OK, I’m backdating this post, but that’s ’cause I got lost in getting back to work – at least a little – and playing around with my new SecondLife.
The rest of the Thanksgiving weekend was a good lesson in why having structure is important for youngsters. Roxanne had a lot of fun, but was also more than a handful a lot of the time as well. Structure is hard – even for adults. But we all enjoyed it and even got a few useful things done, like finishing up some yardwork. But we still could have used some more time off, and a little more help (or ideas) in keeping Roxanne productively occupied. At least her conversation skills continue to grow by leaps and bounds. It’s amazing the things she parrots back, weeks later – or comes up with phrasing on her own. I’ll try to get some examples later on.
Hope everyone had a good holiday, or normal week depending on where you were. I was offline for nearly the entire weekend, partly due to a cold, and partly due to just spending time at home.
Phew, it’s hard work taking care of a 2 year old. And Roxanne is definitely in her twos now, oh, boy. Her verbal skills are so far advanced it’s hard to remember that many other of her skills – like dealing with disappointments – are still just at a 2 year old level. Being sure to only offer choices you want to do, and making sure that everything you don’t want her to play with is completely out of sight, helps a lot. But that’s hard to remember to do every second she’s awake, and even so, there are plenty of tantrum-worthy things she wants to do even if she can’t see them in front of her.
Anyway, Thanksgiving was filled with all the usual fixings; we made the cranberry bread (extra good) and chocolate pie (not quite as good as the family recipie) ourselves this year. TV was the History channel – watching the history of food, instead of the cooking shows. Then a few football games – the one time of year I enjoy watching football. It ended up being a long day, and an even longer weekend when we realized Roxanne thought her bedtime was supposed to be 10pm. But it was a nice week nonetheless.
OK, Google shows that a fair number of people also remember the good Major, so I suppose it’s no surprise. But it’s still one of those names that made me laugh out loud when I read it in the “Pierced” column of the weekly Globe magazine this week. I don’t even know clearly what the full memory of the old Muddster was, but it was a happy one, one of those childhood essences of the golden old days.
Several sites have general info (disappointingly not as detailed as I’d like to see) on the whole raft of shows from that era, ones that I every now and then mention to my friends, most of whom go “Huh?” at me. At least all of those who didn’t grow up around here. It’s kind of like my standby question to see how long someone’s actually lived in eastern MA. “Where do you get if you turn left on Spitbrook, right on Daniel Webster?”
If you know the answer, then congratulations, you used to live in MA (or NH) a loooong time ago, just like me.
Top ten line from one of the AWESOMEST movies I’ve seen in a while. OK, that’s just the excitement talking, but it was a pretty darn good movie for it’s archetype. That line was hilarious too, nicely timed touch of pure comedy thrown in for just the moment.
Casino Royale – I’m flushed from seeing it straight through! (ha ha ha)
Casino Royale – the un-luckiest Bond movie yet. Seriously, both of the… wait, that’s spoilers. But it is serious: they did go back to the gritty, more realistic beginning, a’la Batman Begins as a friend put it. The new Bond definitely has the grit, the writing is pretty tight, the stunts are great, and it’s all pretty darn realistic compared to the average Bond film.
Definitely worth seeing as a big action flick, and for the new James Bond that it (hopefully) will become. It’s interesting to see all the Bond stereotypes that it specifically broke, as well as all the scenes they paid homage to from past movies, including some gender swaps. And while the stunts and big action were much more realistic and human-scale than recent Bonds, they definitely came up with some new and creative and completely wild things to do, like sinking things. It’s what he sinks that’s interesting.
Where you’re momentarily bored (or need a displacement activity), and check your email. Where you need to answer a question, so you do some web research. Whereupon you check your personal webmail account, since you’re there anyway. And someone sent pictures of their latest conference, so you look at those. Anyway, you get the research done and answer the question – but you’ve come up with a better idea and email someone else your new idea for vetting.
By then, it’s time to check your email again, to see if anyone else has commented on the open question, and look – there’s another topic to get involved in.
Wouldn’t having a DND (Do Not Disturb) setting on email be a great feature? Just set it ‘on’ at 10am for 2 hours after you’ve answered the morning’s mail. Nothing gets delivered – no matter how many times you hit Refresh – until noon, allowing 2 uninterrupted hours of work.
Darn, the DND feature doesn’t work with your webmail account. Hmmm. I’ve been reading this blog for a while – better go and check my email to see if anything needs doing.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/
Quite amusing, even if it does make my head hurt from time to time. Linquistics indeed!
Wait, that’s not right – it should be Spammers Unite! Reading too much spam makes splelleing hard.
Actually, no more spam here thanks to Akismet. Oddly enough I get a fair amount at my work at &BigCo;, one of which is quite funny so I’ll share. (edited to prevent errant google hits)
“This is greeting from China-type Automation Corp!
We like to introduce our new developed product — XXYY Large-capacity Super Safe ty Suitcase… which is designed for schleping or transferring big amount of cash and valuables. …
The dimensions of XXYY Safe ty Suitcase is 18×13.6×7.2 inches, it big enough to put USD 1.5 million of cash in it. … most remarkable character of product is function of high voltage shock spread all over the surface! makes suitcase effective in protection and counter-attack. “
And on it goes. There – that’s how spammers can transport their millions, safe in the knowledge that while “electric pulse voltage is over 30KV”, it is “…very small, it doesn’t hurt one’s health.”
Early and often!
Actually late: we usually vote after work. In our precinct I think the only wait is the brief before-work rush. Only 3 people ahead of us at about 6:30 tonight – we’ve never had to wait around here.
Roxanne was a hoot tonight. We all carried flashlights – so cars can see us, as mom says – and she was very careful to remember it all night. She actually sat with mom to vote since there was only one open spot right there.
Thank the gods for bubble-in-below paper ballots with sturdy, recognizeable optical scanners. And many thanks to the regular crew of polling workers, some of whom I’m starting to recognize from voting here over the years.
Ballot #1136!
