Tuesday, September 30, 2008

I faced a moment of panic earlier this evening: my rickroll bookmark was broken. The video had been removed. As it turns out, there are still several other copies of "Never Gonna Give You Up" floating around youtube, but one moment of heart-stopping panic was enough for me.

Just two nights ago, Elaine was up with teething pain and -- at her request -- had me repeatedly rickrolling her, until (a good half dozen rickrolls later) she was able to fall asleep again. That was the only thing that could stop her crying. I can't afford to face the possibility that "Never Gonna Give You Up" could completely disappear from the internet. Not without a backup copy.

Fortunately, it turns out that there's a dvd of Rick Astley music videos. And, while Amazon in the US doesn't directly carry it, there was one "used & new" copy. With that, we'll be able to rickroll the baby even with the internet down and the power out. (As long as Daniel's laptop still has batteries.)

Friday, September 26, 2008

Elaine now nods her head to mean "yes." Due to her lack of interest in talking and signing (she prefers object communication -- a specific chair means she's hungry, and the door to her room means she needs to be changed, etc.), this new development has afforded us our first chance to have any sort of abstract conversation with her. I mean... It's still limited, but, even so, it's nice to be able to ask, "Do you like this book?" and receive an enthusiastic "yes."

Sunday, September 21, 2008

We kicked off the holiday season this Friday with one of the most under-rated holidays of the year: International Talk Like A Pirate Day. We've only been celebrating TLAPD for about three years now. Usually, I go against everything the founders of the holiday stand for and, instead of actually talking like a pirate, I only dress up like a pirate. Which is easier. And very fun.

This year, however, I was a little brave and did some talking like a pirate. Mostly, though, we all put on our finest pirate regalia and hit the waterfront. We picked up clams'n'chips at the walk-up IvARRRs and ate them while looking out over the water. Then, we topped off the evening with bananas foster. Next year, perhaps we'll plan far enough ahead to make the bananas foster with actual rum. This year, we made up for the lack by adding crushed pineapple. It turned out pretty well and felt fairly pirate-y.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Elaine's sleep schedule has been drifting lately, and it's been difficult to get her to fall asleep at anything like a reasonable time. So, tonight, I tried something different. I showed her various youtube videos of the presidential candidates. It was interesting enough to keep her from getting restless, boring enough to keep her from getting excited, and just barely interesting enough to keep my brain from dripping out of my ears. (An earlier compromise -- watching huge NASA photos download a few lines at a time -- met the first two of those criteria, unfortunately not the third.)

I've tried to stay away from this election, since it doesn't take much information to make my decision and I learned last time around that my decision doesn't count for much. However, it was interesting to actually see how each of these candidates holds himself. I was quite impressed with how Obama managed to keep his cool and remain coherent and articulate in the videos I watched. McCain, however, is deeply worrisome. He strikes me as vaguely evil and senile.

Well, hopefully, things will go better this November...

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

We took Elaine to a dog park today for the first time since she could walk. And it was her first time to Marymoor ever. She clearly feels that an off-leash dog park is her ideal environment, and she knows that she should be cavorting, freely, like all the other dogs. Of course, most of the other dogs can walk twenty paces without falling down.

Her favorite dog there was a large, white American pit bull terrier. Elaine made some very convincing arguments in favor of trading Trudy for this shiny, white replacement. Mostly they consisted of reaching in the dog's direction, crying out for it, and pointing furiously. Fortunately, Elaine didn't seem too disappointed when we left with the same dogs we arrived with.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Mecca closed today. And I failed to make it to a record store at midnight to buy the new Brian Wilson album. High-school-me would be heartbroken. Current-me is okay, but kind of tired.

In my more immediate world, it was a pretty good day. We had s'more-cakes for breakfast. They weren't the smashing success I expected, but they were every bit as good as chocolate chip pancakes. In fact, once the marshmallows melted down to shiny smears of sugar, that's essentially what they were. If there's a "next time" for s'more-cakes, then we'll try freezing the mini-marshmallows ahead of time. Hopefully, that'll keep them from melting. Keep them fluffy.

The other big activity for the day was finding spaceship parts. We went to a giant Goodwill outlet store. Their bins of used things were sold by the pound, so I leaned heavily towards aluminum in picking shiny, strangely shaped objects to adorn my spaceship. Now I just need to find a spaceship hull to attach them all to... Then I can work on assembling it.