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
“People are yucky”
Out of the blue today Dot says “people are yucky.”
Dad said “they are?”
Dot replied “yeah you can’t eat humans. They’re yucky.”
Today’s life lesson:
Don’t eat people, they’re yucky.
December 31st, 2006 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 1 Comments
5 records I enjoyed in 2006
Bob Dylan - Modern Times I thought Love & Theft was like a large dining hall with vaulted ceilings and old portraits on the walls, evocative of the sense of history you get in a museum, or maybe wandering through the oldest parts of Oxford University. Then I heard Modern Times, and I realized I was just in the broom closet before.
Hank Williams III - Straight To Hell I first liked it because I thought the “Nihilistic cowboy with third-generation rock star money” schtick was funny. A thousand country singers manage to be nothing but another country singer. But Hank 3 finds his own voice and creates something that’s much more than he started with.
T-Bone Burnett - The True False Identity As I tell anyone who will listen, this guy is brilliant. The more I listen, the more detail I discover.
Man Man - Six Demon Bag I would expect that no one wanders into this record casually and likes it. But if you, like me, were already keen to the … er… peculiar charms of people like Dylan, Zappa, and Waits, these guys have a lot to offer.
The Decemberists - The Crane Wife Only had this for a couple of weeks, but I already love it. Some of the songs are fun little prog-rock noodly sorts of things, while others are so beautiful that you can’t help but smile.
There was no 2006 product involved, but Merle Haggard was an important part of my music listening this year. I really didn’t know his work before this year, and now I’m hooked.
December 28th, 2006 - Posted in Music | | 0 Comments
Brothers
This is what happens when you have boys in the house: Yacko was up eating breakfast this morning rubbing at something on his cheek. Wacko woke up and wondered out to the kitchen as Yacko was scratching at it. Wacko chuckles and says “It’s a boogie.” Wacko climbed up on Yacko’s bed and wiped it on him while he was sleeping. Of course Yacko had to get him back and when Wacko tried to get back again, dad stepped in. He told them they each got eachother once they were even. As the boys walked away you could hear Wacko mumble “he woke up the first time I tried it.”
Never a dull moment in this house.
December 21st, 2006 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
foot-phobia
Watching a movie with us the other night, Dot asked about the “black stuff” on the tv (meaning the letterboxing at the top and bottom of the screen). I tried to explain as simply as I could about how to fit movies on a tv screen.
She ruminated on my answer for a minute or so, and then concluded, “Maybe they don’t want us to see their feet.”
December 19th, 2006 - Posted in Parentgeekness | | 0 Comments
Non-tender mania
Braves make no offers to Giles, Reitsma
It’s done. Neither of these moves came as a surprise to anyone reading the AJC.
Rietsma has had flashes of brilliance, but he demonstrated pretty clearly that he couldn’t be entrusted with a lead. At his salary, he would have just taken up space in the bullpen that might instead have gone to developing talent.
Giles’ departure stings a little more. He wasn’t one of my favorite Braves, but for several years he’d been a guy you could count on for solid performance. But his numbers are apparently declining, and he was inching towards Glenn Hubbard / Mark Lemcke territory as the most popular .230 hitter on the team.
In short, both moves are unfortunate. But they will eventually improve the team by clearing room for more capable players.
December 13th, 2006 - Posted in baseball | | 0 Comments
