Rambling Rhodes

Stop Ruining The Internet For Everyone

Sometimes, you really have to question the current state of the Internet. Remember when blog comment engines used to be fun and entertaining places to joke and zing each other, and people were generally familiar with who the other commenters were?

Then news organizations finally jumped into the fray, tacking comment engines to their news articles, and the Internet has sucked ever since. Disclosure: I sometimes leave comments on news articles, so I'm admittedly part of the problem.

But, honestly, I read a news article today about a meteor fireball that lit up the skies over Iowa and Wisconsin last night, and yet the comment thread that followed actually devolved into a political flamewar. I mean, what the hell, man?

Seriously, if you really find yourself in a comment thread attached to a story about a meteor fireball, and you feel compelled to write a missive about Democrat overreach or Republican stonewalling:

Tonight is nice, despite a scare

Tonight, the basement buzzes with the sound of a fan drying sheetrock joint compound. And a thunderstorm.

The fan isn't drying out the thunderstorm. That would be one hell of a fan.

Still, tonight, there is a thunderstorm.

The boy threw up tonight. Not, like, a spit up, but copious amounts of puke. It actually was coming out of his nose, and he kept choking on it, because he was desperate to breathe, which he probably was, considering how much puke there was.

20 minutes later, he was fine, and laughing. Now he's sleeping, despite some distress about experiencing his first thunderstorm.

By the way, if April showers bring May flowers, what happens when you already have April flowers?

I don't care. We deserve this early spring.

Up With People

Caroline: I don't recall ever being able to pick an image.

Caroline: The banana just kind of appeared.

Caroline: That is a fantastic sentence.

Ryan: That will be the title of the book we'll never write.

Caroline: We have a lot of books we'll never write.

Ryan: It will also be the final sentence of the book, followed by ellipses. . .

Caroline: I heart ellipses ...

Ryan: "As he drew his last breath, Ponzi Schemer only had enough life left in him to ask the eternal question: 'How is babby formed?' The banana just kind of appeared. . . "

Caroline: People will be BEGGING for a sequel.

Caroline: And by "people," I mean Donna.

Ryan: Donna is people.

Caroline: That can be the dedication of our book. "Donna is people." She'll understand.

Ryan: "This book is dedicated to Donna. She's people, too."

Caroline: People is a funny word if you say it enough times.

Time Travel

My evenings have taken on a routine that's both tremendously predictable and completely off script. Everything depends on the temperament of the baby boy at any given moment, and every day he's changed in some subtle way that makes every new day the equivalent of shaking an Etch-a-Sketch.

If you were to break down a typical evening, it would look entirely bland: 5 p.m. - return from work. 6 p.m. eat and feed the little dude. 7 p.m. - Bathe the boy, because he's basically filthy from his 6 p.m. feeding. 8 p.m. - Put him to bed.

Interspersed within that three hour window, however, is a multitude of minor dramas that seem important at the time but are quickly forgotten. There are bumped heads, and forceful poop grunting sessions and flashes of incredible cuteness intermixed with moments of sheer exasperation and exhaustion. And then we go to bed, knowing full well we'll be embarking on the exact same unknown adventure the next day.

And it all makes going to work seem all the more pointless. It's not simply that work takes me away from my boy for eight hours a day, it's also that I'm so freakin' exhausted, I can barely focus on work to begin with.

I try to diminish the cacaphony of the 5 -8 p.m. routine by ordering take-out food from time to time, which removes the food preparation component that can throw our evenings for such a loop, but even that doesn't always go according to plan.

Tonight, I left work fully intending to call ahead and order BBQ take-out, but when I got to my car, I discovered my cell phone was dead. You can't exactly call and order take-out with a dead cell phone, so I decided to go home and charge the phone and THEN go and get take-out. But then my wife got home a half hour later than normal, which meant we'd actually sit down to eat after 6 p.m. at the earliest, so our routine was already in jeopardy. Throw into the mix the fact she wanted to go to HOM furniture to look at a sectional, and I just knew our night was screwed.

I returned from my take-out run before my wife and son returned from HOM, so I had a precious 10 minutes to eat by myself and watch television, and what was on but "The Hunt for Red October," which was a routine viewing staple during my last year of college since my roommates and I couldn't afford cable, so we basically watched a collection of VCR movies over and over again. And since we were usually too lazy to swap out the tapes, Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin were on a perpetual loop come dinner time.

For a brief ten minute window, I was back in 1997, eating dinner while watching "The Hunt for Red October," and it occurred to me just how great I had it back then. I could sleep as much as I wanted. I could skip class if I knew I could get away with it. I could play "X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter" until my eyes fell out of my sockets, if I so wished. I was basically free to do whatever the hell I wanted, but I'm sure I just whined and complained back then, which is just a tragedy, really.

Anyway, it's now time for bed, and I'm totally exhausted, and I'm sure I'll wake up tomorrow wondering why the hell I have to go back to work, when I'd sure as hell prefer staying in bed and dreaming of a TIE Advanced fighter in the cross-hairs of my A-Wing.

1997, man. I had it all that year.

Poop Pushin'