First Birthday

Well, it's official, we made it past Kiki's first year!  At 8:02 p.m. on January 27, 2010 Kiki came into the world; screaming, gooey, and reminiscent of a chinese sumo wrestler.

And here we are, after what was at times the longest and the shortest year of our lives, with a little girl.  We got through our first year as parents and managed to keep her alive and not screw her up too terribly.  Well, at least not that we can tell.  It has been amazing, crazy, absurd, and the greatest thing ever.  Looking back, I can't believe how much she's changed, although at times she does remind me of that tiny diapered baby. 

Happy birthday Doodle.  Happy birthday.

Sell Sell Baby

Well, it had been almost 14 days, so it was time for another trip to our local baby supply depot.  This time, being wild and crazy parents, we chose to hit "Buy Buy Baby" instead of our old reliable "Babies R Us" because, what the hell, maybe they have some even dumber products.  And we were not disappointed.    

First off, what the hell were they thinking with that name?  Buy Buy Baby?  Am I the only one who imagined a black market baby exchange?  Well, needless to say, I was disappointed from the start, since I was really curious what Kiki would trade at.  But instead of boards showing the exchange rates for the various ages, ethnicities, and cuteness on offer, I was greeted with stacks of baby crap literally to the ceiling.  I mean, it's great that you carry crap, but do you need so much of it?  How many of these are you really going to sell?

I mean, just what the fuck is that?  Do you need 300 in the stores?  Is there going to be a run on... what IS that?  Is it just me or does it seem strangely sexual, in a creepy furry gross kind of way?  As far as I can tell from their website, it appears someone had a lot of surplus beanie babies, so they just glued a pacifier on them and sold the whole lot to BBB.  BBB means "Buy Buy Baby" if you didn't get that.  I got fed up with typing something as inane as Buy Buy Baby over and over, so instead I shortened it and then proceeded to type it twice in explanation necessitated by trying to avoid typing it once.  Stupid store.  Anyway, I guess it does fill a need in the marketplace.  You know, if you're child loves pacifiers and you just wish there was a way to make it appear they were making sweet mouth love to a stuffed animal, well, consider your wishes (however sick and perverted) granted.  

Delving deeper into the store, I was delighted to find my favorite bathing device, the bucket:

Oh, sorry, POD.  It's apparently inspired and designed by "european"?  What?  That doesn't even make sense.  How can the same person design and inspire something?  They were self-inspired?  And grammatically it is weak at best.  European Inspired?  How so?  Because they use buckets?  So therefore, it was equally inspired by janitors, right?  But my favorite is the tagline: The Most Natural Way to Bathe Baby.  Really?  A bucket is more natural than, say, a river?  Or a stream?  Or a puddle?  Or letting a dog lick her clean?  Or a powerwasher? Alright, maybe not the last few, but in what way is a bucket any more natural than a bathtub?  To be fair, maybe the pod is made of something more natural, like wood or smashed up ants, that makes it more natural. 

But lest you think we are cruel and heartless parents, parading our daughter through the store, mocking everything and buying nothing for her, we did get something for lil' Kiki, though not from BBB...

Now, before you get all upset, we only let her drink three and she was not allowed to drive afterwards.  

Childproofed!

Well, it finally happened, my darling daughter is walking. Not a ton, just a few steps here and there, but now the real fun begins.  See, previously she would sometimes pull herself up and could slowly get around with a modified army crawl type of locomotion. But now, well, she stands up on everything more solid than a stiff breeze, pulls on and chews everything within 36" of the ground, and crawls at approximately mach 2 (my radar gun is only so accurate).  And as the old adage goes, what comes up must come down... often times on it's face, usually at speed, and always accompanied by crying and yelling.  Sometimes she even breaks out the dreaded "Silent Scream" wherein she freezes for about 5 seconds, her face bright red, her eyes screwed shut, her mouth wide open in a huge yell... but no sound comes out.  Well, eventually it does, and that's kind of her "okay, this time it really hurt" signal, but that first silent frozen moment is just horrible... and kind of cute too.

But she's not some one trick pony, she's got lots of skills other than falling down.  She has also learned to feed herself, and likes to practice whenever she can with anything at hand... like lint, dirt, and hair.  Delicious.  She also seems obsessed with crawling fully into the fireplace.  I mean, I guess it does look warm, being all, you know, on fire.  


Well, faced with a clumsy, pica afflicted, self-immolation obsessed toddler, we turned to that bastion of all parenting knowledge... well, er, parenting goods at least. Here's a hint, it starts with a B and ends with an abies Я Us.  On our latest visit we hit the "Safety" aisle hard.  Now, we started off with the easy stuff. You know, the gate that only requires 4 hours and a TIG welder to install, so darling Kiki doesn't throw herself down the stairs, even though we all remember how fun that is. We also bought a jumbo bag of outlet covers, so she doesn't electrocute herself (I know, our daughter isn't going to have any fun). Finally, we topped the cart off with a few devices that prevent anyone without an advanced engineering degree from opening a cabinet, though we did not elect for the PRO models, since, though cute and wonderful, Kiki is not yet a professional.

Having bought only three items from the aisles of safety devices on offer we felt like negligent, careless parents.  But really, I just couldn't bring myself to spend any more on safety items.  I don't think we need to keep Kiki out of the dryer.  Frankly, if she really wants to do the laundry I think we'll be okay with it.    We also didn't buy a toilet lock, since we'll be overwhelmingly thrilled when our daughter decides to start using the toilet, and this would just seem to discourage her.  Besides, the toilet is one thing I really, really don't want to be locked out of.  Ever.  

We also passed on the vast array of corner and edge guards, because, according to the packaging, we are monsters and hate our child.  But, in our defense we did get rid of the most obvious issues in the house (glass coffee table, bed of spikes, tiger).  Other than that, well, I think we just accept that Kiki is going to run into things, probably at speed, and in doing so she will learn that things can be hard... and sharp... and made of tigers.  And eventually everyone needs to learn that, right?

A movie so bad, your eyes will retreat into your brain

The day has finally arrived, Nicolas Cage has done it.  He's made the most craptastic movie ever.  Going beyond "bad", through "terrible", past "so bad it's good", blowing past "hilariously shitty", and landing solidly in "insultingly, offensively, mind numbingly shitful".  Yep, here's the crapfest that did it, it took the cake... the crap cake, as it were.  Behold... DRIVE ANGRY





Stunning, simply stunning.  From the title (Drive Angry, really?  Angry Explosion Movie just wasn't evocative enough?  Bloated Flailing Star Vehicle was a bit too honest?) to the, well, goddamn, where to start with this steaming puddle of poo?


Nicolas Cage, looking old, fat, and tired while managing to also appear totally non-threatening and vaguely effeminate (nice dye job) is your star?  What, Wilford Brimley wasn't available?


Oh, but he's so sexy, just look how he picks up that young hottie.  It must be true, it happened in a movie, right?  And who could blame her, with acting chops like that, ol' Nic can get any woman, man, or animal he wants.  Admit it, not even Sir Lawrence Olivier could deliver the line "I am going to get her back" in a more wooden, unheartfelt, and ballsy manner.  


But wait, it's in 3D!!!  Well, it only claims to be shot in 3D, maybe not shown in 3D though.  That would be too bad, because then you couldn't see all four of Nic's chins in stunning lifelike depth.  It's like you could reach out and touch them.  Just for the record, they feel like a balloon filled with pudding.  Yeah, I wouldn't recommend touching them.  


And before you complain that I cut off a bit of the screen to the right I have two things to say:


1) Really? You want to see more of this?  If I was actually nice, I would have just posted a still from the movie instead of the trailer.  Or just a picture of a dog being sick.


2) You get what you pay for.  Free blog = I can't be bothered to delve into the inner workings of Blogger to fix my youtube issues.  Sorry.  Take it up with my manager.


The most astounding thing about Drive Angry though, besides the very fact that it was conceived, created, and then released on the general public, is that it manages to make the latest Rock movie look like great cinema.

3D Television - Watch Yourself Thin

I'm sure you've noticed that to be truly entertained these days, you need three dimensions.  Accordingly, I've smashed my old television with a hammer and bought the latest and greatest 3-D plasma-LCD-neutrino flat screen heads-up display-o-ma-job.  Hey, I can't accept sub-dimensional entertainment.  How many of you watch 1-D television?  I rest my case.  


But wait, there's a slight, minor, tiny little issue with 3D television... The Barfogenic Zone.  No, it's not a bizarre mashup of Jackass and The Twilight Zone, rather it is the nausea caused by the conflict between the angle of your eyes and the shape of your eye's lens, a.k.a. cybersickness.  Now, for many this is a cause of serious concern.  Samsung has gone so far as including documentation with their 3-D televisions warning against motion sickness, night sweats, disorientation, loss of sexual function and psychotic episodes.  Fine, maybe I added a few to the list, but they do warn against watching their televisions if pregnant, sick, drunk, sleep deprived, or elderly.  


Fuck, what are our old dying preggers insomniac alcoholic loved ones supposed to do now?  Spend quality time with their family?  Apparently you've never spent any time with a hammered, hormonal, bloated, sleepy 90-year-old.  Suffice to say, parking them in front of the television is about the only option open to you, other than dropping them off at the funeral home preemptively.  


But I think Samsung has got the wrong end of the stick on this issue.  They shouldn't warn people away, they should embrace the barfogenic zone.  In fact, they should tweak their products to more acutely cause nausea.  Think about it.  What better way to solve the obesity epidemic in this country?  That's right, create televisions that make bulimics out of couch potatoes.  Not feeling like working out tonight?  Don't worry about it, just curl up in front of your new Samsung CyberPuke LCD 3D TV and halfway through 'Two and a Half Men" you'll be vomiting up your pancreas.  Although, to be fair, with that program it may not be the television causing it.  

My Daughter, the Cannibal

On the day after Christmas a.k.a. Boxing Day, a.k.a. my birthday (happy birthday to me!) Kiki decided to unveil a thrilling new skill.  Well, not thrilling in the "hooray, look at what my daughter can do!" way, more of the "holy shit, what is my daughter doing!" kind of way.  


You see, Keeks has a habit of chewing on her index fingers.  Seemed harmless enough, we figured at some point it would either hurt and she'd stop or she would outgrow it.  But last Sunday she managed, with her two tiny and surprisingly sharp front teeth, to cut her finger open.  So we find her waking up from her nap with blood on her hand.  Awesome!  Our 11 month old is apparently a cutter.  In retrospect, maybe we should have seen it coming, you know, with the goth clothing, the crap poetry, the constant Cure playing in her nursery, but despite all the warning signs it was still surprising.  


We even had to take our first unscheduled trip to the pediatrician due to her bloodlust, where we were informed that she is apparently a werewolf and this is the first step in her transformation.  Wait, no, my wife is informing me that I am mistaken, she did not tell us that, she just gave us antibiotics and advised us to keep Kiki from chewing on her fingers (REALLY?).  We were also given a steroid cream to help little Kiki grow into a big and unnaturally strong ravenous flesh eating monster.  Oh, wait, no, once again I am apparently wrong, it was just to help her poor finger heal. 


But the most amazing thing was it didn't stop her chewing on her finger.  Nope, my little cannibal wouldn't be deterred.  Even putting band-aids on her finger didn't stop her.  We have had to resort to mittening her hands with socks.  But the worst part of it (besides the nightmarish visions of my daughter eating her own hands off, I know I shouldn't have watched Titus right before bed) is that the hand she cut, the hand that is now mittened (socked?) all day and night is her left hand.  Hmmm, maybe this is all just an elaborate, deceitful, and diabolical plot by my wife to convert our daughter into a righty.  Damn!  But, I have to say, she still looks pretty cute even with no hands.