This is an actual speech to text conversion presented to me with a straight face (I presume) by Google.
“They’re an automatically. I moved out. But if you were expecting that talk to you Is it right I don’t know yet because I have a papaya. It’s a lot, bye hello, and I will get along very well. Mediation lenient directions. I don’t know, i’m you know community and The neither of the week. It’s those hang up on the actually and hang out, and call. Hey, but, Shh, Shh, trying to call. Yeah.”
For the record… I was talking about mangoes, not papayas and NO ONE calls me the “neither of the week” and gets away with it!
Breakfast is more exciting now that the ladybug larvae have moved into their terrarium, a terrarium delivered rather early by Santa’s Fed Ex elves.
Things we won’t mention until much later:
Several of the larvae made it to Mom’s poppyseed muffins before we could retrieve them. We’re pretty sure we caught most of them, though.
It’s 70 degrees and humid in the terrarium, but it’s 29 degrees and not so humid outside our house. Looks like this particular crop of larvae won’t be making it to the garden.
Every once in a while you see a product and say to yourself, “damn… I’m an idiot. Why didn’t I think of, develop, market, and sell this? I could have been rich. I could be playing golf in a warm climate right now. I could be bitching about Obama visiting and screwing up the traffic patterns. I could of been a contender.”
Any way… if your son (or limber, evil daughter I suppose) measures daily success by how many times he can successfully pee in your right eye, I highly recommend picking up a package of these pee pee teepees.
They make a great gift for Christmas, Hannukah, and Kwanzaa… or all three.
One of the best things about the soon-to-be bankrupt U.S. mail is that its uneven service works wonders for spreading out your birthday gifts.
If your birthday is… say… on the 15th, and you have friends and relatives that live more than a state away, you can bank on getting presents in the mail until at least the end of the month.
This year, my favorite toy arrived by stork on the 25th. He takes A LOT of batteries and several adults to maintain, but doesn’t anything worthwhile? I can’t wait until he needs his next “re-binking.”
There are four contenders for your smartphone money right now if you’re on Verizon:
Galaxy Nexus
Motorola Droid Razr
update… Droid Razr Maxx now available with a much larger, but still non-removable battery.
HTC Rezound
Apple iPhone 4S
Really short version: I’d reluctantly get the Galaxy Nexus over the Razr, but I can’t help wondering if there’s another Verizon phone to be released in December. (Update: I got the Nexus and I no longer think Verizon will release anything else this year. Might push out the Droid RazrMaxx next year before getting into the quad core phones.)
Longer version: All the phones are really quite good and you can’t really go wrong with any of them, but all have rather tragic flaws. The Nexus has the least important tragic flaws and ships with ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich – latest flavor of the Android OS). Whichever Android OS phone you get, you can look forward to 4 times the ram of your current OG Droid (if you, like me, are still rocking one!), and the upgraded processor (between 1.2 and 1.5 Ghz) will be dual and powerful. Apple underclocks their processor to 800Mhz.
Detailed version:
Galaxy Nexus Good: LTE enabled, pure Android (no bloatware dropped on top of ICS should make it a very responsive beast), has NFC (near field communications), good-looking screen, ships with ICS (the latest version of Android), quick camera, os will be supported and updated by Google (rather than Samsung), good guts to the phone, removable battery.
Galaxy Nexus Bad: screen is not Gorilla Glass (it will scratch easier than your OG Droid… (Update!) although… this video suggests it’s pretty damn scratch resistant), lots of plastic, no removable data card, camera is 5MP instead of the standard 8MP (might not be a big deal, but it needs to be noted).
Motorola Droid Razr Good: LTE enabled, good hardware guts, badass shell of kevlar and steel, Gorilla Glass screen, removable data card, thin body, most masculine design of the four, some of Motorola’s bloatware is actually pretty cool (energy settings according to time/location).
Motorola Droid Razr Bad: ships with Gingerbread (Motorola says it will upgrade to ICS in 2012, but doesn’t give a date), battery is NOT removable (although the new Razr Maxx makes this less of an issue since the battery has so much more capacity), no extended battery option as you can’t swap the stock one out, screen is lower resolution than the best smartphones (tradeoff).
HTC Rezound Good: LTE enabled, good hardware guts, pretty screen, 8MP camera, comes with expensive ear buds and Beats technology (great if you listen to hip hop… somewhat gimmicky if you don’t), nice looking phone, apparently will ship with a wireless charging back cover.
HTC Rezound Bad: screen is not Gorilla Glass, fat phone, tiny (although removable and replaceable) stock battery, bloated Sense software on top of Android (slower responses), ships with Gingerbread (although HTC promises to upgrade to ICS in 2012).
Apple iPhone 4S Good: smallest phone (good or bad depending upon how you look at it), fast and clear camera, Siri (if you’re into her), clear display, can be cheaper depending upon which model (storage size) you get, ios is more mature and less fragmented than Android, potentially better battery life (although ios seems to have some bugs degrading battery performance at the moment).
Apple iPhone 4S Bad: not LTE enabled (you cannot use the fastest data speeds available from Verizon), no removable battery, it’s the smallest phone (good or bad depending upon how you look at it, its hardware specs are significantly lower than the three Android phones, and both the glass back and the screen are rather fragile. The iPhone is due for a complete redesign next year that will doubtlessly include LTE functionality and make you hate your older iPhone 4S.
Miscellaneous Andy notes:
If you want to buy the Razr or the Galaxy Nexus, call/visit your local Costco to see if they sell the phone. Costco usually sells the phone at the same price as Verizon BUT they often add a bunch of goodies for no cost (extra chargers, docks, cases, etc.). (Update… Nexus package is NOT worth it at Costco. Crappy case, crappy holster, and another charger cable isn’t worth the extra 20 bucks.)
I want to and may still get the Razr because of the badass shell and tougher screen, but I’ll probably end up getting the Galaxy Nexus due to the faster software release schedule and removable battery. If the Razr had a removable battery and/or shipped with ICS, I wouldn’t even look at the Nexus, but in aggregate, the Nexus wins on points. (Update: I got the Nexus. It’s great; it would have been better if it came in the Droid Razr housing. Battery cover on the Nexus is pretty flimsy. The rest of the phone seems pretty solid. LTE is completely worth it.) (Second update: check out the Droid Razr Maxx if the battery issue was scaring you away from the original Razr.)
Battery life could be a real issue with this ENTIRE generation of Android phones. Thirsty processors and LTE will suck em dry pretty fast. This is another potential downside with the Razr, as you’re out of luck going the extended battery route. This is a potential upside to the iPhone 4S, as you’re trading power and LTE for battery life.
Missing parts: honest instructions, 3 screws, 7 AAA batteries, 4 gin martinis, and 1 properly-sized allen wrench.
Number of Chinese factory workers laughing their asses off at me: at least 1.
Time until first child fist fight over a train: 18 minutes.
Time until second child fist fight over a train: 49 minutes.
Time Abby managed to stay up past her normal bedtime: 1 hour, 17 minutes.
Chance of another birthday party at our house… ever: a solid 14 percent. Jackson might get one… but only when he turns one. Enjoy the photographic evidence.
In order to get Hogan and me farther away from them, my parents are busy digging in, hammering on, and swearing about the soon-to-be finished basement. Actually, my father has few practical skills, so this project, in truth, is a “pay someone else and then pretend you are a foreman” project.
To show my disgust at them for mindlessly blowing several days worth of the tuition money necessary to send me to a private university in a warm weather locale in the year 2026, I’ve just completed my own renovation project. This new addition to my bedroom allows me complete privacy, enhanced protection from Hogan’s dangerous, unpredictable tail wag, and enough interior soundproofing for plausible deniability in the event that someone calls me to go somewhere or to do something that doesn’t perfectly synchronize with my internal toddler clock.
Christian and Andy drank frosty drafts at the Great Lost Bear the night before the race, so technically they ran the “Ales to Trails to Ale” race.
Andy was the only one of the three runners to spend time in first place, second place, and last place. Unfortunately, the only time he spent in first place was somewhere between the start of the race and the first half mile marker.
Everyone’s legs hurt a little less after witnessing the “had to be drunk girl” fail (and fall!) in her ill-conceived attempt to scale the 3 foot iron fence at the Sabego Biergarten. Commenter: “The drunk girl ran the ‘Trail to Ale to Epic 3ft Fence Scale Fail’ race.”*
Matt wore actual “trail shoes” because he thought it was an actual “trail run,” which apparently it is not… at all. It should really be called the “Sidewalk to Ale” run. Hopefully he has really bad blisters now.
There are no longer two fat cats at the Two Fat Cats Bakery in Portland.
Portland has some of the friendliest 10K race porta-potty line mice anywhere.
Ultimately, you never know how your kid is going to turn out in the end, but it’s probably important to watch for signs of trouble and to at least try to put the young back on a better path when necessary.
Sometimes it’s easy and nature lobs you soft, underhanded meatball situations to get you to let down your guard. Perhaps you catch your child lifting the family dog’s tail in order to “ring its doorbell.” No problem. That’s a simple “dogs don’t have doorbells, silly child; they live in our houses and listen for our doorbells because they’re wolves on welfare” conversation. Perhaps your child decides she will eat only ginger snap cookies for a month. No problem. Give the dog* all the ginger snap cookies and eventually your child will get hungry enough to eat the gruel you’d rather she ingest.
Much better!
But other times it’s more difficult. What do you do when your offspring gravitates toward riding in the back of a police car? Do you risk offending the officers present by yanking her screaming and kicking from their squad car?
What is the etiquette for such an extraction? If a two-year-old girl and a thirty-nine-year-old man get into an unscheduled Shin Do Kumate in a squad car, who do you think gets pepper sprayed and tased? How do you explain to your daughter later that obviously she seemed like a greater threat to the officers and that you’re washing her eyes with milk because that’s what the kind paramedics said would make the stinging stop?
Fire trucks, on the other hand, are very comforting signs for parents. Even if your child tosses a would-be, miniature driver crying to the asphalt on her way up to the vehicle’s seat, or if she shoves dismissively an older boy over to ride bitch because he has no f’n clue where the fire is, it’s still a welcome relief to see her riding in the front of a fire truck, rather than the back of a police car.
*Sometimes letting the dog eat several hundred ginger snap cookies all at once can have unintended consequences. It’s better to space them out over time.
We are only about a week away from the long-awaited 10 Kilometer throwdown pitting Andy against both Christian “the turtle” Teter and Matt “helix pomatia” Hatem. This will be Andy’s first competitive race since he humiliated Hatem at the second Bridges for Friendship race sometime last millennium.
In commemoration of the event, limited-edition, collectible race cards will be released Sept 14. These grayscale cards (printed on a grade of paper just above Charmin one-ply camping-grade travel toilet paper) feature statistics, fun factoids, and biographical information on all three runners.
We will post ordering information soon. Please note that cards will be sold entirely on a first-come-first-served basis. Once they’re gone… they’re gone!
*Note: Matt’s card has an error! His record against Andy is actually 1 win and 3 losses, rather than 2 losses. Hopefully we can get that information to the printer in time! Click on any card for a larger, uncropped version.
Peabody toddler Abigail Moore admitted that she “actually hates” WGBH’s Cat in the Hat cartoon, but she continues to watch it on occasion because it’s more fun than “doing whatever her parents want her to do instead.”
I legitimately like Curious George, but I put up with Martin Short’s incredibly grating voice and poorly-conceived hijinks only when I need a little space… or when he’s explaining how a bee hive works… bee hives are pretty cool.
This is a bad post, but it’s really just to demonstrate uploading and inserting an image into a blog post and I thought it might as well feed google at the same time. Beats lorem ipsum delorum does it not?
Dan Loring’s dream of seeing long-in-the-tooth reunion concerts by Def Leppard, Cinderella, and Warrant all in one glorious summer imploded early Friday as Warrant lead singer, Jani Lane, inconveniently gave up the ghost in a Woodland Hills Comfort Inn.
Reached for comment, Mr. Loring lamented Lane’s passing. “‘Cherry Pie’ was a formative… I mean… a watershed moment for me growing up on the mean streets of Northshore Massachusetts. ‘Pie’ was nearly our wedding song. I can’t believe he’s gone. He kicked so much more ass than that dude in Poison“*
Asked about his remarkable loyalty to Def Leppard, Cinderella, and Warrant, Dan detailed a laundry list of crap about the acts, and about the golden age of hair bands in general. “Def taught us that it was ok to get attached to print media, to obsess over grainy women. They paved the way for Whitesnake. Whitesnake just ripped them off, baby! Cinderella… damn dude… they said, ‘yeah… we’re Johnny-come-late on the scene rockers and all the cool names are taken, but that don’t mean nothing! We’re gonna kick ass under an effeminate nomenclature… woooo! and turn it up to eleven… no twelve!’ Warrant was like, ‘f this, man… we’re gonna lure em in with a wimpy heaven ballad and then… BOOM!.. cherry pie em! That’s right, suckers, we come at you early like message rockers a la Stryper, but just to get your girlfriends backstage!’ Genius… if there were some kind of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, these guys would all be in there.
Assured that there actually is a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland and that none of his favorite bands are currently in the Hall despite all having easily fulfilled the 20 year waiting period required for possible induction, Dan seemed surprised, but he quickly recovered. “Yeah… well… Ohio sucks!”
*Mrs. Loring ultimately chose a wedding song off The Carpenters’ third album.
Sometimes it’s difficult to be a toddler. You have short legs, you have limited funds, and you have trouble making your way through crowds on your own.
It's difficult to find good help.
“Perhaps my lazy father is right,” thought Abby. I had considered this very Papa project last summer.
Jim was difficult to control at first. Abby had quite a bit of trouble steering him by his hat, and she nearly toppled off several Marblehead sidewalks and piers.
Within a month, however, Jim was quite broken, and Abby could easily maneuver him (by two baby hands full of endangered Papa hair) from ice cream shop to toy shop as necessary.
Peabody, MA – Trudi’s quick thinking halted a potentially violent toddler showdown at a local playground on Wednesday.
Asked about her heroic actions, Trudi replied, “it came down to simple mathematics. There were three kids and two swings, so a little sharing saved the day.”
Trudi’s actions were not entirely without controversy, however.
Emily Moore, a mother witnessing the swing sharing commented, “well… it worked out fine this time, but I wonder about the future implications of such a short-sighted solution. What happens when these two find themselves embroiled in a spirited game of musical chairs? Will they now feel empowered to throw the rules out the window and to share that one remaining chair? Do we then give them both a trophy? All I’m saying is that it’s a really slippery slope. I’m not entirely against sharing, but it’s usually a bad idea.”
