Your daily dose of baby cuteness

This photo was taken about a week and a half ago at Aldridge Gardens.

Birthday greetings from W

I wonder how much of our tax dollars are wasted each year on this crap.

You'd better believe I'm ordering one for Emily, though.

The deadly Gaueko

I just got back from the post office where I was supposed to mail a package for my wife.

As I've mentioned before, Misty has developed an addiction for Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. She orders perfumes online based on vivid, flowery descriptions. But buying perfume without smelling it first can be tricky. Sometimes "Blackened sandalwood and misty lavender, with curling wisps of smoky tobacco, nag champa, and labdanum" doesn't smell as pleasant as she thinks it will, and she wishes that she'd ordered something simpler like "Sugar Cookie." When that happens, she arranges a trade with another BPAL addict, each relinquishing scents they don't care for in exchange for something new they want to try.

That's what I was supposed to be mailing today.

When the woman at the post office counter asked me the standard question about whether my package contained anything breakable, perishible, liquid, hazardous, etc., I naïvely answered, "it's perfume." I was then informed that you cannot mail perfume because it is flamable.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't paper also flamable? I mean, I know perfume is flamable, but it doesn't exactly self-combust. Sure it's going to burn if you get it near flame, but I think that if you get a mail bag near a flame you're pretty much screwed anyway.

I didn't give the postal clerks a hard time, though. I knew there would be no point. I just took the package and went on my way.

I'll just go to the Homewood post office tomorrow and answer "no" this time.

Road Rules

Today I was driving down Hwy. 280 (my favorite road ever!) and attempting to move from the center lane into the right lane. The person in the right lane didn't want to let me in though, and he sped up to close the distance between his car and the car in front of him just to proove it. Despite his efforts, I managed to squeeze in anyway, and of course, that really pissed him off. When we both turned onto Valleydale Rd., he gunned his car calling out, "To infinity and beyond!" (because he was driving an Infinity, and I am just that lame), and raced by me.

Oh well, he was no longer any concern.

A few mintues later I came to a school zone, and a cop pulled out in front of me and turned out his lights. I'd had time to slow down to the posted speed limit, so I knew I wasn't in trouble. Misty said, "Wouldn't it be great if he were going after the guy who passed you?" Indeed it would be. And that's exactly who the cop nailed.

Since I'd been going about 40 mph before I slowed down, the guy who passed me must have been doing at least 45 — 20 mph over the limit in a school zone. Ah, wonderful karma.

She's still standing

For those of you not privy to Emily's photo blog, look at what she can do now...



I expect she'll be walking any day now.

Do Dah Dumb

What the hell? I thought the king and queen of Do Dah Day were supposed to be dogs and cats. And 3 out of 4 of these yahoos don't even have pets!

Adios, Emily

We're sick of this kid. We're mailing her to New Hampshire.

Rap Snacks

If I hadn't just personally eaten a sour cream & onion one, I'd have thought this was a joke.

I miss the tan ones

The verdict: They're not really all that m-Azing.

My favotire part, though, was the note "Do not use if inner foil is broken or torn." It's not a safety warning; it's an enjoyment tip.

John McEnroe's apprentice

Considering that he's alread demonstrated a questionable temper on the show, he's found himself in the board room the last several weeks in a row, and the Donald has referred to him as a train wreck and a loser, I don't think there's much of a chance that Chris will be one of the final two candidates on The Apprentice. But, if by some crazy chance, he makes it, I think he just sealed his fate.

Late to the party

Sometimes I'm slow to catch on.

A recent example is the hilarious Alien Loves Predator which Hubie has been pointing me to off and on for months, but I've only now caught on to the fact that I should be reading it regularly.

And since I got myself in the mood for online comics, I decided to catch up on Wigu — only to find that it ended on December 31! Fortunately, it's been replaced by Magical Adventures in Space featuring the antics of Topato Potato and Sherrif Pony, which were always the best part of the Wigu comics in the first place.

"C" was for cookie

Some people aren't pleased about the news that Cookie Monster will soon adopt more health conscious eating habits on Sesame St.

I certainly see the show's perspective of teaching kids the right things. But I fear that people underestimate children's ability to grasp humor and irony.

When I was a kid, I never once assumed that I could survive a jump off a cliff or a shotgun blast to the face like the Looney Tunes characters. I understood that it was a cartoon, and I thought it was funny. Nevertheless, the cartoons were eventually condemned for being too violent.

Likewise, when Cookie Monster scarfed down plates of chocolate chip cookies (just as when he gobbled telephones and typewriters), I knew that this wasn't appropriate eating behavior. He was a Muppet, and his actions were simply humorous.

I never based my views of health and hygene on the actions of Sesame Street's crazy monster characters. In fact, those characters acted crazy to serve as a contrast to normal behavior — that way the sane characters (usually the grownups) could explain a better way to approach things.

But apparently these days, kids are too dumb to know the difference, and Cookie Monster is going to eat cookies only in moderation.

I wonder if they'll clean up his vocabulary next. After all, "Me want cookie" isn't exactly astute grammar.

Sweet justice

Judge sentences spammer to nine years.

A Virginia judge sentenced a spammer to nine years in prison Friday in the nation's first felony prosecution for sending junk e-mail, though the sentence was postponed while the case is appealed. ...

A jury had recommended the nine-year prison term after convicting Jeremy Jaynes of pumping out at least 10 million e-mails a day with the help of 16 high-speed lines, the kind of Internet capacity a 1,000-employee company would need.

One down, a million to go.