Frenzied Daddy

I got a good laugh out of this; thanks, RJHoughton

I need one of these.

Hershey Chocolate and a bunch of other chocolatiers have petitioned the FDA to redefine the makeup of Chocolate. Guittard and even See’s Candy are against this change.

Would you eat something called “mockolate?” I ate a lot of carob, growing up; I was allergic to chocolate. But even then I recognized that it was a poor substitute.

Seriously, if you want to keep cocoa solids and cocoa butter in your cocoa… go talk to the FDA, Here’s some guidelines on where to say and some suggestions on things to say.

Don’t mess with our chocolate!

I’m pro-choice. I mean, duh. As this author says, I’ve decided that I, personally, will never have an abortion. To borrow the logic from the original post, while this is absurd because I will never be pregnant (for more reasons than one), it also emphasizes my belief that it’s a personal choice, made by the woman.

That author, however, found himself in the position where his pregnant wife was hemorrhaging, her blood pressure was down to 60/40, and she was getting delirious from the drugs. The doctors decided that she wasn’t fit to make medical decisions, and turned to him with a clipboard. He had to decide whether to possibly watch his wife and the baby die or to sign the contract allowing the doctors to abort the baby. (As it turns out, he was spared the decision, after a fashion; she became slightly dialated, in which case it’s “game over”.)

Gripping read, and something every parent-to-be should consider, biology notwithstanding. And perhaps long chats into the middle of the night; where do you draw the line with regards to saving your lover’s life?

I’ve been seeing this phrase around, a spin on “I’m with stupid.” I was thinking maybe about getting “I’m no longer with stupid” and a little arrow pointing down the front of a t-shirt for a friend of mine who just tied the knot. But after seeing this phrase more and more, and seeing several of my Republican friends abandon their party lines … well I couldn’t resist.

Somthing about this calls “cafepress” to me

Up!

I asked Miss B today if she knew the formula for the volume of a cylinder. She didn’t, so she won’t get this until much later; but if you have a pizza with a radius “z” and a depth “a”, the volume is “pi*z*z*a” … thanks to http://seenonslash.com/node/1191

Down!

I have a subscription to Wired magazine and a lot of the content is duplicated from their web articles. And I’ve known for a long time that there’s a lot of resources for Dungeons and Dragons on the web; a quick google search and you’ll see what I mean. However, I did not expect that Wizards of the Coast (who bought DnD from TSR, and who were in turn bought by Hasbro) would discontinue the fabulous Dungeon and the Dragon magazines. End of an era, indeed.

/me doffs his wizard cap and holds it over his cheetoes™

Up!

Well, that’s so down, I have to bring myself back up… so here’s some interesting conundrum for you. What do you think would happen if I sent a Libertarian acquaintance one of these posters ? Yeah. I don’t think he’d get it either.

There are just some things that a father shouldn’t teach his daughter, and at times like that, his sisters in law step in.

Do you remember, about twenty years ago, in college (thanks Alli && you’re welcome, Young Raven), when you could open up a Henry’s Ale, put it to your lips, turn it over and burble it down your throat? Alternating with some air, so you didn’t drown, but the whole bottle would wind up in your belly and you’d put the “dead soldier” up on the windowsill to catch flies? Yeah, me either. But I think Miss B has learned this trick too. She didn’t do this before she went to Klamath Falls and visited with her aunts T, K and M.

I put away the groceries, including a fresh can of “whip cream” for the strawberry shortcake and left the kitchen long enough to “shake the morning dew from the water lily” and wash my hands. As I return, wiping my hands on the back of my shirt, I startled a certain ten year old who was placing an empty can of whipping cream into the fridge and wiping a satisfied grin off her face with the back of her hand.

I swear that kid’s going on seventeen.

Twenty years ago, I was graduating from high school. Bon Jovi (Wanted Dead or Alive) and Debbie Gibson (Shake your Love) were on the radio. And I was suffering from teenage angst. I was darn good angst; I could have starred on MySpace, if that sort of thing had been around.

Check out this poem, kept for 20 years in Jabberwocky, our literary magazine…

I’m on the verge of losing the best thing
that’s happened to me.
I feel torn inside, and the only stitchery
is your handiwork.
I’m on the verge of becoming alone again
And I cannot stand the thought
of shouldering the world’s needs
(my needs)
by myself, without someone
to understand and help me.
I’m on the verge of being crushed by emotions
none mine, yet all mine
confusion, sorrow, others.
I don’t know which is worse;
losing you or giving up.
Either way, I hurt inside.

Yeah, I know. We all lived through our angsty period. This poem is a good example of what I would classify now as “raw materials” handed to me by the Muse, who expected me to do something more than … blapp it down on a piece of paper

This post was sponsored by Mom-O-Matic She has a question about IKEA cabinets Have you used them? Please weigh in on her question.

I’m working from home now (go go gadget self-employment!), and this is where I work, about fourteen hours a day. And I frequently think … “geez, I could do this better.” — like when two kids are hollering and the television is going and someone’s playing some computer game with the volume up to compete with the television. I could get the laptop and go work upstairs (and do, sometimes), but it’s a smaller workspace.

So then I consider finding an office; and I’ve found one over by the St John’s Bridge; it’s $250/month (for the smallest size). On top of that I’d be paying for more internet access (already paying at home), and paying for electricity, telephone, et cetera. No thanks.

And I consider something like Cube Space, a shared work environment, where for $250 a month they’ll handle all the utilities and stuff, make me coffee. But again, that’s a little more than I want to pay and they have restrictions on the hours I could be there (6AM-9PM I think), but they’re closer to Miss B’s school and that could work ok.

I fantasize about those for, oh, about ten minutes, and then the math geek in me gets going; $250/month for 6 months is $1500; and I could “hella” remodel the office space for half that ( especially if I did the drywall and paint).

Sure, the kids and television and other noises are distracting- but if I were not at home, I’d miss them that much more. I’d come home to “Your daughter tried to take her tricycle down the stairs into the basement” rather than leaping from my desk when I hear the crash.