Hiding the decline!

At First I LOL'd, but Then I Serious'd

Electric fences are no bull

I grew up in a small town in Southeastern Minnesota which, to this day, struggles to maintain a population of over 1,000 people. The town is small enough that, if you were to walk for 15 minutes in a straight line in any direction, chances are good you'll probably find yourself standing in a cornfield.

That's not actually a criticism. Growing up in a town bordered closely by a mix of agricultural expanse and wilderness provided a young boy like myself with ample opportunities for building forts and endless exploration.

It also ensured a nearly constant string of encounters with farm animals both large and small. From getting bucked off a horse to having my groin smashed by the snout of an angry sow, I was never too far away from severe bodily injury any time I visited the farming homes of my rural boyhood friends.

Cows were a frequent sight when I was out exploring or visiting friends' farms, and as domesticated animals go, I decided cows were about the least threatening mammals in existence. Generally, cows tend to stand in one place, perpetually chewing regurgitated grass, while apparently thinking deep thoughts like "Here I am, chewing my vomit." That a cow could somehow harm a person seemed ludicrous.

The first time I remember seeing a bull, I was watching television with my father, who happened to have the TV tuned to a rodeo. I didn't watch for very long, but I nevertheless sat in awe as a grown man willingly lowered himself onto the back of one of the biggest, angriest, most muscular creatures I could ever have imagined.

The gate opened, and the bull proceeded to violently buck and wheel around and perform other extraordinary physical acts in an attempt to remove the flailing man who was determined to hang on for dear life. A few seconds into the spectacle, the bull finally succeeded in knocking the stubborn man to the ground. Not satisfied with simply having him off its back, the bull then started pushing the man around in the dirt with its head, apparently determined to insert one of its horns into the man's behind.

The bull, distracted by men dressed as clowns, gave up on the man, but not before stepping on the man's back with one of its back hoofs. The man, miraculously, got up and ran away, and I remember thinking "There's no way he'll ever do THAT again," and then much to my utter surprise, he tried again just a few minutes later.

I took away a couple lessons from that first rodeo. First, men who ride bulls, while tough as nails, share the same intelligence. Second, bulls are to be feared as one of my top three dangerous animals, alongside dinosaurs and wooly mammoths. So began my lifelong determination to avoid bulls at all costs.

Time passed, and eventually I found myself doing a sleepover at the home of one of my farm friends. This particular friend, John, stayed on a farm that kept cows. Now, I don't quite know how John learned about my deeply ingrained fear of bulls, and in retrospect he probably didn't know; that was just a happy coincidence.

John and I decided to go play in his treehouse located in a slight valley about a half mile from the house. The fastest way to get there was to traverse the pen holding several cows. Because I had no fear of cows whatsoever, I eagerly jumped into the pen and made my way to the other side.

That's when John decided to do something HILARIOUS.

"Ryan! Watch out! The bull's coming after you!" John yelled, and immediately I recalled the stupid little man who almost had a bull horn inserted into his behind.

I started to run, and I mean I started to run the kind of determined run you run when nothing else in life matters except for running. I ran so hard and so fast, I think I left behind a little dust-like ghost of myself, like in cartoons, when a toon takes off very fast and a brief image of it remains before dissapating like a cloud.

I mean, I RAN!!

And I ran right smack dab into an electric fence, which took me out at about the chestline. While my feet continued their forward progress, my body definitely stopped in its tracks, which quickly meant I was flat on my back in the dirt, at which point several small dramas played out all at once.

First off, I had to get the electrical shock out of the way because, after all, I did just run into an electric fence. I spasmed pretty solidly, and I imagine it looked a lot like Luke getting zapped by the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. Secondly, I had just had the wind knocked out of me, so I was dealing with that particularly terrifying sensation of "I CAN'T BREATHE, SO I'M GOING TO DIE!" Finally, I was still determined to put distance between myself and the bull, so I was crawling desperately like I was trying to drag my wounded self off Omaha Beach on D-Day.

In the end, it was just too much for my body to process all at once, so my brain decided I should just collapse and concentrate my efforts on getting air back in my lungs. I lay there, gasping, waiting for the bull horn to arrive and do its worst. It would be easy for the bull; I was now a stationary target, after all. Heck, the bull could even take its time and line up the shot for maximum effect. What could I do?

To my complete surprise, no bull checked my oil that day. Instead, I heard John approaching, laughing the kind of unfettered laugh you let loose when you've just witnessed something so comedically pure and wonderful, no other response is adequate. As it turned out, there was no bull in that particular pen; the impulse to yell that a bull was bearing down on me was all just inspiration on John's part.

While the bull had been simply fantasy, the electric fence had been very much real. I had struck that wire with such force that I actually snapped it in two which, while remarkable, was nevertheless quite annoying to John's brother, Mike, who was tasked with repairing the broken wire.

I harbored great resentment against John for several hours after the incident, but I eventually decided it wasn't something to end a friendship over. I did, however, make a silent pledge to get even some day.

So, John, if you're reading this, consider yourself warned.

Waiting for the snap to snap

Here in Minnesota, we refer to a stretch of ridiculously cold weather as a "cold snap." I've never liked this term, because it seems to indicate there's nothing too bad about cold weather; that it's easy; that it's a "snap."

In fact, cold weather is actually a bit of a bother, if I do say so myself. And I do. If we really must insist on calling a week of cold weather a "cold snap," at least mandate it also must carry the mental image of having your underwear snapped by someone who has icicles for fingers.

I have a lot of problems with cold weather, not the least of which being it can be deadly. Oh, sure, I realize excessively hot temperatures can also be deadly but, generally, if I had to choose between death by hot or cold weather, I'm pretty confident that hot weather would be the way to go. Not that I'm willing to find out either way, or anything. As preferred death options go, I still think David Carradine was probably on the right track.

At any rate, cold weather has a lot of other drawbacks besides simply being deadly, which is, nevertheless, a big strike against it.

For example, on any given morning featuring single or negative degrees, there's a good chance you'll see me -- barefoot, shirtless and with a toothbrush in my mouth -- running down the stairs, outside, to start my car to ensure it's warm and toasty 30 minutes later. Granted, I don't NEED to be barefoot and shirtless, but that's just my general condition in the morning when I realize I have to run down and start my car. And, believe me, when you're barefoot and shirtless in single digit or negative degree weather, you quickly harbor a deep disgust for cold weather in all its forms.

Also, cold weather can lead to awkward social situations. Yesterday, someone waved at me from across the street, but they were bundled from head to toe in winter garb, so I had no idea at whom I was waving. The person could just as easily have been the Pope, from what I could discern.

Eventually, I crossed the street and greeted the individual up close, and I STILL couldn't recognize who I was addressing. Finally, the person lifted their face mask to reveal it was actually a woman. Unfortunately, it was a woman I secretly don't like all that much and who, normally, I'd go out of my way to avoid. But, there I was, in a situation not unlike unwrapping a totally disappointing gift, only in this case I had to make uncomfortable small talk with the gift. The encounter was made all the more uncomfortable because, as I may have mentioned, it was so TERRIBLY COLD.

It's estimated human beings lose a majority of their body heat through their heads. I have no problem believing this. Speaking as a man who has been shaving his head for about 15 years now, I'd say almost all of my body heat is lost through my head. During cold weather, particularly during "cold snaps," I feel so much heat escaping from my head, I think of myself as the human equivalent of a lit match.

I normally remember to wear a hat, but during those rare times I forget, walking outside in the cold is the equivalent of running a cheese grater over my face and scalp. The cold can hurt so bad, I'll actually get mad at my head, which is about as productive an emotion as it sounds.

Now that we're almost in February, thankfully, I only have about a month left
of this year's "cold snap" to look forward to. I can almost envision
the wonderful days during which I can complain about a sunburned head
instead. I can barely wait.

Editors. . .

Ryan: It never fails. I try to go and enjoy a nice, quiet lunch, by myself, and someone ends up trying to strike up a conversation with me.

Caroline: stupid people

Ryan: And people try to talk about the most boring things.
Dear stranger, I don't care at all that you keep your thermostat at 65.

Caroline: It's strange people look at you and think "hmm, that guy looks like someone who wants to chat with me."

Ryan: I know, right?

Caroline: Right

Ryan: It would take some serious effort on my part to look any more like a kid touching ax murderer. I don't look like this because I want to be your friend.

Caroline: I think you should hyphenate kid-touching

Again, For the Record

It's a largely unmentioned fact within my household that I actually videotaped the birth of my son. My wife is aware I did it, but she doesn't seem at all interested in knowing much more than that, while my son seems more intent on basically putting everything he can grab into his mouth.

It was never really my intention to videotape the birth, and in retrospect I did so more as a means of focusing my attention to relieve some of the stress I was feeling as my wife underwent a c-section, which was described to us at the time as "major surgery."

Had it been a regular birth, I most likely wouldn't have recorded it, since my wife would have probably punched me in the groin so hard, I'd be speaking in a voice three octaves higher than normal even today. As it was, recording my son being pulled out of an abdominal incision didn't seem so taboo, since my wife will hopefully never have to urinate out of that.

The fact I even had a video camera on hand at all was something of a happenstance. The month prior to the baby's delivery, I had won a high definition Flip video camera, thanks to a Pepsi sweepstakes program, which speaks more to my perpetual intake of Diet Pepsi than to my good fortune, but I'm okay with that.

For those unfamiliar with Flip video cameras, they pack an amazing amount of digital video capability into an impossibly small device, no bigger than a deck of playing cards. The very idea your average person on the street can be packing such a calibre of digital video heat is rather astounding. Every minor human accomplishment or foible can now potentially be caught on video and uploaded to YouTube -- something to keep in mind when you're considering wearing that pair of shorts with the small hole in the rear.

Anyway, I had slid the camera into my pocket just prior to entering the operating room and, upon seeing my shocked and convulsively shaking wife on the operating table, I automatically grabbed the camera, since it represented about the only thing in the room that didn't make me feel completely helpless.

At first, I was intent on staying behind the partition separating my wife's head and arms from the surgically controlled chaos being perfomed on the other side, but eventually, curiousity got the better of me and I peered over the divide and witnessed a scene that was both terrifying yet utterly fascinating.

When I first brought the camera up to my face, it occurred to me how much it probably looked like I was drawing a pistol, which would explain the seemingly surprised looks on the faces of some of the surgical staff. One of the surgeons even briefly dropped a tweezer-like instrument, although that was probably due to the slippery nature of fresh human blood rather than because I was standing there recording the whole thing.

I've witnessed surgeries before, but I'm always surprised by how forceful and fairly violent the procedures can be. When you imagine doctors conducting surgery on you, you like to envision them being extraordinarily delicate, like petting a porcupine. The reality is they force their hands into incisions that look impossibly small, and they use retracting devices that would no doubt make Spanish Inquisition torturers swoon. Surgeons tug, and pull and yank human tissue like a gaggle of women fighting over clothes during a blue light sale special.

When it finally came time to remove my son from the womb, a surgeon pushed his arm so far into my wife's abdomen, I wondered--if I looked down at my wife's face--whether I'd see the surgeon's fingers sticking out of her mouth. After a couple jerking motions, and the surgeon saying "I got it," my son was pulled limply free from my wife's body and I remember thinking "this is not at all how I imagined it."

Which is kind of ironic, because I've been saying "this is not at all how I imagined it," at least twelve times a day ever since my wife's c-section.

Tick Tock Aiden

That perfect age

I sometimes fail to appreciate that I'm in the perfect age group. For example, in marketing terms, there's often the "Kids and Youth" sector and the "Seniors" sector, two groups who are apparently hugely susceptible to the siren song of marketing.

When you're in that sweet spot, however, from 34 to 65 or so, you're considered marketing teflon. Advertisements bounce off you like bullets against Superman. The real reason marketing bounces off you during that age, of course, is because you have probably children. When you have children, you both don't have time for marketing, while at the same time you become hyper aware as to how ridiculous most of it is.

Aside from marketing, however, the 34 to 65 age group is also a sweet spot for other reasons, which I realized this weekend for reasons that aren't all that clear to me. Basically, I woke up Saturday morning thinking back to when I was 21-years-old, a year during which I both got hit by a train AND detonated a grenade in my parents' backyard. It was a year, in retrospect, during which I unintentionally tried my damnedest to exit this plain of existence.

And I started thinking about it all in terms of age groups, because my mind is warped like that and makes connections no rational person's brain would attempt. Basically, I thought about my 21st year and how much differently it would have been had all the exploits of that year played out now, in my 34th year.

Because, honestly, if you were reading news headlines, and you saw an item about a 21-year-old, or an 80-year-old, detonating a grenade in their backyard, you'd probably dismiss the story offhand as the stupidity of youth or the dementia of old age. But, if it was about a 34-year-old detonating a grenade in the backyard, well, you'd probably read more than just the headline, because really, you'd want to know more about WHY THAT HAPPENED.

For that matter, if you read about a 21-year-old, or an 80-year-old, getting hit by a train, again you'd just assume the younger kid was being reckless, or the older person simply dozed off behind the wheel because his or her favorite jazz tune was playing on the radio. But a 34-year-old? What's the story behind THAT?

What all this means is I'm basically required to be a lot more responsible from now until I'm 70 or so, at which point I can start doing crazy things again and then just shrug my shoulders and say something like "What do you expect? I'm OLD!"

Until then, there's just too much explaining I'll have to do.

Dick Talk

Ryan: Remember when we tried to watch them in your office and pissed off the curmudgeon next door?

Caroline: Ha! Yes. What a dickbag.

Ryan: Dickbag. . . Can you imagine your surprise if you discovered a bag full of dicks? Totally without any background or context.

Caroline: Would I really want background or context? I think that'd make it more disturbing. Like, is this a bag full of dicks that occurred out of happy circumstances or tragic circumstances?

Ryan: Just BAM you step outside and there's this bag on your doorstep, which you open and find it crammed full of severed dicks.

Caroline: Dick Crammed will be a character in our book.

Ryan: You'd probably immediately think "This is probably my husband's bag of dicks."

Caroline: "I'll just put it over here until he gets home from work."

Ryan: Probably would want to put it in the deep freeze or something.

Caroline: Probably. Next to the Vagbag.

Ryan: Oh, so now there's a Vagbag?

Caroline: Why can't there be? Is there some kind of law? Equality for all!

Ryan: A bag full of vaginas would at least be somewhat useful.

Caroline: Mmkay. Let's explore that thought. Sicko. A bag full of "severed" vaginas would be "useful" to you.

Ryan: You could use the vaginas as leg and wrist warmers. Maybe even a headband, if it's a larger severed vagina.

Caroline: That vagina gives good head ...band.

Ryan: But a bag full of dicks? Totally useless.

Caroline: Nonsense!

Ryan: Explain.

Caroline: You could use one as a door stop. Paperweight. Dog/cat toy
Fill that sucker up with catnip!

Ryan: A severed dick would be a terrible door stop.

Caroline: Maybe YOURS would.

Ryan: It would just get all smushed up under the door.

Caroline: Then it's not big enough.

Ryan: Wait. Are you talking erect severed dicks here?

Caroline: Sentences like that make me smile.

Ryan: Because I was thinking about a bag of flaccid severed dicks.

Caroline: how about a bag full of talking erect severed dicks

Ryan: Well, now you're just talking crazy talk.

Caroline: It can happen!

Ryan: What would a severed dick POSSIBLY have to talk about?

Caroline: I can imagine there'd be a lot to talk about. It's troubling being a severed dick.

Ryan: Troubling being a severed dick I can agree with. But wouldn't the dick just be beside itself because it discovered it could talk?

Caroline: Oh, it knew all along.

Ryan: Wait, maybe THAT'S why it got severed.

Caroline: Now we're getting to the bottom of this.

Ryan: I hear when you get to the bottom of a severed dick, you just pop out the other side. Like a worm hole.

Caroline: Peek-a-boo penis

Ryan: Getting back to something you said earlier: why does it have to be an "severed ERECT talking penis?"

Caroline: It just does. Flaccid ones are useless.

Ryan: I can see that argument. Anyway, what would a severed erect talking penis have to say?

Ryan: "Damnit, man, throw me into that Vagbag RIGHT NOW!"

Caroline: "Ouch," for one.

Ryan: It wouldn't say "Ouch," because it would have been removed from the host's nervous system. The former host would no doubt be saying ouch though.

Caroline: You went all nerd boy there.

Ryan: Just shooting for a little biological realism here.

Caroline: I think realism went out the window when this conversation started.

New Jobless Claims Rise, As Expected

Everyone knew this was coming, Labor Departments analysts say, shrug.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Rhodes Media Services -- It came as no surprise to anyone outside of the national press that there was an increase in first-time claims for unemployment aid last week, with Labor Department analysts saying "Yep, what are you gonna do?"

With an almost steady stream of similar increases over the last several months, Americans have largely grown to expect this kind of news, while most news agencies continue to use terms like "unexpectedly," "surprisingly," "Wha?" and "Huh?" when reporting such increases, as if anyone is taking them seriously any more.

One Associated Press (AP) representative, who asked to remain anonymous, indicated they're even entertaining the possiblity of inventing new words and phrases to convey their faux-surprise when such increases are announced.

"We've kicked around some ideas," said the A.P. rep. "We've looked at such lead-ins as 'Rise in new jobless claims consterfabulated the experts,' and 'Analysts were boinkstonishified by the rise in new jobless claims.' We're basically throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks."

Joseph Turner, a 28-year-old unemployed construction worker, who was interviewed just prior to this blog post's deadline, took a much more realistic view of the situation.

"Of course new jobless claims rose," he said. "You'd have to be an idiot to be surprised by this kind of news. Look around. Jesus."

Because I can

Get out the vote

My wife has been driving me nuts about linking to this.

Vote daily, because it would make my wife most happy.

Windfall

Just before the turn of the year, my parents visited and my Mom handed me an envelope full of bonds. Some of the bonds date back to 1975, the year I was born, and the same year my grandparents started sending me bonds on my birthday. All told, there were two $25 bonds, and 12 $50 bonds, spanning years from 1975 to 1991.

For those doing the math, that's $650 face value. Of course, bonds accrue interest, so some of the older bonds can be worth as much as five times their face value, so I'm looking at $2,000 to $3,000 (give or take a couple hundred) overall. So, in general, this is a good thing.

The thing is, I have a mixed reaction to a financial windfall like this. On the one hand, I can look at it as money for a new gas fireplace, which I need to buy eventually, one way or the other. Still, on the other hand, I look at the bonds and see them as representing three months of financial peace of mind should I somehow lose my job or incur some sort of unknown expense.

This is the dual financial world that always rules over me, often leading to an intractable non-action. I end up building a healthy savings I'm simply too terrified to spend. It drives my wife crazy.

This is also why I don't want to have the coin collection from my more youthful years appraised. Oh, sure, I'm curious as to what it's worth, but once I know, it'll just become another one of those things I'd sit and worry about.

Blogged Down

Ryan: I watched "Julie and Julia" last week.

Caroline: Oh right. We watched that a few weeks ago

Ryan: That's about a time when blogs were still the newest thing.

Caroline: yeah seriously

Ryan: A person writing that kind of crap nowadays would get about 10 visits a day, tops. And nine of those would be people looking for nude pictures of Julia Child.

Caroline: ::shudder::

Only 170?

Sheets that don't rock

I spent a large amount of time over the weekend hanging sheetrock in the basement.

I honestly hate hanging sheetrock, in the basement or elsewhere.

It's not so much the act of hanging sheetrock that I mind; I actually find it to be somewhat relaxing. Rather, it's looking at a day's worth of sheetrock hanging and saying to myself: "That's it? That's all I accomplished?" Because, you know what? Hanging sheetrock is one of the most labor-intensive, nothing-to-show-for-your-work activities this life has to offer.

I mean, seriously. You'd think a sheet of rock that's four-feet-by-eight-feet in size would possibly cover some serious area. Instead, after you button that chunk of crap to the ceiling, you step back and marvel at how tiny that huge piece of shit actually is. It almost makes you sit down and ponder just how insignificant your life apparently is.

And that's just the hanging aspect; it doesn't include the measuring, an exact science which, left in my hands, would result in a room eerily reminscent of most Salvadore Dali paintings. Putting a measuring tape in my hands is like giving a monkey a hand grenade.

Instead, I leave all the measuring to my wife, which leads to an interesting sequence of events. You see, while I would never trust myself with measuring basically anything, that in no way diminishes my impatience with my wife's measuring process. While she labors to exactly determine where light switch openings need to be cut, I'll be circling the perimeter, sighing loudly and asking what's taking so long. I want to HANG the sheetrock, after all, not just stand there and watch my wife make pencil marks. My impatient behavior, though very cathartic to me, does not go over well at all with my wife. The end result of this sequence of events, ultimately, is a lot of bickering. We're professional bickerers.

After a piece of sheetrock has been adequately measured and cut, I then get to actually hang it, which consists of putting roughly eight million screws into each sheet. I don't have a definite formula for how many screws I dedicate to each sheet, but the number tends to increase depending on my mood. If my wife and I have just finished bickering, for example, there will be so many screws in the sheetrock, you probably couldn't throw a dart without hitting one.

And all of this doesn't even begin to address the areas of mudding and taping, which are such maddeningly mundane and repetitive activities, they actually prompt you to wonder if God Himself invented them as a sort of celestial joke on mankind.

The Boy Likes Piggy Noises. Who Knew?

Sub-Human

There are few entities that are more universally evil than the scum of the earth responsible for comment thread spamming. I feel a boulder of hate develop in the pit of the gut whenever I log into my blog and see the "Latest Comments" have been flooded with comment spam.

If you're reading this, comment spammers, I disabled hot-linking in my comments ages ago, so all your efforts have been for naught. Jerks.

It's been a decade

Jan. 1, 2000
- Job = Technical Editor, IBM redbooks; humor columnist
- Single
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, running

Jan. 1, 2001
- Job = Technical Editor, IBM redbooks; humor columnist
- Single
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, running

Jan. 1, 2002
- Job = Technical Editor, IBM redbooks; humor columnist
- Single
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, hapkido, running

Jan. 1, 2003
- Job = News Editor, IBM iSeries magazine; humor columnist
- Serious relationship
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, hapkido, rollerblading, blogging, running

Jan. 1, 2004
- Job = News Editor, IBM eServer magazine, iSeries, pSeries and zSeries editions; humor columnist
- Serious relationship
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, hapkido, rollerblading, blogging, running

Jan. 1, 2005
- Job = News Editor, IBM eServer magazine, iSeries, pSeries and zSeries editions; humor columnist
- Serious relationship
- Homeowner
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, hapkido, rollerblading, blogging

Jan. 1, 2006
- Job = Managing Editor, IBM Systems Magazine, zSeries edition; humor columnist
- Serious Relationship
- Homeowner
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, rollerblading, blogging, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu

Jan. 1, 2007
- Job = Managing Editor, IBM Systems Magazine, zSeries and pSeries editions; freelance writer; humor columnist
- Serious Relationship
- Homeowner
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, rollerblading, blogging, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu

Jan. 1, 2008
- Job = Managing Editor, CompTIA newsletter; News Editor, IBM zSeries and pSeries editions; freelance writer; humor columnist
- Serious Relationship
- Homeowner
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, rollerblading, blogging, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu

Jan. 1, 2009
- Job = Web content producer, Large Medical Thingee; freelance writer; humor columnist
- Married (wife: pregnant)
- Homeowner
- Hobbies = golf, computer games, blogging, Brazillian Jiu-Jitsu

As for all the other details, this blog is a treasure trove of memories and experiences.

Sesame Street Versus Mr. Rogers

I'm a bit late to the party here, but November 10 marked the 40th anniversary of "Sesame Street," and I'm just now finding the time to adequately appreciate that noteworthy milestone.

You see, like countless millions, I'm an adult product of Sesame Street. My formative daycare years consisted of daily morning doses of Sesame Street. My fellow daycare peeps and I would gather around the warm, chromosome-altering glow of the television and learn such valuable life lessons as "near versus far," how to identify the "people in our neighborhood," and correctly determine "which one of those things just doesn't belong there."

In retrospect, Sesame Street was all about teaching us how to prepare for a career in airline security.

Back in my day, an age now referred to as B.E. (Before Elmo), the most beloved Sesame Street character was Grover, who I now think of as Smurf Elmo; although Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Bert and Ernie and the Cookie Monster all held places of honor in the pantheon of Sesame Street muppets.

In the B.E. era of PBS morning broadcasting, Sesame Street was followed by Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, which almost all of us viewed as a colossal disappointment. It was generally understood the only kids who watched Mr. Rogers were those who couldn't keep up with the fast pace of Sesame Street. Sesame Street was the Miami Vice of children's television. Mr. Rogers, on the other hand, was basically The Waltons as a one man show.

Mr. Rogers was the ultimate bureaucrat policy wonk. Every day, the man would enter his house, PUT ON A CARDIGAN and CHANGE HIS SHOES. Those two acts alone told you he didn't like paying for heat and his floors were probably too dangerous to trod upon wearing socks or to risk going barefoot. The man had a stoplight in his home, for crying out loud, which indicated he was a major stickler when it came to rules and regulations.

There was an entertaining rumor whispered eagerly between myself and my daycare colleagues that Mr. Rogers was an ex-marine sniper with over 100 confirmed kills in Vietnam. That rumor fascinated me, and I imagined Mr. Rogers in his cardigan and sneakers (standard jungle wear), drawing the crosshairs on Charlie from half a mile away, and whispering "Boomerang! Toomerang! Zoomerang!" before pulling the trigger.

Alas, the rumor eventually proved to be ridiculously false, so Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood morphed back into the boring, plodding show I always secretly knew it to be.

Sesame Street, by comparison, was a place where you could "come and play" and "everything's A-Okay." I had no idea what the "A" in "A-Okay" even meant, and I STILL don't, but it seemed like a definite improvement over plain old "Okay." It was like adding the "e" to "e-mail." Nowadays, I suppose it's not even "A-Okay;" it's no doubt been upgraded to "everything's @-Okay." That's just how innovative Sesame Street is.

The point is, Sesame Street was, and continues to be, cutting-edge children's entertainment, and I've discovered I'm woefullly behind the Sesame Street times as I try to re-educate myself in preparation for my son's upcoming formative years. By the time he's absorbing all things Sesame Street, "Open Heart Surgery Elmo" will be the holiday gift item I simply HAVE to obtain for my child.

Now that I think about it, maybe I should try to hook my son on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Then I'd only have to worry about buying my boy a new cardigan each Christmas. There's a certain peace of mind to that.

Christmas Moooooorafternoon

Eclipsing the Tard

Ryan: Overheard yesterday: "Sometimes, I really miss the show 'The West Wing.' But, I suppose now we have our own Jed Bartlett in the White House."

Carolinevitse: goo

Ryan: Does not compute, right?

Caroline: Not exactly

Ryan: Maybe if Dule Hill were prez.

Caroline: That'd be awesome.

Ryan: The West Wing meets Psyche! Shawn doing the whole "I'm getting something" when it comes to reforming healthcare.

Caroline: Well, the theme song certainly fits. "I know you know that I'm not telling the truuuuuuuuth"

Ryan: Ooh, ooh! Keep the same visual opening sequence from The West Wing, but play the Psyche theme music. This could eclipse TotalTard Magazine in sheer awesomeness!

Caroline: Don't get TOO carried away, there. Total eclipse of the TotalTard Magazine would be tough

Ryan: Cue Bonnie Tyler: "Total eclipse of the tard. . . "

Caroline: Turn around, bright eyes

Ryan: Wait for it. . .

Ryan: "Turn around, oblique eyes!"

Caroline: Sweet heavenly father christmas.

Ryan: LOLO! Ding the fries, man. They're done.

Ryan: Sometimes, I amaze myself with how happily and unashamedly I pilot my handbasket to hell. That oblique eyes thing could very well go down in history as one of my most inspired, hilarious, yet completely inappropriate jokes of all time.

Caroline: Which says A LOT because you've said some pret-ty awful things.

Ryan: Oh, I'm a treasure trove of inappropriate things.

The Impending Pop of the Web 2.0 Bubble

Someone I follow on Twitter posted a link to this Wired article. As I read the piece, more and more I started to see a lot of similarity to the Internet environment of the Dot.Com bubble burst we all enjoyed so much at the turn of the Milennium.

Whereas the Dot.Com era was awash with everyone and their cousins establishing Web sites designed to sell things, and then investors suddenly asking "where's the value in this," and the whole thing falling apart like toys made in China, now we're seeing something similar with crappy Web ads and junk content being uploaded to YouTube by the buttload. I just don't think it's a viable financial model in the long run.

I mean, with a lot of Internet ads, the basic premise seems to be to try to trick people to click them. There are pop-up ads, pop-under ads, expandable ads, roll-over ads, and they're all basically designed to A) Annoy the living hell out of you and B) Get you to click them, intentionally or not. It's the click that counts, although I've read there's some effort to track activity after a click to determine whether a click originated from an actual, interested person.

Regardless, it all seems like an advertising strategy that's largely built on a ridiculously shaky house of cards. At some point, someone is going to figure it out, too.

Say what you will about print advertising, when it comes right down to it, people aren't going to "accidentally" or "unintentionally" call a company after seeing a hardcopy advertisement. When someone calls a business after seeing a hardcopy ad, you can be reasonably sure they're an interested potential customer.

While I don't doubt there are some online ads that get clicked out of genuine interest for the product or service being touted, I don't think that percentage is very high. In fact, I imagine that percentage is so small, you need a scientific calculator to determine exactly what that tiny percentage is.

When you have a company devoted to creating buttloads of crappy video and content so as to run that content alongside similarly crappy and annoying online advertising, you've reached the point where something's gotta give.

2010 could be an interesting year for Web 2.0. Excuse me while I take cover now.

Everyday Wonders

My wife and I packed up the three-month old this week and took him to Best Buy, and afterwards we went to eat at Carlos O'Kelly's.

Watching the boy absorb all this noise, color, lights, people, smells and motions each and every day is just plain fascinating. He looks like he's taking in everything and none of it at the same time. It simply has to be mentally exhausting to try and process all the crap he's subjected to on a daily basis.

If you were to equate his little brain with a computer operating system, each day must be the equivalent of clicking "Update All." The Daddy App. The Mommy App. The House App. The TV App. Every single little app that's been installed since the day he was born has to be updated, and a boatload of new apps have to be installed, all without virus protection.

It's no evolutionary mistake that babies can't move around on their own for the first seven months or more. If your brain was inundated every day with eight gazillion new things to absorb, consider and file away, AND you had the ability to walk, you'd be an incredible danger to yourself and others. There's a reason natural selection dictates we have to spend the first six months of life lying on our backs, considering the stars.

And filling up a disturbing number of diapers.

Anyway, as the wife drove home from Carlos O'Kelly's that night, I was sitting in the back seat next to the boy, and he was looking intently out at the night sky, with the street lights whipping by overhead, and then all the houses decked out with Christmas decorations and lights. And it occurred to me why kids are so quick to believe in Santa, and the Easter Bunny and all the other fantastic, fictitious characters that live in a child's mind.

I mean, after all, if a simple trip to Best Buy can deliver that kind of magic and wonder, it can't be much of a stretch to imagine a fat man dressed in red, doling out toys and commuting via flying deer.

Babies Get Praised for Everything

One thing that's become glaringly obvious over the last three months of my unfolding fatherhood is that babies can basically do nothing wrong. In fact, not only can they do nothing wrong, they get ladled with adoring praise for doing things that are often, quite frankly, monumentally disgusting.

Don't get me wrong. I understand the need to encourage children, and particularly babies. For babies, after all, every day is dedicated to the tasks of eating, breathing, digesting, sleeping and growing, which are all activities we in the adult world tend to take for granted. So, you might as well encourage and praise their little ongoing efforts to stay amongst us.

However, I've recently begun to question some of the praise and encouragement my wife has been showering upon our son. I suppose I can chalk some of it up to a slight delirium on her part stemming from a lack of sleep, but I can't help but question the value of singing an encouraging song that goes "Push, push, push out the poopies!" Believe me, he doesn't need a song to help jumpstart that process. He does just fine on his own. Nevertheless, the refrain "Push, push, push out the poopies!" has become extremely popular in our little household. I expect a video of the song to go viral on YouTube any day now.

On a related note, my wife also doles out hefty praise after pretty much every single bowel movement our son embarks upon. No sooner do we hear the sound of a squishy expulsion slam against a diaper, my wife is proclaiming "Good job! Such a good boy!" I can't help but imagine praise like that leading to certain problems in the future. The boy will be 15-years-old and expect to hear wild applause every time he finishes using the bathroom, for example. I just wonder if we may be setting the accomplishment bar a bit low here.

The boy also garners whoops of appreciative glee whenever he burps, spits up, drools, grabs on to something, makes a sound, opens his eyes, yawns, kicks his legs or basically performs any other mundane feat. I mean, let's face it, all these are pretty naturally occurring acts; it's not like the boy is scrawling Einstein's theory of relativity on the floor with a crayon.

I have to admit, now that I really think about it, all this complaining about baby encouragement and praise is an attempt to disguise the fact I'm actually quite jealous.

I mean, you know how awesome it would be if I were in the bathroom, and I heard someone singing "Push, push, push out the poopies!" to me? As it is now, the only thing I hear is "GAH! Close the door and open the window if you're going to do that!" That kind of thing just doesn't instill much in the way of confidence.

Also, I burp loudly and proudly almost every day, and I never hear one word of praise. NOT ONE. No, the only thing I hear is "Yuck, that stinks. Lay off the garlic. Is that really necessary?" Yet when the baby burps loud enough to shake the rafters and the smell of old milk fills the room, you'd think he won Olympic gold or something. It's just not fair, dang it.

I guess it's just tough to admit a three-month-old baby gets far more praise and adoration for accomplishing things I've honed to absolute perfection over the last 34 years.

A little shout out from time to time would be nice, is all I'm saying.

TotalTard Hot Kool-Aid

Caroline: http://www.juliansmith.tv/2009/07/hot-kool-aid/

Ryan: Is that a video link?

Caroline: It's a link to a Web site that has a video on it.

Ryan: OK, first off. It's pretty funny. Second. When I first read "hot kool aid," I thought it was going to be a video of a bunch of people unwittingly drinking hot Kool-Aid, which would have been monumentally funnier.

Caroline: Now that you mention it, yes.

Ryan: Which tells you I'm pretty much awesome.

Caroline: That tells me nothing of the sort.

Ryan: The online version of TotalTard Magazine should totally include a YouTube video of people unwittingly drinking hot Kool-Aid.

DISCLAIMER: "TotalTard Magazine" is the mental creation of my geode twin, Caroline, and myself. Any attempt to print an actual hardcopy or digital version of TotalTard Magazine will be viewed as an act of intellectual theft, which is saying something, since Caroline and I are about as intellectual as dust mites.

Don't Count Hardcopy Content Out Quite Yet

When people ask me why I don't ENTIRELY believe the Internet will put the final nail in the coffin of hardcopy deliverables like newspapers and magazines, I point them to this:

Look at that thing. At least with newspaper and magazine advertisements (hardcopy, not online), you get something that ATTEMPTS to make sense. You get something someone at least tried to make genuinely interesting, rather than throwing Obama's name out there alongside a picture of Snaggletooth McGraw.

I get the reason WHY online ads have reached this level of craplisciousness. Generating online revenue is all about creating ads people will click, and it doesn't matter if the person clicking is genuinely interested in the product, or they're simply sadly curious whether GravelMouth Nostrilflare has been named the latest Obama czar.

Ads like these are a huge reason why I seriously question the advertising business model that drives the online world. At some point, a CEO who is just somewhat savvy will raise his or her hand and ask some very pointed questions about the effectiveness of these nonsensical online eye forks and be forced to conclude hardcopy advertising is just far more cost efficient when it comes to enticing actual paying customers.

The New Dancing Baby

The Handicapped Button

For some reason, it annoys me when perfectly non-handicapped people push the automatic door openers intended for people in wheelchairs. Admittedly, it's only a minor annoyance, and in the total scheme of things, I don't suppose any real harm comes from the practice.

Still, I can't help but wonder what actual handicapped people think when they see a non-handicapped person push the handicapped button. If I were handicapped, for example, I'd think "Hey! That's MY button!"

Therefore, I think there should be some sort of penalty for non-handicapped people pushing the handicapped button; perhaps a mild electric shock, or the equivalent of the shoulder punch.

I'm not saying non-handicapped people should not be allowed to push the handicapped button at all. If you're carrying a bag of groceries or your child, or if you're drafting a super-important text to your BFF, Jill, I can understand the need to use the handicapped button. However, I still think all non-handicapped persons opting to use the handicapped button should be sternly reminded that they're not, in fact, handicapped.

Besides, if I know my human nature -- and I think I do -- I imagine people will just accept being zapped as the price they have to pay to avoid manually opening a door. How sad is that? "Well, I know I'm going to feel this shock all the way in my fillings, but at least I won't have to inconvenience myself by having to PUSH or PULL that danged door open."

Therefore, instead of receiving a moderate shock, it would be the total height of awesome if someone could figure out a way to make it so that, if a non-handicapped person were to push the handicapped button, that person would immediately become handicapped in some way for about 20 seconds or so.

Can you imagine how shocked someone would be if they pushed the handicapped button and suddenly fell into a helpless heap on the floor, completely incapacitated, for half a minute? I'd just camp out near the handicapped button with a bowl of popcorn and watch that show all day long.

In fact, after each person pushes the button and crumples to the floor, I'd happily point out, "Well, what did you expect? It's a handicapped button! When you push the Diet Pepsi button, you get Diet Pepsi, don't you? Well, you just pushed the handicapped button, Einstein."

In fact, you know what? The handicapped button shouldn't be limited to bodily incapacitation. The handicapped button should be capable of dealing out all sorts of physical and mental disabilities for a brief amount of time.

It would be simply fantastic if some pompous blowhard pushed the handicapped button and suddenly he was mentally compelled to pet people's heads and call everyone "My favoritest doggie in the whole wide world," in Lennie's voice from "Of Mice and Men."

A handicapped button capable of bestowing a brief spell of Tourette's syndrome would also yield a treasure trove of confusion and laughter alike. A normally-quiet and reserved woman would push the handicapped button and would immediately be spewing a string of forceful expletives, to the total shock and bemusement of those around her.

Alas, now that I think about it, such a handicapped button would be too much of a temptation for some people to resist. I, for one, would gladly hang out around the handicapped button, waiting for the chance to shove somebody into it. I can think of some people in my life who deserve a good 20 seconds of disablement. More nefarious people than myself would probably use the handicapped button to make pickpocketing and other theft far easier -- except in those cases when they push someone into a handicapped button that deals out Tourette's.

In the end, I suppose a handicapped button that actually makes people briefly handicapped just isn't feasible. Human nature dictates people would abuse a handicapped button equipped with that particular feature.

Regardless, a decent electric shock is still a good idea, I think. Make non-handicapped people pause and consider how good they have it, before they just go and push the button anyway.

*zap*

So, now it's just down to the polar caps

Well, it's been awhile since I've tackled anything of any substance here, so I may as well crackle the old joints and blow the dust off the old fisking machine. This thing just begs to be torn apart.

WASHINGTON -- Stop hyperventilating, all you climate change deniers.

I'm sorry, was someone denying climate change? Was someone denying the earth has had an ever-changing climate since it first started clumping together into a spherical mass some 4.3 billion years ago? Of COURSE the climate changes! That's what the climate does. What anyone with a memory going back just five years ago will notice is "global warming" has quietly exited the stage and "climate change" has been introduced as the new undeniable bogeyman which we all must fear and dread.

The purloined e-mail correspondence published by skeptics last week -- portraying some leading climate researchers as petty, vindictive and tremendously eager to make their data fit accepted theories -- does not prove that global warming is a fraud.

Excuse me? The e-mail correspondence was published by "skeptics?" Last I heard, no one knows for sure who even pilfered and published the e-mails and other documents. But, hey, who am I to question the credentialed authority of a Pulitzer Prize winning member of the media commentariat.

If I'm wrong, somebody ought to tell the polar ice caps that they're free to stop melting.

Ah, the polar ice caps. That last bastion of retreat for warmlarmists (my word, but you can use it). Of course, they always seem to focus on the arctic ice cap, while ignoring the fresh body in the corner of the room that is the growing Antarctic ice cap. Or the fact the arctic has also been warmer in the not-too-distant past, warm enough for the Vikings to grow and harvest crops during the Medieval warm period. But, never mind all that.

That said, the e-mail episode is more than a major embarrassment for the scientists involved. Most Americans are convinced that climate change is real -- a necessary prerequisite for the kinds of huge economic and behavioral adjustments we would have to make to begin seriously limiting carbon emissions. But consensus on the nature and scope of the problem will dissipate, and fast, if experts try to obscure the fact that there's much about the climate they still don't know.

Oh, yes, by all means, let's admit the earth's climate has been in flux for 4.3 billion years, and then dedicate trillions of dollars from the global economy to address the "problem," a problem even Mr. Pulitzer agrees is so ridiculously complex, we basically don't have the first clue as to how the climate even actually works.

Here's what happened: Someone hacked into the servers at one of the leading academic centers in the field -- the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England -- and filched a trove of e-mails and documents, which have been posted on numerous Web sites maintained by climate skeptics.

You'll just have to excuse those dastardly "skeptics" for posting what amounts to a smoking truth gun vindicating what they've been trying to tell people for the last two decades or so. Namely: climate scientists on the "anthropogenic global warming (AGW)" side of the fence are largely a bunch of fraudulent Chicken Littles.

Phil Jones, the head of the Climatic Research Unit, released a statement Wednesday saying, "My colleagues and I accept that some of the published e-mails do not read well." That would be an example of British understatement.

How MUCH of an understatement?

In one message sent to a long list of colleagues, Jones speaks of having completed a "trick" with recent temperature data to "hide the decline."

Really? Using a "trick" to "hide the decline" doesn't read well? That's like saying "I killed my wife, and buried her in the backyard," could be read by SOME people -- we'll call them "skeptics" -- to mean "I may have committed murder, and then tried to cover it up." Not to worry though, Mr. Pulitzer can easily explain this away.

The word "trick" is hardly a smoking gun -- scientists use it to refer to clever but perfectly legitimate ways of handling data.

Sigh. A clever, but perfectly legitimate way of handling data? To be fair, I used to do that all the time when playing computer games. For example, I discovered in Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2, that I could blow up the bridges, and the computer AI wasn't smart enough to send engineers to rebuild them, so I could pretty much take over the map at will. Hey, it was a "clever, but perfectly legitimate way of handling data." Sure, SOME people might call that cheating, but so what?

But the "hide the decline" part refers to a real issue among climate researchers called the "divergence problem."

Divergence problem? No, let's call it what it is: a "oh, crap, this data doesn't fit, so let's find a way to cram it under the rug" problem.

To plot temperatures going back hundreds or thousands of years -- long before anyone was taking measurements -- you need a set of data that can serve as an accurate proxy. The width of tree rings correlates well with observed temperature readings, and extrapolating that correlation into the past yields the familiar "hockey stick" graph -- fairly level temperatures for eons, followed by a sharp incline beginning around 1900. This is attributed to human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and the resulting increase in heat-trapping atmospheric carbon dioxide.

AH HA! PROOF! HUMANS ARE DESTROYING THE WORLD. GRANT MONEY SHALL NOW POUR IN LIKE R. KELLY PEEING ON AN UNDERAGE WAIF!

Or, maybe not. . .

But beginning around 1960, tree-ring data diverges from observed temperatures. Skeptics say this calls into question whether tree-ring data is valid for earlier periods on the flat portion of the hockey stick -- say 500 or 1,000 years ago.

Lousy skeptics, being skeptical about skeptical things.

Jones and others acknowledge they don't know what the divergence means, but they point to actual temperatures: It's warmer now than it was 100 years ago.

Ah, 100 years ago. Why, that's a eternity! It certainly trumps 4.3 billion years of ongoing change. Yes, obviously we dastardly humans must be the culprits behind less than one degree Celsius of temperature increase over the last 100 years. So, Jones and others don't know what the data is telling them, or even if the data is being collected in any meaningful way, but that questionable data is telling them it's warmer, damnit! Gosh, consider me convinced.

Another e-mail -- from Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. -- is even more heartening to the skeptics. Trenberth wrote last month of the unusually cool autumn that Colorado was experiencing, and went on: "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't."

Now why would that be heartening to those stupid "skeptics?" Possibly because a leading climate researcher is admitting there's no apparent current warming they can account for? How could that POSSIBLY interest a skeptical person?

He appears to be conceding skeptics' claim that over the past decade there has been no observed warming. In truth, though, that wouldn't be much of a concession. At issue is the long-term trend, and one would expect anomalous blips from time to time.

Sooooo, ten years is an "anomalous blip," while 100 years of less than one Celsius of increase (observed through questionable data and filtered through agenda-driven AGW climatologists) is reason for flesh-rending, apocalyptic monkey yammering? Fascinating.

From my reading, the most damning e-mails are those in which scientists seem to be trying to squelch dissent from climate change orthodoxy -- threatening to withhold papers from journals if they publish the work of naysayers, vowing to keep skeptical research out of the official U.N.-sponsored report on climate change.

Not to keep calling back to my Command and Conquer credentials or anything, but that also sounds a lot like blowing up the bridges to keep the computer AI from ever being a serious threat.

In his statement, Jones noted that the e-mail hack occurred just days before the climate summit in Copenhagen. "This may be a concerted attempt to put a question mark over the science of climate change," he said. There's that understatement again.

Yep, the climate summit in Copenhagen, where a bunch of self-important wonks burn through their weight and the weight of 1,000 other people in fossil fuels to jet their way to a cozy conference to discuss the dire need to cut back on the burning of fossil fuels to curtail the effects of the fraudulent man-made faint-fest known as global warming. Heaven forbid there might be a concerted effort to put a question mark on that kind of ridiculous nonsense.

The fact is that climate science is fiendishly hard because of the enormous number of variables that interact in ways no one fully understands. Scientists should welcome contrarian views from respected colleagues, not try to squelch them. They should admit what they don't know.

Wow. Something I agree with. Only took 15 paragraphs to get here.

It would be great if this were all a big misunderstanding. But we know carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas (and that levels were drastically higher during past epochs, epochs when plant and animal life flourished), and we know the planet is hotter than it was a century ago (again, not as hot as when earth harbored its most lush and abundant life). The skeptics might have convinced each other, but so far they haven't gotten through to the vanishing polar ice.

And, with that, we're back down to that last great warmilarmist retreat: polar ice. It's an incomplete retreat, and intellectually lazy, but that's what they're left with.

Eugene Robinson, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, is a nationally syndicated columnist based in Washington, D.C.

Which is pretty sad, really.

Turkey Day Family Pic

Today's LOL moment

Reading today's Bleat:

I love magazines. Some of the happiest moments of my life consisted simply of sitting in an airplane reading the Economist, lost in the big thick glossy parade of news and stories from everywhere, assembled with skill, and presented without a slime trail of ignorant comments at the end.

That's probably the most concise and hilarious description of online comment threads I'll ever read. Nailed it.

WTF?

As a ThunderJournalist who is not above hosting contextual ads on my site, I don't really have much of a critical leg to stand on when it comes to criticizing others who do so as well.

That said, a certain local daily newspaper has been sporting the following online ad:

I mean, GAHHHHHHH! Right? Grandpa's wearing a Speedo and flexing his geriatric man boobs to highlight his pace-maker. If I saw that ad appearing on this lowly ThunderJournal, I couldn't ban it fast enough.

NOTE: Posting the ad for the purposes of ridicule is not the same thing as hosting it as a paying advertisement. Just so we're clear here.

Simpsons did it!

Extreme Liveblog Challenge

My Geode Twin (TM) Caroline and I will be conducting a joint liveblog session next week. In preparation for this momentous event, I'm asking you, the three remaining readers of this blog, to provide ideas about what we should liveblog about?

Should we dabble in a specific genre of pun? Is there a news item we need to ridicule? Should be go into depth about our bathroom proclivities? You name it, we'll liveblog about it to the best of our abilities.

We look forward to hearing from you. Please comment here or e-mail me. No suggestion will be dismissed unless it is.

What can I say? The boy can poop.

I don't want a crybaby

According to the frantic blast of 24/7 news I'm inundated by almost every day, I'm supposed to be thinking deep thoughts about healthcare reform, and I should be at the edge of my seat worrying about what we're going to do in Afghanistan, and I should stay in very close proximity of the fainting couch just in case the economy takes another dive.

And I don't even OWN a fainting couch.

As it is, despite a world that is apparently tearing itself apart from its head to its buttocks, my most immediate, pressing and important concerns revolve entirely around trying to keep a baby from crying.

The sound of a crying baby. . . check that. . . the sound of MY crying baby has become the sound by which all of my recent life decisions and actions have been taken. I will go to extremes never before considered possible to prevent or limit the sound of my baby boy crying.

Consider:

-- I will change diapers most haz-mat workers wouldn't dream of approaching.

-- I will engage in babbling dialogue so inane, even the cats think I'm mentally challenged.

-- Speaking of the cats, I've sprayed them with a water bottle several times for "meowing too close to the baby." As bizarre as it sounds, I deem it a necessary act.

-- I will carry a baby around the house until my arms are on the verge of full revolt and seccession.

-- I will turn the television volume down so low, it can only be detected by satellite dishes operated by the Search for Extraterrestial Intelligence (SETI).

-- I will sleep so far on the edge of my bed, I wake up sometimes wondering if I am, in fact, levitating.

-- I have subconsciously learned where every squeak exists on our hardwood floors, to the point I look like a ninja attempting to sneak his way through a feudal Japanese enemy castle.

-- I will actually resist flushing the toilet if I know the baby is sleeping in the next room, and you wouldn't BELIEVE some of the stuff I've left behind for later flushing, either.

-- I've been known to actually get silently enraged at the mailman, a man I've never even met, for delivering the mail "too loudly."

-- I've developed an entirely new, silent form of gesture-based communication with my wife, which we use to convey surprisingly complex conversations.

-- Although it hasn't been as much of an issue since the temperatures dropped to more winter-like norms, I nevertheless seem to recall sacrificing a chicken within a pentagram in my basement, chanting in Latin an ancient curse meant to bring about the complete, irreversible destruction of every Harley-Davidson motorcycle ever created.

-- I considered writing a lengthy plea to the local police and first responder units to please, please, PLEASE start using some form of whisper-quiet siren.

-- I started working in my garage on a new form of whisper-quiet siren. Once complete, I'm planning on marketing it as the "Shhhhhhhhhh!" I'm confident I'll make a fortune on it, especially once new parents start lobbying their city councils to approve the new siren on all emergency vehicles.

-- I've amended my nightly prayers to include the line: "And God, thanks for holding off on the thunderstorms since the baby arrived; keep up the good work on that one."

And that's just been the first two months. I can't imagine how long the list will be after six months, although it probably won't be quite as long as the healthcare reform bill working its way through Congress.

Nothing should be that long.

Peering Over the Ledge

It's hard to believe I've been writing this blog. . . sorry, ThunderJournal. . . for nearly eight years now.

Eight years.

Eight years of mental meanderings, nefarious links to Homestarrunner, Ding Fries are Done, Vulva and Lord knows where else I've taken this online fun house over the years.

I sometimes even forget that "Rambling Rhodes" was originally a Blogger site. You can actually watch the Internet evolve just through my archives alone: from text only, to pictures to creating and posting videos. And it all seems like it happened yesterday, in the blink of an eye.

Now, while I have no intention of abandoning my ThunderJournal, it's pretty obvious that it isn't quite the prolific ongoing narrative it once was. I'm not sure at what point it lost a lot of its allure, but when I started paying more attention to FaceBook and Twitter, maintaining this site just became a bit more draining than it used to be.

As hard as it is to believe, I also don't feel as though I have as much to say, which is remarkable since now I'm a father and should have plenty of material to drone on endlessly about. But that somehow seems like a lot of work. Maybe when the baby doesn't require so much of my time and attention, I'll sit down and write reams about every little thing.

Then again, I don't know if I will. The ubiquitous nature of digital images and video are frankly often more entertaining to create, and generally far less work to produce and upload. So, maybe this site will become more of a visual rather than literary outlet. I guess there's more than enough room here to accommodate both.

It's just amazing to me that it's been almost eight years. I was 26-years-old when I started this thing. I hadn't met my wife yet.

This ThunderJournal is like a loyal canine. I wouldn't think of putting it down unless it just becomes too painful to watch.

Cup full of "meh."

Well, the Vikings won today, so that's pretty cool.

On the other hand, the Packers won today, so that sucks.

On the third hand, which grows out of my back, Aiden slept for seven straight hours last night, so that was certainly a plus.

On the one foot, now he's awake and seems to have no intention of going to sleep any time soon.

On the other foot, I watched "The Tale of Despereaux" tonight, which was really quite good.

On the third foot, which I don't like to talk about, I watched "Knowing" last week, and the sheer suck-fest that was that movie's ending has tainted my entire weekend.

Hostile bidding

Ryan: "Cadbury rejects hostile bid from Kraft Foods" I'm envisioning a butler shaking his head.

Caroline: Can one reject a hostile bid? I wish it were that easy, right?

Ryan: It all comes back to the Price is Right. "I bid 501 fucking dollars, ASSHOLE!"

Ryan: Now THAT's a hostile bid.

Caroline: "I bid 501 fucking dollars, DREW CAREY."

More Babby Pics

Parodying That Which Defies Parody

Taking the ball from these fine folks, I decided go one further and provide my own commentary.

Mr. Beaknose Scowlbrow is shown here scowling at his framed certificate of achievement from Brylcreem University.

Sarah "Squarehead" McNoNeck, shown here sporting her signature olfactory glasses, explains to prosecutors how it's possible to have ears that apparently exist on the back of her head.

The ever androgynous Gary Busey, caught here after his/her left eye fell out of the socket, explains how you, too, can morph your nose into one that resembles that of Lord Voldemort.

In this action-packed frame, Scowlbrow explains to Busey the benefits of an education from Brylcreem University, while Scowlbrow's assistant, Forehead ForMiles, the only known man to have an eye for a nose, sniffs out the fine print of Scowlbrow's certificate and suspects it may be a fake.

Here, Busey clearly is showing the strains of being lectured about Brylcreem University, with his/her now corpselike face retreating even further into his/her neck. Try as he/she might, the only response he/she could muster was "You rang?"

Busey manages to compose him/herself ever so slightly, managing to change out of her previous square earrings into something a bit rounder. The left eye remained out of the socket and was last seen rolling towards the courtroom door. In the interim between this frame and last, a rogue ferret ferociously attacked Busey's left cheek and also made off with Busey's upper lip.

In a shocking twist that left the courtroom dumbfounded, Busey contorted his/her face into a passable visage of former U.S. President George W. Bush.

Scowlbrow forcefully explains to Busey that such facial contortions will not be allowed in the courtroom. Busey responds by letting all discernible facial features practically disappear.

In this frankly terrifying illustration, John Kerry is seen attempting to hug a hesitant David Spade as the 2004 election results were announced. Kerry's nose is an approximation, although it may have been seriously broken, considering the vast quantity of tears gushing forth.

Calendar Year

Ryan: This month should be re-named "Suck-member."

Ryan: And, yes, I see what I did there.

Caroline: It's good that you acknowledge that right after you said it.

Ryan: You ever notice that some of the coldest months end in "ber."

Ryan: Lousy Gregorian calendar. . .

Caroline: humorless bitches

Ryan: A Geodian calendar would be super awesome.

Ryan: Damn-You-Hairy.

Ryan: Fem-u-ary.

Caroline: Cock-Over

Ryan: LOLO!

Ryan: Decent-member.

Carolinevitse: Lame-pril

Ryan: Will.

Caroline: huh?

Ryan: Instead of "May." It's complicated. You wouldn't understand.

Caroline: uuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. Oh I understand.

Caroline: Geodian calendar should be named after dickbags! Good thing Coleman can't be turned into a month name.

Ryan: Knows-Stuff-uary.

Caroline: Nobody's-Monkey-ber

Ryan: Hrf! Crappy-Column-tober.

Dreams

I had a dream Sunday morning wherein the furnace was ablaze. I was frantically trying to put it out when my wife yelled downstairs, "It's fucking hot up here!" To which I responded "The fucking furnace is on fire!"

It seemed very dramatic at the time, but in retrospect it's funny as all hell.

Question

If you have sex while standing in a shower, is it still considered "getting laid?"