Aw

You'd never know from this picture that she's been fussy all day long, would you?

The Foreman

We finally found some patio furniture we liked, so we spent some of our tax return on it last night and it was delivered to the house this morning. (Nice store, to deliver so quickly, huh?) It was nice outside this afternoon (just a touch windy, but the house pretty much blocked it from our deck) so the B and I retired outside to put it together.

She was enjoying the sights and sounds, together with her sweet massage chair, as I cooed to her and turned the wrench. She's a harsh taskmaster, my little foreman the B. I got everything but one of the swivel rockers together before the B needed some chow. After the mister got home, we got the last of the chairs constructed and then moved the glass to the table (hey, I'm macho, but I can't do that on my own) before we came in and enjoyed some mucho tasty tacos for dinner.

Here's the furniture (we also got a wooden gliding rocker, but that isn't even out of the box yet) that got put together today. Now that the weather is getting nicer (finally) we can soon eat outside and admire the view of the common area, which is actually pretty nice.

I just have to go buy a new propane tank for the grill first. Sigh. It's always something, isn't it? We couldn't move the old one to the new digs back in September (not safe in the moving van) so now I must pay the piper and take care of that last detail.

By the way, it didn't actually take until it was dark to put it together. It only just occurred to me to take a picture of it a few minutes ago. Note the beginnings of rain in the picture. Figures, just when I'm talking optimistically about the weather...oh, well. Shouldn't be too bad. Can't rain forever, can it?

Web 2.0 or Star Wars Character?

A cute little quiz to see of you know whether a name is the domain of one-a those new-fangled Web 2.0 companies or a Star Wars character. So this is the quiz and this is a link to the Google cache in case it's still down from being linked to by Digg.

I got a 37. Can you best me without cheating?

I'm a Total Showoff

So, not only does this post feature another of the more and more ubiquitous pictures of my tiny little offspring, but in this picture, she is sporting a hat I recently sewed for her. This picture is an ultra-rare, as she is smiling while she has a hat on her head. Typically she is not so delighted to have something on her head, but her dad was playing with her at the time, and I suppose daddy > hat crossness.

There is someone who reads this blog occasionally who might know someone who wants a (another?) bear hat. You know who you are. If you think she might like one like this, just shoot me an email and I'd be glad to make another one for her. I can enlarge the pattern, no problem.

I will soon be testing my sewing skills even further and attempting to make a pair of pants that matches this hat. Send me good booga booga for that, if you wouldn't mind.

Pics for Bucks

HP and AMD are donating a dollar to the Lance Armstrong Foundation for every picture uploaded to this collage at the LAF website. The cap is $25,000 but there are only three hundred pictures there now. Help a great cancer-related charity and show off your photography skills all at the same time.

In the interests of full disclosure, you can't really reserve any rights on the photo you upload. From their legalese: "All submissions become the sole property of Sponsor, may be used by Sponsor for any purpose and in any media whatsoever (without further compensation or review), and will not be returned. Sponsor reserves the right to crop, alter, modify, or distort any submitted image or description."

So, keep that in mind when you are selecting a photograph. Don't send in that image of you in your jockey shorts or they might crop, alter, or modify you!

Do You Suck at Geography Too?

Find out. Scores in the comments if you dare.

Sigh...More Links

So, that's a picture of Link from the Zelda series over there. Get it? (I'm running out of "link" gags.) Update: Picture now with Link left-handed goodness.

Coming to a Flash Player 8 plugin near you, the Murlock RPG. Apparently it takes about an hour. It's averaging a 9.13 out of 10 rating after more than a thousand reviews at the moment, so I gather it's rather good. I haven't, you know, played it myself or anything, but I thought some of you Murlock fans out there might be into it.

This Star Trek machinima video can perhaps not be described in words. Maybe you have to experience it for yourself. (Read about Machinima on wikipedia if you dunno what it is.)

Another Spore/EA article, this time from a little more of a business perspective.

My Perplex City cards came and I've solved about 4/5ths of them, including a couple of the hard ones. I'm ranked in the two-thousands somewhere, tied with someone who calls themselves "Truffler". I think most of you who are likely to be reading this would really like the game, especially all you trivia people out there. You can buy it in the US from Insound, who I can attest is a reputable dealer. I got free shipping, too, and they came pretty quick. You can also solve some cards for free online. Two on their site, and one from Boing Boing that I blogged about before. There was a fourth one I found, but now can't find it again. I could have sworn I found a link to it on the PPC forums, but I can't find it now. If anyone else finds it, feel free to add it in the comments. Anyway. Fun game. Fun puzzles, and an overarching mystery behind the cards to solve. Good for all that pesky free time...that we have none of.

I bought this baby monitor, that has a built-in movement alarm. If twenty seconds pass and the baby doesn't move at all (the monitor picks up breathing and all those tiny little movements) then an alarm sounds on the parent unit (their term, not mine). This is either the smartest thing I've ever done, so I can sleep more soundly and less worriedly, or it's the most paranoid thing I've ever done.