it repeatedly, and clearly indicating that he is the one she is talking about.

For instance, he came out of the restroom the other day, and she ran over and shouted, "Gaquin!" He was away from the house and she sadly repeated, "Gaquin...Gaquin..." over and over throughout the day until he returned.

She's given him a name. Me? I'm just that lady who's always around, despite the fact that she did spend a long time calling me "Mama". Now I'm too ubiquitous for a name.

We also took a long, exhausting, interesting trip, which I will not jinx by talking about it. More on that as news arrives on our shores.

Screw You, Her Depot

Please observe this news on The Consumerist, that Home Depot is opening a series of stores for all of us poor, unfortunate females who lack the ability to comprehend things like nails or thermostats, or the ability to withstand a moment in front of something so unsightly as a bag of dirt or grass seed. They are calling these stores Her Depot, the store for the poor little ladies who are, of course, all scared by the big, scary hardware store.

Seriously, condescension just drips off of this little venture. Screw you if you think I don't know how to pick out a drill or a belt sander. Screw you if you think we don't possess the ability to pick up these skills if we need them. Home maintenance is something anyone who owns a home should be prepared to noodle their way through, unless you go the handyman route, which is fine too. But don't give me a dumbed-down, less "frightening" store where the little lady can pick out light bulbs without all that lumber in the corner scaring her.

Just screw you.

OMG Peep

So, I already purchased the B's Halloween costume. I got a worn-once, cute as a button bunny costume, complete with built-in head/ears/tail. She already has little white tennis shoes she can wear with it.

Then I saw...well...this.



This is not the B's costume. I just found it. It's $40. Ridiculous. Ludicrous. (want want want want)

Those of you who truly know me know how I love my Peeps. The year I was working my tail off to the lose over 90 pounds, I asked the mister to hide a box of Peeps in the house during Easter season and then serve a single Peep up to me each night. This is how important Peeps are to me. This is also the last year that we will most likely have complete authority over what the B will wear. Next year, she'll have her own preference. She'll want to be a princess or a volleyball or goodness only knows what.

So my dream of a Peeps Halloween costume is likely at an end, as no child would look at that costume and consent to be dressed in it unless they were simply too young to understand that they should scream, "No!" and run away. Sigh.

(There is an adult version of the costume, actually. I suppose next year I could make a deal with the child for us to "dress alike" and then buy both versions. I can dream, right?)

So, Yeah

So, if you read my mister's blog, you'll know by now that we lost his brother, Mike, a couple of weeks ago.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has helped us, and let you know that we are limping through as best as we can. Mike was the first person who seemed to embrace the whole crazy idea of the mister and I getting married four or five months after meeting on the internets, so he really will always hold a special place for me, as well. He never treated me like an outsider, even when it was completely reasonable to be wary of the whole situation.

I had my browser window open to this Create Post page when my sister in law called me to ask me to come over. I had started a post to bitch about some of the women on "The View" not being sure if the Earth was flat or not, because they weren't sure what the Bible had to say on that subject. It seemed really important at the time. At that point, I only had four minutes or so more of blissful ignorance until I pulled up in front of her house and saw the police car. Nothing good ever started with a police car in your driveway. Really, it was rather awful. I hope none of you ever have to drive around a corner to see something like that.

So hug each other and take care of each other and remember not to throw away opportunities to show people that you care about them. You really can blink and find the world has changed around you when you open your eyes again.

Card Arcade Game

Hey, some of you might care about this new arcade game which may or may not be landing on American soil sometime soon.

But who wants to play against an NPC?

A Job's a Job, But...

Wallace from Veronica Mars has been spotted in a supporting role in...

...a Hot Pockets commercial.

Ugh. If you think YOU wish VM had been picked up for another season, just imagine how much he wishes it had.

It's Official, the Airports and Airlines Think That They Run Our Lives

Hey there, Keith, who works for Southwest Airlines?

Who made you the fashion police? Sit down, take a few deep breaths, and STFU. And Southwest, you have no choice but to fire such a buttwipe. So get to it. No half-hearted apologies, no "oh, I didn't know I don't run the world" BS, fire his ass.

This is what happens when you create an environment like the police state that exists in the airports. The people who are there all the time forge an unrealistic view of reality, and you get crap like this. Wake up, realize that your trip to the airport in a car was more dangerous than the actual airport/plane part of your trip, and let's get our heads back out there, huh?

Holy Cats

Bob Saget is really, really funny in his new HBO special. Warning to you, though, he works so blue that he'd disappear against a blue screen. He makes Lewis Black and George Carlin look innocent by comparison. (Still love ya, Lewis and George.)

Holy moly. So blue. If you've seen him in The Aristocrats then you have an idea of what's in store for you. So funny.

Idiot Parent Nation

All right, what fucking idiot parent would agree to the terms demanded by the network in order to sentence send your kid to be on the upcoming television fiasco, Kid Nation?

The agreement these brain surgeons signed in order to make their little princes and princesses TV stars-for-five-minutes includes a blanket waiver of liability for death, severe injury, or contraction of a sexually transmitted disease during the program's taping.

Holy WTF.

Read about this bullshit courtesy of the Smoking Gun and then weep for the dumb shit that people will do to be on the tee vee.

The World Hates Wide Feet

You know what, shoe companies? Screw you.

I've written to every single one of you to point out that there is a non-negligible population of toddlers with wide feet. Those toddlers have parents with credit cards, but we don't relish having to pay the ridiculous prices (two to three times what most parents pay for shoes) for the one and a half specialty brands that cater to all the widths. Every shoe company has written back with a polite, "Why don't you and your kid go eff off, because we don't care."

Even the couple of companies that charge in the $18-$30 range for wide shoes offer two wonderful varieties to choose from: the "ugly white shoe" and the "ugly black shoe". News flash: those shoes suck. Plus, I don't want to buy the same damn shoe in a new size every time her feet get larger. Call me crazy, but part of the fun of having a wonderful, goofy little girl who twirls around in the living room until she gets dizzy is dressing her in fun, unique, quirky stuff you can only really get away with when you're two or three years old.

So yes, there's Stride Rite. And when they have a sale, I can buy those shoes without having to breathe into a paper bag to calm myself down, because the only shoes I've bought for myself that cost that much have been specialty athletic shoes. And Stride Rite makes cute damn shoes, too, and I've never had them sigh at me when I hold up a shoe and ask if they have it in a wide width.

If they can do it, why doesn't anyone else bother at least trying to make a cute little WIDE pink shoe for my poor little girl? What did she do to you shoe manufacturers? Were you all beat up in grammar school by little girls with wide feet? Get over it and realize that not every product you sell has to be made only to cater to the majority. You can make a couple in a wider width without the world crashing down around your shoulders. Just widen the pattern, you idiots.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. And I'm not buying your shoes for myself, either. I'm waiting for adult Stride Rites, so that the only company that gives a rat's poo about my daughter gets all my money.

Bargains!

I went to a special consignment sale for kiddie stuff today that was organized for charity, and it was super-sweet! This was the "pay to get in" day, but it was only $2, and I figured, "Why not?"

Man, did I clean up getting there just after they opened.

Nice little play kitchen, with a bunch of food-related bits to play with and stick in the drawers and stuff, only $30! It was really clean and nice. Looks like it was played with about four times.

The B's Halloween costume! We were looking into kitty costumes, in honor of her recently beginning to say "kitty", but this bunny costume, worn once and looking pristine, was only $5!

And in a more embarrassing point, I also learned that the B knows (putting bag over my head) the name of at least one of the Teletubbies, and she decided it was important enough to actually say it. She doesn't say "milk" or "more" or "hungry" or anything useful like that, but she knows which Teletubby "Po" is, and she can say his name when she sees him.

Goofily embarrassing as it is, and yes, I know she shouldn't watch Teletubbies, but we DO interact while she's watching it, and it makes her so unbelievably happy that I can't help myself. I bought her the little Po figurine and she's been carrying it around, loving all over it. She even gave it a little kiss.

Nice outing, though, all around!

Mommy Brain

Earlier today, when I didn't have hands free to type, I thought of a great idea for a blog post. It seemed really important and insightful. I also remember that it, shockingly, had nothing to do with the B. I even remember chuckling to myself over some random pun or something that I was going to include.

Yeah, that's all gone now. I can tell you how many ounces of milk the B drank today, and I can also tell you, down to the penny, how much the two pair of usually-outrageously-expensive Stride Rite shoes that I got for the B that were marked down 60% and 80%, respectively, cost me. (Damn her cute little wide feet that no one but Stride Rite seem to care enough about to make shoes for.)

See you later, post idea. Maybe you'll visit again. But I doubt it.

I Have the Power

So, the wind blew above 10 miles per hour during a thunderstorm last night, and 50,000 people in our area lost power. Including us.

It was a million degrees here last night, and has been surface-of-the-sun hot for over a week now. We also use a baby monitor without a battery backup, though we have a secondary monitor that does operate via battery.

However, at 1:00 a.m., do you really want to be in your kid's pitch black, completely silent room trying to sneak a fresh 9V battery into the nursery unit (I was pretty sure it was a fairly run-down battery in there) without waking up the baby? I decided just to wave the white flag and bring her in with us, something that ensured that none of us got a lot of sleep last night.

This morning, we still had no power, and the number of households in the blackout weren't getting lower very quickly. No ETA's from the power company, either, although they always seem to be working hard to restore power when this happens.

The real problem isn't the power company and how quickly they restore power. The real problem is that a rat's misplaced sigh seems to be enough to set off some sort of blackout chain reaction. The technicians seem to be hard working and well-intentioned, but I can only assume that some areas of our county have such woefully outdated or just plain busted power infrastructure that we'll have these issues over and over.

It always seems to be the same zip codes. It always seems to be the same damn houses in those zip codes. It makes me want to call the power company and beg them to raise everyone's rates some infinitesimal amount and upgrade the damn breakers or whatever is not toting its load. I am so sick of either freezing or roasting in this house without climate control.

The B, on not a lot of sleep and a crappy nap the afternoon before besides, did a wonderful job soldiering through this morning. I took her out to Target, Kohl's and then St. Louis Bread Company for an early lunch, and she was a trooper. She waved at people and stomped around, still in a good mood, but boy if she didn't just collapse when I put her down for her nap.

Best moment of the day was when I was leaving Bread Co. and called our answering machine one more time before giving up and taking the B to our BIL and SIL's for her nap (because they had power) and discovered that we got our power restored just in time for her room to cool down enough for her to nap in.

Seriously, though. I've never lived anywhere that had so many troubles with its infrastructure. The cable is iffy. The power is iffy in lots of areas. Property taxes per square foot are comparable to our last house, only the city doesn't pay for trash collection out of that kitty. It's just insane, but no one is interested in fixing it. The only things that are argued over in our elections are social issues that the candidates have no intention on following through with anyway, just interested in using the hot button issues to get elected.

Fix it! Fix it so those poor techs aren't out in the middle of the night, in the rain, trying to get our power back. Won't someone please think of the techs?

Breaking News: Bye-Bye, and a Sentence

Yesterday, the B debuted the use of "bye-bye", complete with wave and crystal clear speech. It's so unbelievably strange to hear babble coming from her most of the day, then hear one word of English poking through. Sort of like watching something in a foreign language and then suddenly hearing them say one word of English that's crept into their language. Like:

French french french french french hamburger french french french.

So, I was chuffed enough about the "bye-bye", and she one-upped herself on that very same day. The mister came home and went upstairs to change, and she walked him to the gate, waved as he disappeared up the stairs, and said:

"Bye-bye. Bye-bye, daddy." Again, crystal bloody freakin' clear. Not just in terms only a parent could pick out, but anyone could tell what she was saying.

Still, it's a long road ahead to hearing her say "unconscionable" or "discourse" or anything else like that, but we're on it, dammit. We're on it.

Online Bill Pay Saved My Bacon

I meant to post about this before, but completely forgot.

When we went to the lake for a week or so awhile back, my second bill-paying session of the month fell during the vacation. (Yes, I'm that scheduled, that I have two days a month where I sit down and queue up the bills, and my Google Calendar is set up to send me reminders to do it. I highly recommend this.)

I meant to do them early, but getting ready for the trip and B wrangling ate up all my time, and the day we were leaving, I still had a pile of un-queued bills. I then meant to grab my bills and I would queue them once we got onto a trusted wireless network at the lake. (I don't recommend accessing your bank account or other financial information on a hotel wireless network. Maybe that's paranoid, but I still wouldn't do it.)

Well, I forgot to grab the pile of bills as we left the house. What I did have was my payment history, all in one place on my bank's website. With that, I had average bill amounts (and many of our bills don't vary from month to month, like cable, wireless, etc.) and monthly due dates, all without a single bill that was mailed to me. I just queued the payments for what I thought were ballpark correct amounts, erring on the side of having a credit instead of underpaying.

When I got back and went through the bills, I found that I had everything covered, and we only had a credits of more than $5 with one bill, where we have a $20 credit for next month.

If your bank offers you free online bill pay, I'd give it a look. I really appreciated its existence last month, because it saved me from trying to remember every bill, remember separate login information for all their websites, and then saved me "online bill pay fees" that some of our bills charge for paying them online.

This message was brought to you by the number 14 and the letter K. The more you know, the more you grow.

Happy 20 Monthday B

Twenty months doesn't sound like that long, does it? Well, considering she went from a tiny bundle of helplessness to a creature who can run and babble and wave goodbye to her father when he only talks about leaving and before he even gets to the door, I can tell you that to some people, 20 months is a long time.

"Kitty" Day

Starting last night and then solidifying today, the B can say "kitty". Not randomly, but when she sees a cat or wants to see one of our cats.

She even put two words together and said, "Hi, kitty" and waved to the cat. This isn't a big deal for a lot of 20 month olds, but for the B, who has been stubborn about sticking to Brigidese and not English, this is a very welcome development.

I did it too!

For the record, we were in Iowa yesterday morning on the way home from the lake. I didn't get a copy of HP 7 in my hands until 8:30 am yesterday morning, and I was reading in the car while trying to keep the baby entertained as well. I finished about 5/6 of the book in the car, and then the rest after we let the poor B sleep in her own crib for an hour or so once we got home.

So, yeah. Can't spoil me either. :p

A Quick Note

I have a million other things to say, but I will leave you with this one bit of wisdom that I just re-learned. When you are filling up a whirlpool tub, do not turn on the jets until they are all submerged in water. Unless you want to look like you are in a Marx Brothers skit.

OotP Movie Musings

Thanks to my nephew, who consented to listen to the B over the baby monitor for three hours, we saw Order of the Phoenix last night.

Spoilers for the movie/book forward from this point. This is your final warning.

I'm not one of those "but it's not exactly like the book!" people. I'm really not. However, that being said, I think the movie left out one rather important thing. They never had Umbridge say that she was the one who set the Dementors on Harry while he was at his Aunt and Uncle's. That was a rather interesting thing in the book, since everyone would otherwise have naturally assumed that Voldie had done it after recruiting them to his side, but the fact that Umbridge did it really shone a light on the themes of governmental corruption and totalitarianism that were in the book. Sort of a proof that the "big bad" isn't the only bad.

It's slightly minor, but that's my only real complaint. (Well, the Dept. of Mysteries battle could have been longer, and Harry's time at Privet Drive, as always, could have been shorter, but that's also just my opinion.)

God, I hate the Dursleys.

In An Attempt to Reassure Myself

Everyone says, including me, that all the baby and toddler milestones will come with time. I say this all the time, and back when I went to a twice-monthly "first time moms" group for 0-12 month old babies, I said it many, many times to mothers of younger babies who were anxious about the things their kids weren't doing yet.

The B crawled a little "late", in quotes because there is no "late" for crawling. Many kids don't even crawl at all, actually. It was worrying when other 6 month olds were crawling all over the place and the B was sitting up and grinning at me, but I got over it and she crawled in her own time.

The issue now is different. What she's doing is basically refusing to pick up english words for things. Yes, she says "uh-oh" a lot, and it's clear she's using it in a particular context. She's been known to say "mama" occasionally and actually says "dada" a lot more than that. The immediate questions are this: 1) Is it because we attempted (though she didn't reliably pick up) baby signing, because a lot of people tout "speech delays" as a reason not to do it (which I still say is crap) and 2) Well, you really need to double-check for autism signs.

Now, on #1, if she is delayed because of the little amount that the signing I tried to do with her actually sunk in, I really don't care about the delay. I think the communication the signing could have afforded us would have been easily worth the delay she's experiencing now. So that's a non-issue really, but I don't think the delay has a single thing to do with signing, mostly because she seemed to view it as a cute thing that mama did but nothing that had anything to do with her.

On #2, that is, of course, the heart-stopping question that most parents of preschool aged kids don't really like to even think about. It's not the end of the world if your kid is autistic by any means, as all of the families who are living with autism could readily attest. It isn't, however, anything that a parent would choose for their kids, and I really hope they find a cure or a treatment for it one day, so that people in the autism spectrum could emerge a little bit more from their internal worlds and let us all get to know the person they truly are.

All that being said, no matter how much crazy, wonderful, exhausting, sweet interactions the B has that clearly indicate that she displays none of the other signs of being in the autism spectrum, there is part of me that can't release that last little bit of doubt. I will be able to relax so much more when she starts using words as labels for things, and when she starts to put together her two word sentences.

I have heard so many anecdotal stories about kids who refuse to talk until they've mastered sentences internally, or kids who were delayed and went on to be completely normal. I've heard and personally cited that famous story about Einstein waiting until he was 3 to speak more times than I can possibly relate to you.

Mostly, though, I think it comes down to this. That day you go to the hospital (or stay at home, or wherever you deliver your baby) and you meet your child, one of the things you are gripped by is an intense desire to learn who that little person is. What will they be, how will they act, what innate proclivities will they show? Some things are nurture, certainly, but so much of temperament and disposition, any parent will tell you, is largely innate.

I've never been a patient woman. I want sentences. I want to laugh at her silly jokes or mispronunciations the same way that she makes me laugh by playing with her toys in a funny way, or making a goofy face. I know she's in there. I have a sense of her. I'm just verbal enough, though, to really feel like I don't know her the way I will after she can talk to me. I want to converse.

The ironic part of this is this: I'm sure in a couple of months or so, maybe a half year or perhaps even a full year, I will be posting to ask all the other parents where my kid's off button is. At this point, though, I can't help looking forward to that day.

Happy Fourth of July

Originally uploaded by lostonpurpose.

The B (and her parents) would like to wish you a happy Independence Day. Unless you are not American, in which case, she would just like you to have a nice, regular day.

That's Harsh, YouTube

B Update: She Has a Trike

Click on a pic to see it bigger at Flickr.

Aggravation

So, when a big famous website where people auction stuff sends you an alert telling you that you have to update information in your account, and you actually go to their website (to make sure it's legit), find the alert message, and then click the link in it to update, shouldn't that fix the problem?

No! Apparently, it shouldn't. You see, the link in the alert message only updates half of the info you need to update. The other half is, of course, not even listed as steps or as a link in the alert message.

To some of us who are easily annoyed by an alert message (that you can't delete, by the way, even though you followed all the instructions in it, because you, of course, didn't follow the secret instructions that aren't there) this is enough to drive you nuts. Nuts enough to contact the customer service of the site and ask for the stupid thing to get nuked I don't have to look at it anymore.

Cut to the response from customer service, snarkily telling me what I should have done. I even opened the alert message up again to see if I just missed this part, but I didn't. It's not there. When I inquired why this part of the procedure (which does not follow naturally from the instructions provided, by the way) isn't listed in the message that was designed to get you to accomplish both tasks, I got a non-response, a boilerplate restating the instructions I got originally, as though I was too dumb to follow the first one.

No, no. You don't realize that I'm trying to help you by pointing out all the time of yours and ours you're wasting when you don't tell us what you actually want us to do. I bet they wonder why no one updates their information, too.

Real head-scratcher, that one.

Oh, and I updated the info. The alert's still there, and I still can't delete it, even though they said I'd be able to once I finished the sooper seekrit part of the process. For heaven's sake.

Choosing a Class

So, I started playing an MMO again, like I mentioned in a recent post. It's something to do while the B is napping and I'm captive in the house. I didn't reactivate my WoW account, though, because everyone I know in there is leagues ahead of me in levels, and I'd be a big drag. Plus, there was a game I wanted to check out.

We got LotR: Shadows of Angmar. Initially, the mister was the one who bought it, but I found it really fun to play during B's naps, so I've really been monopolizing it. Now, that game is really quest-oriented, so if you're going to be flaky (as in, if she wakes up, I have to log out, and RIGHT NOW) then there's only one thing you can do.

And that's be a healer.

People will put up with just about anything if they can play with a healer. There are so few of us, and stuff is so much easier to do when you, you know, don't die. It's like being the kid in school who had the really great heated pool. You're popular because of what you bring to the table.

But what class should you choose, if you choose to play an MMORPG?

Answer this question: What do you like to do?

1. I like to watch numbers instead of the pretty fighting. I can do math in my head, and quickly. I like to do things as efficiently as possible. I like to be liked.
2. I like to stay out of the way, but still have some effect on stuff. I'm sneaky. I like to watch the pretty fighting. I'd get bored watching a bunch of numbers.
3. I like to make people mad at me. I can keep track of three or four things at a time. I like a flurry of activity and then I like to relax. I trust my fellow players to do their jobs.
4. Hulk smash!

Answer key:
1. You are a healer. Embrace it. Roll it. Put on the cloth, baby.
2. You are ranged DPS. Buy yourself a bow, find an out of the way place, and deal out the damage.
3. You are a tank. Get yourself some macros to pull all the enemies to you, increase your threat, and then sit back and let the healers keep you alive while the DPS does the killin'.
4. Wait, I'll use little words. You are up-close DPS. Try not to do too much, or you anger Mr. Tank.

And if you didn't answer 1, then do the healers a favor, and stay where they can bloody see you! If you run behind them, don't yell at them when you die. (For heaven's sake.)

(More updates coming soon, including B updates.)

Two Very Unrelated Things

I am just lifting my head out of a period of extreme weirdness here, and I have two odd things to share with you.

First, in playing a bit of LOTR: Shadows of Angmar, I encountered an odd situation. I was invited to help with a quest, and I warned everyone there that I might have to leave partway through if my napping baby woke up. It was all right with everyone there, but one of them said, "Dude, isn't that what your wife is for?"

There are a couple of things wrong with that. He assumed I was male because I was playing an MMORPG. He also assumed that it's the woman's job to attend to the baby. I just laughed and ignored it, because who wants to type enough in one of those tiny MMO chat windows enough info to set that guy straight? Plus, what's the right answer? "I am the mom"? That implies that it's always my job to get her when she wakes. Better to just ignore it.

Second, while I was playing, I had Snakes on a Plane on (Netflixed) in the background. Worst movie ever made. Seriously. I was only giving it about 40% of my attention, and it still bored me to tears. Just horrible. Why did we ever waste the queue space on it?

The worst part is that I'd heard from just about everyone how horrible it was, and I still had to see it for myself. Yikes.

Ow

Today, the B was resisting a quite necessary diaper change (TMI: because of a bit of a rash) and was flailing her arms around. Unfortunately for me, she was holding her hard plastic sippy cup in her hand, and it connected with my nose.

It was only love the deepest parental sort that allowed me to hang on to her (I'd picked her up intending to comfort her because I knew she would be upset about the diaper change) while the birds and stars orbited my head. If I'd been hanging on to anything else that weighed 27 pounds while I was that stunned and in pain, I'd have dropped it.

A little ice and some Advil seem to be doing the trick, though I was afraid at first that it re-broke my nose. Still feels heavy and strange, but I think it's okay. Yow.

Spam, How Do You Know Me So Well?

I just got a spam message that was sandwiched between two excerpts from Jane Austen's "Emma". How do you know, internets, about my recent obsession with Jane Austen's books?

That's just creepy.

18 Months

18 months ago today, I was lying in a hospital bed, worried that we'd never figure out how to take care of a baby.

Now she's walking, talking (a little English, but mostly Brigidese) and generally causing a ruckus. That last part, if nothing else, proves conclusively that she's our little girl.

It's been a great adventure so far. I can't wait for the rest. Happy year and a half day, B.

Involuntary Lack of Personal Responsibility

So, Josh Hancock's father is suing the restaurant where his son got drunk past the legal limit after drinking alcoholic drinks that he ordered, making the assertion that his son was under "involuntary intoxication". Go look that up. I'll wait.

Back? Yeah. That basically is a defense you can use if you drink punch out of the punchbowl at a party, believing it to be regular punch, but it was secretly spiked with alcohol. Or, say, if someone slips you a downer in a drink, and you don't realize you've ingested anything.

If someone keeps filling your glass in a bar and you drink the shit, it's your fricking fault if you drink it. If you don't want more beer, don't drain the glass. My dad didn't like to drink, but he was frequently at parties where people kept trying to buy him a drink. He'd order a drink when he got there and just carry it around, then set down the full glass on his way out. It kept people from offering to get him something, and he didn't have to drink or explain why he didn't want to.

Is the dad going to sue the cell phone company for not telling him not to talk on his phone when his drunk ass was driving way over the speed limit and he's not belted in or looking where he's going? He's suing everyone else: the manager of the bar, the tow truck driver, and the owner of the car the tow truck driver was there to help. When lots and lots of other cars saw the big flashing lights of the tow truck because they weren't drunk off their asses and weren't speeding out of control while distracted talking on a phone. You better watch where your car breaks down, because if a professional athlete drives his car into it, you're going to go bankrupt trying to defend yourself.

It's everybody's fault but the guy who drank the alcohol and drove his car without any regard for his safety or anyone else's. You asses. I don't feel bad for you at all anymore. You are now the least sympathetic people in this whole debacle.

Mother's Day in Reverse

Thank you, B, for showing up and letting me be your mom. When I remember stuff from five or six years ago, I catch myself wondering things like, "But where was the B?" before I realize you weren't around yet.

I hope, when you're old enough to decide, that you'll be glad I was your mom.

She's Feeling Better

At long last, after more problems and uncomfortable nights than I would care to relate in this space, the B seems to be doing better. She's more herself, she has more energy, she isn't wheezing at all, and she isn't coughing or nearly as much.

In fact, she's even invented a new game. She kept coming into the living room to pick out something, then she'd pad around the corner to the gate that keeps her away from the stairs and stay there for a minute or two, and then come back and repeat the whole thing.

After the third time, I had to go and see what she was up to. I thought she was probably pushing them under the gate (or trying to), because I couldn't hear them dropping to the ground (as they would if she was dumping them over the top).

The game, as you can see from this picture, was actually to very carefully balance each toy on the top edge of the gate. She must have been really careful indeed, because I was listening to what she was doing when she disappeared and I didn't hear anything drop. If you can see it in the picture, the toys are wider than the gate, so she actually had to balance them.

She was pretty happy with this new game. Thank goodness she's doing better.

The Croup...

...can bite my butt.

The B developed a breathing issue last night which spurred an "ER or not ER" debate between myself and the on-call nurse for my pediatrician's office. That'll sure scare you. I think back to all the times I went to the ER as a kid and I wonder how my mom stayed sane through it.

We ended up not going to the ER, but waiting for a 9:30 appointment at the doctor's, mostly because she seemed to be getting air, just not sounding very good doing it.

So, it's the croup, which could be an early indication of asthma. She's the tiniest little trooper in the trooper army, though, trying to be herself, though she is clearly a bit deflated. She reminds me of one of those mylar balloons about three days after you've bought it. It's still shiny and cute, but it's sagging a little.

In all my parenting wisdom, I have been eschewing juice in favor of actual fruit. More nutrition, better eating patterns, etc. This, of course, has bitten me right on the butt. She has no appetite, but she won't touch juice or Pedialyte because they're so unfamiliar to her. Doh.

She's finally settled in to sleep, but I have a feeling I'll be up with her in a few hours. Wish us luck here at B central, huh?

So, Stuff

There is undoubtedly stuff happening. News, memes, effluvia.

None of this makes a spot, even a molecule of difference when your little baby is sick.

I took her, a couple of weeks ago, to a horrible "free intro" mommies and me class that was a complete disaster. Bad course design, completely not age-appropriate (and I was encouraged to bring her after discussing her age and abilities over the phone) and filled with kids twice her age who were not being watched by the reluctant parents who were physically there but mentally checked out.

In addition to all of that, it seemed every other kid in the class was coughing, had a runny nose, or both. There wasn't a lot of contact, but they all held the hands of the instructor (an untrained high school kid) on the trampoline. That's the only time I can think of that she might have gotten exposed to a bunch of nasties that might have led to her ear infection, diagnosed earlier today.

Of course, it might have just been the luck of the draw. I know she has to get sick. Everyone does, and why not build up her immunities now, when she's too young to remember the discomfort? Still, having her cry and sweat her way through the night, her breaths coming in pants in response to her fever is not my idea of a great time.

I'd do anything, anything to have it be me instead.

This is why blogging about anything else seems completely irrelevant, yet you fine people have no reason to be interested in the details of her illness. Therefore, I'll see you guys on the flip side.

It Longs to Burst From My Lips

If only I could tell you who I'm transcribing now. Or rather, what company the transcriptions are coming from. It's a sports fan's dream, especially a sports fan who hasn't had any time to listen to sports commentary or watch sports-related television shows.

17 Monthday

Happy 17 Monthday, B. I wish I was more awake-feeling for it, but one of us had to comfort you when the three (THREE) teeth you have coming in made you sad at 4:15 a.m.

The Code and Digg

I like Digg. It's a trifle less misogynistic than Fark, and it's easy to peek at for a stolen moment or two when the B is playing on her own. (She's taken to pushing my hands off her toys when she wants some alone playing time.)

Yesterday, they received a takedown message from MPAA over several users posting stories including the key that will decrypt HD-DVDs. Digg was faced with a lawsuit that has the power to suck enough money out of their venture that winning or losing any lawsuit against the MPAA has the same potential effect: the financial ruin and the death of the site itself.

The more the Digg admins tried to remove the key from stories and comments, the more the users insisted on posting it. It's now there, pervasive enough that removing it would consist of nuking the site as a whole.

Though anyone with a need to know this key likely has it memorized by now, they're still faced with a likely lawsuit. Is it really worth it to fight for "free speech" on a site you like, just to possibly kill the site due to the huge amount of money a lawsuit will suck away from the site? Why Digg? Because it's a user submission site? I don't get it.

I mean, I think all the copy protection, when it blocks uses that are covered under Fair Use laws, is ridiculous. Is it worth taking someone's very successful venture and possibly throwing it down the toilet just because, one night, that's where the battleground was?

(And in classic I-have-a-baby mode, this all happened last night and I only learned of it this morning.)

Trying to Spur On the Joy

I keep seeing talk about the 30 year anniversary of Star Wars happening this year, with the actual date of release soon upon us. In an effort to summon up something like the joy I used to feel when thinking about the trilogy, I present to you my personal thoughts of glee regarding one R2-D2.

So, you know how some shows and movies include characters who, in real life, would speak in strings of sailor-like profanities, but can't, due to FCC regulations or the desire to get a certain rating for a movie, right? Like they say "frack" (or is it "frak"?) on BSG, and "smeg" on Red Dwarf. It's my personal theory that George Lucas wanted to include a character like that in the trilogy, and got it in under the wire by making it R2-D2, who speaks only in beeps and whistles.

(I also believe Chewie is swearing, but that he doesn't have nearly the potty mouth of R2-D2.)

I present to you, a small selection of R2-D2, translated from droidese into unfiltered English:

From ESB:

THREEPIO: Don't try to blame me. I didn't ask you to turn on the thermal heater. I merely commented that it was freezing in the princess's chamber. But it's supposed to be freezing. How are we going to dry out all her clothes? I really don't know.

ARTOO: Listen, you big fucking metal girl...you're gonna have bigger fucking problems than some wet clothes in a minute, you big bitch.

and this classic, also from ESB:

Artoo stands in the falling snow.

ARTOO: Where the ever-loving fuck is he? I told that son of a bitch to come back early from that patrol, but does he listen? What a dumb fuck.

Threepio moves stiffly over to him.

THREEPIO: You must come along now, Artoo. There's really nothing more we can do. And my joints are freezing up.

ARTOO: He's fucked, isn't he? Shit.

Finally, I bring you this, from RoJ:

NINEDENINE (to a Gamorrean guard)
Guard! This protocol droid might be useful. Fit him with a restraining bolt and take him back to His Excellency's main audience chamber.

The guard shoves Threepio toward the door.

THREEPIO (disappearing)
Artoo, don't leave me! Ohhh!

ARTOO: Crissakes, Threepio. We work for a Jedi, you dumbshit. I'll be fine.

The door closes.

ARTOO: And as for you, you big bitch, I dare you to put me on the master's sail barge, you big pussy. Bet you don't have the balls, do you?

I can't believe I posted that.

I don't think so

You know what, Inez? I don't think I will "confirm my mortgage G5N7" with you, even though you've been kind enough to contact me at my personal email address to ask me about it.

Is there really someone sending out their mortgage information after an unsolicited email from someone they've never heard of? Isn't the odd letter/number combo in the subject line enough to warn them off?

Honestly, I hover between wondering how spam possibly suckers anyone in anymore, to wondering why we don't get more of it, when I realize that the sheer amount of spam we all currently get is an indication that there are plenty of sheep out there waiting to be shorn.

And hey, it's not every day that you get to use the word "shorn", so I'll cut there.

A Basic, Modern Doorknob

I swear, this is an un-retouched screenshot of the doorknob article at Wikipedia, at least how it is right now.

ETA: I am not the one who edited the Wikipedia page.

Slate Reads Dr. Heimlich's Blog!

Do they? You be the judge. Maybe? Maybe not?

They're all right, though. We turned on the show in question when it moved to Wednesday and turned it off halfway through. I just ached with frustration at the "on rails" aspect of the show.

It's like the difference between driving a car on that ride at Disneyland and driving a real car on the real roads. Maybe it's exciting for people who don't know the difference, but it pales in comparison to the real experience.

How can something with George Takei suck? Did you guys see him in the William Shatner roast on Comedy Central? He was hilarious. On TGYH, he had his funniest moment when he first opened the door, stealing the opening line, and then they just put a knife in his heart. And that's to say nothing of the comics they have on the show who have actual improv credentials. How do they keep themselves from strangling the other actors (and I stress "actor" and not "improv participant") in the scene?

Frustrating.

Ruminations on Employment

I have not been employed outside the home since July of 2005, first in anticipation of having the baby, and then continuing as a stay-at-home mom (the infamous SAHM!) after she arrived.

I've thought a lot about what I'll do when she reaches an age where she's in school enough for me to go back to working either full or part time, and what I'll do. My resume is so full of different jobs and jobs for which I will no longer be qualified (because of changes in the field I wasn't there to adjust to) that I'll almost certainly have to go in a different direction.

After "running the house" for a little while, I've also wondered off and on how I'll react to being an employee again, assuming I go back to working for someone instead of doing something on my own, like re-starting my voice studio or singing at weddings and stuff like that.

I really questioned how I would react to literally being "bossed", and how any mom who stayed at home for a bit could do it. I'm used to being in charge at this point, at least of the baby and the things that are my domain, like paying the bills and that sort of stuff. The idea of someone looking over my shoulder and checking up on me irks me to no end.

However, since I started doing those transcripts I've written about, I've discovered a thing about working for someone else, even for the little micropayments I receive for that work, that I didn't realize I missed. As much as I hate to admit it, I really miss the pat on the head when I do something well.

The thing about staying home is that the person who is most effected by it sees you as completely transparent. You are literally just that lady that will always be there. Kids at this age hold out things for you to take and drop them, believing that you will OF COURSE get there in time to take it before it falls to the floor. You are the default, the expected, the unwavering and unerring.

That's great, of course, to be counted on and to be important, even if the person who needs you is completely unaware of the need. Sometimes, though, you know you did something well and you really want at least that glimmer of satisfaction in someone else's eye when they become aware of the job you did.

The transcriptions are really sort of becoming that for me. The last four I did, I got the best grade possible on them, and I really felt they deserved it. It doesn't equal a colossal amount of money, but it does equal the most amount of money that was possible to make from those little jobs.

That's nice, but somehow, seeing that top score when my grade comes through seemed a little cooler that the money that was deposited into my account. It's the satisfaction of being noticed. Maybe it's mostly people who were the youngest in their families who need this stuff, but I don't care. It's nice to have an outlet for that.

Toys That Make Babies Lose Their Damn Minds

I just got this toy when I found another item on Amazon that I wanted to get for the house. It brought me up to a total that got me free shipping, and I'd been considering getting her this toy anyway.

Worth every darn penny. It is quite a show.

And do you see that blue ball? Well, we don't anymore. It's missing. The toy never left the kitchen/living room, and I've turned everything upside down and I can't find it. I've already ordered three replacement sets from Playskool, so we'll have more cannon fodder soon. I'm sure the day they arrive, the missing blue ball will turn up as well.

I Did It!

Our house, prior to this Monday night, had a thermostat that should probably have been on display in the Smithsonian instead of plugged in on our wall, desperately attempting to regulate our house's temperature.

Well, when you stay home most of the time, save for excursions outside to play with the baby or run an errand, having it way too hot...way too cold...way too hot...etc. all day long is extremely irritating, and I'd had enough.

I took some of the money I've made from my transcriptions and handed it to Amazon in exchange for the modern programmable unit you see pictured here. I was hoping it would switch between heating and cooling on its own, but I was wrong about that. It does, however, keep the house temperate (upstairs and downstairs) all day long, after I've spent a couple of days tweaking the programmable settings for each section of the day.

The big trick was getting it installed. After putting a couple of ceiling fans into the house, I know that we sometimes have the correctly-colored wires there, but we also sometimes just have a couple of black wires there, and it's anyone's guess which one is which. I was relieved, after prying the old, "my edge has been painted over at least 100 times" thermostat off the wall, to see that the wires were correctly sheathed in colored plastic wire covers that indicated their function.

We switched off the power and I removed the old unit, and as the house started to get hot (this was just on the edge of our current cold snap) I set about connecting the new unit. After a run-in with the slightly vague manual that was included with the new thermostat, I looked at an updated one on the manufacturer's website and got confirmation on where I should hook up my red wire.

Hooked it up, switched it on, made my first guess at a programming scheme based on the temperatures we'd been trying to select on the old unit, and it was on and humming away. This was when we discovered how far off the old thermostat had been. All the temps we'd been setting it on that got us the best results with the old unit were completely different on the new unit. The new unit really seems to keep the house comfortable for the whole day, and it does so using less operating time, which means it's using less of my moolah to do it.

I am extremely pleased with the switch and I really wish we'd done it a year ago. It makes me want to go on a tear through the house, seeing what else is old and inefficient, costing us more money to run and doing a poor job of it, to boot. Look out, old appliances. I'm comin' for you.

Uh-Oh!

Our B doesn't so much believe in learning words that are labels for things, like "milk" or "ball". You know, stuff that could be useful when she needs to tell me she wants something. She does say "mama" and "dada", but that's as close as she comes to labels.

Instead, she has learned exclamations and general purpose words. We've given her credit for "hi", (actually, "hi hi!") "bye bye", (actually "eye eye" with the occasional 'b') "hey", "yay", "mmmmm", (for yummy foods) and most recently, "uh-oh!"

I didn't mean to teach her these things, other than "hi" and "bye". What she's learned is the stuff that gets repeated to her over and over. We say, "Hey! There's the baby!" and stuff like that when she's walking around, so she learned, "Hey!"

We say "yay!" when she does something we've been trying to teach her—important stuff like putting her blocks in her incrediblock or how to kick her tiny pink soccer ball (which she can do, and with intention, thank you very much!) So she learned "yay!" and even says it at the right times.

"Mmmm" is obvious, really. When we try to "sell" her a food that she might or might not like, she always got the "mmm", so now she says it when she eats something yummy. It comes more often as an echo, but sometimes she does it on her own.

"Uh-oh!" is the funny one. She says it a lot, but she gets a lot of opportunities to say it. Hardly a moment passes where she doesn't drop something she wanted to carry around, or has to try a few times to make something work. She used to get really frustrated when she wanted to do something and couldn't, so I started saying, "Uh-oh!" and telling her it was okay. Now she does the "Uh-oh!" on her own, and moves on with things.

It's all hilarious, though. Between all her actual exclamations and the squeaking and clapping and things, it's like having a little sound effects machine in the house. A tiny little sound effects machine that you have to feed and change, that is.

Truth in Baby Labeling Act of 2007

I can't believe anyone let us be parents.

Children of Men

No, this is not a "bad movies I like" post. This is a good movie that I had trouble watching.

I love Cuaron, learning his visual style from Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban, but then finding his other stuff afterward. I'd heard great stuff about Children of Men, so we NetFlixed it.

It was great, but it's the sort of thing I have trouble making room for to let any of it in. I've been sitting here with my laptop on my lap looking at pictures of the B as a sort of inoculation to make it through. I almost went up to grab her out of her crib and hug her, but when you're the parent and not the kid, you have to control impulses like that.

In all fairness, I knew the general subject matter of the film, and I had an idea how unrelentingly dark it was. Gosh, though, I had no idea how realistic it would seem in the big picture stuff as well as the small picture stuff. This is really more of a horror movie for me, now, than some slasher pic with no plot.

Seriously, if you are made of stronger stuff than the Jell-O that having a baby has turned me into, I highly recommend the movie. It was troubling and disturbing, but only in that, "Yeah, we've got that in us, all right" sort of way. It was really hard to watch without looking away, but I mean that in a good way.

Movies I Shouldn't Like, Part 1

Way back, when mastodons still roamed the Earth and I was still in college, I had a conductor who stood in front of the chorus and told us that we needed to know whether a piece of music that we liked was "bad", if it was universally seen among the classical music elite as lacking in some way.

She went on to say that we all like a few of these pieces, something that everyone else sees as not worth the time of our well-honed ears. This was fine, she said, but if we knew what was good for us, we'd like them in secret.

I rolled my eyes about it at the time, believing with all the fierce integrity of one's early twenties that a piece of music is only really great if you, yourself, love it. Even if everyone else on the planet hates it, it can still be great to you, so why be afraid to trumpet that from the rooftops? (How else would you explain Phillip Glass, for example?)

Along with my pragmatic thirties, I have acknowledged a certain inevitability that what she said long ago holds some truth. There are some things that shouldn't be discussed with the sort of vigor that this sort of thing brings, this love of something you know full well everyone else thinks is mediocre. Certainly not in polite company.

This brings us, this evening, to You've Got Mail. (Spoiler alert, but geez, if you haven't seen it in the last ten years, that's not really my problem, is it?) I mean, it's a remake of a Jimmy Stewart movie. Have you ever seen a Jimmy Stewart movie and thought, "This would be so much better without him?" I just did a quick scan of a couple of websites with movie ratings and it gets a pretty solid 6/10. Not horrible, but not great.

I have seen this damn movie about a hundred times. It's like a bloody magnet. The cursor on my cable guide is inevitably drawn to it whenever it appears. For heaven's sake, it's not even the best movie that Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan have made together, but I'm watching it again right this very second.

Maybe it's the shrug Tom Hanks gives her at the end, that "sorry it's me, but I guess there's nothing I can do about that now," all rolled into one little movement. Maybe it's him bringing her daises and desperately trying to give away that he's NY152 (yes, I know the screen names they used, off the top of my head) but not quite having the guts to say it yet, when he visits her while she's sick. Maybe it's the way they both fake typing about 700 words per minute, or the totally unrealistic way that their "internet" works, especially for 1998. Maybe it was Tom Hanks and the speech about the "goddamn piazza" when he's on the treadmill.

Heck, I don't have an explanation for it. I'm embarrassed to even post this. But dammit, I like this movie, and I don't care who knows it.

What's worse, though, is that this isn't even close to being the "worst" movie that I secretly love. That's what the "Part 1" in the post title is all about. As I get my courage up, I plan to reveal all five or so of them. And oh, boy, some of them are bad.

(Now, if you could conveniently forget this whole thing and go back to thinking of me as a culture snob, I'd appreciate it.)

To the Networks:

Hi there. Let's get right to the point.

There are some shows that are going to be really popular, and there are some shows that will have smaller audiences. It's time that you embraced the idea that, by definition, not every show is going to be in the top ten.

If you have shows that are good, well-written, well-acted, and they have loyal, but (gasp!) smaller than top ten audiences, just keep the show for cryin' in the sink. I bet you there are some advertisers who can't afford to buy time during your blockbuster shows, but who would be more than willing to pay for some time on a middling-popularity sort of show.

Let me 'splain to you why this would be good. We, the viewers, wouldn't see the same blessed ads over and over again. Do you know what we do when we're inundated with the same damn ad over and over? We ignore it. It becomes part of the furniture. Some of us are so aggrieved that we mute the damn things, we're so sick of them.

So what do you think would happen if you had a wider variety of advertisers, based on a wider variety of fees? We'd pay more attention to ads! They might, you know, actually work, to make us want to buy things. You can back up your ability to sell their product.

And you know what else? Stop counter-programming popular shows with other shows that would be of interest to the same audience that watches the show you're programming it against. That just sucks. Some of us have to TiVo to see stuff because we're busy with the kiddos, or we, you know, just want to turn off the TV every now and again. Most of us don't have two TiVos or a dual-tuner one, so you make us have to choose.

Out of spite, I always choose the established show over the new one. Do you know why? Because you could have chosen any time to put it on, but you intentionally made me choose. You're the one causing the conflict, so I ignore the new show. This is why I don't watch Heroes, though I've tried to find my way into it with the Sci-Fi reruns (sadly, to no avail, because it just doesn't seem to hook me in). I know I can watch 'em online, too, but I didn't find that out until later, when I'd already tried a few reruns and didn't find it pulling me in.

But NBC, you put Heroes against 24. You made me choose, so I stuck with the network that DIDN'T make me choose. You lose a viewer, not that it much matters because that particular show is a hit without me and my ilk.

Instead of whacking all the shows that have the potential to attract the same sort of audience into the same damn time slot in some sort of network-based game of chicken, hows about programming them against unlike competition, so that people of differing tastes are served at the same time, albeit maybe (say it's not so) by your network at that particular time.

Now, I notice that the show "Thank God You're Here", which could be interesting to people who like comedy improv on against 24. You might not think that comedy improv and terrorism drama overlap, but I bet you a lot of the 24 watchers would give "Thank God You're Here" a try if they weren't on against each other. I think they're probably both younger audiences who like offbeat, break-the-rules sort of shows.

Why, when there are a week's worth of other choices? Why doesn't anyone put anything on against some of those asinine half-hour sitcoms or plethora of reality game shows?

Oh, screw it. The networks aren't listening to me, anyway.

Do You Do Public Speaking?

Well, if you do, and I mean even just the occasional presentation at work, I have an odd piece of advice for you. Even if you like to write fiction, I think this will still help you.

Go download a podcast. Fast forward it past the goofy music and whatnot at the beginning until you get to the meat of the thing. Ideally, you'll grab one that has either one, or maybe just two speakers.

Open your favorite text editor. Put on some headphones. Arrange your media player so you can see the pause/play button behind the text editor. Press play, and start transcribing what's said. (You'll have to pause from time to time to catch up unless they talk deliberately or you type even faster than I do, but I'm over 100 wpm, so good luck there.)

Then, as you get used to it, start editing what they say for readability. Eliminate false starts and re-order sentences that are poorly structured. If they make up words and it's not a "fun" word invention, but because their vocabulary didn't supply the right one, correct it.

Do about five minutes. Go up to ten if you can take it. Do that every once in awhile. Don't do the same podcast twice so you'll really have to listen. It'll take you about an hour maybe, at first, to do ten minutes of audio. You'll slowly get faster. But that's not why you're doing this.

When you write down what someone says when they are speaking to impart information in the clearest, most interesting way possible (because, if that's not the point of a good podcast, I can't think of a reason for them to be) you will really begin to see what works and what doesn't.

I can now hear all the run-on sentences that come out of my mouth. I know where to break them to make the ideas easier to understand. Best of all, I have a much better sense of how long I have to get an idea across before the people listening start to think, "Oh, please. Just hurry up."

I am sad to tell you that the more questionable the subject of the podcast, the more of a scam it sounds like, the better the public speaking is. It's clean, quick, easy to follow. It makes the listeners feel smart and involved, and it draws them in. I can see how the scams work now. They make their pigeons feel so much a part of what's being proposed that I'm surprised there aren't more people taken in by them.

Do yourself a favor. If you have to speak to more than two or three people on a even a semi-regular basis, it's worth the work just to really hear what does and doesn't work in our fine, fine language. I really think it will work for you. (And it will only cost you $39.97, payable in five installments.)

Pier 1 Trip, Target Trip

I have a feed that tells me when website shops are having sales, and one day recently, a Pier 1 sale popped in there.

I looked at the stuff and was surprised to see that they sell children's toys. Some of them were cute, and really cheap when they were on sale, too. However, the shipping costs seemed a little high, and it was about time for the B and I to go out now that both of us are feeling better.

I mapped out the closest Pier 1, realized then that I had seen it before and that it wasn't very far away, and got us ready to go. It wasn't until we walked in that I realized what a colossally bad idea it was.

You see, she's very excited to be walking. She doesn't tolerate the stroller as well as she used to, and I like her to be able to move around a little on her own, anyway.

But just picture a Pier 1 in your head. All sorts of glasses and dishes, along with other smallish doo-dads made out of glass. Whoever does the shelving there obviously never intended for anyone with a small child to go through there, because everything that a kid could grab, throw on the ground, and break, is right at her eye level.

Or maybe that's a good source of revenue, parents paying for the stuff their kids break.

None of their children's toys were in the store I went to. Looks like it's mainly a website thing, or maybe just larger Pier 1 stores. I, quite wisely, I think, decided to beat it out of there before I was the proud owner of some multi-colored, formerly shabby-chic glass shards.

The day wasn't a total loss, though. We had some play time outside (look for a post about that soon) and I also took the B to Target to stock on up Targetty things. And speaking of Target, I really like the little section at the front of the Targets I've been in recently, where they have bins of stuff for $1 and other bins of 2/$5. There's kid stuff in there most of the time, and some of it is really cute.

That being said, yesterday they had these board books about zoo animals, and there's a rubber version of whatever animal the book is about embedded on the last page, with the rest of the book cut through over it so you can see the rubber animal on each page. When you press on the animal, it squeaks. Our Target had the elephant, panda, and hippo, but the back of the books say there's a tiger one too.

So, if you're reading this and you're going off to your local Target, drop me a line. If no one else has found me the tiger version and you don't mind looking for it, I'd be glad to reimburse you the buck and the shipping if you find the tiger one. The B really likes these books and some collector in me would love to have the whole set.

Tax Man

Tonight at 6:00, I met with a charming man with an MBA on his wall. He took the planner he'd emailed me that I printed and filled out (which he makes easy to do as long as you keep the tax papers that arrive in the mail) along with a few pieces of paper from me. He made small talk as he typed, asking about the B while his wife chided me from the outer office for not bringing her with me.

(Mind you, I'd only been there once before, about a year ago, to have our taxes done last year. They are smart businesspeople, to have such information at their fingertips, the sort of stuff that makes people feel at home there.)

After a story about his four year-old grandson, I heard the printer start printing. He got up, telling me that the B would grow up faster that I could imagine, and came back with our completed tax forms. He got us what I'm sure is the largest amount we could possibly be entitled to on the up-and-up back as a refund. He continued the small talk as he used two self-inking stamps to address my federal and state return envelopes, then went nuts with a stapler, attaching the mister's W-2 to both.

I glanced at the clock on his wall. It said 6:12. I was already writing out his check, and he told me the fee amount as he handed over the envelopes to me. It was an embarrassingly tiny percentage of the money he'd just gotten us back on our taxes. I filled the figure in on the check and handed it over to him.

He shook my hand and we got up, moving back to the outer office, where I was made to promise that the baby would come with me the next time.

Holy frickin' heck, I love finding a place where I know I'm getting a good deal, where I feel better leaving the joint than I did when I walked in. I was stressing hard about the taxes last year when I found this place. I stressed again this year that it would be an awful ordeal, even though this place worked out so well last year.

I am so glad to have been wrong. One weight, gone from my shoulders.

Review: Cocoa Peeps

cocoa peeps
Originally uploaded by cammom.

I've read a lot of smack about the new Cocoa Peeps, and I have to say, now that I've hunted down a pack of them and tried them, I don't see what's not to like.

Many people dislike traditional Peeps because they're too sweet, and there's no such issue here. The marshmallow on the inside is pretty mellow, and the cocoa on the outside is sweet without being overbearing.

Imagine a cup of cocoa with marshmallows, but with the ratio reversed...a lot of rich marshmallow taste, tinged with a chocolate flavor. And who doesn't like hot chocolate?

All in all, I liked 'em. Good luck finding them, though. I looked all over the place, all the places that normally carry the pink and yellow and blue variety, but it wasn't until I really hunted around the shelves at Target that I finally got some.

(And thanks to cammom who had a CC-licensed photo of the package on Flickr for me to put here so you'd all know what they look like. I forgot to take a picture of mine until, well, it was too late. I suppose I could take a picture of my hips, because that's what they look like now.)

Pet Peeve: Log In/Log On

Repeat after me, people on television talking about websites. (I think this whole thing may be the fault of the Today Show, because I heard this horrifying thing there a long time before it became as pervasive as it is now.)

If you enter a URL in your location bar and your browser loads up the website, which you can then use to view the information the talking head on the television was sending you to without entering a username and password, then you do NOT "log in" or "log on" to that site. A URL is not a login. (sigh) If you need a verb, which I suppose you do, I suggest "navigate to". Although that's scary to the people who fear multi-syllable words. Maybe "point your browser to..." if you must.

If you don't know what either of those means, you should either get someone hip to 'splain it to you or just sell the computer and go back to reading books, which is probably what most of us should be doing anyway.

And, if by some chance, television people, the website you are directing people to does require a login and password in order to view the content that you are sending them to, by all means tell them to "log in" or "log on". Because that's what they're doing.

Navigating your browser to a site via a URL does not equal log on.

It's not just non-tech people who do this, either. Back when TechTV still was around, the people on their shows used to say this all the time. Nails on a blackboard, I tell you. Chinese water torture. If Jack Bauer thought I had information about the "nukuler bombs", he could skip cutting off my finger and just proceed to screaming, "Log on! Log on!" in my ear and I'd spill.

Now you may go about your business. Thank you for reading. Not that this will do any good, other than making me feel 0.000001% better about the whole thing.

Required Monthly Test

Can someone tell me why the "required monthly test" that my cable system runs turns my channel to QVC? I mean, of all channels, it's always QVC.

Is this a secret conspiracy to get people to buy overpriced computers and those ugly-ass dolls?

And does QVC pay extra for this honor? I wonder if it actually increases their sales.

(For the record, they were selling some ugly weathervane thing when it switched over just now. A great reminder why nothing I'd ever want at a price I'm willing to pay will ever be sold on that channel.)

Many Ways to Pay Tribute to Videogaming

About two minutes into this long-assed video of some guys doing some video game pantomiming (cooler than I'm making it sound) they do some Final Fantasy stuff, including the old "holding sword aloft" version of the post-battle celebration.

It's pretty good. Maybe it's even worth seven minutes of your life. So clicky clicky, huh?

Do You Listen to Many Podcasts?

Hoo, boy. If you don't, I can save you a lot of time looking.

I can tell you from experience that most of them are excruciating! They are either pseudo-intellectual claptrap, or they appear to be actively inciting people to either blindly give over their money (to "change their lives!") or encouraging them to do stupid, reckless, irresponsible, or extremely selfish things.

They instruct people on how to game search engine results (which I know many people do, but not quite as disingenuously as this). They talk about how to "get yours" and how to "not let other people get in your way". They ramble on about art in that way that makes my teeth grind, because they don't even have a clue what they mean and are much more interested in how to scoot through life doing very little work than they are in actually creating anything interesting.

Ugh. It's every stupid conversation you've ever overheard, only broadcast as though it's really, really, good advice.

And if you're wondering how I suddenly know this, I've found a way to make a little tiny bit of extra money while the B is sleeping by transcribing sections of podcasts. It really only works out if you can retain bits of text in your head while typing the bit you just heard a second ago, and if you type rather quickly and with few mistakes.

And no, I'm not telling you where. Most of you have "real jobs" for one, and don't need these micropayments, and for those of you for whom that's not true, I don't fancy the extra competition! The postings disappear quickly enough as it is.

However, it is nice to earn a little bit of money again, even if the amount is really small. Transcriptions are a bit like playing a game, sort of, but getting paid to do it. It's a game to see how quickly I can do it, how many times I can avoid having to rewind, how many of the names I can research quickly on Google to spell correctly.

So, in case any of you were wondering how I fill my time when the B naps, that's how I've been doing it for the last few weeks. But honestly, save yourself the time and avoid 90% of the podcasts out there. Some of them make me feel like my brain is trying to liquefy and seep out of my ears, if only to escape the nattering on.

Miss You, B

Is it weird that, fifteen months on now, I still miss the B when she's in her room sleeping? It's strange that I am so set on her getting plenty of rest (she's so much happier when she's slept enough, which she usually has) yet I usually end up trolling my own photostream at Flickr before I can go to sleep.

I wonder if this part ever wears off.

This was going a different way, but...

I was going to post about how I couldn't make a top five villains post. I saw everyone else's posts and wanted to join in, so I looked at my list of top fifty movies. It turns out that I don't like movies that have villains. The only villains in the movies on my list were Darth, Sauron, Voldemort, the Alien Queen, and possibly the MCP from Tron.

I realize that's five, and I guess you could count that as my list if you wanted to, but none of those feel like they should be on my list. There's just no real bad guys on my list!

So that was what I was going to write about, but when I opened my blog publishing page, I was assaulted by this:

WARNING
This blog has been locked by Blogger's spam-prevention robots. You will not be able to publish your posts, but you will be able to save them as drafts. Save your post as a draft or (link removed) click here for more about what's going on and how to get your blog unlocked.

Which fucker out there reported my blog as a spam blog? I don't buy this robot BS. Now I have to wait for a human to OK my blog. Joy. I'm sure I'm in a 5000 person line for that to happen.

So thanks, you splogging assholes, for ruining it for the rest of us. You guys suck more than Hoover.

(And I can now finally publish this post now that I've been declared not spammy.)