There is supposed to be a debate tomorrow. There won’t be. Using the financial crisis of this country as a photo-op and to make yourself look like a hero? Irresponsible. Greenness (Greenness) got me thinking about the debate.

Figured I’d throw out some David Letterman for you. Dunno how long these will last. The first covers McCain’s cancellation of his Late Show appearance to ’save the country’. The second is a an interview with his charismatic opponent Obama.

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The kids are just a pile of talkative recently. Connor has alot to say, although we still have trouble understanding him. I would say we’re about to about 80% understanding of what he is saying. Now whether others understand that much is yet to be seen (heard). Maybe Jean’s comprehension is a little higher because she works with him everyday, but it’s still not where I think it should be. Alia enjoys singing and knows the words to dozens of songs. They are both into imaginative play and direct each other to play parts, such as the princess, or the rescuer, or the bad guy.

What’s great is that they are moving in the combination of thoughts and phrases that are culled from previous conversations and are putting it all together.

Yesterday, they came to visit me at work as part of our recent car fiasco.

When they came in the front door:

Me: Connor, say hi to Marie.

Connor: Hi Marie. This is my sister Alia.

When they came back to my office:

Me: This is where I go everyday when I leave you guys and go to work.

Connor: This is a nice place.

When I showed him the pictures of themselves on my ‘keep my happy’ wall:

Me: Connor, who’s in the pictures?

Connor: That’s us.   <- Note the use of the of the plural pronoun. Usually he identifies himself and Alia separately, so it’s nice to see the combo.

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I’m sure that Jean (ownedbytwins) will give us a much longer and detailed summary of our wonderful family weekend. But, before she does, I thought this article was apropos, considering that we visited the PA Renaissance Faire for our first time this year.

I ate a pickle on a sharpened stick. I still have my eyes.

CROWNSVILLE, Md. (AP) — An Anne Arundel County fire official says a 10-year-old boy seriously injured his eye at the Maryland Renaissance Festival when he accidentally stuck a skewer in his eye.

 

Full Story

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So it’s been nearly a week since we returned from Pennsic. Overall, I’d say that we had a very good time. Definitely the best of the last 3 with the twins.

What made this war unique was the fact that the East lost during the opening ceremonies as HRM Konrad conceded the war.

I highly encourage you to listen to the interview provided by the Pennsic Independent Podcast. In fact, you can listen to it directly from that page.

This will give you his reasons behind the decision; one that I support 110%. Unfortunately, I don’t think the king of the Mid really understood the point and missed the boat.. He was going to fight the war the same way they always have, and put it down as a 37-0 win in their books.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Coming Soon.. behind the scads of other Scadian post-Pennsic entries the last two days…

Thanks to thebruce for the comic reminder.

p.s. trying an updated LJ crossposter, so this may not work properly.. good excuse for a simple entry.

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= Sunday July 27, 2008 =

Me: *Yawn*

Alia: Dad, you yawn like a hippopotamus

Me: *blink*

She’s been able to say the word hippopotamus since very early. Who know why.. is it easy for kids to say? Does she like the hard syllables? I have no idea. She pretends she is one during her bath at night (sometimes she’s a seahorse or a mermaid). But that comment yesterday caught me totally off-guard. Couldn’t believe she made the comparison.

As an aside, you should be able to see the images now on LJ. It was brought to my attention by delbruc that my image links were always broken when it was cross-posted. This wasn’t a problem with the images, so much as the fact that I blocked all hotlinking from sites other than my own, as I was having bandwidth stolen. So I added LJ to my list of exceptions in my .htaccess file and now the images display as they should.

Surprised no one else mentioned it, but then it could be that no one actually reads this crap, figured I was incompetent and couldn’t post a picture correctly, or assumed the network was having trouble (but only, and always, when they read my posts). I’m guessing it was #3.

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-George Carlin

This image isn’t some special effects from the latest Hollywood movie, but rather a picture of a lightning storm in Boston circa 1967.

Last night, I experienced a lightning storm of that magnitude over the Philadelphia region. We heard on the news that between 7-8pm, there were over 2000 strikes. Between 8-9pm (as I drove to fencing practice), there were over 3000 strikes.

It was a really strange primal experience. I felt my heart racing and my arm hair rising as I drove up 95. The sky was bright enough to drive without headlights with the constant flashes. It kept my peripheral vision working in overtime, and I had to fight to keep turning my head. There was this primal fear that kept creeping up on me. I finally turned off the radio and gave 110% of my attention to driving, waiting at any minute for the car next to me (or me) to explode in a bright white light.

It looked surreal, with low hanging clouds and both horizontal and vertical strikes, plus the cloud lightning.

The storm gods were mad last night, and they showed it.

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If you’re going to raise geek children, it’s a good thing to have geek friends.

Saturday was the twins 3rd birthday party. The first present opened was an Imaginext  Pirate Ship by Fisher-Price

It has Pirates.

It has ZOMBIE Pirates.

I mean, come on.. how much geekier can you get than that? I’m sure it was easy for Mike and Sam to actually pick this item out, because, truth be told, Mike is a 3 year old himself. He was as excited about playing with it as they were.

Connor took one look at it, opened one of the accessory packs (a skeletal shark) and decided he didn’t want to open any more presents. He had the one he wanted.

The ship has ‘action points’ on it, allowing for things like raising the anchor, or firing the cannons. You put the pirate in the appropriate place and turn it, and then the magic happens. Very cool indeed.

He played with it all night Saturday, and all day Sunday (except for the time when Alia had the captain and they were fighting over it). I’m sure, even as I write this, he has his ‘Captain Hook’ fighting against the zombie pirates.

Last night, Alia wouldn’t eat her meatballs. But, when the two-headed dragon chariot decided to eat the ‘dragon food’, she was right behind him. Finished the whole plate. That didn’t give the dragon the strength needed to survive the onslaught of the zombie pirates though.. At this point, whatever toy Connor is holding is the one that wins.

I soon got mauled by two children snarling and growling at me, pretending to be the dragon. No sympathy from the wife, who sat there chuckling that I brought it on myself.

I did, of course, and that makes it all the better.

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