Fun Stuff!

So it seems me and Carleen were both bored and we both jumped to the same Mac Program - Photo Booth. This neat little Mac program takes a snapshot of you through the web cam and you can add crazy “fun-house” style effects to what it snaps. Here’s sme of my more successful ones:

Today, I made Butter

Fun stuff.

In case you didn’t know already, I love chocolate. If a nutritionist examined my chocolate intake they would probably conclude that I consume far more than I should. I love the stuff. However, I do tend to rely too much on store bought items and would really like to get into creating my own chocolate treats. This is a daring prospect for me considering cooking/baking really aren’t my forte. But, I figured with February being the chocolate treat month of the year, maybe I could start a new tradition and venture into new (potentially dangerous but lets think positive) territory. Once a month I’m going to bake a chocolate treat. Last week I found a great recipe for a Chocolate Earl Grey cake on Real Simple.com. It’s basically your traditional chocolate cake recipe with Early Grey tea mixed in. The sweet moist taste makes traditional icing unneccessary…just a little but of powdered sugar sprinkled on top makes it perfect. I fed it to our gaming group on Saturday night and I think it was a hit. Quite a few went back for seconds. Always a good sign.

I sort of feel like the holidays just sort of grazed by me. All of a sudden it’s 2008 and I’m due to turn thirty this summer.

This past year has seen a lot of changes for me. I’ve encountered some difficulties, some disappointments. I’ve gotten to know myself a little better, I’ve discovered some weaknesses, some strengths. But I have this strange feeling that 2008 is going to be good year.

There’s a bunch of xmas photos we still haven’t uploaded to our flickr yet but we’ll get them done…plenty of cute ones of Liam. I should probably mention something about resolutions for the year. Besides the joint one Mike and I agreed on I’ll simply want to find more time for crafting, spend more time with friends, less time stressing, more time napping, less time searching for misplaced car keys, more time reading and writing letters to people instead of email (really like that one Chrissy :-). Oh, and yoga, which I’ve been doing pretty good with during the past months so I just want to keep it up. Every day, forty minutes. And speaking more Norwegian with Liam. And getting out of Oklahoma by my birthday. I guess I should have put all that in list form for ya but oh well.

Anyway, happy belated New Year everyone!

I came across this the other day when I felt very homesick and Googled “Stavanger pictures”. Someone living in Stavanger called Tanty keeps a daily blog where she posts random pictures from around the city. My brother came across this too the other day and seemed just as delighted as I. For someone who hasn’t been back to their hometown in over five years, this blog brings a lot of warm fuzzy feelings to my tummy. I really like the fact that her pictures are very random everyday shots, neighborhoods, random houses, not just the touristy stuff. Of course, it makes me even more homesick but still, it’s on my list as a must read blog daily.

I wonder if she takes requests. I would love a good shot of the three swords of Hafsfjord.

We had a wonderful full day. Started out at my dads. He walked Liam to the park while I ran the route and met them there so we could feed the ducks. Then we headed to the pumpkin patch to pick up some pumpkins and mums. Liam had a blast crawling through the fields and hugging pumpkins. Then my dad and I drove down to my uncles in Tulsa where Liam got to meet some of his cousins for the first time. Good times.

Your Halloween Costume Should Be

A Girl Scout

Mmmm…no.

Assuming we actually get to do something for Halloween this year (Mike and I will be in NY for Jamie’s wedding reception that weekend), I’ll be dressing up as a French maid. Liam’s gonna be a baby bat. Mike started on his wings today, they look good so far. As for Mike? Not sure yet, but I’m trying to talk him into being Dracula. Baby bat and Dracula, kind of cute, don’t ya think?

It’s been a long week and I’m all behind like a cows tail. Fall has always been my season for re-order and organization. (I never was able to get into spring cleaning). I was hoping to have a garage sale this weekend but I wasn’t able to get all my closets sorted out in time so I think it’ll have to wait until we get back from New York. November isn’t really the best time for garage sales but oh well, hopefully I can make enough money to cover some of our xmas gifts this year.

Things just got too busy this week. On a friends request, I spent all day Wednesday playing volleyball for a United Way fundraiser. I used to play volleyball in high school. I’ve always loved playing volleyball. It’s a great sport, nothing like pounding on a leather ball to relieve stress. But after six hours of playing my body is so bruised and battered. It’s been three days and I’m still sore and exhausted.

I know that we haven’t even gotten to Halloween yet but Mike is already asking me what I want for xmas. I really don’t know. I mean, there are plenty of things I want but they’re just not really appropriate for gift giving or far to expensive. I was thinking about asking for a camera. I bought Mike an eight hundred dollar camera just before Liam was born but its kind of too complicated for an unprofessional photography person like me. It would be neat to have a simple point and shoot camera but something with snazzy features (like Cindy’s…sweet, I need to get those eye pictures from you, they are so awesome!). I asked him for an iPhone but he just laughed hysterically in my face so, don’t think that’ll happen. Then I told him I wanted a loofah. I took a shower at my parents house the other day and they have loofah’s. I used to have loofah’s too before marriage/parenthood yanked me out of my oil brat dreamworld and required me to be a more frugal spender. Now I just can’t justify spending ninety cents on an item that doesn’t really do anything different from a regular wash cloth. So, seriously. A loofah would be a great gift. Would make a nice stocking stuffer.

And Mike’s an uncle. Sydney Teresa was born last Friday, 6lbs 10oz (I think that’s right). Mom, Dad and baby are doing well.

Here’s Grandma Pat holding her. I love this picture. She looks so peaceful…and you can see her cute little nose.

This is a scant half (!) of the candy that was brought back by Carl, from Norway. Siri is still there, so I’m suspecting that more will be on the way.

It’s so fascinating to see what people in the past thought the future was going to be like. Here’s a view from the 1960’s on what shopping was going to be like in 1999. Think internet shopping…not too far off. I love how the bill automatically gets sent to the husband.

There’s also a really neat blog called Paleo-Future where you can see futuristic illustrations and prints made in the past. His most recent post has a neat picture of what some french guy in the early 1900’s thought firefighting would be like in the year 2000. Really dig those wings.

Yikes. Ok, that so did not go the way I thought it would. I’ve never even heard of this book.

You’re The Guns of August!
by Barbara Tuchman
Though you’re interested in war, what you really want to know is what
causes war. You’re out to expose imperialism, militarism, and nationalism for what they
really are. Nevertheless, you’re always living in the past and have a hard time dealing
with what’s going on today. You’re also far more focused on Europe than anywhere else in
the world. A fitting motto for you might be "Guns do kill, but so can
diplomats."

Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Hurray! Linkdom chaosium coming right up!

First off, if you’re a fan of kick-ass horror movies, check out this link to the new trailer for Alien vs. Predator: Requiem. Download the HD version and you won’t be sorry. I was sorely disappointed in the first Alien vs. Predator. You’ve got cinemas two coolest monster movies battling it out - how can you mess that up? Easily, I guess. This one looks to make up for everything.

Now for a new webcomic I’ve been reading: Questionable Content. My friend Matt (well, ONE of my friends named “Matt”) sent me a link to this comic and at first I didn’t like it, saying “This isn’t funny at all!” Then I realized - it’s not supposed to me funny. It’s more of a story comic. But I will say there have been quite a few funny bits since I really got into it. It’s kind of a romantic comedy comic - with lots of indie rock and vague band name references. It’s a bit…risque for the younger set, but overall it’s pretty harmless.

With all the music references in the Questionable Content, I’ve been checking out some of the band names they mention. Here’s one called Maserati. They play ambient rock, kinda sounds like a little Pink Floyd minus lyrics. Pretty cool stuff.

That’s it for today. Enjoy!

I posted this over on my Gaming blog, but I thought I’d post it here as well, since I’m trying to get as many people as possible into this game. Check it out:

My personal favorite [new game] is a card game that a friend of mine introduced me to called Killer Bunnies. The box says for 2-8 players, though I don’t see why you couldn’t add more players. The starter pack comes with the Blue and Yellow set of cards, you can also buy booster packs that vary in color. It’s important to purchase the sets in order, since each set of cards builds on the ones previous. The goal of the game is to:

1. Still have a Bunny alive at the end of the game
2. Have in your hand, the “Magic Carrot”

I’ll go through a round of play so you can get an idea what’s going on.

First, you take the small Carrot Card pile, shuffle it, and choose one card, without looking at it. Place it at the bottom of the deck, and put the deck aside. This is the Carrot card that everyone is trying to collect. Obviously, no one knows, during play, which carrot card was chosen, so out of 20 carrot cards, you could have 19 or them and still lose. What’s great about this is it levels the playing field. No one will ever get better than the rest of the group, since the winner is chosen at random. Winning isn’t the idea, the fun is in causing as much trouble for your opponents as you can - winning is just a happy bonus. Case in point: The last session we played I was without a Bunny card for 3/4 of the game (a bunny card is required to do just about anything in the game, so I wasn’t doing very much most of the game) - but I snatched one towards the end and ended up collecting the winning card. Even though I won, the game wasn’t that much fun for me, since I didn’t do much all game.

Now that you’ve chosen the winning carrot, each person takes 7 cards from the deck. You will then choose 2 cards to place down in front of you, one above (not on top of) the other. This is called your “Run” pile. Nearly all cards in the deck must go through the Run pile. On your turn, you flip over your Top Run card and either put it into play (if it’s a Run card or Bunny card), set it off to the side (if it’s a Special or Very Special card), or discard it (if you can’t play it or don’t want to play it). You then move your Bottom run card up to the Top Run card position. Now choose another card from the deck and choose a new card to place down as the new Bottom Run Card. If you put a Bunny through the Run pile, you will place it in what is called the “Bunny Circle”. This is the area in front of you - only Bunny’s may go there (or special cards that give the Bunnies protection). It’s called a circle because all the Bunnies are connected, in that if a weapon attacks adjacent bunnies, it means bunnies, not players, so a weapon could affect more than one person’s bunnies at the same time.

Here’s where the fun begins: in the deck are many and various ways of killing your opponents Bunny’s. Remember, you need to have a Bunny to win the game. You must also have a bunny to attack other players with weapons and also to collect Carrot cards. To collect carrot cards you can do several things: you can buy them with Dolla’s or you can play “Choose a Carrot” cards. These are taken from the special big carrot deck (not the small deck you’ve sat aside). Now, if you are able to put down 3 Bunny’s of either the same color or the same type (Sinister, Timid, Congenial, Gleeful, Lumbering), you may play both Top and Bottom card in the same round. Trust me, this is tough to achieve, not to mention to maintain for very long - as it gives you a hefty advantage over everyone else, so you immediately become a target.

Once all the Carrot cards have been collected, the game is over and you take a look at the card at the bottom of the small carrot deck to see who has the matching big carrot card. That person wins the game. If you want a better picture of what this is all supposed to look like, take a look at this.

It sounds complicated, but you’ll have it down in 15 minutes, easy. It’s also addictive fun, not to mention terribly frustrating, as you build up a strategy and watch as it all comes crashing down. It’s just good, clean, evil, Bunny-Killing fun!

My friend Diama just sent me a really funny blog written by a stay at home dad. I really cracked up when I read his post called My Daughter, the Nazi. It was definitely the kind of laugh I needed today.

When Emmeline did a Nazi salute in the middle of the Jewish Community Center and then strode goose-stepping under a wall-sized quote by Anne Frank, I sensed my penchant for teaching her random, silly parlor tricks had taken a turn for the worse. The alphabet, numbers, real animal sounds — I think we’ll be doing a lot more of those from now on.

I guess this just proves that you can have the best of intentions as a parent and things will still go awry.

I brought Mike back a book called Daddy Needs Drink after he emailed me at work with another frustrating experience trying to get Liam down for his afternoon nap. He’s reading it as I write this and I’m relieved to hear him chuckle every once and awhile. There is something cathartic about reading blogs/books about parents who are having similar experiences with their kids, especially when they manage to put a humorous twist to things.

First off, our site template is all whacky for now while Mitch tries to figure out what’s up with it. Bear with us as we get this taken care of.

Me, Carleen and the library gang went to see The Order of the Phoenix on Friday. I should forward this review by saying that this was my favorite book of the Harry Potter series so far, so I was expecting a lot out of this one. First impression: underwhelming. This is the longest book of the series and yet the movie clocked in at a mere 2 hours 7 minutes. The two previous movies ran over 2 1/2 hours. Bad omen right off the bat. The next bad thing was not the movies fault, but the theatres - no sound for the first couple minutes of the film. I need that Harry Potter Main Theme music to really get me into the movie and without that the experience was a bit flat. On the music: could someone please get John Williams back to score these movies? The music just does nothing for me.

It was nice to see Dan and Rupert with shorter hair - I really hated their previous haircuts. But everyone is really getting comfortable with their roles, all three: Dan, Rupert and Emma were all able to step up to the plate to handle the more “adult” themes of this movie. Where was Hermione in this movie, though? I feel like we hardly got to see her at all. A couple of new faces in this movie, namely Imelda Staunton and Evanna Lynch playing Dolores Umbridge and Luna Lovegood respectively. Both wer fantastic choices for their roles, though my personal favorite new face was Evanna. She simply was Luna.

I know it sounds like a stale complaint from a ravenous fan, but there was just too much left out of this one. It was inevitable, given the length of the book, but at 2 hours, I feel like there was a bit too much *snip* *snip* in the editing room. Much like Goblet of Fire - only worse - there is very little “breathing” room. Slow down, take some time to show us the good stuff.

Pretty much the summation of my feelings toward this movie is: Not Enough.

This week starts my first full week as a Stay At Home Dad. Whoo Hoo! It’s been great so far, if a bit awkward for me and Carleen - we have, like, time to do stuff together. Liam has been a bit rough over the past few days, not eating so great, only eating certain foods and being generally difficult to put down to sleep. He doesn’t go down with a bottle anymore, he only goes down (for me) with a walk in his stroller. Carleen is able to get him to go down with a little rocking, but she also generally puts him down at night, where I have taken over days. We’re hoping it’s just teething. It’s kind of upsetting to me, since he’s so squirmy and fidgety it’s hard to rock him, that’s something I miss from when he was younger - rocking him to sleep. He doesn’t even like to be in bed with us anymore, he is squirmy, wakes up often and starts crawling around half-asleep, banging his head into the wall. Carleen brought this great book home called Good Nights which discusses co-sleeping with your child(ren); it talks about how great co-sleeping is for children and how it develops this great bond between parent and child and how much better children sleep in bed with mom & dad. And our boy wants nothing to do with it. To be fair, it could just be a phase of independence, maybe when he’s older he’ll be more interested in co-sleeping.

It’s good, in any case, to be away from Central States. My hands haven’t been this clean since I started working there. I don’t think I’m completely acclimated to daytime hours yet, but it should be very soon. I’m a bit overwhelmed at all the various things I can do, now that I’m back on daylight hours. I really want to have a barbeque, I think I may have to set that up soon.

Remember back in the day when you’re great grandma or whoever would wear the same outfit every day of the week? When you had one work dress and one fancy dress that you would only wear on a real special occassion. Then one day somebody created a Walgreens, then a Wal-Mart and all of a sudden you’re wearing American flag t-shirts that have Made in Vietnam typed on the tag. Well, in an effort to “confront consumerism”, a lady in Seattle got smart and designed a simple brown dress that she wore every day for an entire year, even managing to make it into an entirely different outfit each day. She documented her experience on a website, Little Brown Dress. I really admire this woman, probably because I know I could never do it. I don’t have the fashion sense for one thing, and my sewing machine still has yet to be officially “broken in” since I got it as an xmas gift a few years ago. I haven’t even sewn curtians on it. However, Mitch’s girlfriend, Sayaka, got me a really neat sewing book last xmas…really nice simple modern skirt and pant patterns. *sigh*…one day.

She’s moved on to a different project now, wearing only the things she has made herself.

While Carleen took Liam out for his bedtime nap (man it’s getting harder and harder to get him to sleep lately, especially when he’s missed his normal naptime), I got dinner ready (s’getti), made some yogurt, and finished up my henna paste. I got into henna earlier last year when Carleen asked for a henna tattoo on her stomach in the last part of her pregnancy. I’ve only done it the once, but this time I bought 100 grams, so I’m hoping to get a bit more practice. Once me and Carleen are all henna’d up I’ll post some pictures. Whoo! Can’t wait.

My mom taught be a trick the other day. Tupperwear is very entertaining to babies.

Liam has very little interest in his own toys anymore. He is, however, very drawn to electrical things…chords, cell phones and especially our laptop.

So, I’m sort of going nuts with the bling bling on this blog. Poor Mike, I’ve all but taken over this site with my widget mania. I discovered a whole bunch of internet “tools” while I was at work on Friday and I’ve spent most of this weekend signing up for various social networking/bookmarking sites, most of which probably serve me no real purpose what so ever other than to fill my email box up with useless notification mails. So, I’ve added a Wink widget, in addition to my del.ic.ious cloud. I have a tendency to sign up for these things and then go on a tirade a few weeks later about how stupid and narcisstic they are. I’ve deleted my myspace account twice for this reasoning. Somehow, I always end up back on…a sad product of our current culture, I guess.

There’s been some interesting development in the superhero front…kyptonite has been discovered and…check this out…some Italian scientist has developed a super duper super glue made from the feet of a gecko lizard that would allow for a real-life spider man suite.

Comic book nerds rejoice…

We were too busy whining and being sick that we forgot to post some new photos of Liam and Mikes family (parents, sister, aunt and cousin) who came down to visit for a weekend a few weeks ago. It’s always a treasure having them here although, it’s never long enough. It was the first time his sister and aunt got to see Liam.

And yes, I’ve changed our template once again and yes, I know it’s girly and has absolutely nothing to do with monkeys so let’s just try to have a sense of humor about it, shall we (Mike…)?

I’ve also changed Liam’s page a little…under recent video you can see him making cute faces and saying his first distinct sound (ba). He also recently started crawling (scootching more like, but he gets around).

So, I’m trying to put together this reading map website thing for work on a book called The Birth of Venus. The story is set during the Early Renaissance so I’ve been looking up important figures from that time period. In the process, I came across this personality test from Salon magazine which is supposed to calculate “whether you subscribe to the ideas” of the 16th century Italian political philosopher, Machiavelli. My score ended up being high, which apparently means that I am “charming, confident and glib, but also arrogant, calculating and cynical, prone to manipulate and exploit”. And I always thought I was a pretty nice person most of the time.

The Machiavelli personality test has a range of 0-100
Your Machiavelli score is: 63
You are a high Mach, you endorse Machiavelli’s opinions.

Most people fall somewhere in the middle, but there’s a significant minority at either extreme.

It’s been a rough few weeks. I’m down to the wire now with only two classes left. I haven’t kept up as well as I hoped I would. I turned two pretty big projects in a day late. Mike and my parents have been amazing. Mike still looks after Liam three days a week. He has to stay up way past his “bed time”, sometimes not getting to bed until around four or five in the afternoon and having to get up again around nine for work. Even more amazing is that he manages to stay pretty darn chirpy through all of it.

My parents have an interesting tag team operation going on when they take care of Liam on Wednesdays. The pack ‘n play crib is in my dad’s office. He sets the iSight camera on Liam so my mom can keep an “eye” on him via IM upstairs in her office. Together they keep Liam occupied, happy and fed until I’m home at nine. Then thursdays mom comes with me to school to look after Liam while I’m in class. It makes me pretty exhuasted to even write about all of this but somehow, together we all manage it and Liam is growing into the most amazing little kid, he’s so smart and cute I swear honest to God I’m not just saying that because he’s mine.

I’m having a little difficulty focusing on the final projects for class nowadays. All I can think about is what I’m going to do when I’ve finally graduated. First thing, obviously, is spend more time with Mike and Liam. The time I do manage to have with them now is usually spent stressing over one thing or the other. I have an entire folder full of topics I’ve been wanting to blog about for ages but just never had time. Another folder full of links to sites that I’ve wanted to read. A very long booklist, an even longer “to do” list (paint bedroom, clean out closet, clean out bathroom, clean, clean and clean). But I think I’ll start first with buying some yarn to knit Liam a blanket. Then catching up on his baby book which I have yet to even start. I can’t believe it’s been three months already.

Today I heard Liam giggle. I got so excited. Mike had already heard him giggle before. These are the moments that feel a little sad for me, when I miss those “firsts”. He’s becoming very vocal. He stays awake a lot during the day and most of that is spent girggling about something. Sometimes he sounds a little like a bird so I’ve started calling him goose.

I’m looking for jobs but not having much luck yet. I just did an ego surf which is when you google your own name to see what comes up (employers do this often with potential hires). I came across this which lists our blog as a “commentary on politics, movies, and family life”. I’ve seen our blog described this way before and I find it kind of funny since neither Mike or I have mentioned much about politics and movies in a long time. I think maybe blogging lost its novelty for us, and we just started using it more as a communication tool to keep friends and family informed about what’s going on in our lives.

This list also had a link to an online magazine called Backwash which listes sites according to personality instead of topic. Interesting practice in folksonomy there…anyway, homework.

Liam has recently discovered his hands. He spends a lot of time waving his fists in front of his eyes (which usually makes him go cross-eyed). I did some video of it and uploaded it to Youtube. There’s also some new pics on our Flickr account. Liam was a pumpkin for Halloween.

Here’s an interesting little time-waster: Oceangram, an online version of throwing a message out to see. You can pick up other person’s messages (they come about every 5 minutes) and add to them, or send out a new message of your own. Neat little idea.

I happen to find this really great tool for learning various languages, it’s called Before You Know It. I was really impressed with the number of languages you can download (the Lite version is free) and the program itself is tremendous. It uses flashcards and pictures; you see the word and hear a pronunciation. Then you flip the card over to get the English version. It takes you through several levels of learning - being able to remember the word, say the word and write the word. I got almost through animals and I seem to be able to remember them. I’ve downloaded Norwegian and German so far, this should be really cool for Liam once he’s older!

Unfortunately it seems the big run of Zombie movies has all but dried up recently, and so I’ve had to turn to other media forms in order to get my “zombie fix”. Cindy checked out Monster Island for me, a book originally published in Blog form. The author is David Wellington. It’s a trilogy, with Monster Nation, and Monster Planet following it. All three are in Blog format, while only Monster Island being published as a book so far. The tone of the book is great, everything you need when dealing with zombies: fantastic gore, tongue-in-cheek humor, and lots and lots of guns. Plus a few surprise bonuses: a Scottish mummy, a guy who turned himself into a zombie, and 16 year old Somolian girls in schoolgirl uniforms toting AK-47’s. Rock!

After checking out Wellington’s website I came across a website for zombie based Browser/Flash games! Check out Undead Games.

I don’t usually like to write posts concerning my Role Playing hobby, mostly because I only got into roleplaying in my latter years of college and as such I’m not entirely comfortable with being open about something that screams “Geek!”. Not to mention very few other roleplayers actually read this Blog. But come on. Anyone who’s known me for any significant length of time know I’m a seriously harcore Geek at heart and there’s really no hiding it at this point.

Mostly our group sticks to the standard Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition, just like everyone else. But recently I’ve been trying to get my group into other RPG’s (roleplaying games). Mitch gave us a set of books called Burning Wheel a while back, but hadn’t gotten into it until just recently.

Basically, same setup as D&D, but a little more (pardon me, fellow D&D players…) grown-up. The rules are more detailed and lend to a more “gritty”, human, realistic game. Perhaps the biggest difference between D&D and Burning Wheel is, where D&D is very Game Master (the person who writes all the adventures) controlled - the GM writes the adventure, offering “hooks” to the players to get them to go along on the adventure - Burning Wheel puts the power in the hands of players.

Players are involved in every aspect of creating a “shared, imagined space” from the ground up. They help decide the focus of the story, the major antagonists and how each character is connected to the plot. The GM in a Burning Wheel story is really more of a player who knows just a little bit more than the other players, rather than an omnipotent, omniscient figure.

Click the “Burning Wheel” link above to check out the site if you’re interested in roleplaying games, if you’re used to playing only D&D, or any other d20 style game, Burning Wheel will truly be a breath of fresh air. Or check out this Blog by one of the developers of Burning Wheel who is taking his group through “30 Days of Burning Wheel”. He does a good job of getting to the chewy center of Burning Wheel, while bypassing all the crunchy rule bits, so novices can get a feel for what Burning Wheel is all about, without getting bogged down by confusing rules.

Anyway, as my group gets into it, I’ll post a bit more on how things are going, and their thoughts and opinions (as well as mine!) on the whole thing. Stay tuned…I’m sure you’ll all be on the edge of your seats…

On a related topic, you can follow the link to the right under Mike’s D&D World to keep up with what’s happening in our current D&D campaign.

I’ve been talking with this guy I work with, John, who is a self-taught guitarist who’s been writing his own music now for a while. He’s been looking for some people to jam with and I happen to be that people (er…person). Anyway, I asked him about his style of music and he really couldn’t pin it down, but from hearing the types of music he listens to, I’d say our musical tastes are fairly similar. This should be fun - it’s been a while since I jammed with anyone (Leroy the Atomic Hippo in Savannah) so I’m excited. Plus, his musical knowledge is damn extensive (he knows exactly how many songs Green Day has put out on albums - 366 or somewhere in that neighborhood).

I don’t know if it will develop into anything, not that I have the time to devote to a band right now, but it wouldn’t be bad as long as nothing serious comes of it. I’m just here for the fun.

A chicken and an egg are lying in bed. The chicken is smoking a cigarette with a satisfied smile on its face. The egg is frowing and looking a bit pissed off. The egg mutters to no one in particular, “Well, I guess we finally answered THAT question!”

Don’t get it?! Read it again, and think dirty.

Ok here’s a better post. Me and Carleen were talking the other night about what kinds of music our children at the very least, need to be aware of. I heard a story a while ago from this guy talking to a younger relative ( I think the relative was in his teens) about Jimi Hendrix, and the relative said, “Who’s Jimi Hendrix?” Ouch. That is NOT going to be our children. They don’t have to LIKE Jimi Hendrix, but they’re damn sure going to know who he is. So we decided to compile a list of 10 CD’s each that we will be playing constantly as our children grow up. So here are our lists (I’ll let Carleen put in hers on her own, so you may not see anything for her yet):

Our friend, Jason just introduced me to an interesting site at www.tickle.com. I took an ink blot test and below are the results it gave back. It was kinda fun, I’ve always wanted to try one of those.

Your subconscious mind is driven most by Curiosity.
This means you are full of questions about life, people, and the potential of your future. You spend more time than others envisioning the possibilities of your life � things that others are too afraid to consider.

Your curiosity burns with an almost physical need to know and do more. It’s only through new experiences that you feel a greater understanding of yourself or the world � which ultimately is the greatest way for you to feel satisfied.

It is possible that the underlying reason for your drive towards curiosity is a deeply rooted fear of boredom. That means that you are probably more susceptible than others to feel like you’re falling into a rut when life slows down into a comfortable routine.
You need to make sure you have stimulation in your life � that makes you feel like you’re innovating or being exposed to the ideas and experiences that truly inspire you.
With such a strong orientation towards curiosity, you’re also prone to a rebellious quality that shows up when you feel you are just going through the motions, and are unable to really influence the world around you. But interestingly enough, your drive towards novel experiences also indicates an openness others don’t have, but wish they did.

Unconsciously, your curiosity presses you to learn more, experience more, and get the most out of life.
Though your unconscious mind is driven most strongly by Curiosity, there is much more to who you are at your core.

Ok, well, I did upload a new Christmas template for our blog that had three little beagle looking puppies sitting inside stockings hanging from the fire place. It was real cute for about two days, then it just looked cheesy so I’ve decided to just post a picture of our pretty fireplace instead.

Classes are finished. Christmas presents are almost all bought. Stress levels have peaked. I’m ready for the holidays. Mike and I are heading up to New York next Monday to spend Christmas with his parents. We’re having a hard time holding in our excitement. They have an indoor hot tub. Let me just say that again. THEY HAVE AN INDOOR HOT TUB! Yeah…sweet.

On a different note, I discovered something interesting today while doing another random google search on Christmas. Apparently, for a reasonable price of $4.95 you can actually call Santa not just once, but four times. Yeah….I’m trying to think of something farcical to say about that but, alas, nothing’s coming to me.

So, I’ve been going through a really bad chocolate craving this past week. For the hell of it, I decided to type “chocolate addiction” into google to see what kind of results I would get. Very interesting stuff. Did you know that chocolate apparently contains a small amount of cannabis? Of course, you would have to consume a rather large amount of chocolate in order to get stoned. Apparently, some guy decided to use this argument as his defense in court when his urine test came back positive for marijuana. There’s also some lady in Birmingham, England who survives on pretty much nothing but chocolate. That must get old. Switzerland apparently has the highest consumption of chocolate, 22 pounds of chocolate per person per year, twice that of the U.S. I also found this cute site called Chocolate and Zucchini that had a whole bunch of really cool recipes for chocolate deserts. Studies have found that dark chocolate is very good for the heart.

Ok, enough about chocolate. I’m getting another craving.

For some reason I started missing Everquest again and I’m thinking this is a bad thing. For sure I enjoy it and am definetly better than most about not spending too much time playing this highly addictive game, but can I spare the monthly charge and the loss of time? Hmm I may think over this a bit - however, once I get “thinking”, that usally leads to “doing”. Hmm.

The Internet is rife with “quizzes” - everything from how well of a “lover” you are, to what religion you should be. In a series of completly unrelated quizzes, I discovered much about myself that I never knew before (gee, I don’t know where I’d be without the internet…).

A co-worker told me about the first one, Which Harry Potter Girl Are You? (I’m Hermione Granger)

That led me to Which Harry Potter Character Are You? (I’m Ron Weasly - which I was happy about - the Weasly’s are my favorite characters.)

I was also sent a link from Carleen to the Belief-O-Matic where you can discover your true religion (I’m 100% Unitarian Universalism)

I also discovered Which Dungeons & Dragons Character Are You? (I’m a Chaotic Good, Elven, Ranger/Bard - it fits)

It’s a good thing quizzes like this exist or I would just be a little boy lost in the woods.

The summer movie season is upon us and, in fear of missing out, I’m going to write down a list of movies I’m hoping to see this year. A lot of these are obscure horror movies from other countries, but they all sound worth checking out:

• House of Wax
• Undead
• Unholy
• Devil’s Rejects
• High Tension
• The Cave
• Land of the Dead (go Romero!)
• Altered
• The Descent
• Night Watch

That’s all I can think of right now, but I’ll be adding more as I hear of them from Arrow

I heard this poem on NPR this afternoon on my way to work.

Totally Like Whatever
by Taylor Mali

Totally like whatever, you know?

In case you hadn’t noticed,
it has somehow become uncool
to sound like you know what you’re talking about?
Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?
Invisible question marks and parenthetical (you know?)’s
have been attaching themselves to the ends of our sentences?
Even when those sentences aren’t, like, questions? You know?

Declarative sentences — so-called
because they used to, like, DECLARE things to be true
as opposed to other things which were, like, not -
have been infected by a totally hip
and tragically cool interrogative tone? You know?
Like, don’t think I’m uncool just because I’ve noticed this;
this is just like the word on the street, you know?
It’s like what I’ve heard?
I have nothing personally invested in my own opinions, okay?
I’m just inviting you to join me in my uncertainty?

What has happened to our conviction?
Where are the limbs out on which we once walked?
Have they been, like, chopped down
with the rest of the rain forest?
Or do we have, like, nothing to say?
Has society become so, like, totally…
I mean absolutely… You know?
That we’ve just gotten to the point where it’s just, like…
whatever!

And so actually our disarticulation… ness
is just a clever sort of… thing
to disguise the fact that we’ve become
the most aggressively inarticulate generation
to come along since…
you know, a long, long time ago!

I entreat you, I implore you, I exhort you,
I challenge you: To speak with conviction.
To say what you believe in a manner that bespeaks
the determination with which you believe it.
Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker,
it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.
You have to speak with it, too.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4608329

I just discovered a new librarian blog called Library Dust. The blogger, Michael McGrorty, is on the ALA council. He’s so funny!

“I met Ruth Seid in her office at the Central Library of the Los Angeles Public system about two years ago, though it seems like centuries now. Ruth is the East Valley Area Manager for LAPL, a job which seems to involve much more paperwork than any librarian ought to have to endure. In the months I�ve known Ruth, she has become like a sister to me, which is to say that I want to kill her about once a week. It goes without saying that we are very good friends. The benefit of knowing Ruth is that she has disabused me of any myths about the profession. When she comes around to visit after work she seems to have been run through a colander. She has taught me that library administration is not for me. For that matter, it might not be for anybody, but Ruth is one of the people who do it, because she loves the library, its patrons and the people who work there. I see a lot of Ruth. We have a perfect understanding: She tells me I am wrong about nearly everything and I tell her the same. We argue, even about matters we agree on. She has bad traits that are almost precisely like mine, which I find practically unbearable in others. In order to pay her back for her many kindnesses, I have forced her to buy a dog she didn�t want, introduced her to the grief of growing roses and told her how to arrange her hair. We have reached a stage in our relations wherein she often responds to my questions by extending the middle fingers of both hands in reply. Is that love or what?” http://librarydust.typepad.com/library_dust/2005/04/ruth_seid.html

I just watched an unbelievable movie called City of God. City of God is the name given to a housing project built in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in the 1960’s. By the 80’s the entire district was over-run by gangs who turned the streets into their own personal war zone. The entire story is told through the eyes of a, now famous, photographer who grew up there. Many parts are extremely hard to stomach. Small children, or “runts” as they were lovingly called, were recruited by the gangs to run drug errands and in some cases, kill other children. It was amazing how realistic the movie seemed, the acting was so totally flawless that at times I felt like I was watching a documentary and that the violence I was seeing was happening for real right before my eyes. The subject matter of the movie obviously left me feeling pretty depressed at the end, but it was still, just an excellent movie. Not that I like things that make me depressed, I just like good movies that make me think and not that I necessarily like to think about depressing stuff…ok..I’m gonna stop here before I spin myself in circles. You know what I mean.

I’m slowly but surely updating our links column. Mike hasn’t added any yet so everything over there so far is stuff I’ve come across and found interesting.

I just added Litblog which for the most part seems like a kind of blog review. It was through the current post that I discovered, now brace yourself, yes folks, a blog written by the one, the only omnipotent being himself (no Mike, not you, the other one).

This was cute.

Ever since its conception Dungeon’s & Dragons has taken a lot of heat from the religious community for being “evil”, teaching children voodoo and magic, it has even been blamed for several murders and suicides. I recently read an article on ChristianityToday.com which throws some more fuel on the fire. For those of you who don’t want to read the article (it’s ridiculous anyway) I’ll sum up:

Basically this Christian woman who got hooked on D&D (as Dungeons & Dragons is called) and got really depressed when one of her characters died. She “realized” then that D&D was a negative force in her life and was sapping energy from “healthy, normal” relationships with real people. Blah Blah Blah, you get the picture.

Basically this woman was blaming D&D for her social awkwardness. I have been DM’ing (D&D term for the person who writes the adventures- the Dungeon Master) a group of 5 players including my wife for several months now. Before doing this I had played with some friends who taught us the game, for several months. It is very easy to get caught up in D&D - it’s an escape from reality, which is something many people needs, especially with things being as they are in this world. I feel a person needs to be at a certain intellectual maturity before delving into the world of D&D. It is just a game. It is not to be taken too seriously.

What the religious community is missing out on is the extremely powerful positive forces that are inherent in D&D. First, it involves more than one person, so it is interaction with other human beings - something todays video games cannot offer. I am by nature a quiet, shy person, who does not like to be the center of attention. By DM’ing our D&D sessions I am slowly becoming more and more comfortable talking in front of a group of my peers. D&D also offers a completly maliable world. You can construct the world to be whatever you want it to be. I have lost the site by now, but I once read of a pastor who used D&D to involve teens in the church. he constructed a world in which there was only one God and all powers came from this single God. Rockin! D&D is usually polytheistic, but by making it monotheistic, he is teaching his faith and making it fun for young kids. He had a great site too, completely dispelling all the doubts and fears the religious community had against D&D.

Ok, well that is my geeky rant, I read that article and it just really upset me.

I’ve been reading Michaelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King. He had an interesting footnote on page thirty-three. In the fifteenth centurty Leonardo da Vinci designed a bridge that was to link Europe and Asia. He presented his proposal to the sultan of Constantinople who later rejected it because he thought it too unrealistic, but in 2001 Norwegian artist Vebjorn Sand constructed a scaled-down version of the bridge (220 foot-long) to span a Norwegian motorway, proving the design would have been successful.

Vebjorn Sand

“As the Indian American stand up comic Vijai Nathan wisecracked when a man asked her if she was a Cherokee India, ‘Sir, I’m not the kind of Indian with the bows and arrows. I’m the kind with unlimited access to nuclear weaponry!’”

www.littleindia.com/India/aug2001/abcd.htm

Cool!
Book Crossing

For a long time I’ve felt the need to be creative. I’ve never felt such a tremendous desire for something like this and I’ve noticed that Mike has been feeling in a similar way recently. I checked out some books on candlemaking a few weeks ago and as soon as things settle after the Christmas Holidays, were hoping to begin making this a joint hobby. We even started to fantasize about starting our own business after we move to New York, renting a small cabin somewhere where we can sell our candles.

I also recently discovered (actually, re-discovered because an intern at my college used to do this) something called altered books, where you take an altered book and change it by collaging, stamping, painting, cutting, writing. You basically use the book like a canvas. Sites below show some examples.

Art-e-zine
Jennys art space

If there’s one thing I really enjoy about living in Bartlesville, it’s being so near to my parents. It’s strange that even though we now have our own house, and even though I refer to this house as my home, I also call my parents house “home”. I don’t believe this is habitual, I believe it’s just natural and I believe I will always call it home very simply because that is where my parents are. I love going to visit them and treasure the time I spend with them. In particular, my mom and I ((and sometimes dad) love to watch British drama series’. I borrowed a series from the library a few weeks ago called Lillie and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys this kind of stuff. My mom and I watched the entire thirteen episodes in one sitting. It’s based on a real historical figure by the name of Lillie Langtry. Best known for her lenghty love affair with King Edward, Lillie was considered to be the “original Victorian supermodel” and later became a successful actress making many appearances accross the United States. If you do enjoy British drama, I would also suggest the following:

Upstairs Downstairs
The Grand
~C

taken from the Onion

U.S. Invades Non-Oil-Rich Nation To Dispel Criticism LUXEMBOURG VILLE, LUXEMBOURG?In an effort to quiet criticism of U.S. military policy, 50,000 U.S. troops invaded and soundly defeated the non-oil-rich Grand Duchy of Luxembourg Monday. “Once again, the U.S. claims victory over a rogue nation,” said President Bush after the 45-minute war. “The people of Luxembourg, although prosperous and living in peace, have suffered under the tyranny of a monarchy for centuries. And allow me to point out that Luxembourg has not one drop of crude oil.” Troops will return home Friday, following the public hanging of Grand Duke Henri de Luxembourg.

Revised Patriot Act Will Make It Illegal To Read Patriot Act
WASHINGTON, DC?President Bush spoke out Monday in support of a revised version of the 2001 USA Patriot Act that would make it illegal to read the USA Patriot Act. “Under current federal law, there are unreasonable obstacles to investigating and prosecuting acts of terrorism, including the public’s access to information about how the federal police will investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism,” Bush said at a press conference Monday. “For the sake of the American people, I call on Congress to pass this important law prohibiting access to itself.” Bush also proposed extending the rights of states to impose the death penalty “in the wake of Sept. 11 and stuff.”

~C

I just found this on Beth’s website. They have the cutest cartoon dogs. I’ll have to admitt, the westies are cuter than the beagles (Beth has Westie named Jack), but that’s ok cause nothings cuter than our little Chani.
~C

Our local newspaper, Examiner Enterprise, often runs Hamilton’s column in the Opinion section. It was a pretty funny one yesterday. I found a link to it online here.
-C

Found a couple of really great sites thanks to a good friend of ours–Beth
(last name withheld to protect individual). Just thought I’d post them here.
I love games and so this area of the blog will reflect that. Hopefully the
longer this blog stays up, the more games and other Fun Stuff I’ll post.
Anyway, here’s couple to get started:

Orisinal Games

Runescape haven’t played it yet but it looks like a cheaper version of
EverQuest. Which I’m all about, I loved EverQuest, but it took up too much
time and $$$.

-M