Month: April 2011 (Page 1 of 2)

I Wish I Could Quit You Manny

April 30, 2011 / DB

We all have our sports weak spots. There are those who think Pete Rose did nothing wrong. Giants fans embraced Barry Bonds when the rest of the baseball world shunned him. I guess there are a few people out there who think Roger Clemens isn’t lying. And then there’s Manny Ramirez.

I’ve written many times over the years about my love for Manny. Through all of his bizarre behavior, I stuck with him because he was such a joy to watch in the batter’s box. He may be the best hitter I’ve ever seen, and his approach combined with his apparent disdain for the fundamentals of the game once he hit the ball always fascinated me.

So, despite his recent retirement after a second failed drug test, it’s hard for me to change my view of him. I’ll miss him.

Just after his retirement, Sara Rimer, who wrote about Manny when he was still a high schooler, put together a new piece for the New York Times. It’s a great read.

That was the Manny who at least seemed knowable, before he disappeared behind the wall of all that surreal major league fame and money. Who is the real Manny? The 18-year-old prospect with everything ahead of him, or the 38-year-old major leaguer who walked away from baseball rather than face a 100-game suspension after testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs for the second time in recent years? Who knows?

What Belongs To Us

April 27, 2011 / DB

I’ve been kicking around the idea of starting a new blog, not to replace this one but rather in addition to it to give me an outlet for all my technology geekery. If that happens, I’ll let you all know. I wrote something this morning that would have fit such a blog perfectly. But, in the absence of it, below I shall share with you my thoughts on the latest “scandal” to plague the fine Americans at Apple, Inc.

A couple friends asked me, rather mockingly I might add, how I felt about the revelation last week that the iPhone is apparently cacheing information on your location and storing it both on the phone and in your regular backups. While there was no evidence that the information was being sent to Apple, or anyone else for that matter, plenty of people either freaked out or used this as a chance to mess with Fanboys like me, hoping to shake our confidence.

I was not terribly concerned.

Maybe I’m naive, but I figure if you have any electronic device that is capable of showing your location, that information is stored somewhere and can be accessed by people with the right knowledge. That the iPhone, every Android phone, and apparently Windows 7 phones (in a different manner) track and store this information was not a surprise to me. In fact, it made perfect sense for many reasons. ¹

I understand how some people are creeped out by this. But if this is a problem for you, you probably should never own or use a cell phone. As soon as you connect to the network, which happens the moment you power on an activated phone, your location is revealed. If you stay awake at night worrying about Big Business and/or Big Government tracking your movements, you might want to pull the plug on every part of your digital life. They know what we watch on TV, what we download, the websites we access, and so on. At least they can quickly grab all that information if they want it. It also means no more Gmail, since Google scans every email you send and receive to optimize the ads they send your way. No more Facebook or Twitter, which can record where you are when you post. No more networked games, Amazon Wish Lists, iTunes accounts, PayPal accounts and on and on.

I wondered if all the people throwing a fit about this realized how much information about their lives they had already shared on their own. Or, as Mike Lee put it on Twitter:

“So busy bitching about iPhone location logs I forgot to check in on Foursquare.”

Exactly!

We willingly give up so much information that it seems odd to get upset about something like this. But it is easier to think that Apple or Google or Microsoft or the government is taking something from us than think of all the things we are willingly giving away.

We live in the age of socialized information. Everything is shared by default and opting out has become a routine activity performed each time we decide the cool, new social networking platform isn’t so cool anymore. It is important to monitor how and when information about you is shared. When outside agents are genuinely taking advantage of our personal data, we must demand that they respect our privacy. But we must also recognize that the price for taking part in our techno-social culture is that we must cede some access to our information. It’s a fine line, and one that must be monitored constantly.

Apple responded this morning with a lengthy release that should put most fears to rest. The shut down of the Sony PlayStation Network last week because of an attack that compromised user data is a reminder that we should be more concerned with how companies are securing our data than what data they are collecting in the first place.

Data could be used as a diagnostic aid, a convenience device to speed various phone functions, or simply be some code used in testing of the OS that was now useless.
❖ ↩

B-Boy Revival

April 26, 2011 / DB

I once made the grandiose assertion that the Beastie Boys saved my life. The context was, in our preparations to see the B-Boys live in 1998, several of us were sharing our favorite Beasties memories.

My claim that they saved my life stemmed from the year my family spent in San Leandro, CA. Our arrival in the Bay Area over the holidays of 1986 coincided with the explosion of the Beasties’ Licensed to Ill. In the coming weeks, as I struggled to fit in at a new school in a new state, Licensed to Ill was not only the soundtrack for my commute home each afternoon¹, but also how I gained traction with my new classmates.

While hip-hop had, at best, marginal acceptance by the white population of my Kansas City high school in 1986, the kids in Cali had gone bonkers for it. Race did not seem to matter: the white kids, the black kids, the Hispanic kids, the Asian kids, pretty much everyone in SL had embraced the Beasties, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and the other early practitioners of the hip-hop arts. In an ironic twist, kids who listened to mainstream pop and rock were the outsiders at SL.

So, the fact that I spent much of my headphone time on the bus listening to Licensed to Ill and could quote lyrics with the kids I sat by helped break some of that ice I needed to chop through to start making friends. While there were certainly some lonely moments that first spring at SL, it would be an exaggeration to say that I ever felt like our move was a mistake or that I was in a bad place, drifting down a path that could lead to trouble.

The Beastie Boys didn’t save my life. But it’s kind of fun to say that they did.

Anyway, here’s a fun oral history of how the Beasties got together and recorded their first album. For what it’s worth, I thought Paul’s Boutique was cool before it was cool to think it was cool. So I’ll always have that going for me. Which is nice.

DMC: For the first couple of days of the tour, the towns we were playing were in Alabama, Florida, Tennessee—this was the black South. We expected to hear boos, so we were reluctant to be on the side of the stage, to see them get disappointed. But then from the dressing room, we’d hear “Yeaaaaaah! Yeaaahhh!” It was the black audience, praising these dudes. The reason they were so good: It wasn’t white punk rockers trying to be black emcees. They wasn’t talking about gold chains or Cadillacs. They were white rappers rapping about what they did. Real recognize real.

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Which consisted of some combination of two bus rides. San Leandro, like many California schools, did not have school buses and it took adept maneuvering on the public bus lines to navigate the modest distance to our neighborhood. ↩

Myth Busters

April 24, 2011 / DB

A few notes from our Easter celebration.

M., who it should be noted is getting smarter by the minute, had an interesting observation last week. She suggested that the Easter Bunny exists simply so Easter is exciting for kids. She’s received a healthy dose of why Easter is significant, going to a Catholic school and all, but apparently she was unimpressed. She said she knows all about how Jesus died and they put him behind the rock then he came back to life and moved the rock. But, she said, “That’s not fun for kids.” Thus, the Easter Bunny.

OK, then.

A couple days later she told us that both Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are really parents putting out presents and candy for kids. So many myths shot down at once! They grow up so fast!

Despite all that, she charged into our room at 6:00 am Sunday, with C. right behind her, begging to go downstairs. Once again, I benefitted from sleeping on the side of our bed that is opposite the door. Every 10 or 15 minutes I would hear one of them creep over to S.’s side and then hear her yell, “It’s not time yet!” and send them back into the bonus room to watch TV.

When we did finally unleash the hounds, they were thrilled at what the Easter Bunny brought them. Some candy, of course. Water guns. Coloring books. Pens. But the big thing was M. got a Nintendo DS and C. and L. both received Leapster 2’s. We bought them for our trip to South Carolina next month and figured we should go ahead and let the girls have them now so they have a month to learn how to operate them. So, as S. said, “I’m not sitting in the back of the van with them trying to read the instructions.” Smart lady.

And so the girls were engrossed with their games for the next, oh, 13 hours or so. S. had to go to work for a few hours and the games gave me the perfect distraction to get my treadmill time in. They played while I ran, they played while I showered, they played while I cleaned the kitchen, they played while I did prep for Easter dinner, they played in the van on the way to my in-laws’, they played before dinner, they played after dinner, they played on the way home, they played until bedtime. It wasn’t quite that bad. We did rip them out of their hands for a few hours in the morning and afternoon. But they played the shit out of those things when they had them. It was a rainy day. It was either that or watch TV, and they didn’t make much noise when they were playing so the choice was pretty easy for us.

I sensed we may have a problem when M. was kneeling in front of her game, bowing down in the “I’m not worthy” pose and chanting, “DS! DS!” Not even a day into her video game career and she already needs an intervention.

Otherwise we had a fine Easter celebration with our local family.

Not Quite Perfect

April 21, 2011 / DB

So there I was, sitting on my couch, watching Luke Hochevar mow down Cleveland batter after Cleveland batter¹ Wednesday night and, for a few moments, I thought history was unfolding on my TV. The first 15 batters Hochevar faced failed to reach base. He was commanding every pitch beautifully. He and Matt Treanor seemed to have a solid plan of attack. Even when a Cleveland batter made contact, the ball flew directly to a Royals fielder.

Could this be it? Could this be a no-hitter, or even more amazingly, a perfect game?

I was thinking of this during the bottom of the fifth inning, and wondering if I should send a few messages out to other Royals fans to make sure they were watching. Was it too early? Would I jinx Hochevar? I decided to wait and see if he got through the sixth inning and then I would send out a message.

Good thing I waited.

In classic Hochevar form, he gave up a hit then quickly balked a runner to second. Fifteen minutes later, he had given up four more hits, walked a batter, balked in a run, and went to the dugout down 4-2.

Another strange chapter in the recent history of the Royals. We’ll see if this is a sign that the good start to the 2011 season is an aberration or if they can sustain their solid play deeper into the season. My money is on the former, but you never know.

Despite expecting this to be another horrible season for the Kansas City Nine, you can’t help but hope that maybe everybody was wrong when they play .600+ ball over the first three weeks of the season. Regression is expected, but what if Alex Gordon really has turned a corner in his career? What if Jeff Francoeur can continue to make contact and show a bit of patience at the dish? What if the front four of the pitching staff can continue to offer five, six, seven quality innings each time they take the hill? Maybe, just maybe, in a division as weak as the AL Central, they can hang around. And maybe, just maybe, when Eric Hosmer is ready he can add something in June or July. And maybe, just maybe, at least one of the young arms will be prepared to come plug that hole in the back of the rotation. And maybe, just maybe, a break or two here and there will fall the Royals way and this can become a true stepping stone for the 2012 season?

That’s what makes baseball fun. You can dream about the possibilities a long season offers.

Sadly, those are a lot of maybes. The bullpen already seems to be cooling off from its fast start. There are still holes in the lineup, and too many runners are being left on base at the end of each inning. But the 2011 season doesn’t look, at least at this point, like it’s going to be a total disaster. And for Royals fans, believe it or not, that’s progress.

❖

Saying “mowing down Indian after Indian” just does not sound right. ↩

Bond III

April 19, 2011 / DB

Time for two more Bond movies.

Thunderball, 1965

Four years, four Bond movies. While there was a sense of extravaganza to the first three Bond movies, Thunderball feels like the moment the series became a massive event. Sprawling, audacious plots by the bad guys. Large deployments of troops by both sides. And massive climactic battles.

In this case, it all works. Almost.

What kills Thunderball is not the cheese factor, which again creeps upward. Instead it is the interminable final battle scene. It goes on and on and on. And on some more. It’s an amazing piece of production and direction, filmed almost entirely underwater. But that environment eliminates most sounds, so the scene lacks some of the explosive power of an above-ground battle scene. And with only so many options for encounters between combatants, it feels a little like a looped scene that repeats several times. Had they cut that scene back to half, or even a third, of the final length, the flow and impact of it would have been much more powerful.

In Thunderball, Connery is at his prime as Bond. It is the epitome of the cool Bond, with him jumping straight off a traction bed that nearly ripped his spine apart and into the sack with his nurse. As the movie ends, when Bond and Domino are snatched out of their lifeboat and into the air on a behind a US Navy plane, he looks as relaxed as could be despite being hundreds of feet over the water with a casual hold on the rope and a woman hanging off him. Wasn’t nothin’ but a thang to Bond.

Thunderball is significant for two reasons. It is a jumping off point between the first three movies and the rest of the series. Bond is morphing away from the spy and into an action hero. Also, Thunderball was remade in 1983’s Never Say Never Again. But that’s many movies away.

Bond Girls:

Molly Peters as Patricia Fearing. Who doesn’t love a sexy, naughty nurse?

Luciana Paluzzi as Fiona Volpe. One of the great elements of Bond movies is how he always seems to run into attractive female agents that are eager to sleep with him before they try to kill him.

Claudine Auger as Domino Vitali. Auger was first runner-up at the 1958 Miss World contest. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with her. As far as I’m concerned, she’s right up there with Ursula Andress.

Martine Beswick as Paula Caplan. Paula was not a true Bond girl, as she served as his aide in Nassau and they never hooked up. But it is worth noting that she appear in From Russia With Love as one of the gypsies.

Nikki van der Zyl – OK, she’s not a Bond Girl, but once again van der Zyl is the voice dubbed over the female lead. She did Andress’ voice in Dr. No, Auger’s voice here, and provided the voice for characters in 10 Bond movies all together.

You Only Live Twice, 1967.

Finally a break in the series, with 1966 not seeing a release. But You Only Live Twice did it’s best to make up for that. Continuing the theme that Thunderball kicked off, it is a large movie. Big battles, crazy gadgets, unbelievable plot developments.

It being 1967, it was time for the movies to go to space, which opened up a whole other level for cheesiness. You Only Live Twice did not disappoint, with space capsules that eat other space capsules; rockets that not only return to earth intact, but can land, vertically, on a dime; and ground radar that somehow tracks objects in orbit. Thank goodness we don’t watch Bond for realism.

This movie is also the first introduction of the United Kingdom serving as the sensible middle in the Cold War disputes between the US and USSR. While certainly on America’s side when push comes to shove, here is the first of many times in the series where the US and Soviets yell at each other while the Brits keep their wits about them and just manage to keep the big rivals from obliterating each other in the end.

You Only Live Twice is a pretty good movie. We’re beginning to see some themes repeat (Is this the third time we’re led to believe that Bond is dead?). The technical improvements of the production team are taking the stunts and gadgets to new levels that sometimes overwhelm the story. And Connery’s performance seems almost strained at times. But all things considered, it’s an entertaining flick.

Bond Girls:

Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki. Maybe it’s just me, but she sure seemed eager to hook up with James.

Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki. Bond’s “wife” in the late part of the film, she climbs a mountain in a bikini then swims to get help in about ten minutes after it took an entire day to cover the same distance earlier in the day.

Kari Dor as Helga Brandt. ANOTHER enemy agent willing to sleep with Bond. The odds of that must be astounding!

All three are attractive women, but none register on my best-of list.
Next up: a major departure, as Connery steps aside momentarily.

❖

A Bar Too High

April 18, 2011 / DB

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: expectations for athletes are never fair. Especially for kids who were high school stars and who move on to elite college programs. All these kids do is play a game they have some natural talent for very well and suddenly outsiders are ranking them against other kids their age, experts are touting them as the missing piece to teams that are already loaded with talent, and fans expect players who may not have to shave more than once a month to step in and play like Kobe or LeBron.

So whatever numbers are attached to these kids, whatever expectations are placed upon them are the fault of those of us outside the games, not the kids.

Last week Josh Selby announced, to the surprise of few, that he would enter the NBA draft after just one difficult season at KU. This decision has been almost universally mocked. Selby, who was ranked by some as the top incoming player in the country last fall, was never the player many expected him to be. Two injuries, an NCAA suspension, and frankly some pretty good teammates kept him from being a dominant player.

Yet, he declared for the draft, will sign with an agent, and now he’s the latest poster child for all that is wrong with college basketball and the NBA draft.

I actually feel sorry for Josh. I don’t know if it’s a money issue that is forcing him to go. Or if there is so much pressure from being expected to only spend seven months in college that he can’t return. Or if he lost faith in his coaches and teammates over the course of the season and would rather try his luck in the draft than spend another year in Lawrence. Maybe he just believes the best place to prove that all that hype was legitimate is by playing professionally somewhere rather than coming back to KU healthy and tearing up the Big 12 next year. Or perhaps he’s scared that his dream is slipping away and wants to take this chance to go grab it before it’s too late.

I don’t know. I harbor no ill will towards Josh and don’t understand KU fans who are angry with him. It’s his life, his decision, and he’s the one who must deal with the consequences if he has chosen as poorly as many experts think he has. I would love for him to come back next year. I believe the hype, and think if he was healthy, he, along with Tyshawn Taylor and Elijah Johnson, would give Bill Self a backcourt that would rival the Robinson-Chalmers-Collins one of 2008 and the Brown-Head-Williams one he had at Illinois in 2003. A confident, fully mobile Selby running the break with Thomas Robinson filling the lane would be a thing of beauty. But just because I will miss seeing that doesn’t mean I should be angry with him.

I hope Selby does get drafted, sticks on an NBA roster, and gets playing time next year. I hope in a few years people will look back on his year at KU as an aberration, as an injury-induced bump on the way to a fantastic career. However, I fear Josh is going to be just another extremely talented kid who left college before his body and game were ready, and whose ceiling will be as a role player rather than a star.

All this got me thinking, of course. I’m not sure what the proper term is, but I was wondering who are the most disappointing/overrated KU players in recent memory? Again, this is an unfair list: these kids never asked to be called saviors or have the entire weight of the program placed on their shoulders. But the fact is every team has players who were blessed with physical gifts they could never fully utilize in a team setting. Whatever you want to call those guys, here are five from KU.

Selby – No matter what he does professionally, I feel like he’s always going to be in the top spot. If he becomes a star, people will wonder why he couldn’t have done that at KU. If he washes out, people will long talk about how he was the best player in his high school class and could barely get off the bench in college.

Xavier Henry – Completely unfair, because he did have a very solid freshman year on a team with a couple alpha dogs and two players who were stars in waiting. But so much was expected of him, partially because of the epic drama that was his recruitment and also because of his monster first game, that he never really had a chance to live up to the hype on that team.

Kenny Gregory – McDonald’s All American game dunk contest winner, recruited by everybody, and the prototypical late 90s athlete, poor Kenny just couldn’t shoot. And if you bumped him a couple times, he would stop going into the lane. But man, could he dunk.

Lester Earl – Lester was, in a lot of ways, similar to Xavier and Selby. He was THE missing piece. Arguably the most physically gifted KU player of the modern era, he never really fit in after transferring from LSU. Then he wrecked his knee and couldn’t jump anymore, which left him with zero game. To his great credit, he still played hard, but it was tough watching a guy who once could leap over people have to play well below the rim.

Luke Axtell – Not to pick on those late 90s teams, but I’m sensing a theme here. Axtell was probably everyone in the Big 12’s second favorite player during his freshman year at Texas. His floppy hair and sweet outside shot made him a ton of fun to watch. But whatever happened at Texas that forced him out clearly did a number on his head. By the time he got on the court at KU, he didn’t care whether he missed a shot or not. He looked weak, slow, and overmatched. For most of his brief time at KU, he was a shadow of the player he had been in Austin. I’m sure Tom Penders is pleased with himself.

Honorable Mentions

Eric Chenowith – Everyone’s favorite whipping boy since he never improved after his freshman year and, frankly, never seemed to care as much about basketball as fans wanted him to. The reminder is that sometimes guys peak when they’re 19, not 23.

Darrin Hancock – Another one that is a bit unfair, as he had a solid year on a Final Four team. But, as KU’s first viral recruiting star¹, people expected him to be part Larry Johnson, another juco stud who dominated in D1, and part Michael Jordan. His game wasn’t as complete as we thought, and a nasty eye injury turned him into a one-dimensional player. But he did jump over the dude from K-State and had the epic reverse dunk against Indiana in the regional final.

❖

There was a grainy video of all Hancock’s dunks at Garden City Juco that got passed around among KU fans the spring before he arrived at KU. I remember hearing about it, and it being a big event when one of my friends got a copy. Like 10 of us crowded around the TV and watched sick dunk after sick dunk and dreamed of how no one in the Big 8 would be able to stop him. ↩

Blog Housekeeping

April 17, 2011 / DB

I’ve been kicking around a minor change to the blog for a couple weeks. I’m still not 100% happy with how it looks right now, but I’m going to go with it for the time being.

Basically, Reader’s Notebook posts are disappearing. I will still be listing the books I read, but instead of doing a monthly listing, I will be posting each book individually on a new Reading page. You can either hit that link to see the first entry, or click on the Reading link up at the top of the page. Either way takes you there.

Why the change? A couple reasons.

First, it’s easier to write about each book that way. Sure, I could go ahead and write what I want and them let it sit for three weeks, but where’s the fun in that? This allows me to do a more thorough accounting of books I think deserve such treatment, rather than cutting it short because I have four other books to write about.

Second, I came across a nice personal blog on which the author has a reading section. She’s a web designer by trade, and uses a more complex blogging system than I do. Thus, she can do some really cool things I can’t do on WordPress. I’ve tested a few things over the past few weeks, and none matched the look she has. So I’m going with the closest thing that works without too much effort on my part.

I may continue to post a brief reminder here on the main page each time I update the Reading section, since I’d hate for you to miss out on a book.

❖

The Sisters

April 14, 2011 / DB

Winters are hard for me. I think that’s probably the case for most stay-at-home parents. You run out of things to do to entertain the kids. They get sick of being stuck inside around each other, and you, constantly. The longer the winter stretches, the more tension builds. I’ll admit that each year, when we get to late February/early March, I’m pretty much ready for them to leave for a month or so and let me recharge.

That should partially explain the lack of kid updates here. I’m annoyed/exasperated with them so much that the funny/interesting things they do are easily forgotten. I’ve barely used the camera for the last four months, too.

Hopefully, with warmer weather finally seeming to be here for good, we’ll all get distracted from each other, moods will improve, and we’ll have more stories and pics to share soon.

C. has been struggling with rules lately. I don’t know if it’s attention craving behavior, classic pushing the boundaries behavior, or if she’s just being difficult for the hell of it, but each day we go through a series of exchanges where she is punished for doing things she knows are not allowed.

One particular temptation for her is products like Chapstick, Vaseline, and A&D ointment. Something about those petroleum based products draws her to them and gets her into trouble. After months of finding our Chapsticks mangled, her face and clothes smeared in oils, stains on walls and furniture, and even (bizarrely) a tube of A&D ointment cut in half, she was banned from using any of those items without direct supervision.

She cracked quickly and often, of course.

Last week she and L. were playing in their clubhouse under our dining room table. I walked by and smelled something. I stopped and sniffed.

“C., what is that smell?”

She jumped out quickly and said, “I don’t know.”

She has a way of looking around and hopping nervously when she’s hiding something. She was doing exactly that while she tried to keep a poker face.

“I smell something, I’m not sure what it is. I hope you didn’t make a mess somewhere.”

“I didn’t, Dad.”

I started to walk to the kitchen and noticed a gleam on her lips.

“C., have you been in the Chapstick?”

“No!” she insisted.

“C., I see it on your face. You know you’re not supposed to be in it. I better not find it on any clothes or furniture.”

“OK, Dad.”

I went into the kitchen to put some dishes away. A few minutes later L. came running into the room and jumped on me, grabbing my leg and hugging it. All she had on was a diaper.

I reached down to hug her and when I wrapped my arms around her, my hands stuck to her back.

What the hell?

Her back was covered in Chapstick or Vaseline or one of C.’s other favorite products.

“C.!!! I know you did this! L. can’t reach her back!”

I couldn’t get too mad, because it was pretty funny. C. did go into timeout, but got off relatively easy.

C. has a new trick that does crack me up each time she does it. In one of her movies, I think Tangled, one character does the “I’m watching you” move where they point at their eyes, then at the person they’re watching. One day I caught C. making that motion at L.. When I asked her what she was doing, she began giggling and then aimed her fingers at me. It was one of the funniest things I’ve seen her do. Now I can look at her and say, “C., I have my eyes on you,” and she busts it out at me.

I hate to jinx it, but L.’s terrible 2’s have been less terrible than her sisters’ were. Of course, she’s only two-and-a-half, so there’s plenty of time for things to get worse. But, all things considered, she’s not awful. Sure, there are plenty of “NO!”s in response to parental direction, the occasional fit, screaming and fights with her sisters when they take something she wants. But nothing out-of-the-ordinary.

She makes up for those moments of age-typical behavior with lots of sweetness. She’s the most polite kid in the world. Hand her anything and she’ll thank you for it. Sometimes she’ll just walk up to you, give you a hug, and say “Dank you, Daddy!” And she loves the hugs and kisses.

In what I understand to be typical Kid #3 behavior, she’s all about performing and talking. She dances around and says, “Look at me!” If she does something and her sisters laugh, she keeps doing it. She has a good sense of what is silly and entertaining and does all she can to get an audience. She never stops talking 1 and once she is comfortable with someone, will talk their ear off. I’ve caught her telling long stories to one neighbor. Another neighbor saw her playing with his kids and she proceeded to stop playing and start telling him all about it. When he walked by where I was sitting, he said, “She’s a talker, isn’t she?”

Potty training is the next hill for L. to climb. She’s been using the toilet before bed each night, but we haven’t pushed it during the day yet. Now that it appears to be warm for good, and we can let her run around without a diaper for stretches, we’ll probably start scheduling more regular potty time for her.

Each girl has their mood swings and moments, but to me M. is the most pronounced in those moods. C. has multiple fits each day, in which she reacts emotionally to something she doesn’t like. L. has to have a two-year-old moment a few times a day. But M. is like two different kids depending on who is around her.

If you get her alone, she is calm, funny, engaging, and very smart. Honestly, some of the conversations we have when no one else is around weird me out a little because they are almost grown-up in the give-and-take. I’m not just answering her questions anymore. Now she can drive the conversation, she can make observations and connections between things.

But when her sisters are around, she’s bossy, whiney, needy. You can tell she wants to dominate them, both in terms of being the one who determines what they play and in that she wants more attention from adults than they get.

It’s maddening, because she does seem like two completely different kids.

❖

C.’s our quiet one, and the only time she shuts up is when she’s doing something she knows will get her into trouble. M. can talk for 20 minutes without taking a breath or using any punctuation. L. hangs right there with her. When all three get going, it’s best just to leave the room. ↩

The Perfect Setup

April 13, 2011 / DB

If the Internet is good at anything, it’s connecting people with similar, obscure interests.¹ If there’s something that interests you even in the slightest, chances are you can find a community of people who are crazy about the subject. Blogs, Flickr groups, newsgroups, podcasts. Thirty minutes of searching on Google can produce enough research material to keep you busy for weeks.

Example: people love to show off their desks. Either they’re sharing the computer hardware they own, ² showing off their interior design chops, or perhaps are writers and just want to share how their carefully crafted writing space looks.

I’ll admit, I look at a lot of these pictures. It’s interesting to see how an author who has written books, serves as an editor for a major magazine, or writes a blog that has hundreds of thousands of readers works. Is their desk messy or spotless? What kind of computer do they use? Where do they put it? What is their lighting like? Are they in a corner of a busy room or do they have a dedicated writing studio somewhere?

Somewhere along the line I came across the picture posted below. I forgot to save the source, but I liked it enough that I tucked it away to use at some later date. I had forgotten about it completely and ran across it while doing some hard disk cleanup over the weekend.

You can talk about what your favorite computer is, what kind of keyboard you use, a preferred office chair, etc. that would make up your ideal writing space. But I think this dude had it just about right.

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And porn. It’s really good at porn. ↩
We Mac geeks are probably the worst offenders. ↩