In Wednesday’s post about me giving up caffeine, I mentioned the word “coffee” once. Since then we’ve had a number of coffee-related spam comments, many of them of the “HERE IS WHERE TO GET YOUR SWEET SWEET JAVA” variety. Only a few have slipped through, thankfully. I’m amused that one use of the word has led to such an increase in targeted spam.

Yes, I realize that me bringing it up again guarantees another round or three of such spam. Enh, what’re you going to do?

Oh, and I’m headache free today. Thanks for asking.

[tags]spam, coffee, juan valdez, the sad sad lives of spammers[/tags]

Click picture for more photos of Eli.

Click for more shots of Liza today.

I’m fascinated by the icons used on signs and notices. Their attempts to replace written words with pictorial representations run the gamut from spot-on to terrible. The ones with stick figures are often parodied, but nothing beats the real thing.

For an example, I give you the sign I saw in the airplane toilet on my trip last week.

The sign shows where used tampons should go. Probably. Anyway, what is far more interesting to me is the relative scale of the woman and the tampon. I can only imagine what Charles Dickens would have made of it.

“What’s to-day?” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“EH?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

“What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.

“To-day! Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.”

“It’s Christmas day!” said Scrooge to himself…. “Hallo, my fine fellow!”

“Hallo!” returned the boy.

“Do you know the Poulterer’s, in the next street but one, at the corner?” Scrooge inquired.

“I should hope I did,” replied the lad.

“An intelligent boy! A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they’ve sold the prize Tampon that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Tampon, — the big one?”

“What, the one as big as me?” returned the boy.

Yes, young man. The one as big as you.

I’ve decided that I like youth sci-fi books. It’s only taken Stephen 12 years to get me to the level of a 15 year-old sci-fi reader. Except Scott Westerfeld’s stories read like grown-up novels. I’ve read the Uglies series. I’ve just today finished the two Peeps books. And there are three series of his I’ve yet to even check out. Between him and John Scalzi, I’ve got whole new worlds are opening up to me. Ha!

Normally I drink a reasonable amount of caffeine. I average between one and three sodas a day. I drink coffee, but it’s the decaffeinated kind; Coke is my caffeine delivery vehicle of choice.

But every August, I drop most caffeine sources. It’s not a total ban — I continue to drink decaffeinated coffee, which has some caffeine in it, and I eat chocolate — but it’s a substantial reduction. My friend John got me started on this some four years ago. It’s not something I absolutely need (says the junkie). I don’t have heart trouble that caffeine would exacerbate, and caffeine doesn’t have a huge effect on my sleep schedule. I do find it a useful counter to my tendency to drink ever-increasing amounts of soda as time goes on. The first two months after my one-month ban, I’ll drink one soda a day. Then I move to two, and then three. I don’t go much beyond three, though yesterday I had my usual complement of three cans of soda plus a glass or two at lunch. Clearly this is an exponential trend that, if left unchecked, would leave me with a ten-gallon-a-day habit by next year.

So far I have a mild headache. Experience tells me that that headache will reappear tomorrow as well, but that by Friday I’ll be fine. Really, as DTs go, this is as mild as it gets.

When I went to Governor’s School in Arkansas, one of the things they did is have us take a test to determine our Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This was the full MBTI test, mind you, with what seemed like thousands and thousands of questions. I came out as an E/INTJ. Later tests I took gave me the same results.

I was always skeptical about how well my MBTI designation really matched my personality. “Decisive”? Sometimes. “Needing to make plans”? A little yes; a little no.

That was before I discovered what the MBTI types really mean. It turns out I’m actually an Evil Overlord.

ENTJs usually die at the hand of secret government agents in a fiery cataclysm that destroys their entire underground fortress. Often, Evil Overlords will have a secret clone whose implanted memories contain all the knowledge and ambition of the original, stored in cryonic suspension in a safe location. The clone will appear in a sequel.

Yes indeed. Soon I shall be invincible.

Eli’s Oscar Face

“Take me to your Leader!” Liza

It’s been two weeks exactly since we started Potty Boot Camp. Today marks five days in a row with no poop accidents and ten days with no pee accidents. Yesterday he got up from playing, went to the potty, came back and started playing again.

I think we are finally over the hurdle and I didn’t kill any of us.

Actual words. Huh. Who knew that I had any left in the presence of the camera? Aren’t you glad that I didn’t take photos of Potty Boot Camp?