Ultranormal

  • Funny angry ladies make me

    Funny angry ladies make me giggle: dooce.com. Anyone who titles a blog entry “Drunk Underpants Remodeling Again” deserves all the traffic they can handle.

  • I love Salon’s comics. Today’s

    I love Salon’s comics. Today’s is excellent.

    And on a completely unrelated topic, there’s nothing greater than coming downstairs to see your wife and toddler son boogying down to the Propellerheads (in the new iPod commercial – me likey).

  • I only got a 36

    I only got a 36 on the Blogaholic quiz. Maybe that’s why no one comes here (well, other than the gigantic black hole where the content should be).

  • It’s pictures like this that

    It’s pictures like this that make me want a dog.

  • Rapidly Developing

    A few bits of news from the home front:

    1. My brother and dad got back from Battlebots a couple days ago and regaled us with lots of cool stories about geeks and their remote-controlled mayhem machines. I think I’ll enter a lightweight next time or the time after it. I’m still working on names (which really is the most important part of the whole process). My brother’s bot has a great name: Hazardous Waste of Time. You’d be able to see it on TV, but his battery cable snapped in his first fight, so he’ll only ever show up in crowd shots. Next time!!
    2. My super-cool project at work is going really well. I’m almost done with what I can do at the moment, and so far it all works beautifully. I love feeling smart!
    3. I still hate Virginia state government. I’ll go into the whole sad, sordid tale when I get it resolved.
    4. I brokered a deal so I can carry over all my leftover vacation time. This means I’ll have beaucoup vacation time to use up next year. I’m thinking a month in Hawaii.
    5. My right wrist hurts from writing miles of Tcl and documentation. I need a nap.
    6. Can you tell that I like HTML lists?

  • Little Singing Sensation

    Max is two. He’s my son. So, use that information however you need to in order to process this story.

    Max has been singing a lot lately. Jen got him this little music set with a tambourine, two maracas and a little clapper thing. Max has taken to beating on the tambourine and singing a little song. He’s also started singing this song whenever he doesn’t have anything better to do. I was taking him home from the fam’s house last night and Max started singing in his carseat. I turned off the radio and tried to figure out if he was doing a song he’d heard before. I didn’t recognize the tune, but I did notice the structure. There are verses, a little chorus and a definite melody, which just amazes me. He’s TWO! He doesn’t talk much yet. Still, he knows the alphabet (and if forced, or thinks no one is looking) will say letters. He knows the planets and can point them out. He knows the difference between the moon and the stars. He can draw shapes and some objects (like a house, a bird, etc). And, if the little guy weren’t amazing enough, he composes little songs in his head!! And better yet, if he’s at home with his instruments, he’ll finish a verse, yell “Yay!” and do a little Max bow/courtsy.

    How did I get so lucky?

  • Cravings Jen wanted a hot

    Jen wanted a hot dog. I don’t know why. She went on and on about how she wanted a hot dog. It was 10:30 (in the middle of Iron Chef) and she wanted a hot dog. I reminded her that there’s a 7-11 right down the street, open 24 hours and chock full o’ meat tubes. She went so far as to do the glance around the room to see if her shoes were handy. She didn’t go get one, but being the nice husband that I am, I got her one yesterday. I’m swell.

    Iron Chef gave me a craving for sushi. I’ve now had sushi a grand total of twice in my life (both at the same place here in Sterling w/ the guys from work). Iron Chef on Saturday had the top sushi chef in Japan up against Iron Chef French. The sushi chef whipped up some unbelievable pieces. It was mouth/eye-watering.

    So, where do cravings come from? I remember when Jen was pregnant, the books said that pregnant-lady cravings usually indicate that you need whatever that thing provides. I don’t know that that’s true of us now. Who needs what hot dogs have in them other than a sewage treatment plant? It’s all a mystery. A mystery wrapped in a bun, with mustard and ketchup covered in chili.

  • Snipe Hunting Dan over at

    Dan over at Red Cricket came up with a list of “You Know You’re From North Carolina if…” stuff, and snipe hunting was mentioned. It brought ugly memories flooding back of my snipe hunting days when I was young and dumber.

    They say Boy Scouts is a good way to learn responsibility, how to tie knots and live in the woods. I was an Eagle scout, but can’t remember anything more than a square knot. What they don’t tell you is that Scouts is a great way to learn how to be humiliated and to humiliate. Oh yeah, it’s all fun at the time. Thus, the Snipe Hunt.

    It was my first campout. I was 12. I was fat and insecure. The only thing I had going for me was my prodigious use of bodily function humor. Remember, I was 12. We’re talking about Snipe Hunting, aren’t we? Here’s the concept:

    1. A Snipe is either a small rodent or bird (from the description I always thought it was a Kiwi)
    2. The catch a Snipe, you walk around with a stick and a garbage bag and beat the bushes trying to flush one out.
    3. Depending on the age group, it’s always good to throw in a somber warning about an escape convict.
    4. The older, or at least wiser, members of the group go and hide in the bushes while no one’s looking.
    5. At the right time, inflict pants-wetting terror on the Sniper Hunters.

    The great part about it was that as soon as I got over the embarrassment of falling for it, I couldn’t wait to do it to the next group of kids who came in.

    So, if you’re 11 and reading this, don’t fall for it. There are no Snipes, just escaped convicts. If you ever DO go on a Snipe Hunt, carry a big stick and wail the hell out of anything that moves. That’ll teach ’em.

  • 97,000 results on Google for

    97,000 results on Google for “powered by blogger“. That’s pretty cool.

  • Inspiration Complete – Please Close Door On Way Out

    I was talking about inspiration the other day. Well, it works. It works so well in fact that it scares me.

    There’s nothing greater than having a big idea, building it and seeing it come out right. It’s just great.

    I showed it to my manager yesterday, who promptly realized that I could be writing myself out of a job. See, what I did was take all the thousands of lines to Tcl I have to write to create a search product and turned it into a bunch of configurable HTML tags. You have to love AOLserver. After pondering the fact that I could be creating the cause of my own demise, I realized that that’s OK. I’ve worked on Search for two and a half years. I’ve done pretty much everything I can do with it. And, there are lots of other stuff here that needs work. It may be time to take that next step and conquer a new geekMountain™.

    What a great day.