Frenzied Daddy

You know you’re easily amused when you take a Shakespearean Plot Synopsis (Example) and stick it into an online Eliza program and are amused by the resemblence of eliza’s response to your high school teacher’s.

Eliza: Does that question interest you?

Netcraft, who I usually use for “what’s that site running?” has released an anti-phishing toolbar. Yeah, ok, it’s IE only, but they’re developing a FireFox version.

Phishing is the term used for an assortment of web-related scamming; essentially acquiring your credit card number under fraudulent means. Like a fake email telling you that your ebay account is expiring. Or a link that says it’s to “redcross.com” that actually takes you to “redcros5.com,” specifically designed to look like the redcross site and accept your donations.

Meander the Internet at your peril. Even if your status bar (that thingie at the bottom) tells you that a link takes you to a specific place, always double check the url when you get there. Javascript can alter the contents of that status bar.

In a related note, I created and put up a Red Cross link on the right menu (replacing Child’s Play, which you will see again next Christmas. It’s really to the redcross site, but you should check with your own eyes.

And if you’re running IE you might try out that NetCraft toolbar.

Just wow. The Internet is a scary place. I went to orblogs, and what do I find? The ‘popular link’ is to a page on Waxy’s site with some amateur videos of the tidal wave. Of course his site was hammered, but I pulled them off anyway. They’re stunning. Jaw-dropping. And not in a good way.

WorldChanging has a link to donate. Please, go donate. (Thank you to Davadam for those links.) Of course you can donate via the Red Cross, Amazon.com, all the usual suspects. Send care and hope.

Jeebus. Reading the World Changing site- in Sri Lanka, there may be land mines floated out of the dirt by the flood. As if these people didn’t have enough worry on their plate.

We fed Baby K her first solid food. If you can call mushy rice cereal ’solid’. That was this morning. She’s been hanging out with me in the kitchen while I fix dinner lately, and last night I was slicing the ham and vegetables for ham-corn chowder. She was extremely vocal; I took the celery out of the fridge and she shrieked in delight. “Oh honey, you want celery? You can’t have celery.” And the same with the potatoes. And the ham- every time I’d slice the ham and a hunk of ham would tumble to the cutting board, she’d yell and wave. Poor kid. When her mother suggested I go to the store for some rice cereal, I swear that kid laughed. And when I said that I’d rather stay home, she yelled angrily. I wound up going to the store.

Sheesh, pushed around by a 5 month old.

Anyway, I’ll post pics of her delight from the food later, after I download them from the camera.

ps. Please click on the google links

Miss B’s not just learning to geek out. She’s also still a drama queen, still a princess and still an amazing artiste. You should see the new calendar she made for me I mean us. One of her most treasured presents is this doll that Santa brought. This doll sort of looks like her friend that moved away. Because her biggest wish for Christmas (after the end of the war) was to have her friend back at school!.

Baby K had a terrific Christmas too. She even got a cool new ‘atom’ present. She’s gonna be our little chemist.

Ms B and I also - got some great presents. And gave some as well; my mom P thinks that the story of our present to her will go in the annals of family stories. (To make a long story short, she coveted a calendar I was wrapping, raced out of the house to find it, came home and ordered it online on Christmas Eve. How many rules does that break? )

Amongst my excellent haul, I got two insanely bright hawaiian shirts from my in-laws. They’re awe-inspiring. And they brighten my day immensely. Almost as much as hanging out with the divine Ms B this morning.

What do I have to do around here to get you folks riled up? I swear, I don’t even get a chuckle out of that stupid coffee mug given to a Horizon Air mechanic for Christmas — but mention US Bank and you’re all a twitter.

Christmas was great. Terrific, and wonderful. I had a great time at my moms’ house, eating their food and being all fatherly with my younger brother. He’s got a handful, Cousin J, who is alternately mischievous and delightful.

Cousin J stays with his mother all day, much like our own Baby K (and for the next week or so, Miss B). In a remarkable turn of events, he’s a delightful handful; he knows how to open doors and sneak around, and yet, he has a very gentle hand with the fivemonth old. She was laying on her belly playing with her new Christmas toys and he went up and crouched next to her, quietly observing. And he’s all of about eighteen months! What a great kid.

Reflecting on my shared fatherhood (hey straighten up out there- I mean that we’re both fathers. ) with my brother always puts me in a strange mood. On one hand, I know that I ’should’ think it remarkable that we’ve, he and I have, grown up so well that our kids seem to be fairly well adjusted individuals and that we’re even in stable marriages with kids. However, on the other — speaking for what I have seen in my brother, his familial success does not truly surprise me. He’s a good guy, intelligent, a hell of a lot more energetic around the house than I, and he dotes on his wife and child. Soon to be children, the more I hand Baby K to his wife (MUAHAHAHAHA).

And Miss B? The elder princess?

I’m going to start a new category here. “Raising a girl geek.” Because … she got Zoo Tycoon 2 for Christmas (on Solstice, actually, because that’s when we swapped presents with our friends E and A and B and R). That was 12 /21. On 12/22, she woke up early and asked me to install it on a computer before I left for work. When I came home, she was still playing. She played all through dinner. I set food next to her and let her eat at the desk, and she kept playing. She played until eleven freakin in the night, which is when I decreed that she must sleep– I missed that hadn’t gotten up to go to the bathroom or feed herself all day.

The next morning, I was again off to work. She woke up, and because she hadn’t been in her bedroom all day, it was still clean, so she could play on the computer. I instructed her to make a sandwich. She was eating her turkey sandwich at the keyboard (again) when I left for work. When I came home, she was still making zoos! And again, she hadn’t eaten, showered, or even gone outside. I don’t think she even knew that it was daytime.

Honestly, I’m not the best role model when it comes to computer games. I can sit in front of the computer for hours upon hours. So I didn’t punish her or anything, I just made her eat. School will be starting up again soon.

Lest you think that she’s totally a geek; she also got makeup (sigh), sparkly clothes (sigh) and two Barbies. So my girl is still around. She’s just … resting.

that for a dollar (much less $350) Don’t show this to my boss. At least Horizon Air knows how to shop for their employees.

(thanks)

Last night, I came home to find that my in-laws had sent a second large box of presents. I guess all of the pony parts didn’t fit in the first large box or something. In this box was … two large hunks of that solid styrofoam used to encase, say, televisions.

And I suppose a box; never saw it.

The styrofoam was the best present, however— for Miss B anyway. She and her little friend broke it up, scratched it up, and destroyed it up, sending cascading flurries of styrofoam all over the house. We had styrofoam drifts in the living room and I swear she was making a fort in the library. Alice, the black cat, was totally unrecognizable.

Mom, dad; I’m sorry for … you know … that styrofoam thing.

I vented a bit ago about Blogbomb. In my current state, I can see the value of it— it keeps crossing my mind that I could toss up a site that reads RSS feeds of, say, Portland Parent Weblogs; and provide links to their sites from the posts, and add in the google adwords links, and — shazam, I get free, fresh content, and in theory, the dollars will roll on in.

It’s just like Uncle Ben said… “with great power, comes great responsibility”.

Although … if I let people sign up to put their feeds on the site …