Dear Mom(omomomom)

Hi, Momomomomom. It's me. Your daughter. Eleanor. I figure that, if I'm missing you this much, and you're missing me even half this much, that's a lot of missing, so I decided to write you a letter to let you know how much I love you.

(Spoiler: It's a lot)

The new look

Anyway, Dadadadadad and I have had a pretty good day of it since we dropped you off at the airport. You looked lovely, by the way - I lucked out in the genetic lottery!

But I digress. After we dropped you off, we headed back home, and Dadadadadad got me all nice and cozy-like, so that I was comfortable while I ignored my morning nap altogether! Instead, I redecorated (I hear it's called "pimping"?) my "crib". That pillow was just throwing off the whole motif by being upright and in the corner, so I moved it to the middle of the space and turned it upside-down. I think it really ties the whole area together. Whaddya think?!

Four for me, none for you...

I know you're proud, but this is only the beginning! While Dadadadadad got my lunch ready (the porkchops you left for us - I even graciously shared with him), he gave me four - FOUR - cheesy cracker thingies to munch on. I couldn't decide where to start, so I just grabbed them all!

While we ate lunch, we watched some oddball movie about ... green ninjas? And a rat? I'm not sure, it was pretty weird. What's a cow need with a bungie, anyway?

I was, as you might guess, totally unimpressed, but out of respect for the old man, I grudgingly giggled along while we played with my toys and he recited the whole movie, line by line, along with the actors.

Seriously, where did you find this guy, anyway?

The snack wall in AZ has headbands
and formula too, right?

After that spectacle, all that sleep I didn't get mugged me, right there in the living room, and stole my calm. Dadadadadad knew just what to do, though - he took me into my room and snuggled me until I calmed down. He even made sure I had a snack wall, just like the one on your end of the world, so I could feel closer to you.

This nap was successful! I dreamed about butterflies and rainbows and farts and, for some odd reason, a turtle with a Bronx accent. No, I'm not just making that up! It really happened!

I don't know either.
I think he's trying to look "dapper"

After my nap, Dadadadadad and I went on a date, just the two of us. He had to get some work done on his car, so he dropped it off at the dealership, and we walked to the Chili's just up the road. I told him to stop and take a picture of us, so you could appreciate my outfit, but he didn't even get my jeggings in the shot.

I mean, honestly. You would have gotten it right. Man, I miss you...

All was forgotten once we arrived at Chili's, though, because he shared his chips and salsa and queso with me. The waitress offered to bring me my own skillet of queso, but I politely declined. The queso was good, but I'm learning to make healthier choices by watching you, and you know how I loves me some broccoli, so I ordered that instead.

As it turns out, I love it even more when I put it on one of Dadadadadad's chicken fajita nachos. Dee-lish!

After that, we went back to the car dealership, where we found out that the car wasn't ready yet. Since we had some time to spare, I taught Dadadadadad a new trick! The video isn't great, but you get the idea.

Well, it's about time for me to get in the bath and start getting ready for bed. I love you, and miss you a lot, but I know you're going to have a great time and come home and tell me all the stories, and that makes up for it. Plus, the old man's not as boring as I thought he would be.

Squeeze my brotha from anotha motha, hug a Penny for me (and thank her for all the fine-ass threads she's sent this way), and tell everyone there "Hi" from me.

Love and squnches,
Eleanor

Irish Stew

I've been asked a couple of times for my recipe for Irish Stew, and I've typically demurred, since I don't really know in advance what I'm going to do with it - it just sorta ... happens¹.

Anyhow, this weekend, I sat down with a supply of ingredients and decided I was going to keep track of what I did. I actually meant to take pictures, but by the time I remembered to do so, my hands were already covered with fixin's, and I had less than no desire to handle my phone. I'll try and plan better next time.

So here goes.

My New Year's Resolutions

It's a long list this year...

1600 x 1200 (x2) - Desktop
1366 x 768 + 1024 x 768 - Recording Laptop
1280 x 720 - Galaxy Nexus
1280 x 800 - Nexus 7
1600 x 1200 (x 3) - Work (Desktop)
1600 x 1200 - Work (Test Server)
1440 x 900 - Work (Laptop)
1280 x 768 - Work (BlackBerry Z10)
1024 x 600 - Work (BlackBerry PlayBook)
640 x 480 - Work (BlackBerry Bold 9900)

... no, that's not the entire post, it was just the obligatory geek joke with regards to resolution.¹

So I've never been much for New Year's Resolutions. I'm bad at keeping to things for an entire month, so the concept of keeping to something for an entire year is ... boggling. It just seems like setting myself up for failure, so I tend not to do it.

This year, though, I think I'll give it a go.

Happy birthday to me...

It's weird to me that so many of my good friends have birthdays within such a tight window. So happy birthday as well to The Mighty B, Kammah, !(bagels), The Joj, and - I'm sure - many more that I'm forgetting/missing. Capriquaricorns (and permutations thereof) unite!

This year, I gain a new 10's digit. Like most birthdays, that means that I don't feel any older today, but unlike most other birthdays, for some reason, 30 seems to indicate a passage of some sort. "He's in his twenties..." is used to excuse any number of childhood fallacies still lingering about one who has reached his majority, if not his adulthood.

My darling Bean is fond of asking a series of questions on one's birthday, and for many years, I've done my best to dodge answering them, but for the special occasion of my turning 0b11110 (yes, I did that) - not to mention the fact that I now have this cool bloggy thing - I am of a mind to share.

The kind of story I tell my daughter...

A while back, I was trying to convince a certain child of mine that she really ought to sleep, no matter how much she wanted to stay awake. When I tried shushing her, she just screamed louder. But when I talked to her, she'd shut up, so she could hear what I was saying.

I should tell her a story, thinks I to myself.

Yeah? That'd be awesome, thinks my brain back to me. Only... I seem to have misplaced every children's story you've ever heard.

No worries, I'll just come up with a new one - she's not going to know the difference at this age, anyway, I think right back. I'll just tell her about something that would put most folks to sleep.

And this is what happened (with illustrations)...

The Footnote tag

I wrote this post an age ago, but never posted it for some reason. Updated the math, and I'm just going to throw it out there now, lest it langour longer in the land of the lost.

The astute reader may have noticed that one of the most-commonly used tags on this blog so far is the footnote tag. There's an amusing story behind this - well, amusing to me, anyway.

So the wife has a blog. A fantastic, funny, witty, interesting blog. After she'd been blogging for a while, she made a comment to me that she felt like she was putting footnotes on every post. So I suggested that she make a 'footnote' tag, and tag every post that had a footnote in it, so that she could quickly see what percentage of her posts were afflicted with footy-notey goodness.

She then spent the better part of an evening going back through all of her posts and adding 'footnote' to the list of tags for all of her annotated posts. At the end of the day, that tag outstripped every other tag on her blog by a large margin. And by large, I mean "nearly double the next-most-oft-used tag". Even today, my quick napkin math shows that she has footnotes on 22.99% of her blog posts¹. I give her occasional bouts of heck about it.

Well, then along comes this here bloggy-space. And in my first real post (the baby announcements had already been drafted for emails to friends/family/coworkers), I find myself all up on the footnotes like Axe body spray on desperate teen boys.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander, so I've taken a dose of my own medicine and mixed metaphors like a metaphor-mixing fool who graduated from Metaphor University with a degree in MetaMixology.

So yeah, probably not as interesting if you're not - y'know - me, but there you have it.

¹ - (63 / (64 + 150 + 60)) * 100, for anyone who wants to check me.

Attention Splitting

I was talking with a friend in IMs today who said that he needed a way to split his attention six ways at once. That led to, well, silliness...

Try the new Attention Splitter!

Using patented prismatic technology, you can feed up to 10 data feeds into your eyesockets, for minimum enjoyment of more distractions than ever before!

That's amazing! How does it do that?!

How does it work? I'm glad you asked!

Simply replace an eyeball with one of our Attention Hub Occular Implants, and position a Transmission Hub Attention Receiver in front of your desired time-waster. Once you're set up, let the AHOI-THAR refract, reflect, and retransmit your attention from THAR to here!

(Set includes two AHOI-THAR interfaces, extra THAR sold separately)

But how do I know that there won't be any signal degredation!?

Signal degradation? What's that? We're beaming you the full monty, my friend. Your AHOI-THAR unit sends, uncompressed, the full feed of whatever you place in front of it! If you do encounter issues, however, we have a separate unit, the Optional Hub Attention Input, which can be used to boost the signal from a THAR by up to 100%. Your AHOI will then connect to the new OHAI-THAR link, providing you full access to distraction, no matter where you are!

Dislaimer: The product described above is in no way a good idea, supported by scientific or medical research, or available for purchase on any plane of existence. People wishing to pre-order the Attention Splitter device should take a step back and seriously re-evaluate their priorities, then have their sarcasm detectors recalibrated at their earliest convenience. Not responsible for damage to items left in vehicle caused by fire, theft, or giant Monty Python foot.