Shaking out the sillies

A typical evening in our house. More of the same here.

Cool stuff

If you read a lot of blogs, you need to use a reader. I like Google reader, because it automatically creates a publicly viewable page with all the blog entries you like. See mine here.

Sometimes Emma likes to bang on the computer keyboard

This 3-year-old apparently likes to play on the keyboard too. When his parents went back to the computer, they discovered that the little boy had inadvertently bought a £9,000 car on eBay. Oops.

Donate used toys to kids in Iraq

This sounds like something good to do.

Another geography quiz

This one is almost impossible.

Missionaries

This is funny.

Eat your vegetables...

...or you'll shrink:


The boys had fun playing with their friend Chad after church today.

Geography quiz

I got 80%, with Burkina Faso and a few other hard ones right, but I was thrown off by Slovenia and Azerbaijan. Try it here.

Hey Guggle and Mimi

R U TUF ENUF?


Video of the action here. Ethan talks trash.

The people who give you money to buy things

Ethan: Dad, can we go to Target and get some money from the people who give you money to buy things, and see if they have a Tycoon game?

Me: Which people who give you money?

Ethan: You know, the people at the end.

If only it were that easy.

Later in the conversation, I told Ethan if he wants a Tycoon computer game (he played one at a friend's house), he should put it on his Christmas list. He didn't like that idea, and said he wanted it now. I asked him if he had any money. "You need money to have it come in the mail?" he asked.

Andrew, now interested, said "I have enough money to buy it." (Andrew is rich--he has $20.)

Ethan: Can Andrew buy it for me with his money?

Me: If that's what he wants to do with his money.

Andrew: If I buy it, it will be mine.

Ethan: But Dad, I want it for me.

Andrew, wanting to make a deal: Ethan, how about if I buy it, the change that I get will be for me, and the game will be for you.

This was not an altruistic offer. From the look on Andrew's face he was clearly convinced that this was a good deal for him.

Hmmm... Looks like we have some work to do.

Funny email

Here's a good one I got yesterday:

Dear Elliott ,

ABC Television’'s hit reality television show, The Bachelor, is searching for its next star. After viewing your profile on LinkedIn, the casting producer has selected you as a potential candidate.

ABC is using LinkedIn to find its next Bachelor because this time around, they’re looking for an accomplished professional. LinkedIn is about your professional life instead of your personal life, so we don’t know if your marital or relationship status qualifies you for the show. However, your professional profile fits the bill.

If you think you’d make a great “Bachelor,” please let me know by reply (XXXXXX@linkedin.com) and I will contact you regarding next steps. LinkedIn respects your privacy and will not release your contact information, so you must reply to the email above for us to pass you along as a candidate.

If you know anyone else that would make a great “Bachelor”, feel free to let us know about them – ABC will pay a $5,000 reward for any referral that leads to the next star.

Wishing you continued professional success,

XXXXX
Assistant to the CEO
LinkedIn

For some reason, I don't think I'd be a very good candidate.

Tell 'em Large Marge sent you!

"There was this sound, like a garbage truck dropped off the Empire State Building... And when they pulled the driver's body from the twisted, burning wreck. It looked like this..."

Remember Large Marge, from that American cinematic classic "Pee Wee's Big Adventure"? That's what I thought of when I saw this story on Neatorama today. The money quote:

"I can pop my eyes out four centimetres each, it is a gift from God, I feel blessed."

Hide the children before you click on the link, or the image will be forever seared into their brains.

Way to go

Todd Harris is curing cancer. Well, finding it anyway. Curing it will come later.

Top 25 Most Played

Seven of the top ten most played songs on our iPod right now are songs from Disney princess movies. They are far and away the most played songs in our house. Close behind is music from the Godzilla movies.

Yes, we are very refined in our tastes.

Emma on the piano

Emma likes to sing. Today she played the piano and sang for a long time, and I was lucky enough to secretly capture it on video.

When she was done, I asked her if I could film her singing some more. She agreed, and told me she would sing a song about her mom and dad. Here's how it started out:

"My mom and dad always get me in trouble..."

You can see the video here. It's a bit avant-garde, and not easily accessible for the uninitiated, so I put the lyrics on the screen, karaoke style. Sing along if you'd like.

The official party

Andrew had his official birthday party today, a "girls-free", outer-space-themed event. NASA cooperated by launching the space shuttle at the start of the party, which we watched on TV. He raked in the LOOT. Kids give amazing birthday presents these days.

It was a fun, but hectic, two hours. Next year we may bribe him with cash instead of doing a party--something he is happy about, since he knows he'll be able to extract a high price out of his parents (one of his friends did the same thing this year).

Places I've been

Here are mine:



I was thinking about the map with the pins the other day so I bought a roll of cork board at the grocery store and a cool world map from allposters.com. I'm going to mount the map on the cork, frame it, and then the kids can help me put in pins for all the places we've been.

Feats of strength

This is Emma and a friend preparing for a three-legged race at a church picnic earlier this week.

Check out our family's stunning display of athleticism below. If you look closely, you'll notice Emma's team in last place on the left hand side of the photo, and Ethan's team vying for last place on the right hand side of the photo. I don't think either of them crossed the finish line, but they had a lot of fun.

Californians in the news

The California legislature recently introduced a Pluto resolution:

WHEREAS, Downgrading Pluto's status will cause psychological harm to some Californians who question their place in the universe and worry about the instability of universal constants. . .

Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the Assembly hereby condemns the International Astronomical Union’s decision to strip Pluto of its planetary status for its tremendous impact on the people of California and the state’s long term fiscal health.

Californians, are you suffering psychological harm? Are you hurting from the impact to your fiscal health? Because everyone in Indiana seems to be doing just fine.

Princeton's collection of death masks

Princeton has a cool collection of life and death masks from famous historical figures, like Newton, Robespierre, and Cromwell. It's fun to see what all these people looked like--kind of like us, but with bad teeth.

p.s. My favorite is Dante, who apparently died in a very bad mood.

News archive search

Google has a new site that lets you search and read old news articles dating as far back as the 1880s.

Strange coincidences

This site has compiled several strange coincidences from history, such as this:

"The British actor Anthony Hopkins [who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter] was delighted to hear that he had landed a leading role in a film based on the book The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer. A few days after signing the contract, Hopkins travelled to London to buy a copy of the book. He tried several bookshops, but there wasn't one to be had.

Waiting at Leicester Square underground for his train home, he noticed a book apparently discarded on a bench. Incredibly, it was The Girl From Petrovka. That in itself would have been coincidence enough but in fact it was merely the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events.

Two years later, in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited by George Feifer, the author. Feifer mentioned that he did not have a copy of his own book. He had lent the last one - containing his own annotations - to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. With mounting astonishment, Hopkins handed Feifer the book he had found. 'Is this the one?' he asked, 'with the notes scribbled in the margins?' It was the same book."

Indigestion

Andrew: I don't want to go upstairs.
Me: Why not?
Andrew: I'm scared.
Me: Scared of what?
Andrew: Monsters.
Me (thinking we can reason this through): Andrew, have you ever actually seen a monster in our house?
Andrew: Yes.
Me: No you haven't. There's no such thing as monsters. You need to walk up there and get over this. What's the worst thing that could happen?
Andrew: I'll get digested.
Me: Hmmm, that is pretty bad.

Overheard

Me: Ethan, you're setting a bad example for your little sister.
Emma (interjecting): I'm not a little sister. I'm a BIG sister.
Me: Well, you won't be a big sister until Sophie's born.
Emma: I AM a big sister. [She stands up and puts her hands defiantly on her hips.] Look. How. BIG I AM!

The boys giggled a lot about that.

The greatest car stunt ever attempted.

Saw this on Neatorama. Some guy attached rockets to his Lincoln Continental and tried to jump one mile across the St. Lawrence River. He survived to ensure the human gene pool remains quirky, but his Lincoln Continental did not make it. To cross the river, he had planned to go 280 mph. In a Lincoln Continental. The video's here.

Genes and aging

Turns out your genes have very little effect on how long you live. Did you know that on average, identical twins die more than ten years apart? Weird.

Hoosiers in the news

A family in Carmel, Indiana thought their roof exploded the other day. Turns out it was just a few meteorites. I'm tellin' ya, crazy stuff happens here in the Hoosier state.