Funniest Thing I've Heard a Standup Comic Say

From Zach Galifianakis:

There should be a morning after pill for Denny's "Moons over My Hammy."

Why that is so hilarious to me I don't know, but it is.

Happy Clapper

Clapping Party
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina's way ahead of us already. Today she gestured impatiently at a pear in the fruit bowl for almost two minutes before we figured out she wanted that instead of the peach we were feeding her. She's been clapping and nodding her head yes for a while now and it's only going to get harder to keep up with her from now on.

I remember thinking all adults were idiots at some fairly early point in my life, and I'm pretty sure Sabrina's already thinking that at times. Get used to it, honeybunch. We ain't getting no more smarter, I declare.

I Never Knew I Wanted to Know until Just Now

Well what do you know.

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 143 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

From Harry Hutton's lovely Chase Me Ladies, I'm in the Cavalry.

Not Sure About That

Doubtful
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina likes to roam these days, and it's rare that she will consent to be held on one's lap for long. Sometimes you can catch her when she's tired or just woken up and she'll snuggle contentedly, but when she's awake there's just too much to do and relaxing isn't on the menu. She's just about to walk and spends a lot of time standing with a tenuous grasp on something solid, as if she's testing her balance and ability to recover from instability. Definitely not a timid girl, despite a number of resounding skull impacts on solid objects due to falling.

But no blood yet, thank God. I can't imagine what it's like to race to the ER with a bleeding gash in your toddler's head, but just thinking about it is mildly heartbreaking so I hope we don't get to experience that too soon. One day it will happen, as it did to all of my siblings and me, but I'd rather it was later than sooner. She did apparently inherit the Bolduc skull, so when she does hit her head she cries for about a minute or less and then it's as if it never happened.

In this pic she looks mildly amused but not quite convinced. And beautiful, needless to say.

Weird World

From my sister Clare, this story about a dog that got addicted to sucking hallucinogenic toads. From an email titled "Just Say No." Awesome.

And my favorite thing about sports is strange statistics. According to ESPN's Stuart Scott on NFL Primetime, last Sunday's Steeler-Falcon game had two things happen that were so rare they had only ever happened twice in the history of the NFL. Ben Roethlisberger and Michael Vick threw three and four touchdowns, respectively, and Hines Ward and Alge Crumpler each caught three touchdowns. Only twice before had opposing quarterbacks throw at least three TDs each, and only twice before had opposing players caught at least three TDs each. To have two such rare events happen in the same game is kind of interesting.

UPDATE: Man did I screw that up. Even as I was hitting the "publish" button I realized that it's impossible that only two sets of opposing QBs had ever thrown three TDs each in a game, I could think of a number of games I've seen this year where that happened. It turns out Scott was talking about it happening in the first half of a game, which makes way more sense. And of course as soon as I figured it out, I tried to change it but Blogger was down. Which is just perfect.

Wow

Coolest shuttle launch picture ever. Link from Peeve Farm.

Oh My

Plenty of holes are being poked in the Global Warming alarmists' arguments here. I've always thought it was idiotic to use computer modeling, which demonstrably doesn't work even in the short term, to make a guess about planetary temperatures even a year or two ahead, but that's just me. Some of the points being made in the article linked above:

The average global temp hasn't risen in seven years and is actually down this year; the earth's Southern hemisphere hasn't warmed in 25 years; many areas, including the earth's oceans, are demonstrably cooling; Greenland's ice is growing, as is that of the polar ice caps; and most important of all, those who study the history of the Earth's climate agree that violent temperature changes have been going on for millenia, and will continue to do so. Which means that attributing such changes in our own time, assuming they actually exist, to human activity is just stupid. Spending time, money and effort on reversing such climate changes is even more so.

Link from the lovely and talented Steven den Beste.

Holy Smokes

My wife's sweet and wonderful aunt Mary Alice lives in a suburb of New Orleans. She and her neighbors had a tough hurricane season last year as you may remember, and here's what she had to say about this picture, which she took herself:

This is the first of three cuttings of trees and debris from our yard, and ours was far better than most others. That's not me in the photo - it's a neighbor who stopped by while I was taking pictures, and I thought the comparison of a "human" with all the stuff might make it clearer.

Good Lord. I've been trying to stay abreast of the recovery process in the areas that Katrina hit hard, but this is astounding. The other day my back fence blew down when a tornado threatened to touch down nearby, and I complained a lot and felt pretty sorry for myself. What a maroon.

Coming to Get You

Yo, Baby
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina's about to walk. She's standing up for long periods, often while lifting large and/or heavy things. We took her to my friend Ralston's wedding this last weekend and she stomped all around the place holding hands or fingers when she wasn't riding on my shoulders. She loves shoulder rides, and I wish they could be longer but it's very painful for me and I have to stop when my arms go numb because I'm afraid I'll drop her. That takes a minute or so, fortunately, which is usually enough shoulder riding to make her happy.

We got her a number of walky toys, things she can hold on to while marching around, much like I used a walker after my back surgery. One of the new toys is a mini ice cream cart, complete with little fake cones, popsicles and little coins. As we suspected, she likes boxes more than the toys that come inside them, but nowadays that's because she can use them to pull herself up to her feet and walk around while pushing them in front of her. The walky toys are good for walking but less so for pulling herself up, and she's learned not to try on a couple of them because it usually ends with her on her back with the walker on top of her. Not painful but embarrassing.

We can't wait for her birthday, which is in a month and a half. Not to mention Halloween! What fun.

I'm an Idiot

I can't explain why I like this so much, but apparently the stupider the comedy, the better I like it. I present to you: Jon Bovi.

VIDEO REMOVED!!!!

I can't wait to watch YouTube get eaten up by copyright infringement. $1.6 billion will buy a lot of lawyers.

UPDATE: What a surprise, the video's no longer available. YouTube just got a lot less interesting, not to mention profitable.

Separated at Ugly

There's an extremely long and very funny separated-at-birth thingy here. Actually it's more of a love-child-of-two-other-famous-people thingy, but you know what I mean. At left is my favorite one, where former MLB manager Bob Brenly is clearly the love child of Bill Cowher and Dale Earnhardt. I mean, look at him.

Interesting Theory

Does this explain Yankee pitcher Cory Lidle's fatal plane crash?

A Little Perspective

I don't know if seeing this satellite picture of North and South Korea at night makes me more or less worried about Kim Jong-Il's wacky unpredictability, but it sure does add some context to the conversation. By this point in history, if you can't muster enough electricity to make but a single point of light on a map of your entire country, you've got serious problems. It can be argued that foreign aid, procured in recent years by holding the threat of a nuclear North Korea over the rest of the world, is the only thing keeping that sh*thole of a country afloat.

Which leads one to wonder how dangerous these people really are. If I read the consensus view right, the nuclear test earlier this week was not terribly successful, and some have alleged in the past couple of days that a conventional war with North Korea would not be difficult to win as (for example) their soldiers are poorly armed and fed, and their pilots get about two flight hours a month on average. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's an interesting point of view. This seems like a more informed one.

Bulgogi's pretty good, though. Gotta give them that.

Gitmo Blues Ain't So Blue

Claudia Rosett is the reporter who single-handedly uncovered the meat of the UN Oil-for-Food scandal, which should win her a Pulitzer but won't. You'll never believe what she has to say about Guantanamo Bay:

What we saw is a place so steeped in political correctness that it comes close to caricature. Make no mistake: The detainees occupy cells in a high-security facility. But almost every room has an arrow on the floor pointing to Mecca. Signs demanding silence stand ready for prayer time. Korans are cradled in surgical masks. Detainees are interrogated while sitting on sofas or cushioned reclining chairs.

They choose from a halal menu including such home-style treats as dates and baklava. Doctors, dentists and psychiatrists (offering confidential counseling) are on 24-hour call. Good behavior is rewarded with access to board games, books and communal areas, including more time in recreational yards - where we saw a group of detainees chatting around a table, while one of their cohorts nearby, at leisurely speed in the afternoon heat, pedaled an exercise bike.

An officer tells me that earlier this year Guantanamo was buying bottled water that had an American flag on the label. Lest this upset the detainees, base personnel were put to work stripping off the labels.

Oh great. I can't wait to hear again how inhuman and morally wrong it is to keep these terrorist SOBs there, relaxing, gaining weight (they all do, even the ones who stage hunger strikes) and living better than most who share their faith. Thanks to Atlas for the link.

Poll

Here's the poll question: is this a racist Halloween costume? We could remove the fake pony tail.

Pleasant Surprise

If you've been paying attention to financial news, you probably think the US economy is in trouble. I've certainly seen nothing but negative spin about it in newspapers, magazines and TV. But certain information is hard to keep down:

Let's see, GDP growth is strong, productivity is way up, unemployment is low, family incomes are rising, inflation is down, the stock market is up, and the federal deficit is down. Yet polls show that we are about to put more Democrats into both the House and the Senate. That should fix all of these economic problems, real quick.

Every bit of that post is well worth your time, thanks to Big Daddy for the link. Thomas Sowell once wrote that the problem with economic reporting is that so few people (and fewer journalists, I suspect) understand economics. As one who struggled mightily with economics in college, I am acutely aware how counterintuitive many economic concepts can be, and if you believe (as I do) that conventional wisdom is more often wrong than right, you can comfortably assume that most people don't have any idea what's going on with the economy. That's no reason to lie to us, but I don't think the press needs one any more.

I Heart My Adolescence

If you're like me, you had most of the albums used in this wacky album cover art battle animation. Even if you didn't, it's funny as hell.

Just Can't Get Enough Upside Down

Upside Baby
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina loves the upside down thing. No amout of upside down is too much for her, and for all I know she's a bat of some sort. Speaking of bats D and I saw an awful Ed Burns movie, seriously it was Dolemite-level quality. Wow that was terrible. Anyway it had these stupid CGI space bats of the future or something, God it sucked.

Smoochy Bear

Sweet Smile Baby
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Sabrina is so fun to hang out with these days. I have a feeling I'm going to look back on the year that's just beginning as one of the best of my life, and it's all because she's growing and learning so fast. Every minute is so exciting and meaningful, it's just amazing. And what a loving little girl she is. She gives the sweetest little gummy kisses and hugs, it's just heartbreakingly wonderful.

Learning Experience

I'm reluctant to get all moralistic with people who choose things for themselves that I would not choose for them. As a concept, I'm in favor of legal abortion, and would never want to see it outlawed. But I'm often disappointed with pro-choice activists because I believe they lose sight of the goal we all share, when you really get down to it: fewer abortions performed.

We all want the same thing, pro-choice or pro-life though we may be, or even just disinterested. Nobody wants it to be just another form of birth control. But in the effort to defend what they believe is eternally threatened, pro-choice advocates seem unwilling to concede anything, to even appear to be retreating on any front, and in the end it hurts their arguments. For example:

At a pivotal time in the abortion debate, Ms. magazine is releasing its fall issue next week with a cover story titled "We Had Abortions," accompanied by the names of thousands of women nationwide who signed a petition making that declaration.

...

Tyffine Jones, 27, of Jackson, Miss., said she had no hesitation about
signing - although she lives in a state where restrictions on abortion are
tough and all but one abortion clinic has been closed. Jones said she got an abortion 10 years ago - enduring harassment from protesters when she entered the
clinic - in order to finish high school. She went on to become the first member
of her family to graduate from college, and hopes at some point to attend law
school.

"I wanted to do something bigger with myself - I didn't want to be
stopped by anything," she said in a telephone interview.

(emphasis mine)

I have to wonder if the reporter who wrote this story realized what an unfortunate quote Ms. Jones gave there, and if not it's a measure of how deranged-sounding parts of the pro-choice argument can sound to the average person. Because if having a child is something that "stops" you, if it's not something "bigger than" yourself, then I don't want you to have a child. But that's not the same as saying I think killing fetuses is a solution to poor reproductive judgment. Isn't it odd that the one kind of empowerment pro-choice activists absolutely refuse to advocate is the kind that would keep you from getting pregnant in the first place? I think it takes a hell of a lot more "empowerment" to get you ready for an abortion than to get you ready to say no to sex, but the latter is deemed impossible by some, to the point that it's not worth talking about in their eyes. Odd.

Good God

I've eaten a lot of questionable foods in my time, but not even I will try this. From Skinny Bean in Denvertown, who has seen me eat a lot of weird prefab foods and figured I'd be more than willing to try it. Hell to the no, Timmy!

UPDATE: This thing on the left, on the other hand, I'd eat in a heartbeat: The Krispy Kreme Chicken Sandwich. Comes with a side of honey. Awesome.

Sunday Afternoon

Rockin' Out Watchin' Football
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

Today Sabrina had great fun. Daddy was home feeling bad and we caught some NFL football today, with music and a lot of practice on her new walking assistant, the baby ice cream cart! Man she loves that ice cream cart. And she loves to sing along with Daddy's guitar playing, which he varies to include pleasant strumming, cacophonous rock, maddening noodling in weird keys, and sometimes we just make stuff up. Such a great day, even though it feels like I have a railroad spike through the back of my head. Whee!

Heavenly

Sunny baby 2
Originally uploaded by Uncle Mikey.

This is what happiness looks like. What a great picture by my lovely wife Deirdre.