Nick Postagulous
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Nina Gets Smarter
That may not be totally accurate, but Nina is gaining information and putting it to use very well. She still doesn't seem to understand that she could use her voice to signify things, but she does use her yes and no head shakes to great effect. And not to downgrade her crotch grab, arguably, Nina is nearly fully potty trained. The main problem is that she needs an adult to take her, and is not always serious about needing to go.
But yesterday, she did something new at both her grandmother's house and with me at home. She told us she wanted to eat. With me, she walked over to her high chair and asked to be put in it. I did so and then got a jar of baby food out of the pantry and asked if she wanted it. Yes. So, I heated up half a Del Monte 3 sized Chicken Noodle Dinner jar and got some cold Pink Guava out of the fridge. Nina at all the "chicken", which is what I called it when I gave her each spoonful, with the occasional Guava which she really likes. Then I let her use the spoon and feed guava to herself, which she did really good at first, but then got looser with the spoon and didn't differentiate between right side up and holding it upside down. Then, as she became full, it just degenerated into stabbing the baby spoon into the jar.
Each time Nina went to the bathroom yesterday she asked to. The only wet diaper I think she had was last night after she went to bed.
Patterns
Nina usually wakes up at some point in the night and wants a bottle. I was still awake when this happened so I decided that I'd like to give it to her. I heated up the Ensure with Fiber, but when I tried to give it to her, she cried and cried. I handed her to Alison and everything was fine. Later it occurred to me that the only time I do stuff like that with her late at night is when I'm giving her medicine.
Housey Thoughts
I was all ready to write about how this Sixty Forty Houseplan is just the kind of cool thing that I've been thinking about. However, I'd try to stick to good Norteamericano standards and make it look like a Saltbox house, or Shaker, or whatever that crap is called. Then, due to the rigidity of the steel structure, I'd be able to have big ol spans and whatnot inside. Drop ceilings...ah, they are a dream to me as far as home stuff goes. But forget the econo-stuff they have here at the office for the plate thingies. They make really nice ones for the restaurant biz. I'm also big on interior brick or stone, or frankly anything with massive heat capacity.
I've abandoned my dreams of having ten acres. Not only do I not want to maintain it, but also, to get outside the city enough that I'd be able to afford it, my daughter would be afflicted with a strong southern accent by her teachers and peers. Next thing you know, I'd be driving a pickup truck and putting off getting bridgework.
Syndicate...Syndicate...
There's a meeting in the conference room, and my soda is in that fridge. I'm trapped. Sodaless. I heard The Director mention "fiber optic" and the sales guy say "backbone." I think they're going to turn us into cyborgs. Cool.
Spell Check
For "housey", Blogger's spell check suggested "housewifeliness" and for "Norteamericano it suggested "Mortimer."
Monday, November 29, 2004
Southern Tradition: Spitting
It's not unusual to see a pickup truck at a stop light have it's driver door open up and the hopefully rural driver spit onto the ground. I didn't expect, however, to see a well-groomed lady in a sharp business suit driving a Lexus (or Lexus clone) open her car door at the Parkway/Governors intersection left turn lane and spit onto the ground.
I Recommend Getting Your Heart Trampled On To Anyone
As a Good Times Blogger, I don't document stuff in my life that hurts me. But, suffice it to say, I need to watch Home for the Holidays so that I'll realize that, hey, it's normal.
Thanksgiving 1: Moulton
More that just that Alison's grandmother doesn't recognize anyone but her own direct offspring, and that we get smoked up out there, I just am not fond of going to Moulton becuase we just don't relate to anyone out there. I can't say I had a good time, really. I guess my highlight was just talking with my nephew Brad outside for a while. The food was ok, but we couldn't smell it because everyone was smoking (around my infant and Alison's 88 year old grandmother).
Most interesting is that one of Alison's cousins has clearly gotten a boob job. They are big boobies on a tiny petite gal. I think she works at Discount Tobacco Outlet, so I'm not sure how you justify that. Cheaper than a car, I guess.
Thanksgivng 2: Marietta
While we had much more fun in Marietta, we drove over 9 hours and only saw my family for a little under six (2pm to 7pm Friday, 9:30 to 10:15 Sat). I would link to pictures I took, but Pbase is not responding right now. The food was great, and we could smell it since there was no smoke. Friday, we hung out at Kelley's house and Nina walked around outside and my mom did her signature overstimulation of Nina. We'll not know if it does mess with her sleep since, while Nina didn't sleep for anything, we were in a hotel room which was a strange surrounding. Saturday we ate at Dwarf House, the Chick-fil-A breakfast place, and then after we (just Alison, Nina, and me) went to Old Time Pottery (which wasn't nearly as good as it used to be) we took our sleep deprived child home. She slept from the entrance ramp for I-75 until we got to Scottsboro. Alison slept some too. I drove in silence as my bladder tried to burst itself.
Do You Need To Baba?
Two weeks ago, Nina obtained the ability to say yes, which now gives her the ability to say both yes and no. This is the most amazing thing ever. And while Nina's not really trying to speak, she's decided that she wants to be fully potty trained. She will now tell us, via crotch grab, that she needs to go to the bathroom. Also, before we go out somewhere, we'll say either "Do you need to go to the bathroom?" or "Do you need to go baba?" and she'll indicate yes or no. Often, she has not wet her diaper but produces on the toilet.
She's constipated, again. We're going to step up the Ensure with Fiber until she's thouroughly flushed out, then keep it at a maintenance level of one or two a day. I'd rather her be too loose than too firm.
Communication Story: Coffee
Scene: Alison's car.
Nina begs "uh, uh" for Daddy's coffee which is in a stainless steel travel tumbler.
Daddy: "No, you can't have this. This is coffee. It's hot. The last time you had coffee it hurt you and you cried."
After that transaction last week, or was it Friday, Nina has not begged for my coffee.
Communication Story: Constipation
After we got home from church, and Pizza Hut (where we totally messed up Nina's sleeping schedule), Nina indicated she needed to go to the bathroom. I took her and she peed and then just sat there. Usually she askes to see toilet squirrel or have a piece of toilet paper to put into the bowl. But this time she motioned to me a motion like she wanted to be picked up. I asked if she wanted up, she shook her head no. So, I guess she wanted a hug. I scooted forward and she leaned against me and I hugged her. She started crying. I patted her back and said, "Hey, it's ok. You're alright." Splash, splash, splash. She managed to get some poop out, and it hurt. Poor baby. Hence the need for the fiber. After that, she indicated she was ready to get up. Good girl. She has not pooped her diaper since, I think, at least last Tuesday. Nearly a week. Nina turns 17 months old today.
Commander Data
The Director is walking around the copy area with his new bluetooth ear-size headset saying "Must Assimulate." And, while the thing may look a little dorky on him, as he's old and stuff, he did take a call when his cell phone was in his office.
Crap, I can't even remember what the borg used to say. But it's not "assimulate".
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
ACNeilson’s Perfect Family
Egad, where to start with this one. This ad is almost as bad as the one that RCI used for many years where the dynamic of the ad was “Look at the hot female bodies that Grandpa gets to touch. Whoo!” I deeply regret that after a little searching at their site, I could not locate that beach scene.
Well, the ideal Norteamericano family clearly dresses all in fleshy pink tones. They stand too close together. Mom is so youthful she looks like she could be her son’s girlfriend. But what puts it over the top for me is the Bread and the Van Tailgate.
Oh, I don’t know, the American flag gowing out of that John Kerry clone is pretty good too. Though Kerry would tuck. Though for the loose sexual symbology here, untucked is definitely the way to go.
But let’s talk about Junior’s Bread. It seems very erect, wouldn’t you say? It’s growing out of a box o’ plenty. That heavy cardboard box (clearly weighing 20ish lbs so as to make the virile pink shirted teen’s biceps flex a little) is a veritable cornucopia of lushness and penile imagery. Erect bread and bananas?
When viewing ad demographics and symbolism, however, you must realize they are trying to get in as much eye catching and subliminalness as possible, so please ignore the family relations since the Breadrection is pointed up young sis’s torso.
I’m puzzled about how I feel about the open van. Sure, we’re seeing into an intimate part of their lives by doing so, but I think it’s more a suggestion of active consumerism. Ah, we’ve just come from the epicurean market with a rich bounty and our helpful and cheery manchild is about to carry it into our 4000 square foot house.
Though, symbology and pink clothing aside it must also be noted that these outfits are timeless, except for sis. Sis is wearing a shirt which is tailored for, franky, a boy. The androgenoshirt is probably to downplay some of the overt sexual imagery.
Other little things to note. Females wear rings. 75% of male hands are hidden. Male hair is that of a company’s Vice President In Charge Of. The boy is clearly adopted, or his grandfather was King Unibrow and it skipped a generation. And who’s the most important role here? Teen boy. Strong, provider, huge brows, and such erect bread. Even his three flaccid bananas show that he is at ease.
Excuse Me?
Yahoo! TV Picks when describing some VH1 show "Greatest TV Sidekicks" says, "What would Laverne be without Shirley?" Uh, are we from the same dimension (Carl Jr is Hardee's here, All sodas are called Coke), but Laverne was the sidekick. Shirley OWED! And Lenny ended up being pretty cool when he joined Spinal Tap.
I Forgot How Much You Hate Me
I normally don't drive at rush hour. I have to be at work at 6:45 and I get off at 3:15, so I pretty much keep what I call School Bus Hours. And it's true. You wouldn't think that kids are being picked up for school a full hour and a half before school starts, but that is the way of bussing.
However, yesterday, I did have to drive at rush hour since I decided to go get some paint at Wal-Mart. The paint we're painting the walls with is Laura Ashley Pumpkin 4 from Lowe's, but since I'm doing a three painting Pollock ripoff for over the front windows, I got some Dutchboy Basil. But I didn't get it with Dutchboy base, I got it with their cheapo Colorboy, or whatever, base, since if I wanted Dutchboy I could always just add a quart of water to it since DB is like having sex in a canoe.
On the way home from Hel-Mart, which wasn't too hellish really since Nina behaved great and loooved playing with her new paint stirrers, I was, in fact, in rush hour traffic. And, I had forgotten how much the rush hour SUV and minivan demographic totally hates me.
First tailgater was when we were creeping along Highway 20 at 45 mph. It was a Jeep Liberty and they were resting their chin on my trunk. I thought, "I bet if they knew that I had an infant in here they would back off." So, I raised my right hand toward Nina in her carseat and she grabbed my fingers and shook my hand back and forth. As soon as Nina's hand appeared so that the tailgater could see it, Zip, the Liberty shrank into the background. Wow, that worked well.
Second tailgater was a Chevy Avalanche Special CFS (Compensating for Something) package (or lack thereof). We were stuck in traffic on Slaughter and they decided to poke me in the ear with their left headlight. I let Nina play with my hand a little, which is a novelty for her as generally when I'm driving I can't spare a limb (manual transmission), and sure enough, once we started moving they gave me about 50 yards, probably Shame Space due to their earlier car etiquette faux pas.
Hot Sauce Battle
Based on Nina's behavior last night, I think we should get her some Louisiana Hot Sauce for Christmas. I lazed out and ordered pizza from Dominos and Alison and I both like hot sauce on our pizza. Nina wanted to touch the bottles. Nope, sorry.
She decides to throw a fit and starts hitting herself in the head, which I personally can't stand. I take her hand and give it a little squeeze and say, "No." More crying...but then...swoosh. Nina throws a napkin at me.
And let me break from the narrative to let you know about my 16 month old wonder. She's a veritable Nolan Ryan of throwing stuff at people. If you are six feet away from her, and she wanted to hit you in the head with, say, a puzzle piece, she could.
Now, I thought her feeble napkin throw was funny and I did let a little Haha out. But when the puzzle piece hit me in the head. Well, that hurt. I threw it back at her and it bounced off her chest.
Now, let me acknowledge that I was doing this all wrong. I shouldn't treat a 16 month old like an equal and act like Alison and Tom do when they're, well, around each other. It was immature of me. Besides, Nina had access to paint stirrers.
So, after she finished with her possibly fake crying reaction to me throwing the puzzle piece back, she came at my face with the paint stirrer. The paint stirrer that I had given her, as a gift, to entertain her at Wal-mart. Swish, she wielded it like a club toward my face. I pre-blocked and she went for a throw instead. It hit my left shoulder and she went for a face slap.
My right hand went up to block, and I knocked Nina over. (And she only managed to hit my right shoulder, not my face.)
Nina cried. Alison scooped her up before I could to comfort her. I was the bad guy. Boo. Hiss. I apologized to Nina and retreated to shave my head. Nina continued to hassle Alison, but by the time I got out of the shower she was back to her normal bubbly-until-she's-screaming self.
Also, it must be noted that this crying was crying, sure, but she wanted us to redefine our definition of crying when she pooped in her diaper after we had put her down for the night. It was the sound of a fresh bucket of piranhas and weasels fighting. But, change the diaper and Cybil switched back to the perfect baby again and went to bed without a peep.
Goats and Raccoons
Labman has exotic birds, and sometimes raccoons come out of the woods and eat them in a horrible way (like pulling a entire crane through a one inch hole, eating as they go, while it's alive). His dog died a while back of old age and she wasn't much of a deterrent, but at least the dog presence was there as a mild deterrant. Now, the birds are getting attacked on a regular basis. The lazy cat he got does nothing.
When I was in the lab, looking at a calendar with a mountain goat on it, I thougth, "You know, if I were going to have some strange animal as a pet, I'd like a goat." Then I thought, "I bet a goat will keep those raccoons away." So, I mentioned this to him and now I'm going to do some research.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Man, Look At What I'm Missing Out On
I found Bevnet when I searched on Pepsi Holiday Spice, which Bevnet thought was better than normal Pepsi, but sucked. After reading a few BevNET Product Rankings, I need to get me some Afri-Cola. The finest of all colas.
It does sound great too. Cola nut, obviously, and sweetened with real sugar, not high fructose corn syrup, and darkened with "black sugar". I think, since they say it's not sweet, they mean Black Strap Molasses.
Nicknames at Work
Today I found out that Bruce has a nickname around here. It drives him crazy too. His co-workers call him Gatoraide because he always talks about how he has played fast pitch softball for fifteen years. They joke that he was always the waterboy, and thus Gatoraide.
I decided that more of the operators here at the plant needed nicknames. Sure, we have Dude, but literally, that's what he goes by. His real name is Larkin, and while that may be a hip name in 1883, I totally understand going by something else. And I believe Dude was using that before The Big Lebowski came out.
I have had a few nicknames. Frogboy is the only one that comes to mind immediately. It's because some frog specialist in California had his picture in some trade magazine talking about how water pollution is making their frogs unhappy, laconic, and generally pining for the fjords. The thing is, though, this guy looked quite a bit like me. So, I was frog boy for four or more years. Greg also used to call me Charlie, but I wasn't sure if that was continuation of him saying I looked like Charles Manson (I don't) or referencing that I replaced a guy named Charlie.
Charlie was a bit of a character and was let go due to his habit of spending all his work hours at strip clubs and doing no work at all. When I was hired, when a person would ask, "Is he Charlie's replacement?" Greg would say, "I hope not."
Labman here at work is also known as The Birdman, due to him keeping cranes and breeding blue macaws. TC has the nickname Stevie Wonderbread. Los Manos is called Dano by me quite often. And though Mountain Man doesn't technically have a nickname (besides me calling him that here) if you were to say "Hey, Bubba" I think he would be the one to reply.
Oh, and I made up a quick nickname for Dusty. He will now be known, at least here, as DY Jelly.
Monday, November 22, 2004
Cold Info
Though I didn't bother to correct my mom's email where she said that it takes 7 to 10 days to start showing symptoms of the common cold, I'll do so here. From Wayne Schmidt's Cold Page:
It's possible that symptoms could appear in as little as ten hours after being exposed, but it usually takes two days. The length of the incubation period depends on whether it was a massive exposure (millions of cold viruses inhaled directly into the sinus cavity) or minor (one virus particle lodged in a nostril.) Also, each type of cold virus affects each person in a slightly different way. Some viruses are more aggressive and have more pronounced symptoms. Some people don't exhibit symptoms as violently as others.
Bad Edit?
Normally, my editing of photographs taken with our digital camera amounts to removing trash from the side of a pond or pasting more asphalt into a missing triangle after rotating a slightly crooked picture. So, what do you think of this change...too tacky? Go to that page and click next.
Professional Buyer
For a person who allegedly doesn't like to shop, and really, since it's me we're talking about, I really don't like to shop, I sure like Christmas shopping. Even/Especially when it's someone else's money.
By Friday, Alison and I had finished buying everything for everyone except for Corey and Tiana, which we don't have email addresses for so we couldn't find out what they wanted. Actually, we had to go back to Hot Topic for Alison to get Tom a shirt there on Saturday, and we did also get my Dad a trendy warm hat on Sunday.
But most of the Sunday shopping, all $200+ of it, was doing Christmas shopping for Alison's mom since her foot isn't getting any better. It's not that she can't heal, it's that her body is rejecting the metal screws holding her bones together. The doctor wants to keep them in for at least a year. She understands that the pain will continue until they are removed. But, hey, she's almost halfway through that year, eh?
We really cleaned up at Target for Al's mom, but did resort to ordering the Bonz Tyrannosaurus (small) and Dinosaur Big Box off Amazon, sans free shipping since it was from Toys 'r Us. We did actually go to the Toys R' Us here, but it was an hellhole of people and they didn't have either item.
Nina's Sick
One of Nina's worse habits has to be chewing on shopping carts. There is a metal bar she can lean over and put into her mouth when she's sitting in the cart's seat. Earlier, it was just kind of disgusting. Now, it's irritating since she's now sick. She didn't sleep much last night, and Alison slept less. Even I, who sleep upstairs during these trying times, didn't get much sleep early on since I kept going down stairs to help.
Nightmare Info
Nina also had a few nightmares early last night. I went in both times and check on her. I picked her up and held her and talked to her. She was crying as I told her that we were here, Mommy and Daddy, and she was safe. Then I said, "You're home. We're at home." Crying stopped. I think her nightmares might be set in some other location. Actually, considering how scared she was of Hot Topic, maybe there.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Sneaking In
It is a little known fact that when www.blogger.com is slow as Christmas, that you can use the button on the Google toolbar to "blog this" and get right in. I don't know if it's another server or what, but that's what I'm doing now.
Mouth Kissers
Or more specifically Baby Mouth Kissers. Or, even more specifically, The Philosophy Behind not Being a Baby Mouth Kisser.
(ahem)
My parents are baby mouth kissers. Mom and Dad's default mode for kissing Nina was to mouth kiss her. Mom and Dad mouth kissed us, as kids that is. No mouth kissing as adolescents or adults. Why? Because it would be awkward. And, in fact, with the disappearance of the ability to kiss so disappeared nearly all physical affection. We do the kind of patting hugs that NFL players do.
Now, I'm not saying that I'd like to start having hugging sessions with my parents. Far from it. I was raised in a very non-touchy household.
But there's the thing. Alison is from an non-baby mouth kissing family. They kiss each other on the cheek. Not just kids. All the time, whenever. That's how they kiss each other. They didn't have to stop when the kids started turning into adults and it became awkward. It didn't become awkward. Because they weren't snogging each other in the first place.
Now, I'll give my mother credit where credit is due. When Alison let her feelings on the subject be known with the ever so subtle "Nina kiss Nanny and Papa on the cheek bye-bye", my mom picked up on it immediately and gave Nina a kiss on the cheek. Dad did not pick up on it.
Not only the whole altering-the-family-dynamic-forever thing, but also, there is a stomach flu going around. Let's not have Dad and Mom, who hang in totally different circles than Alison and I do, give their collection of germs to Nina. After all, Nina, Alison and I are pretty closely knit. I have to stick my finger in Nina's mouth to put on tooth gel to ease the pain of those pesky molars that are coming in. And Alison is just awash in Nina germs.
Not of the least importance is that Alison has already used up all her sick leave for the year. It's assigned in January and that's all you get. If she is sick, it's leave without pay. And that would totally suck.
Flinchworthy Mouth Touching
One of the most flinchworthy things my parents used to do (note: past tense due to me getting on to them repeatedly) was to roll their tongues and then encourage Nina to poke her finger into the tongue cylinder they'd made. Eeeehch. Not only nasty in a bacteria transfer way, as if Nina wouldn't be putting her hand in her mouth anytime soon, but also freaky pseudosexualness registers immediately in my mind. Geeeh!
Grandparents can spoil children, sure, but not by doing smooching on them in ways that are considered inappropriate by their parents. Heck, give her some ice cream if you want to spoil her.
Hurty Stomach Cause Discovered
Alison's corn chowder she made last night let us know who was right in the discussion of whether Nina has horrible nights after visiting my parent's because of massive overstimulation or because of food being shoveled into her mouth.
See, Nina loves soup. And so I fed her quite a little bit of the corn chowder. Not too much, just about 1.5 ounces. But, the corn in the soup, creamed corn, was too much for Nina's little system and rather than being broken down prior to the large intestines, well, it broke down in them and gassed her up like the Hindenburg. Poor thing was crying out every 20 or so minutes. Around 9 she did manage to have a monster burp, which helped for about an hour. And it gradually tapered off as the night wore on.
So, Nanny and Papa can overstimulate Nina at will. I knew it wasn't that, as I've had her bouncing off the walls for an hour before and she slept like a rock.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Unsleeper
Monday night we went over to my parent's house. Nina had a great time, as she usually does. Mom shoveled food into her mouth until she was about to burst, then they got her into a 40 minute sustained giggle fit. Normally, I wouldn't mind, except that Nina doesn't seem to sleep well on Monday nights. It was my parents being on a cruise for two Mondays that actually clued me into this bigtime.
Alison thinks it's overstimulation. Maybe, but I couldn't sleep either and I, too, ate way too much food. We'll test Alison's theory this next Monday. I hope she's right as this next week will be really difficult on Nina since we have multiple Thanksgivings, some requireing 4 hr one way drives. But, it's more important to test Alison's theory first, since if she's wrong it won't be my fault.
How To Hit A 75 ft Concrete Pole
Earlier in the week, I got to see a Porsche Boxter who'd smacked into a 75 foot concrete pole. Amateur. Wednesday, a dumptruck hit one and took it out. Unfortunately, this was on the road we need to use to get going north on the Parkway from where I work. So, for most of the day, you had to go south quite a bit and do a U-turn. That U-turn was very popular and ended up backing up the Parkway. Bummer. Though I would have loved to have seen the actual wreck.
Karma
Whatever foul deeds Alison has been up to have caught up to her. Tuesday after work she came out to her car and had a flat tire. Her boss changed it, and Alison felt shame that she didn't know how to do such a simple procedure. Yeah, you = girl.
Not only that, but once her boss got the spare on, he had to give her a jumpstart.
Then, when Alison got home, I took her car out to get a new battery at Autozone. The car needed gas, but I couldn't turn the car off, but I also needed to check the pressure in the little spare. Only 20 lbs. I pumped it up to 55. I figure that's good. My car's takes 60, but Alison's tire said see the manual and the manual remained silent on the matter.
I got a new battery and Alison took the car by Wal-Mart where she, against my wishes, got a lifetime balancing last week and needed to take the car in there anyway since, well, they didn't balance one of the wheels. They patched the tire and it took one hour and 45 minutes. They must have forgotten to balance the tire, as it's still hoppy and there there no weight on the side of it. Sure, the cheap tire might have a slipped belt, but I'd think that would manifest itself at all speeds, not just at 30 and 60.
Spending Spree
I've been going crazy on a spending spree for Christmas stuff. I don't know who reads this, so I can't say what I got for my dad, Kelley, or my Mom, though I feel confident that Mom and Dad don't read this. Not big money, but big gifts was in the form of books for Brad today. I got him Dragonriders of Pern (3 book volume), Ender's Game, Day of the Triffids, The Elric Saga Part 1 (3 book volume), Eye of the World, Split Infinity/Blue Adept/Juxtaposition (individual books, seems the three in one I had as a teen and my mom obviously threw out is very rare now), and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 4025 pages for $40.23, yeah, the shipping ate me alive since some books were for around 20 cents.
Most notable spree would be the stuff I bought for myself. See, as of Tuesday, Amazon still hadn't shipped The Urbz to me. Not only that, but it wasn't even in the "Awaiting Shipment" classification that I can't cancel. I preordered this on October 19th. I cancelled it, saved myself $6 shipping, and went and bought it at Target. Along with my bi-weekly Amazon budget and a $10 bonus that Alison added to it, which I forgot the reason, I blew some cashola on Amazon again. I got Master Blaster (which I know nothing about), Gladiator: Something Something, the original Syphon Filter, T'ai Fu, that Charles Barkley political book (he's going to be our Governor someday), and Mark of Kri.
But, suffice it to say that my mom has her main gifts. Dad is almost taken care of. Kelley needs a little more. Brad is done, bigtime. We know what we're getting Christine. I emailed Jessica (now considered an adult, and I drew her name) asking what she'd like. Leeann is taking care of our Damian gift in exchange for us taking care of her Brad gift. And we just need to know what Grace and Mac would like. Oh, and Corey and Tiana. And Tom just wants another cool T-shirt. He was very pleased with his "Talk Nerdy to Me" shirt we got him.
Bridge Street
I was looking though my old blog from February and noticed my link to The World Famous Bridge Street, which has of course not been built yet. It's in my freakin' back yard is why I know about it.
Past my subdivision, through a cotton field, past Adtran and the other Dilbert incubators in Research Park, lies a plot of land that will some day be the superfantastico Bridge Street.
I personally think it'll never get built.
Notable is that the cinema is moved to the back, there is now a Performance Hall, more parking, and all possible restaurants are now just labeled as Lease Space.
If they do build it, I just hope that they don't hire the young vain kids to operate the projectors at the theater. They won't wear their glasses and I can't stand having 20/16 eyes and having some 20/50 dork saying "It looks fine to me." Aarrg.
Secret Shatner
A secret link to listening to William Shatner's *kick butt new Album Hasbeen. Thanks to bradf.com for originally linking to this MSN anomoly.
* Ok, the more I listen to this the more it's not so much kick butt but just plain freaky Shatner. It's no Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, but the second track...and I suspect all the others, really aren't as good as the first track Common People.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Mislanguageable
The other day, as I was watching one of Nina's shows, either Blue's Clues or Play With Me Sesame, after the show, Moosehead Moose and Z (a bird) were going on about getting books from the library. But that's not what Moosehead said the second time he mentioned it. He said "liberry." Alison and I backed up the replay and sure enough, Moosehead Moose was telling our kids to go to the liberry.
Later, in my car, I was listening to 100.7 which happens to be some NPR channel. Normally I don't listen to NPR, but since I got a new battery last week, I'm taking my time and finding out all the different stations in the area when I set up my 18 presets. When the flat toned announcer made some announcement about something, it was, sure enough, at the Huntsville Public Liberry.
Another NPRism, and I think this is improper English, is that they said that some lady was "alleged for helping the resistance." Now, I can agree that she's an "alleged resistance helper", but I'm not sure if you can just be alleged for something. Hmm.
Viva La Pringles
Last week when the entire family unit went Wal-Marting for groceries, I picked up both a can of Pringles Sour Cream and Onion chips and the new competition, Lay's StaX Sour Cream and Onion chips. I had a little taste test.
The Stax are crunchier. But the Pringles are crispier. The Pringles are about three times thinner than the Stax and it makes quite a difference in the initial feel. Since I don't prefer a crunch over a crisp, really no chip was beating out the other in this category. That said, since the Stax was bulkier, it was more prone to feeling like you had processed mush in your mouth during the chewing of it. Since I don't stick three Pringles in my mouth at once, I don't have that problem with the Pringles.
The Pringles clearly won in the quality of flavor powder. It had more of a bite to it. Both flavors were acceptable, while not tasting like sour cream or onion really, but back to back the Pringles clearly won.
In the "What Will Alison Eat" test, it was discovered yesterday that Pringles were the clear winner, as there was only about an inch of the Stax missing, and the Pringles can was not to be found unless I went dumpster diving in our garbage can.
So, Pringles won. No surprise, really. And of note to the NAFTA hating demographic, Stax are made in Mexico.
William Tecumseh Sherman
I just found out about this cool General from the Civil war. He was on the US side (also known as the North by traitorous Southerners). And is most notable, in my opinion, for giving us the phrase "War is hell." He also said, in regards to him being made President, "If nominated, I will not run. If elected, I will not serve." The other nice quote he had was "If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast." Also, Sherman basically won the Civil war, thus preserving the US, by cutting off the supply lines of the rebel troops.
And yes, maybe I'm being a little baiting with all my "traitor" and "rebel" talk, but if the confederacy wasn't about being traitorous and destroying los Estados Unidos, then what was it about? Being a racist bastard maybe?
Monday, November 15, 2004
Schadenfreude
Normally, I am not one to laugh openly at one's misfortune. However, a car accident on Airport Road was just too ironic.
The car was traveling toward Airport road from that road that's next to the Chevron station. Somehow, it managed to lose traction on the back end of the car and had a one-car rear-end collision with a 75 foot tall concrete pole.
TC's theory on how the car managed to do this was that he was coming off the side street too fast and, once he realized this, applied his brakes making the weight of the car shift to the front wheels. Then, with the weight of the entire car balanced on the front, the back end swung around the side that was easiest for it and smacko, pole time.
I think TC might be right, but my first thought was that he was gunning it from a stop and didn't understand the strength of the car. While the back wheels were propelling it forward rapidly and baby-driver was thinking he was James Bond, the lack of traction on the back wheels made the rear heavy car swing around and smacko, pole time.
It was the body language and expression of the 22ish year old male driver and the type of the car made it humorous. He was pouting because he just wrecked his (or daddy's) Porsche Boxter. Duh hur hur.
Almost Karma
Two minutes later, as I'm driving down the road to work, a light blue 1988 Toyota Crapmobile pulled out from a stop sign in front of my van. My antilock brakes, which normally I don't really like the concept of, worked wonderfully and I didn't kill her or even total her car by putting a tiny dent in it. As an added bonus, all loose objects in my van can be conveniently found toward the front now.
Oh, and schadenfreude is pronounced SHAHD-n-froy-duh, not SHAY-den-froyd.
The B isn't Bovis
M. Bovis doesn't put the B in BCG.
BCG, or bacille Calmette-Guérin, is a vaccine for tuberculosis (TB) disease. BCG is used in many countries, but it is not generally recommended in the United States because of the low risk of infection with M. tuberculosis, the variable effectiveness of the BCG vaccine against pulmonary TB, and the vaccines interference with tuberculin reactivity.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Nina's First US Haircut
As horrible as it looks in that picture, things actually went extremely well. No blood was shed, but Nina did cry the entire time. She lost a little of her curly locks in back due to him having to even the hair out. It seems that when they cut her hair before we got her, they cut it at the hairline at the front and back and didn't touch the sides, making her have some odd hair. Here's a picture from when we were still in Nanchang:
She's My Hero
Nina went to the first birthday party of one of her male friends. Nina loved sliding down the slide they had in their back yard, and my arms are feeling it today. Most notable about the party had to have been when the guest of honor had a high chair failure and did a four foot faceplant onto concrete. Babies heads hitting concrete is a horrible sound.
Well, Nina was struggling to get to Baby Smashface. She was hustling through the crowd. I had to grab her since she didn't respond to "Nina, no, you can't help."
But it's nice that she tried to get there for him.
The Great Communicator
While Nina was in the toddler nursery and we were down in church service, Alison and I heard a cry that sounded like Nina's voice. Alison went to check, and it wasn't her, but she did get to see an interesting exchange.
One of the twins, very rambunctious and bordering on bandito brothers, walked up to Nina who was sitting on a rocking desk thing and holding a ball. The twin sized her up and looked like he was going to take her ball. Nina preemptively patted him on the stomach and the toy-gap crisis was over. He toddled away.
Closure for Accidental Foreshadowing
Oh, and Baby Smashface was fine too. His face broke his fall.
Friday, November 12, 2004
It Puts The B in BCG
Or so says Alison. Meaning that M. bovis might have been something that Nina was vaccinated against and that's why it's in her bloodstream. This info, or conjecture, does nothing for my tension headache I've been nursing since I found out.
Mycobacterium Bovis
Here, read these snippets I gleaned from this New Zealand govt doc about Mycobacterium Bovis in Milk:
This is one of two species of the “tubercle bacilli” (the other is M. tuberculosis) that are able to cause tuberculosis in humans. Unlike M. tuberculosis, M. bovis infects cattle and other animals and so the disease can be spread to humans via contaminated milk. M. tuberculosis is the most common cause of human tuberculosis. The proportion of cases caused by M. bovis is significant in developing countries, where animal tuberculosis is widely distributed, control measures are not consistently applied and pasteurisation is rarely practiced.
Humans are a reservoir of the organism, but human to human infection occurs only rarely.
M. bovis infection was a major public health problem when this organism was transmitted to humans in unpasteurised milk from infected cows. The introduction of pasteurisation of milk and milk products helped to eliminate this problem. Exposure to the organism via milk appears to be the only significant foodborne exposure. The UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food website information regarding M. bovis cites unpasteurised milk as the exposure route, and also states that there are no recorded instances of humans catching bovine tuberculosis from meat.
Tuberculosis is the general name for a group of diseases associated with the presence of Mycobacterium spp., of which pulmonary (lung) tuberculosis is the most important. Although it usually affects the lungs it can affect almost any organ, usually spreading via the lymphatic vessels. Various manifestations of the disease are known as scrofula and consumption. The organism is less commonly found in muscle tissue, or in parts of the body with few blood vessels.
Infected people may not develop symptoms as their immune system can usually control the bacterium, sometimes throughout life. However inactive bacteria can become active again later in life, particularly if the immune system is weakened. Reactivation of M. bovis infections acquired prior to widespread milk pasteurisation is a significant contributor to the current incidence of infection with this organism.
Symptoms: Fever, chills, weight loss, abdominal pain, diarrhoea or constipation. Other symptoms depend on the organs infected. Symptoms may last for months or years.
People Affected: Immunosuppressed people are especially at risk of either acute infection or reactivation of an infection acquired in the past. In countries where infection is uncontrolled children are at greater risk of infection.
Long Term Effects: The course of the disease is long term and may result in death.
Treatment: Multiple antibiotic treatment is required to be administered over protracted periods. This is because the organism may have antibiotic resistance and this will not be apparent for long periods because of the slow growth of the organism.
Dr. Fjord gave us a call last night. M. bovis was present in the blood taken from Nina a few weeks ago. After doing some reading, basically, Nina's fine, except if she ever gets a little immunosupressed, to what degree I'm not clear (staying in the rain too long? Old age? Lupus?) then this stuff will wake up and give her TB.
Crap.
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Baby Clothing Gender Code 101
Yesterday, Alison's mom had a doctor's appointment or something so Alison got a Nina break from work. They went to Wal-Mart, as Alison is having a hair crisis without her Friz Eaze, and when they got there Nina was out. Like as in totally asleep.
Nina stayed asleep and Alison wheeled her around in the cart, supporting her head with her hand, and getting all the things that she needed to buy.
People were commenting, "Oh, she's precious." But it really bugged Alison when someone obviouisly took the safe road and said "It's just a darling."
Alison told me this over the phone. So I asked what Nina had been wearing. Purple turtleneck with frills, jeans, and her Nikes. Ah, I see the problem. The lady couldn't tell if Nina was a boy or girl. Alison said that the frill on the turtleneck should have been enough. But no, before we got Nina I was all about dressing her like an adult female would be able to dress, but it's just not true until you get some gender specific hair (meaning longer hair for a girl.)
You have to follow the code. Pink is the big one that everyone knows. Or any shirt with a vehicle on it is a boy's shirt. Some basics:
Color
Pink is definately a girl color. Yellow and purple are more girl colors that boy colors, but if it is a bold purple, it could be considered boyish. Denim, though it should be neutral, is boyish. White is neutral, as is black. But a baby dressed all in black (and yes, Alison has done that) looks like the boy child of Andy Whorhol.
Pattern
Broader horizontal or vertical stripes on a shirt is a boy thing. Tight horzontal stripes on a shirt is usually a girl thing. Tight vertical stripes is usually a boy thing. Tight stripes on leggings, usually horizontal, is a girl thing. Broad stripes on pants is a carnie, clown, or hobo thing.
Texture
Fuzziness and fake fur are for gals. So is glitteryness. Extremely broadly woven sweaters, I at least like to think are female, but I've seen a Gap ad with a boy wearing the rainbow sweater. And really, 18 months old is too young to label the kid as a crossdresser.
So, when I picked up Nina, sure enough, she was dressed like a boy. The 2 mm micro ruffle would require you to lift Nina's chin to see it. Once we got home, I changed the jeans out for a tightly horizontal striped legging with both a lighter purple, pink, and a heathered magenta in it. Then she looked like a female.
And then, she threw a fit. Mainly because she has two molars coming in at once and I wanted to give her tylenol and tooth gel. Ends up she was hungry too. Oops. By the time Alison got home, I had Nina watching a Blue's Clues on sign languange, which was really cool, actually. If I hadn't been able to get Nina to stop crying, I would have put her in her crib and then gone and sat out on the driveway waiting for Alison to get home.
Monday, November 08, 2004
Kurtbot
My next door neighbor Kurt's 2004 Halloween costume. This years model was much lighter than last year, with the added bonus that it didn't catch on fire. However, exhaust fans, I think six of them, were required so that Kurt could smoke in there.
Patheticwood
The people who made our subdivision (Breland/Adams) are really up on the wood streets. I live on Postwood. In my subdivision there is also Ironwood, Harvestwood, Willowwood, Sandywood, Yellowwood, and Sugarwood. As if to prove themselves justified in making such horrible wood based names, we also have a street called Rebecca Pines. We are not quite sure what Rebecca pines for, but I'm sure it's a better system of naming streets.
The saddest lil' wood name popped up in six foot stylized script on a billboard advertising Adams' latest venture: Legendwood. That is just the worst.
Legendwood isn't in my mapping program yet so I can't cite lame names from it's subdivision.
Shipping Race
When Amazon shipped me San Andreas, they shipped it the Saturday before it's Tuesday release date and I got it on Wednesday. Ratchet & Clank III released last Tuesday. And rather than it being shipped early so it would get to me near the release date, as I'd expect when I preorder stuff, it didn't. Not only that, but I waited all last week, checking back at Amazon's Wheres-My-Stuff page, and still, it didn't ship. You'd think they'd have the curtsey to ship it the release date or, at latest, the day after. Nope, I got an email saying they shipped it yesterday, Sunday, which means today.
Now, The Urbz comes out tomorrow, and if I'm lucky they'll ship it today or something. Let's see which gets here first, R&C which was released last week or Urbz, released tomorrow. Both were preordered from Amazon.
Also of note, while I was waiting and checking up at Amazon, my Ratchet & Clank order couldn't be cancelled because it was "about to ship." But, it didn't ship and during last week the price dropped from $39 to $33. Why a game that has been given only perfect reviews by every game review place would drop it's price is beyond me.
Front Mission 3
Yes, I'm still playing Front Mission 3 and I'm determined to finish it before I start playing The Urbz. Yes, GTA:SA and all the other games that I have stacked up waiting for me to break open the plastic (Jak II, Ghost Recon, Combat: Desert Storm, Metal Arms, etc) will all have to wait. That includes Ratchet & Clank when it shows up, so really, no need to gripe.
In FM3, my mechs border on godlike at times. Nothing like seeing my four mechs take on 20 or so enemy helecopter, tank, mech, armored train, etc, and come out shining. Particulary nice is the character Ryogo and his mech N(oisy) Cricket. Often, this black painted ubermech will have it's legs on the verge of collapse, have it's sheild arm blown off, and still take down five more mechs.
I also made a mech out of spare parts before I sold all the captured Mechs that I'd forced to surrender. I just put a decent core, a good targeting arm, a light but robust shield arm, and some mediocre legs, a missle launcher and a maching gun on it, and named it Red Rover. Crud, this mishmash of enemy mechs totally rocks.
I only play this game when Nina is asleep though. So I only get in about two hours on most nights, but I did get maybe five on each of Saturday and Sunday. I figure I might get finished around Thursday. That is Thursday, February 24, 2005.
Oh, and I highly recommend it. It's a PS1 game, so you can probably mooch a system of a cousin or something.
And, while I'm drowning in games, I'm about to order Front Mission 4 this week. It's a forced allowance, see. I pretty much have to.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Washed the Car
Ah, I remember fondly the days when I had enough time to actually detail my car on a regular basis. All I did this time was:
1. Clean window exteriors with Eagle One (EO) 20/20 and a microfiber cloth
2. Apply RainX to all window exteriors, including the plastic rear window
3. Clean tires and wheels with EO A2Z.
4. Washed car with Turtle Wax ZipWax Wash and sheepskin mitt.
5. Dryed car with Target brand Absorber clone PVA spongecloth.
6. Stopped to take pictures of car.
7. Used Armor All (AA) Original as tire shine. It's not too shiny.
Oh, and I know some people will say, "Armor All isn't good for tires. Sure, you can use it on them, but something like 303 Aerospace Protectant is so much better because it preserves your tire better. You'll still get UV damage with the AA."
Well, my reponse to that is if you have a car you never drive, a garage queen, and thus you never wear the tires out, then by all means, pay $25 for 8 oz of 303. But I've only had this set of tires for a little under two year and they need to be replaced soon, so who cares. Also, I buy AA in half gallons for $9. I also buy my QD (Meguiars Final Detail) in gallons for $15. But I didn't QD any.
Well, I did two spots on Alison's car since birds pooped on it.
Yeah, boring post. But it bumps that "neocon" rant of mine down, right?
Friday, November 05, 2004
There’s Nothing Wrong With Capitalism
Dang it! I cannot escape the rabidness of the people who lost the election and their spewing hatespeak. So, since the topic has been raised, let me say a few things that I feel.
In Los Estados Unidos, there is no law requiring capitalism. The free market is due to freedom. If you are a producer of goods, you can price them as you see fit, and if you are a buyer, you can peruse the market and get the best price and/or quality match for yourself. So, why do some people, namely the left, and probably more far left really, talk about how bad capitalism is. The only way to get rid of capitalism is to remove the citizen’s ability to choose what they want to do with their money.
I think some people confuse consumerism with capitalism. And yes, I think most of us agree that the US has materialism problems. I know I spend too much time with my video games and sometimes I feel bad that my convertible sports car isn’t the perfect fit for my duties as a dad. I wonder if people think badly of me because of it. However, whatever they think, it’s my car and it would be economically unsound to trade it off now.
Who is Who?
And speaking of video games, it was Joe Lieberman who tried to get Mortal Kombat banned, and a bit too late since after MK3 it was pretty much downhill. If he’d just realized that the devil he was looking for was really over at Rockstar Games in the form of Grand Theft Auto, well, quite frankly, he would never get his way, at least I hope, because I’m just not fond of censorship. For those who don’t know, Lieberman is a liberal fellow. A democrat person.
Well, since it’s not the conservatives going after the video game censorship niche, maybe it was them going after censorship of music. Tipper Gore, though married to Al Gore, must secretly be pulling for the GOP, right? No. In fact, the more conservative you are, the more you don’t want the govt messing with stuff.
The reason that conservatives get labeled with this tends to be that we go to church. And certain church groups are against, oh, Harry Potter or rock music because of “the devil beat.” But frankly, as a religious person, these people are nutjobs. They’ll put their 4 year old kid on Santa Claus’s lap, tell their kids Jesus was born on December 24th, Zero AD, and think extra-human powers are fine if it’s Hulk or Spiderman (science based powers) or Superman (alien). Harry Potter is bad because the power source is not extrahuman. Heck, why are Jedi exempt? And I’m speaking in a non-midichlorian Jedi way.
Iglesia y Estado
Liberals don’t tend to go to church. Well, unless it’s right before election time and then they’ll drag their pasty white asses into black churches to try to stir up votes. This hypocrisy is directly against their stance on separation of church and state.
And I wholeheartedly agree with the separation of church and state. I really wish dumb old ex-judge Roy Moore wasn’t allegedly on the Republican side. What did he expect when he made a monument and plopped it on govt property? They’ll remove it. Heck, if I made a giant Mickey Mouse statue and put it at the state courthouse, and they towed it off, I wouldn’t make the claim that the govt hated Mickey. It’d be because I put crap on their lawn.
I’m against allowing religion in state sponsored schools because I don’t want the scientologist teaching my kid about body thetans and Emporer Xenu, or the Mormons teaching them about Planet KOLOB, or the Baptists telling them that my music is devil music, that Jesus was a European white who wore expensive purple robes in front of poor people, and that anyone who says “Save me” gets in heaven. As for my nitpick on the purple robes, check your bible. I only see him wearing one once. The Roman soldiers put it on him to mock him when they were beating the crap out of him.
Robin’ (the) Hood
Liberalism is all about taking money from those who are successful to help out groups of people who may or may not need the money because they can’t cut it. Liberals are usually racist in that they believe that black people don’t have what it takes. Unfortunately, this belief is believed by too many people. Racists on both side of the fence. Housing projects are the modern interpretation of Indian Reservations. Just keep the blacks away. And the liberal org Planned Parenthood, America's favorite abortion referral service, considers one of it's main goals tackling the "black overpopulation problem." Handouts don't help the poor, unless your handing out jobs or education.
One thing that America desperately needs that they are against is the testing of public school teachers to make sure they know what they are doing. How can you defend a stance like that? Wouldn’t you have to want to keep the poor uneducated to have that stance?
Empty Words
But at least it’s a stance, I suppose. Most of the bumper sticker liberals around here are of the “Free Tibet” variety. True, it’d be nice if communist China wasn’t terrorizing Tibet, but your bumper sticker on the back of your Saab convertible isn’t going to do squat.
I could go on. But I’ll just say this one last thing. As a conservative employed in the environmental field, I see air pollution being overplayed tremendously in liberal circles. Water pollution, a much more important matter, is overlooked almost totally. But then again, maybe they believe that our current laws are sufficient. But what it really seems to be is that you can scare people with air more. It’s much more expensive to quantify pollutants in the air.
Conclusion of Rant
When I was young, I thought I was a liberal, until I found out that they are borderline totalitarian. They want to regulate your thoughts and what you do with your money. When they lose elections, they decry the democratic process. Why? Because they believe that they are the only smart people and that Americans as a whole are stupid.
Hmm, have we heard that line this week much?
Etc
I apologize for this unorganized political rant. If you check my archives, you’ll see that I keep politics out of my blog. But I just can’t stand it when these people pull the Nazi, babykiller, starve the old rhetoric comes out. Heck, it’s a democracy. We outnumber you. It’s that simple.
Oh, and I have a degree in communications specializing in rhetorical theory, so maybe I’m a little sensitive. I’ve also wondered why people don’t mine commercials lying to them.
And before 9/11, I guess I tended to lean libertarian, but I’m not going to vote that way.
我无法讲或读中文
我家名字意味獾人。我指定的名字是标记。我结婚13 年。我有一个女儿从中国。我的女儿的祖父母居住在我们的城市并且我们开心。我只曾经访问了中国。我停留了二个星期。我认为中国和喜欢返回。在17 年, 我退休以退休金。我能然后居住任何地方。
Almost Gamed Out
Tragic as it may seem, when I have Ratchet & Clank III and The Urbz shipping within the next week, I might be getting gamed out. Sometimes, and this usually happens late January and might continue for months, I’ll play too much playstation and I’ll just need a break from it.
I’ve really enjoyed Front Mission 3. I rank it in the top 10 (or 20 just to be safe) Playstation games, well, as far as pleasing me is concerned. I think I’m about halfway through half of it. I say “halfway through half” because such a small thing as going to a construction site or not early on in the game makes you take a totally different path through the giant mech espionage war.
They’re Always After Me Lucky Charms
I got the Bradygames 272 page GTA:SA strategy guide yesterday. When I first got it, I thought, “Wow, this is really comprehensive. This may be the first GTA that I get 100% on.” But then, after playing for about two hours and accomplishing very little, maybe not.
So far I’m still in Los Santos, the Las Angeles of the game. It’s huge. It’s only one of four or five cities in the game. As an example, using the guide I saw that there was a “country rifle” located in the middle of the boonies. It turns out is was actually in the backyard of a very nice house overlooking the Valley. Great view. But a total pain to get there from my sad little barrio. Round trip was about 30 minutes drive. And yes, I had to take interstates. This game is Huge.
The guide shows you where all the clothing stores are and what clothes they sell. Included is how each item of clothing raises your respect and sex appeal stat. I can’t wait for Victim to be accessible so I can get a biker jacket. However cool I might want to dress my little gangta, since I’m in the Grove Street gang, and our color is green, I get the most respect if I wear green.
Currently, my guy wears just green shoes and green track pants. Since I’ve worked him out so he looks like Mr. Universe, but covered with badly done gang tattoos, he eschews shirts. He also keeps his head shaved and has a goatee, as all good Americans should.
But with all the green, to get my respect up, I think I’ll wear the green shoes, green track pants, I’ll get a green shirt, and the green beanie. Sure, I’ll look the fool, but my stats will be better.
And who am I to judge looking the fool? My favorite getup for him to wear sometimes includes his “Helmut”, one of those German spike topped helmets, and his Green Hornet mask.
Then Make Like Johnny Depp
I have to hand it to Johnny Depp, in a way, when he’s sick of the US, he doesn’t whine and bitch like, oh, nearly everyone I usually read their blog, he just moves to France. I wrote a long unposted rant about how I’m sick of many of the bloggers that I normally read decrying the democratic process because they lost. Hey, I won. It was me, a Bush voter, that did it to you. Cry if you will, but please refrain from calling me a Nazi or saying “Oh, no. Four more years of nightmare.” Hell, visit Mexico or China, you jingoistic middle-class socialist brat. And I don’t mean Cozumel.
If we had it my way, we’d be in President Forbes’s second term with a flat tax with no loopholes for the rich, a soaring economy, and yeah, Forbes might have been weak on terrorism. But not as weak as we were, oh, in 1993 when Osama attacked the WTC for the first time and the Syrians offered him to us and we didn’t take him.
Nod
We taught Nina to nod when she wants to say yes. She used to shake her head at everything. We ate at Zaxby’s with my parents last night and Nina fell asleep on the way there. Here are some pictures.
The little fish vibrates around in circles. Mom and Dad brought it back from their cruise.
Nina choking me before bedtime. Look at that toe. So cute.
Thursday, November 04, 2004
Words Nina Knows at 16 Months
“That!” – Always said with the exclamation point. It means “Give me that” or “move me toward there” or “activate that door/lightswitch/food utensil for me”. I think this gets overused since Nina used to say “Gah” and point and we’d say “That’s a tomato/car/cat/nostril/etc.”
“Da da da da da da” - Me, Daddy. Also just said to indicate she’s having fun.
“Nah nah nah nah nah” - Alison, Mommy. Seems to only be used to summon Alison.
“Cat!” – Sometimes it sounds more like Ghat, or is indistinguishable from That. A cat is any animal with fur. Once it was even a fish.
Shaking head – If you ask Nina “Would you like to go upstairs?” she will shake her head that she doesn’t, and then beg to go upstairs. To her, the shaking of one’s head is just the answer to any question. However, if we respected her wishes, she’d never be taken out of her crib and would smell horribly and probably starve. We’re working on the positive head nod. Only Alison has managed to get Nina to nod her head yes, and I think that might have been in Alison’s imagination.
Loud Squeal (negative) – This means “I’m upset and I can’t get no satisfaction so, hey, why not get everyone’s attention”. Now, this is acceptable if she has built up to it. Normally this happens in the car. If she hasn’t done any low level crying about how horrible it is to sit in her seat and have someone sing to her or play High Five or Quack Quack Quack Quack Quack Cock-a-doodle-doo or Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes (Knees and Toes), then I’ll reprimand her by saying “Nina, what’s your deal? No No No. I expect some low level crying to indicate you need assistance before you just launch into some full fledged bat squeal.” And usually Nina obliges with some low level crying, to which I might say “I’d rather you cry than squeal.”
In fact, “I’d rather you cry than (insert bad action)” is a theme that will continue. And since she’ll cry if we say “No” to her, at least at this point in her life, it’s easy to make that trade off.
Loud Squeal (positive) – This means “Whoo! I can’t believe how much fun it is to walk around in Home Depot/the church lobby/Target/the driveway. I’m king of the world!” In fact, the one thing that will usually get Nina back into a good mood, even if she’s bleeding out her eyeballs, is for her to walk around and mess with things. She loves touching clothing at Target or trying to open DVD player boxes, or at least pushing and pulling on them so they might fall over on her.
Random Gibberish with changing tones indication statements and questions – She does this when she plays talking on the phone. However, usually her phone is a calculator, as she is not allowed to play with our cell phones. Though, sometimes we do let her play with them when the keypad is locked. But after she threw my 3390 onto the concrete floor at Home Depot, forget that. She also sometimes talks on her Guess How Much I Love You stuffed Rabbit. Or a stick. Or anything.
“Dah Goo” – She has said this since we got her. I have no idea what it means, but she seems to reserve it for “It’s calm now and pleasant.” It may just be an anomaly that it seems to happen at those times, but it also might be Cantonese.
“Uuuuuhh!” (rising tone) – Means “You are doing something that does not conform to my wishes, or I’m just frustrated in general.” This can be couples with “That!” or Loud Squeal (negative), and often is.
“Hmm Haaaah” – Nina speak for “Boohbah.” Repeat saying this for a minute for most realistic Nina effect.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
A through J
When I showed up to vote, there was a line around the corner. But, I got to walk right in and vote with no wait. Why? Because I’m an A through J. All the poor K through Z drecks were standing there with impending rain about to wet them. In fact, I voted on my way back from storm water sampling.
A through M
But when Alison went to vote, and at that time it was A through M, and there were tons of people. It took her 45 minutes to vote. At that time, the slacker N through Z people were not up and about yet. It just goes to show that we people at the beginning of the alphabet are go-getters, movers and shakers, coffee achievers, and that we tend to show up to vote early and cause jams.
Well, except for me, obviously, since I just walked on in.
Monday, November 01, 2004
Don't Rock The Vote!
Please, if you have no clue what you are doing, please don't vote. Don't reproduce either.
Bleh!
Sucky Crap
When I was talking with Mr. Smiley’s grandkid while we were about to look at Kurt’s gigantic mech costume, I said something sucked. Now, this kid is a teenager, not a three year old. Plus, I don’t really consider the word “suck” to be a curse word. Faith, a next door neighbor, also pointed out that I had said “crap” earlier. Mr. Smiley’s grandkid said that crap wasn’t a bad word, but sucks is. Faith though exactly the opposite, but she says both anyway.
I commented that in our culture, there are just some words that are bad words and others that aren’t. You can say BM or feces to mean poop, but if you use the S-word or in this case the word crap, that’s objectionable to some people. There may not be much distinction between the words in meaning, but some are just considered uglier ways to phrase it. Mr. Smiley’s grandkid said, “But they aren’t really bad words.”
“No, they are really bad words.” I responded. But I didn’t get a chance to continue my line of thought, since some candy scarfing opportunity had come up or something. It was around nine at night, so trick or treating was actually over.
The Need For Bad Words
The philosophical question as far as different words for dookie should not be “Why are some turdy words worse than others?” but “What is it about Western culture that makes it necessary for us to define some words as being crude?”
Often, we westerners are shocked when we see a toddler in Japan wearing a shirt with the S-word in English on it. However, we would find a shirt that says “Poopoo Factory” on it to be cute.
We did discuss that in China, for example, they don’t have lots of different words to mean the same thing. In fact, they have very few words, and their meaning is mostly based on context (and tone, etc). Japan is similar in that it doesn’t have lots of words. Heck, the same is true for Spanish, but Spanish does set aside a certain set of words as vulgar. Actually, they also acknowledge our cursey words.
Heck, I used the word “copulate” in front of my mother-in-law Saturday night. But that was only because some neighbor’s toddler was goping my daughter earlier that day. Ok, maybe not groping, but he was trying to kiss her. Sometimes I wish my daughter was more violent toward strangers, at least that little pervert. Kick him in the nuts!
