Friday, November 29.
Alison bought Nora Jones' new album, and I have to say, I think it's just great. Sexy! Yava!
There are things that nobody tells you about when you become a parent. I wonder why? ∴
Wednesday, November 27.
Anyone in the mood for some stupid Becca tricks? A video camera and iMovie can make a Spielberg out of anyone. Or at least a Soderbergh.
Please don't call Child Protective Services (or worse, tell the grandparents). A good time was had by all. Honest. And yes, I'm humming “Sweet Georgia Brown” in honor of my Globetrotter-like ball — er, baby — handling skills. ∴
Monday, November 25.
No Thanksgiving at the Waterson household would be complete
without the fabled Cranberry Surprise (formerly known as
“Cranberry Salad”), a dish from the day of green Jello
salads and pressure cookers. Now, for the first time, the recipe
is available for you to savor this holiday season. Note:
you may want to double — or even triple —
this recipe.
Cranberry Salad Surprise
1 envelope of Knox gelatin
¼c cold water
1 can cranberry sauce
1 Tbsp lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
6 oz cream cheese, warmed to room temperature
¾c crushed pineapple, undrained
½c evaporated milk, chilled
Dissolve the gelatin in the cold water, warming in the microwave once mixed to dissolve it completely. Add the gelatin mix to the cranberry sauce in a large bowl. Mix in the lemon juice, salt, cream cheese, and undrained pineapple. In a separate bowl, whip the evaporated milk to a foam. Fold it gently into the cranberry mixture. Refrigerate overnight. ∴
Sunday, November 24.
Thursday, November 21.
Alas, dp is now Bill Gates' right-hand man.
But there is good news, as well. It seems like Vidur, Ian, and Marek may be interested in reading Jackendoff. Book club! ∴
Wednesday, November 20.
Stumbled onto a description of the mathematics of the discrete Fourier transform; looks to be a great introduction. Gotta read. ∴
Tuesday, November 19.
Alison posted some more picture of Becca; I particularly like the first one, which is entitled "Crumplestiltsken".
Good stuff about the DMCA on Slashdot today. Also, a link to papers from the ACM DRM workshop where researchers were purpoted to be skeptical about DRM's ability to solve the “Content Cartel's” problems. Stop the madness: write to your congressperson and senators!
Had a good discussion with Ian over lunch yesterday: he explained some of the ideas behind hermeneutics, post-modernism, and deconstructionism to me. I'm such a philosophical tyro, so most of this was new to me (although I had seen a read bit about deconstructionism and post-modernism in Warren's XML hobby club mailing list. Hoping for more soon.
Speaking of which, I'm looking for people to discuss Ray
Jackendoff's
Foundations of Language;
anyone interested?
Ordered a book on signals and systems so I can remember how to do Fourier transforms and all that good signal processing stuff. Ironically, the one book that I sold from college was my signals book. Go figure. ∴
Sunday, November 10.
Saw this on slashdot: it's an article about how to dummy up a mac.com server; e.g., for backup, publishing, etc. ∴
Saturday, November 9.
So much to tell, althought I'm starting to feel like perhaps I'm not cut out for this blogging thing. Ian was man enough to come right out and tell me that my blog is ugly. (Actually, he said my whole site was ugly, so I'm trying to improve the layout...whatdya think, Ian?) Both Blake and Brendan have told me on numerous occasions that my blog is sub-par. Perhaps I should throw in the towel? I mean, I've noticed that I've gradually been dropped from other people's lil' toolbars. (For example, I used to be on both hyatt's and shaver's list o' links, but no more! I feel like Emilio Estevez. I'm such a has-been.)
But enough meta-commentary. Let's blog!
There was violence, gore, and excitement a-plenty here a week ago Friday night! Just after dark, I was on the top part of the deck grillin' ribs (aw, yeah!), and Jack was mulling around in the back yard. Jack started to bark (which is fairly typical, being a bored Labrador retriever), and Lumpy dashed down the steps to see what was going on (also typical, as he never wants to miss out on the fun). I thought nothing of this, and returned my babybacks.
About five minutes later, Lumpy ran up the back stairs frothing, shaking his head wildly, with blood all over his mouth! He was in a panic, so, of course, he decided that he ought to go to his "safe place", which is upstairs next to our bed. I caught him about half-way up the stairs, and dragged him back outside. Sweet Baby Jesus, did he smell. He had a small cut on his face, which I assumed was from getting on the wrong end of a skunk's fist. It smelled like he took the blast from the skunk's other end straight in the mouth, hence the froth.
So, no more ribs for me. Instead, up to the tub with Lumpy. For the next hour, we bathed together in vinegar and "Nature's Miracle". His cut was minor. A consultation with our vet by phone indicated that danger of rabies was minimal since he was up-to-date on his shots. We went to bed.
The next morning, Alison discovered what she thought to be a dead skunk in the back yard! She called Animal Care & Control to get it removed. I paraded around the house, singing the praises of The Valiant Skunk Slayer. But later, when I went to see the fabled corpse, it turned out that it was only a tail...the horror!
The Animal Care & Control guy was impressed: this was a first for him. He estimated that the skunk had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving "given the clean nature of the wound". Hmm. Lumpy has been downgraded from Skunk Slayer to Skunk Avenger, yet his praises are still sung in our household. And I am sure that we will have the smell to remember the event by for many weeks to come.
In other news, I read a rather disparaging article about Babywise. For those of you who don't know, this is a method of "parent directed feeding" that is supposed to provide "structure" to your new baby's life. Alison and I read the book, and it comes on strong with "scientific data" and "results from studies". I have to admit, I was a bit suspicious when no specific data nor studies were cited. Turns out this method was created by a couple of holy rollers and is based on interpretation of biblical passages. Yay!
Other than that, it's been burps, farts, and food for the past week. Back to real werk on Monday, sans a few hours of sleep. ∴
Friday, November 1.
Sarah put up some more pictures of becca, most of which are much nicer than mine. ∴