Remember how I went to a conference that wanted to bring a bunch of internet memes together in one place? Ever wonder what that would look like set to music?

Ladies and gentlemen, Weezer’s video for “Pork and Beans”.

I didn’t plan on making this a repeat feature, but then this came along: Jon Anderson of Yes singing lead while the students of New Jersey’s Paul Green School of Rock Omega All-Stars play “Close to the Edge”.

In my misspent youth, I wanted to play keyboards like Rick Wakeman. When I see the keyboardist getting to play “Close to the Edge” while wearing a Wakeman-like cape and while Jon Anderson sings lead…. If I ever meet the kid, I’ll be torn between shaking his hand like a madman and killing him out of envy.

I can’t believe Jon Anderson did this. How unutterably cool.

Part the first:

Part the second:

At about 3 minutes into the first video, one of the audience members claps excitedly along with the staccato music, then stands up and cheers. I know how he feels.

(From Bob Rossney, by way of Patrick Nielsen Hayden)

The short version: diverting entertainment, but nowhere near as much fun as “Raiders” or “Last Crusade”.

Continue reading Spoilery Thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull →

For those who asked why I didn’t use the LOLCat Bible version of 1 Corinthians 13 in my lolcat wedding ceremony: they tend to use the New Internationlol Version, whereas I prefer the Mew Living Translation.

That was by far the best Indiana Jones movie of the last 19 years.

It occurs to me that Indiana Jones is an archaeologist in the same way that Jack Kevorkian is a doctor.

(I’m so sorry.)

O hai. We here before all dese ppl and Ceiling Cat sos cat 1 and cat 2 can has marriage.

cat 1 and cat 2, marriage iz commitment and all about luv, so if u marry wifout thinkin hard about it, ur doin it wrong.

Anyone has visible reason they shud no marry? No? Gud.

cat 1 and cat 2, LOLCat Bible sez, “Luv is pashient an kind and stuff, luv no has jelusy and no shows off. It not rude, it not say UR DOIN IT WRONG. It no aligned wif basement cat but only ceiling cat. Luv protectz, trusts in all teh stuff, hopes in all teh stuff, sticks wif u in all teh stuff. FAIL? Not luv.” Dis what luv shud be for u.

cat 1, what u here for? (cat 2‘s paw for marryin)

What u promis for cat 2? (I can has u, cat 2, for bein all wedded an stuff. I can has, I can hold. We can has riches, we can has no riches, we can has helf, we can has no helf, I still all luv u until ded.)

cat 2, what u here for? (cat 1‘s paw for marryin)

What u promis for cat 1? (I can has u, cat 1, for bein all wedded an stuff. I can has, I can hold. We can has riches, we can has no riches, we can has helf, we can has no helf, I still all luv u until ded.)

Marriage no jus two cats, it needz other cats for supports and luv. Srsly, all u be there for them? (Yes.)

I can has bukkit wif rings?

Rings are all round, they has no end jus like your luv. cat 1, place ring on cat 2‘s paw and say: I maed u a ring and I no pawn it. Wif this ring, I are wedding u. cat 2, u do same and say: I maed u a ring and I no pawn it. Wif this ring, I are wedding u.

U both now all married. Ceiling cat will now watch u kiss.

Here is cat 1 and cat 2 all married. Kthxbai.

Last night, when Eli again asked that we keep playing through Zack and Wiki instead of Mario Kart Wii, I realized that he’s most interested in games that involve some semblance of plot. My kid is going to be an adventure game player!

Of course, even when a game doesn’t have a story, he’s happy to incorporate elements of it into new stories of his own.

ME: I’m going to work! Bye!

ELI: Be careful! Watch out for missiles!

ME: I’ll watch out.

ELI: You can beat them with a fireball.

ME: Or maybe a turtle shell, like in Mario Kart.

ELI: Which do you want, fireballs or turtle shells?

ME: I’ll take turtle shells.

ELI: Use the red ones! Those blow up missiles.

One of our faithful readers (Hi! ramona!) asked:

did you find with liza that a “switch” went off and she started sleeping longer (my friends who don’t sleep train say that this will be the case at some point). I just wonder because we sleep trained Sean starting at 6 months, and it wasn’t as easy as all the doctors and books said it was going to be (3 nights crying, then you’re done). Eventually Sean has been more consistent at sleeping longer, but I’m not sure I would entirely attribute it to our training as so much as he was ready to do it himself. I was just wondering your thoughts?

Oh, ramona, how I would like to tell you that I did something right! And that with these three easy steps you can get your nighttime maniac to sleep through the night too! And also? We have Ginsu Knives to give away. (Knives not for use in putting baby to sleep.)

But I can’t.

Eli was our textbook cry-it-out sleeper at ten months. We let him cry it out for just under a week and then he was done and he slept like a champ. He’s never had a moment’s trouble sleeping since.

Liza? We tried just about every option I could read about and only a couple of them worked for short periods of time.

Here’s what I do know about when she started sleeping better:

1.) I weaned her. I officially did it because I was going to be traveling without her and it was close enough to her birthday that her pediatrician said I could put her on cow’s milk. So she started drinking Horizon Organic Whole Milk with DHA. (Why organic? It’s not because I think the only thing that should pass my baby’s lips should be organic. It’s because their whole milk with DHA added is the nectar of the gods. I’m not kidding, it’s like drinking butter. It’s all I can do to keep from guzzling it straight from the carton.) So she probably got a big boost of fat from that. And she started packing away the table food. Maybe her tummy is fuller now when she goes to bed.

2.) It got to be warmer weather. She’s sensitive to temperature while she sleeps and she got the last room in our house, which happens to be the coldest room in our house in the winter. Often I had the humidifier running in her room as well, which makes a cold room feel several degrees colder. So with spring time warmth, it’s much warmer in her room even when the air conditioner is running.

3.) I quit doing wake to sleep because often I was waking her and having to sit and rock her anyway. I don’t know if she was getting used to me coming in or if something else developmentally was happening but it quit working and before I found another thing to try she was sleeping better.

4.) I started having to put her in bed still awake. Up until very recently, I was rocking her to full sleep because any time she spent in the crib awake to her was about as pleasant as being flayed with those Ginsu Knives I was trying to sell you earlier. But about a month or so ago she started this flipping thing. Once I turned out her light and started singing to her, she’d turn on her back and then onto her stomach, then onto her back, then roll around so her head was on my knees, etc. After about five minutes of that I was exhausted and grouchy so I started putting her in the crib. Usually she’d cry for a while and I’d have to go back in and rock her. It was like she had to visit the crib, remember she hated falling asleep on her own and then call me back into the room to do the job for her. Eventually she started falling asleep on her own even with the grouching. Now I put her in the crib awake and she talks for a bit, plays with her doll and blankie and then falls asleep.

5.) Her separation anxiety got better. I don’t know if her SA got better because she started sleeping better or her sleeping got better because her separation anxiety lessened. Either way, WIN!

So those are the five things that all happened about 5-6 weeks ago. Did a switch flip and she decided to sleep better or did something among those five things listed above actually help? I have no idea. I can tell you, ramona, that it does get better. Just stay with it and be patient. Tag out with your partner when you can’t handle the nighttime stress any longer and before you know it, your little one will be rolling in at 11 after a night with his friends and crashing on the sofa. You’ll have to beg him to get up and go to school.

Little lolcat,

The other day I turned around and you were one year old. You’ve developed a personality, can say words you hear a lot like “dad” and “stinky”, and are nearly walking. You’ve grown from a lump of obligation to a speedy blur.

Seriously, I had no idea how fast you were going to be. For the longest time you stayed where I put you. One day I put you down, looked away, and when I looked back all I saw was your leg as you vanished down the hall, headed for the bathroom so you could pull up on the toilet and lick it.

Crawling is so fast and so fun that I’m surprised you’ve started walking. You take hesitant, stiff-legged steps like a tiny pink Frankenstein’s monster. A lot of times you find it easier to take sideways steps, which makes me think there was a crab somewhere on your mom’s side of the family.

You’ve got a gift for mimicking people that’s only gotten stronger in the last few months. When we got back to town after visiting everyone for Christmas we went out to eat. At one point you lifted your hands over your head, so I did it too. Then you did it again. I did it again. We were trapped in a loop of imitating each other. You don’t really care who you imitate. Two weeks ago, our neighbor was walking Saber, her German Shepherd, and stopped by. Saber sat, tongue lolling out and panting. You looked down at her, cocked your head, and panted “hah hah hah” in sympathy.

Your ability to mimic has helped you learn sign language. You have some twelve signs you regularly use. You’re also working on spoken words, though only your mom and I can understand them. “Bap tah” is bath time; “tayn ooo” is thank you. “Stinky” is by far your best word. You wrinkle your nose and say it forcefully, then giggle.

Of course, you’re always ready to fall back on your old standby of screeching. You have very strong opinions, and waving your arms and saying “bop bop!” sometimes isn’t enough. Your screech means anything from “I’m tired” to “you won’t let me eat that poisonous plant” to “I see that yogurt! Put it in my mouth right now!” Your cries shatter glass and make steel girders melt and run.

Your two favorite things right now are being outside and listening to music. The next time there’s an outdoor music festival here, we’ll drop you off and come back to get you when it’s all over. Surely drunken festival-goers will take care of you. Until the next Big Spring Jam can introduce you to the latest incarnation of Foreigner, we make do with CDs and with the swing out back. We strap you into your string and push you higher and higher as you giggle and throw your hat to the ground. Whenever you hear music you dance and sway. If you’re standing, you stop your feet and lean as far to each side as you can. Right now your favorite songs are the top-40 songs “Liza has a silly hat” and “Tractor, Tractor, Harvesting the Wheat”. The best part of “Tractor, Tractor” is that we can change it to match whatever is going on, like “Liza, Liza, spitting up on me.”

After dealing with your brother, who has trouble breathing if no one is watching him do so, I didn’t expect you to be so independent. In the mornings, all we have to do is dump a pile of books near you and you’re happily entertained until it’s time to sneak off and lick toilets or eat plants.

Even though you’re independent, you’re still enough of a ham to want other people to watch you. Whenever we’re out, you choose some strangers who aren’t paying you any attention. You stare at them, willing them to notice you. As soon as they do, you duck your head and smile before looking back to make sure they’re still watching. Clearly you have your mom’s performer personality.

It’s not all fun and poisonous plants. Since Thanksgiving you’ve fought sleep, and in turn we’ve fought you fighting sleep. You had a serious of colds and ear infections that disrupted your schedule. It doesn’t help that you’re very sensitive to changes in your routine. If we swapped your sheets for ones with a lower thread count, you’d probably be awake all night. It got to the point that we were all so short of sleep that our main entertainment was sitting around being angry at each other. We did eventually find a solution. Right before we went to bed, we’d sneak into your bedroom and shake you until you were nearly awake. Then you’d settle back down and sleep well. Honestly, when your aunt Joy suggested it, it sounded to me like fixing someone’s stomachache by punching them in the gut, but it worked for you.

I tell you about your sleep issues, which took around eight years to get better, to make sure you have enough guilt. Goodness knows, parenting has so much guilt built in that I need to spread it around a little.

I’m always worried that I don’t spend enough time with you, and that’s made even worse because I need to spend time with Eli, too. I do better these days — I’ve realized that this isn’t a zero-sum game, and that I really can spend time with you both without robbing either of you.

I’m always having to leave you to go to work, or to give you to your mom for bedtime. You soon learned to say “bye bye” to me in this chirrupy voice, opening and closing your hand to wave at me. I always pick you up and give you a hug and a kiss. Recently you’ve started hugging back. The first time you turned your head and pressed your face against my neck, I wanted time to stop.