Sorry for being somewhat late in uploading these photos. I’ve been waiting on a planned visit with a certain bunny. I’ve also been mulling over options for the “future use” or purpose of this site. Sophia has her 2 bottom teeth coming in. When in a good mood, she’s quite chatty (thanks to Tammy and her coworker for the new adjective!). When she’s not in a good mood, she doesn’t want to eat and is a little on the whiny side. To see her latest pictures, click on the pretty face above.
Latest
toddler rules
The following was read at the very end of a seminar I attended for work on Wednesday. With Sophia being at the age where she’s discovering everything in sight, I found this very cute and very funny!
Toddler’s Rules of Possession
1. If I like it, it’s mine.
2. If it’s in my hand, it’s mine.
3. If I can take it from you, it’s mine.
4. If I had it a little while ago, it’s mine.
5. If it’s mine, it must NEVER appear to be yours in anyway.
6. If I’m doing or building something, all the pieces are mine.
7. If it looks just like mine, it is mine.
8. If I saw it first, it’s mine.
9. If you are playing with something and you put it down, it automatically
becomes mine.
10. If it’s broken, it’s yours.
In case you didn’t know, the seminar was called “Working with Difficult People”.
8 to 9 months
It was 9 months ago today that Sophia was born. She’s certainly growing up fast! In the past month, she’s excelled in her crawling (she likes being chased). Sophia has also been talking up a storm, blowing raspberries, and nodding her head. She’s been saying her own variation of E-I-E-I-O (from “Old MacDonald”; hers is more like “aiyaiyaiyai”), and she’s just started saying “Mama” (although she doesn’t stop: “Mamamamamama…”). Click on the photo for her latest photo set.
best picture showcase 2009
This will be the third year in a row that Daniel, Scott, and I have gone to AMC’s Best Picture Showcase at the West Olive 16 in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Daniel’s girlfriend Erika, his buddy Chris, and Scott’s sister Tracey rounded out the group. They actually opened up 2 theaters for the showcase to accommodate more people. Read the rest of this page »
7 to 8 months
Sophia turns 8 months old today! Baby girl is crawling forwards and can now pull herself up to stand! Click the photo above to see her in the past month. And to see her in action, click here.
Mensa Invitational
You may have seen the following circulating via email (in fact, it’s been in circulation since 2005). I found myself laughing out loud and felt it was definitely worth posting. Thanks to Chris for sending! 
Here are the winners of this year’s Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.
2. Ignoranus: A person who is both stupid and an asshole.
3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high
8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn’t get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)
11. Karmageddon: It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like, a serious bummer.
12. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you.
13. Glibido: All talk and no action.
14. Dopeler Effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.
15. Arachnoleptic Fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you’ve accidentally walked through a spider web.
16. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
17. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you’re eating.
The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words. And the winners are:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted, adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade, v. To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent, adj.. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle, n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence, n.. Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash, n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude, n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster, n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
16. Circumvent, n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.
6 to 7 months
Sorry for the delay in updates and photos. This photo set is what everyone’s been waiting for – Sophia’s first Christmas. She did well and enjoyed opening her gifts, despite fighting a fever and an ear infection. Sophia is doing much better these days, learning to make different sounds and moving around a room (even though she crawls backwards). I’m trying to get back into the routine of photographing my little girl (since I went through an 11-day drought). As always, click the photo above to see more of Sophia.
Twitter has issues
If you’ve accessed my blog to see what I’ve been up to, you know that I update via Twitter more than I do my blog. However, today you may have received a prompt like the following:
Apparently, Twitter is suffering from some API issues. No explanation yet from Twitter; hopefully it’s nothing major like the hacking that took place last Monday. Anyway, I’m temporarily disabling the Twitter widget on my blog so you don’t get the above prompt. In the meantime, if you want to know my status, go straight to the source: http://twitter.com/tenyjr.
iTunes now DRM-free
iTunes goes DRM-free with variable pricing
It’s about time iTunes is freeing its content from copy protection. I started purchasing music from iTunes in 2004. But in the last year, I made the move to Amazon’s MP3 store. Amazon sells songs with no DRM, at variable prices, and in a 256 kbps MP3 format. With the latter, I can play the song on any device, on any computer, using any media player. With iTunes, their format is still in their proprietary AAC format, which means only an iPod can play the file. Now I realize I currently own an iPod, but if I want to stream my music to, say, Daniel’s Xbox 360 or our TiVo, it won’t play AAC files, only MP3. The nice thing about iTunes going DRM free is that I can now convert the file from AAC to MP3 (you can’t do that with AAC’s with DRM).
I can also upgrade previously purchased songs from iTunes to the DRM-free formats. The bad news? I have to pay roughly $.30 per song to upgrade, and I’d have to do it in bulk. That’s almost $100 in one shot (NO thanks). Amazon is still my #1 choice for digital music, but if I can’t get it there, I know now that I can rely on iTunes.
