RoBoTNiK

I'm sorry I'm too busy to give this historic anniversary the long and loving treatment it deserves, but:

It isn't often that the world changes, in a way that's so big and dramatic and unmistakable that everybody in the world sits up and takes notice, that everybody everywhere is conscious they are experiencing History with a big History Channel capital-H. The world itself seems smaller at these moments, as we sense our connection to each other and to history and to all time. And when one of those real, history-pivoting moments happens, 9 times out of 10 the event is something bad--an assassination or a disaster or a sneak attack. How many times in an average life does the whole world change for the better, overnight? Those moments are worth remembering.

I met Lisa (papersource) ten years ago today. Happy anniversary, baby.

What did you think I was talking about?

(Further reading.)

So E. has been in the hospital since Monday with some kind of infection. They've ruled out all the scary possibilities like meningitis and nobody is ultra concerned, but it is hard to sit with him there all covered with electrodes and IVs - he just doesn't have that much surface area to attach everything.

Plus the logistics of having one parent in the hospital with him at all times and then another parent taking care of a very energetic three-year-old at home. papersource and I see each other in the hospital twice a day - kiss, pass off the car keys and parking pass, and that's that. It gets old fast.

Last night, papersouce said, "We're like Ladyhawke." I HAD JUST BEEN THINKING THE EXACT SAME THING YO. We are geeks, wretched 80s geeks, but is there any doubt we were meant to be together?

or, WAYS SHE IS LIKE HER DAD (First In a Series)



And you're so much like me
I'm sorry

It may be that all two year olds exhibit geek personality traits. Or that all geeks exhibit two year old personality traits. My sample size is too small to be sure. Of two year olds, that is. My sample size of geeks is pretty robust.

1. A List Is Not A Conversation,
but don't tell the Ukelele that. Here's a scene that gets replayed every couple of minutes at our house:

U: "Let's talk about Muppets!"
Me: [any response other than immediately listing Muppets]
U: "LET'S TALK ABOUT MUPPETS!"
Me: "Well, OK. Kermit the Frog is a Muppet."
U: "Kermit is green! And what else?" [means: "and who else?"]
Me: "And Fozzie Bear is a Muppet."
U: "Kermit and Fozzie sing 'Moving Right Along.' And what else?"
Me: "And Doctor Teeth is a Muppet."
U: "Doctor Teeth is so many colors! And what else?"
Me: [any response other than immediately naming another Muppet]
U: "AND WHAT ELSE?"
Me: "Well, which Muppet plays the drums?"
U: "Animal! And what else?"

And so on through pretty much every named Muppet, catching me if I repeat ("No, already DID talk about Fozzie!"), flipping out if I try to stop ("MORE MUPPETS!!!!"), and cataloging one or two facts about each one along the way ("Tatlo and Waldo [Statler and Waldorf] laugh like dis: HA HA HA!").

(some time later:)
U: "Oh! We didn't talk about New Alien!"
Me: "New Alien? I don't know that one."
U: "New Alien throws the fish!"
Me: "Oh, you mean Lew Zealand. No, I guess we didn't talk about him yet."
U: "AND WHAT ELSE?!!?"

She's also very interested in Muppet emotional states:

U: "Why Beaker is sad?"
Me: "Well, sometimes his friend Bunsen is not very careful when playing with him."
U: "And what else Muppet is sad?"
Me: "Uh, most of the Muppets are pretty happy, I think."
U: "WHAT ELSE MUPPET IS SAD?!!?"

papersource  makes me handle these conversations more often than not. She figures the obsessive memorization and recitation of pop culture data is my genetic imprint, not hers. For some reason.

Tags: The best four days in history?

The annual wargame, roleplaying game, and dressing up like an elf convention GenCon (to which I have never been, by the way) bills itself as “the best four days in gaming.” Will the American Historical Association’s annual convention, which starts tomorrow in Atlanta, be the best four days in history? I’ll let you know–I’ll be there. If you’re going to be there too, let’s meet up: drop me a line using the AHA’s weirdly archaic message system, email me (electromail chez robmacdougall dot org, not com), or just look for the guy in the totally bitchin’ elf costume.

Originally posted at (the all new) Old is the New New. Leave a comment there and make me look popular.

I am not getting enough sleep.

"OK, first question: why are you so awesome?"
--Bruce Springsteen to Puff Daddy, on MTV’s Fanatic (sort of)

You, Me, and Ukulele
Yesterday was the Ukulele’s three month birthday, and she just gets more and more awesome. She’s a pretty good-tempered kid, as far as I can judge, but on her birthday she celebrated by being several orders of magnitude more smiley and giggly and hilarious than she’s ever been before. It was so much fun. Last week was Ukulele’s first visit to Wolf Lake, and that went great, but I’m sorry her grandparents, aunts, and cousins didn’t get to see her as blissed out and tweaking as she was yesterday. I played with her all morning, then papersource took her to the movies with the Mommy Posse, and not even You, Me, and Dupree could dampen the birthday girl's spirits.

See, they've got these special baby-friendly matinees at the local Googolplex, where you are encouraged to bring your babies, and they don't dim the lights all the way, and you can park your stroller in the aisle, and you won't get shushed if your baby starts hollering or flinging poo at the screen. (It's kind of like every movie screening at Loews Assembly Square. Hey-O!) But they always pick the lamest movies. Maybe they've got a focus group of witless parents picking the flicks (sleep-deprived Mommy: "uh... what's the longest, quietest movie with the least light on the screen you have?"), but I think they're just being sadists. "You former urban hipster parents--you used to love going to the snooty big city rep theatres, didn't you? Thought you were sooooo trendy, discussing the new Wim Wenders and the Wong Kar-Wai. Well, there's no Wim or Wong for you now, grup-boy! So just how desperate are you to go the movies? Are you willing to sit through The Lake House? How about Click? Little Man? Just My Luck? Mwaa ha ha!"*

16x your RDA of Cuteness
OK, so I've never used "mood icons" or the "current mood" field on LiveJournal. No disrespect meant to you if you do, but to me, nothing says "LJ is not a serious blogging platform, LJ is for high school dream journalling and poems about goth unicorns" like having a field for "current mood." And I'm definitely not the sort of guy who would a make up an LJ mood theme or icon set entirely of pictures of his baby daughter.

Definitely.



That ought to cover it, don't you think? I think she's nailed every mood / emotion / expression I feel while reading or commenting on LiveJournal, from Rock! to WTF to TMI to MAN TRUE.

Bad Parenting 101
Even if you're not a parent, there are probably a number of basic health and safety tips for babies and toddlers that you've absorbed by osmosis over the years. Breastfeeding is healthier than bottle feeding, always put babies to sleep on their backs, etc. etc. You probably hear those things, shrug, and think "OK, fine by me, what do I care?" What I never realized before becoming a daddy was that the reason these bits of advice are repeated so frequently and stridently is that there are compelling reasons to do exactly the opposite. In other words: Bottle feeding is way easier than breastfeeding! And fun! Ukelele sleeps great on her front, and she sleeps longer too! And, as we've just discovered, a plastic bag makes a terrific toy! We put it under her bum and she flips out for the crinkling sound it makes as she kicks it. So now I know why you don't see warning messages that say, "this meat cleaver is not a toy" or, "this blowtorch is not a toy," but every plastic bag insists it's not a toy. Because actually, it is.

Yeah, we're bad parents. I can't wait until she's old enough to run with scissors.

*Answers: No, no, no, and yes. (What? We like Lindsay Lohan.)

Please say hello to Yuki Josephine, born last night 2:43 am. She is perfect and healthy and beautiful and awesome and so is her mother. Yuki is shown here at about 30 minutes of age, weighing 8 pounds 0 ounces, and looking slightly dubious about the whole proposition.

Now I have to go back and stare at her some more.

I am in Indianapolis.

The house is packed; we leave first thing tomorrow. I owe all the Bostonians reading this one more memory lane post, specifically about how entirely wonderful all of you are, but it will have to be written in Canada. Bye, everybody. Thanks.

Hey, kids: do you remember 1999?



Do you remember when there was a New Economy and we called the internet "cyberspace" and websites "new media" and the stock market was going up and up and up and "nobody can be told what the Matrix is" and every week another kid was a software billionaire? In 1999, half my students were cutting classes to sweet-talk venture capitalists and launch IPOs, and I thought about when I was 12 and split my time between playing D&D and programming Apple BASIC, but then I only kept one of those geeky hobbies going over the years, and in 1999 I asked myself, is it possible I backed the wrong horse?

( Well, do ya? )