songsinmyhead: trad. arr. dad
January 29th, 2007 - Posted in songsinmyhead | | 0 Comments
The hat trick
1) No doubt inspired by Yakko’s obsession with poker, Dot told me that she won a trophy playing “that pokin’ game.”
2) Whacko was in the middle of getting scolded for not watching what he was doing and mashing my finger under his knee. He gives me a classic look and says, “Dad, let go of your anger.” Wisdom from the mouths of babes, even if he did learn it from Yoda or Aang.
3) Just now, I was explaining to N that I thought Dot–exactly like Yakko at the same age, and exactly unlike Whacko–was an empiricist, since she really didn’t enjoy puns or wordplay or anything hypothetical. “Metaphor,” I said, “really isn’t Dot’s cup of tea.”
Dot interjected, with 3-year-old earnestness, “But I don’t like tea.”
I rest my case.
January 20th, 2007 - Posted in Parentgeekness | | 0 Comments
This is about as excited as I can get
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117957532.html?categoryid=1236&cs=1&p=0
It’s been announced!!!!!! Now they just have to start makiing it. I think waiting nine months for a kid is eaiser than waiting for this!!!!!!!!
January 17th, 2007 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Trying to mourn Robert Anton Wilson
I suppose it was overdue. I knew last week already that he had died, and yet I waited to think much on it until today. His poor health hasn’t been a secret for some months now, so it wasn’t unexpected. But beyond that, it just seems like the wrong direction to mourn him.
He always advocated living fully, and said at times that he believed the time would come when we could live forever. I never bought into that myself, but his enthusiasm for such seemingly whacky ideas was contagious.
It’s a little trite to say that someone changed your life. Other people alter the course of my life nearly every day. But it isn’t often that a book makes me look at the world in an entirely different light. It’s rarer still when that happens twice with the same author. Illuminatus! in the summer of 1996 and Prometheus Rising a few years later both had a profound effect on my worldview.
The fact that I realize that’s a little crazy and I don’t care is further proof that I bought into RAW’s work more than most.
January 16th, 2007 - Posted in Books | | 0 Comments
The Hall Of Self-Promotion
In a perfect world, the voting for the Baseball Hall Of Fame would be about… um… baseball. But now, in a way that only sports yakkers can seem to manage, the Baseball Hall Of Fame is about sports yakkers. Sure, there are still players. But what really matters is that as many sports yakkers as possible yak as loudly as they can about those players. After all, there have to be caveats in place to ensure that the enshrining of a great player doesn’t overshadow how important it is to be a sports yakker.
I’ll be brief about McGwire: 583 home runs. Never tested positive for steroids. Played his entire career before steroids were against the rules. One of two players who brought baseball back from the brink of irrelevancy in 1998. Even if he was steroid-enhanced, he was the most feared hitter in a league where most guys may have been steroid-enhanced. But that’s a baseball-based argument, and what sports yakker cares about that?
Leave aside for a moment how ill-conceived and poorly reasoned the anti-steroids argument is. Steroids in general–and McGwire specifically–is a convenient leverage point for sports yakkers who are more concerned with getting their faces on television and with working book deals than with actually honoring great baseball players.
Think I’m joking about the Hall being a sports yakker self-promotion tool? Meet Paul Ladewski. Ever heard of him? No, of course you haven’t before today.
“Paul Ladewski of the Daily Southtown in suburban Chicago wrote in a column Monday that he submitted a blank ballot because of doubts he had over performance-enhancing drugs in baseball.”
Gee, what a brave stance to take. Because nobody else is concerned about steroids in baseball, obviously. On top of that, he has his fellow yakkers in a lather because now Ripken won’t get a unanimous vote. (I suppose I don’t need to point out that Ripken, at zero, failed exactly as many drug tests as McGwire.) The fact that the heretofore unknown Paul Ladewski is now making national news is a huge burden for him to bear, I’m sure. But I imagine he’ll be able to grit his teeth and ride out the storm of publicity and notoriety.
At what point did the Baseball Hall Of Fame stop being about baseball? Maybe it was always about self-promoting opinionmongers. Maybe it was just never laid quite as blatantly bare as it has been this year.
January 9th, 2007 - Posted in baseball | | 0 Comments
Hotdogs
Yesterday Dot wanted a hotdog. Grandma said they were in the meat drawer. Dot asked why they were in the meat drawer. I said they’re meat. Dot replied “they’re not meat. They’re hotdogs.”
January 6th, 2007 - Posted in Parentgeekness | | 0 Comments
