Trying to Stop being Clever

A friend of mine did this, & I thought it was a neat idea. Not being clever, just stealing. Obviously not all-inclusive, as there's still a week and a half in the year. David Coutant is in 2010. where are you? | January 1 at 10:05am – wonders what Arthur C Clarke would think of our interpretation of his work. | January 1 at 10:08am – just saw a pretty amazing buzzer-beating game-winner by Kobe. Go Lakers!! | January 1 at 10:19pm – is still kicking. Got 3 fillings last night. | January 20 at 7:22am – had to do some housecleaning. no offense. | January 23 at 12:49pm – oh Catherine, you make the sun shine brighter. Oh, shine down on me | January 27 at 7:30am – is looking for a bass player to reform the Orange Cones. | February 1 at 6:18pm – Our baby girl is 9 months old today. | February 28 at 8:30pm – says Death Penalty for John Albert Gardner! | March 4 at 1:09pm – has nothing to say. sorry to have wasted your time. | March 10 at 6:16pm – tried out for a ...

It takes me posting a video of myself playing a Beatles cover on the ukulele to have YouTube bring up all these “related videos” of Japanese guys making me look like a monkey banging a coconut. Luckily I have a cute kid so people will just watch those videos instead.

Delilah doing her thing. It was a week and a half before Christmas, & I couldn't wait to give my wife the Kindle I got her, so she picked one for me to open and it was this sweet USB video camera. The baby walks & runs & climbs & slides & wants toys & plays with laundry & gives me the best evil glare ever captured on video at the end. I think I might propose a new family tradition of opening one (perhaps the best) gift privately the week before Christmas. I kind of like it.

I started writing something to post here, but a few paragraphs into it I realized how wholly inappropriate it is on a number of levels.  If anyone were to see it, that is.  & I've learned from experience that someone always ends up seeing it.  I'm at Rancho Santa Gertrudes Elementary School, helping out with a few things.  I just finished vacuuming the library.  Now I guess I should take the chairs down off the tables.  But I'll wait until lunch gets here & see if that's how they want it.  Another thing I was helping with was typing Emily's homework.  She's almost finished with her current semester of school, during which she took a class which she had already taken & passed & forgotten about, so I guess it's not totally crazy to take it again.  I don't think there was a point during the progression of the semester when she said to herself, "gee, this all seems really familiar."  She was actually meeting with a counselo...

Christmas is an exciting time.  We get a day off of work, kids get out of school for a week or so, most people get a bunch of "free" stuff ("free" because in order to get stuff you typically have to have a tradition of giving stuff, so it's not always entirely free), & we get to eat like it's Thanksgiving again.  Family meets with family, people who don't like each other are sometimes more tolerant, and the spirit of giving and kindness which Jesus would want to be his legacy rises in the general population.  I'm not fond of the commercialization of Christmas, but if it wasn't that it would be something else.  The spirit of giving manifests itself in the retail world as "huge sales" and "clearance offers."  It's often a good opportunity to get stuff you (or loved ones) want for a great discounted price, especially just after Xmas, when the demand is greatly reduced and remaining stock needs to be cleared out.  There i...

The Thanksgiving meal was a success.  The turkey came out real good, the potatoes were awesome, & I didn't have much else.  Not a stuffing guy.  The baby always has a great time when we go up there, running around the big living room, chasing the animals.  Speaking of animals, things don't look good for their dog, Lightning.  She suffered a stroke (or some other debilitating affliction) and she is not long for this world.  She is a really sweet dog & we will all be sad to see her go. On other topics, I just read that Eddie Izzard is filming a version of Treasure Island.  Having just read the book for one of Emily's classes, I'm very intrigued.  I know it will be at least a year before I get the chance to see it, but it sounds exciting.  Tom Hanks' new movie Larry Crowne should be out in 2011. I & I'm sure all his other Twitter followers are looking forward to that.  Julia Roberts, Bryan Cranston, Cedric the Entertainer....

I have a complaint about the police.  I've grown up and I no longer fear and avoid them, as I have nothing to hide, but I have a new set of problems with them.  Mainly this: When most city police I see around are on patrol, they don't obey most of the traffic laws.  They set a very bad example for other drivers by not using turn signals, not stopping at intersections, and passing when/where they shouldn't pass.  I understand that on the one hand they don't have to worry about getting tickets because they never will, so why bother?  But on the other hand, the reason people are supposed to use turn signals when turning or changing lanes is for the safety of other drivers on the road.  So just because they don't have to worry about getting a ticket, does that mean that they don't have to worry about safety and courtesy and other drivers?  Just because you don't have to doesn't mean you shouldn't. I believe it is tied in with the insecurities and inad...

The little lady & I are going to make a Thanksgiving meal for my family: that is, those who have chosen to join us.  Apparently my family consists of both oil and water.  I'm like a lava lamp in the middle of it.  That's one of the things about being emotionally stable: you're expected to be understanding of everyone.  The crazy ones don't think they're crazy, & so why wouldn't I understand them?  & the other crazy ones... wait.  This is kind of a one-sided coin.  In the original story of Peter Pan there is a line where Barrie says that Peter "had a mischievous way of stealing up behind [stars] and trying to blow them out."  To this I say, stars have no backside.  You can't get behind them.  They have a top and a bottom, so like many things in life they can be flipped upside down, but even that is a matter of perspective, isn't it?  So like the stars you can't really get behind the crazy people.  Not only do they ha...

Another slow day at work.  Fridays are like this a lot of the time.  They just installed all new lighting in the office.  Awful, harsh, bright fluorescent light.  Makes everything white glow like ultraviolet.  I hope I can get used to it, or else I'll get one of those bookie eye shade things.  Delilah still doesn't like to go to sleep at night.  Last night we ducked out to the sofa bed after she fell asleep in our bed.  She did NOT like that.  Woke up around 3:30 & screamed, when she usually just crawls out of bed & comes to find us.  I don't know what was up with her.  So I went in & changed her diaper, but she wouldn't calm down until Mommy came in & lay down with her.  Even then she wouldn't risk going back to sleep, lest we take off on her again.  So she stayed awake & poking Mommy in the eye until about 7 a.m.  None of us got much sleep.  Of course, she's sleeping like a baby now....

I've been keeping a blog (look at the ones I'm following) for about a year, but it's associated with an old Google account which I no longer use, so in order to post to it I had to log out of the account I use all the time & then try to remember what my account ID & password are, & then when I go back to my Google mailbox it's that other one that serves me no purpose.  I thought about copying each of those entries into this one, but I realized a couple of things: One, there's kind of a lot of them, & they span quite a bit of time so they're on many different pages, & so it would be a real PITA to copy them over, & Two, I wouldn't mind being disassociated with some of the things I said over there.  I guess I don't really think about what I'm saying & how it will look to future me, nevermind how it looks to anyone else. Okay, so my baby girl was born almost a year and a half ago, & started walking on August 29th of t...