Note To Self...

Not everyone wants to see Milo naked.

Bathtime, while the highlight of my day (and, apparently, one of Milo's too), doesn't hold the same appeal to everyone else in the world.

Hey, I just want to share Milo's unbelievable cuteness with visitors, but I seem to get strange looks in return.

At least I've managed to refrain from asking our visitors to look at Milo's latest poop. "Oooh! It's more solid than runny! And look -- you can see tiny pieces of carrots in there! I should blend his food a bit longer next time..."

I'm sorry, okay? It's just fascinating stuff to me. American Idol (yawn), Survivor (ick),... I'll take a dirty diaper any day.

Catching up with Christmas Photos

Oh Milo, you're such a star.

Just before the holidays we dressed Milo up for a trip to the office. Milo was in for a treat. In his embarrassing-in-about-13-years Santa suit, Milo got to spend some quality time with one of the Dread Pirate Robert's co-workers and favourite bloggers.

Meg, who offers you insight into her coffee-fueled life at Blogcabin, and who really doesn't need another link from me, was simply captivating. The boy has taste. In fact, I think I lucked out with my camera and got the biggest smile of the day.

Meg's smiling too, and could you blame her?

Now to get posting the rest of the seasonal shots and some of January.

My Flickr account has been sadly neglected, I haven't looked at my Fotolog page in months, and I'm running out of room on my Mac HomePage. Luckily, there's Blogger. Now I just have to get organized and put up some swim lesson pics.

It's amazing how sitting at a computer all day at work saps your desire to do more of the same when you get home. The upside is that with my excellent job and steady paycheck, someday soon I'll be able to afford a new computer.

Happy Friday the 13th!

Here we are on the 13th day of the 13th month -- and it happens to be a Friday too. The next time January has a Friday the 13th isn't until 2012, so enjoy it while you can.

Today is St. Knut's day (watch the spelling on that one) in Sweden and is the 20th day of Christmas. Time to throw out that tree! (In Swedish, and correct me if I'm wrong, the word is julgransplundring.

Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in a comic strip on this date in 1930, Elizabeth I was crowned Queen of England in 1559, and on January 13, 1957, the Wham-O company made the very first Frisbee.

Today is the birthday of Art "The Trophy" Ross, Orlando "Legolas" Bloom, Nikolai "The Bulin Wall" Khabibulin, Carol "What's so special about the cheesemakers?" Cleveland, and Charles Nelson Reilly, who can still be heard occasionally voicing "The Dirty Bubble" on Spongebob Squarepants.

This date also saw the deaths of Charles the Fat (nice name, tubby), Holy Roman Emperor, Wyatt Earp, and James Joyce.

Yes, if you follow the Gregorian calendar, it's the 13th day of 2006. But if you're old school and prefer to stick it to the man by living your life on the old Julian calendar, then guess what -- it's New Year's Freakin' Eve, my friends!

Rejoice, have fun, and if you happen to see the Dread Pirate Robert on your travels, wish him a Happy Birthday!


Major Update: OMFG my droogies, there yet remains one more birthday even more momentous than that of the Dread Pirate Robert:

Today is also the third birthday of none other than Trogdor the Burninator!


Hoist a cold one to the burninator of countrysides, peasants, and thatched roof cottages everywhere. Or else.

What's the big deal?

For the past few days people all over the 'Net have been getting all uppity about James Frey, the guy with the -ahem- creatively amended memoir A Million Little Pieces.

Meg, over at the old blogcabin, has been writing on this topic far more eloquently than I, and keeping me up to date with her sense of outrage.

How could this happen? Well, far be it from me to blame every little thing on the leader of the free world (btw, isn't that phrase getting a little inaccurate?), but for my money, Fraud boy was just following the lead of his President. Lead by example, and all that. Lies, lies, lies.

Oh, and Random House is offering a refund to anyone who bought the book. What's George going to do to match THAT?

Oh, The Backlog...

Arrrrr Ye! Curses be to the Diaper Dame and her incessant blogging! The Dread Pirate Robert hates being scooped -- especially when it comes to cute baby pics of our son!

I suppose it's only fair -- she claims she's getting back at me for all that time she was too tired from 24-hour newborn care to post and I was unemployed and fancy free. (Well, not THAT fancy -- I'm still the Dread Pirate Robert, dammit.)

The most important thing is that just before the Christmas we bit the bullet and bought us a new camera. I had to admit that after six weeks of being "lost," our trusty Kodak EasyShare DX6440 (Probably the most-used wedding present we received -- other than our bed... nudge nudge wink wink) was just not going to be found and we couldn't miss another moment of Milo cuteness.

Say hello to the Nikon Coolpix S4 -- small, easy to use, and it looks cool. 10x optical zoom too and a huge viewscreen. It also took over 350 photos and a few movies before the rechargeable batteries finally died. A little tricky in low light, but I'm thrilled with it and think it'll be our last camera before I go for the digital SLR.

Without further ado, the pictures.


The first photo on my new camera. Yes, we bought Milo a santa suit just for the holidays. (It was on sale.) And no, I don't care how much of a geek he looks like. Just storing ammunition for the teenage years.


Aww... isn't that sweet! My lovely wife bringing me Guinness as I play with a new electronic gadget. Heaven.


Milo meets the alien, aka Crazypants Man. If you pull his antennae, he vibrates. Just like me!



I just couldn't put the camera down. I took over a hundred photos that first evening, including this one of the veggies I was sauteeing for the refried beans.

Next post, Christmas pics! (If I can find any that haven't already been posted elsewhere...)

Heidi Klum is off limits?

Now this is weird.

Some time ago a blogger named Patrick Breitenbach wrote a post about Heidi Klum (I guess he said she was hot or something) which resulted in his post page being indexed with Miss Klum's name in the URL. Lord knows he's not the only one who's ever written about a celebrity in a blog.

The weird thing is that he says he got a cease and desist letter from her Dad. Apparently the name "Heidi Klum" is copyrighted and Herr Klum (and his team of lawyers) is zealously protecting it, even to the point of going after any and all URLs with "Heidi Klum" in the title.



Well, to make a long story short, I am conducting the same experiment to see if I can reproduce the results, not to mention the nasty letter. Hey, if Daddy L can take over the Eddie Munster (actually, the "Eddy Munster") search results... actually, Eddie Munster would be easier to get a ranking for. Eddie Munster is just not as attractive as Heidi Klum.



He's cute, sure, but just not in the same league. Don't call Heidi Klum hot, though, unless you want a German lawyer and an overprotective father on your back.

Nerds R Us

So Meg sent me the nerd test and apparently, I kicked major pocket protector. After a couple of lies in the do-over (see my post on the Kobayashi Maru) I got a 96. What a keener!

For an interesting side note, the etymology of the word nerd is a contentious issue. The three best versions I've found are as follows:
1. From the Dr. Seuss classic "If I Ran the Zoo," right between a Narkle and a Seersucker.
2. Reverse spelling of the word "drunk" (knurd) to describe those who chose studying over partying.
3. Acronym of company name -- Northern Electric Research and Development -- on pocket protectors handed out to employees.