100 Word Challenge: Pleased

We don't always see eye to eye; we are more tongue in cheek. You like to stay awake while we try to sleep. It's not that we don't want to hang out with you all night, laughing and swinging and playing music; we just need our rest. We are old and ragged, tired and worn, only invigorated by your smile. Rest assured, no matter how the future may unfold, no matter how little we seem to understand you in your chaotic youth, my pride will always be in your smile. And every time you look at me, I am pleased.

100 word challenge via Velvet Verbosity

Ur aye, I haz it!

Code Name Alice has convinced me to stop being bashful and post the pictures of us having fun:

Plastic Fish

I know I've been on a political/environmental rant lately and haven't been writing about all the great adventures Code Name Alice has been taking me on but I just have to post this.

Just think the next time you have wild fish sushi, how many parts per million of your fish is plastic:

http://www.ted.com/talks/capt_charles_moore_on_the_seas_of_plastic.html

Haiku: In the Dark

I sleep in the dark
and fill it with vivid dreams
Then awake in light

Biofuels by the fools; Hydrogen, how again?

As we are looking into alternative energy sources, two possibilities piss me off: biofuels and hydrogen. There's been plenty of news reporting on the rise of global food prices due to biofuel demands, which have increased health problems and poverty by staggering numbers.

Don't we have enough uses for food?



It's so plainly obvious to me that this is the wrong solution. It's not even a solution, it's a path to more problems and dependencies that we cannot afford to face, now or ever again.

But little has been said poorly about hydrogen and, conveniently enough, I have the same isue with hydrogen as biofuel (not that people eat hydrogen, there's another reason).

Here's the main problem with both biofuels and hydrogen: You have to put energy in to get energy out. The amount of energy and resources that have to go into creating biofuel and hydrogen are absolutely stupid compared to the amount of energy we get from burning them--and then we have to fucking burn them. Where do we get our crack?!

But look, there's the sun, the wind, the waves. We have so many clean, renewable, pure sources of energy that bombard our very doorsteps every day, that just beg to be passively captured--and they will never, ever become depleted as resources.

And why are these solutions downplayed compared to hydrogen and biofuel? Well, it costs more money to produce biofuels and hydrogen. That's better for the short term economy. There are already so many farmers and businesses positioned to take advantage of these ideas--businesses with money. Businesses that know they can charge you for biofuel and hydrogen but that wind and solar power would result in nearly free fuel once the infrastructure grew to a sustainable place.

Additionally, can we please avoid creating more self propelling explosives that carry poeple and businesses that can potentially detonate? Hydrogen is just a little bit flammable. Or did we forget the Hindenburg? We don't have to have dangerous fueling stations. We just don't.

End rant.

further reading (old news but it seems people forget easily):

World Bank: Biofuels lift food prices 75 percent

Biofuel Demand Pushes Up Food Prices

Popular Mechanics: The truth about Hydrogen

The Near Future

Very soon, we will be dancing with magic legs, flying with grown wings, loving with wireless pseudo-telepathic helmets (until those helmet devices become embedded in our sculs), choosing our own evolutionary paths. We just need to ride out the flaming present:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/juan_enriquez_shares_mindboggling_new_science.html



As my esteemed colleague Mogrify said so well, "I stand with one foot rooted firmly in the past, and one foot reaching out to the future. This is so I can teabag the present."

9 Months Old Today - High Five!

Why It's Important to Learn to Read

I'm at the park with Code Name Alice. She loves the swing.
This large dude with a family is being all obnoxious and I've got half the mind to walk over and tell him where to shove it. Just as I'm about to stealth attack him, he takes his wadded up hot-dog stained paper plate and soda can, jams them into the park garbage can and immediately regrets his decision. The instant he pushes on the garbage can, three angry squirrels leap out and attack his face. It's beautiful. These little beasts are like little samurai. They strike in thrusts and parries, biting his legs and dodging his flailing hands.

The garbage can:

Wordless Wednesday: Nap before swim lesson

Sneepy...

Swinging on a sunny day

Well, yesterday was a day of silence, while I caught up on some work. Today is just a full work day, so here's something pretty to look at:

Lennon VS. Lenin

I'm on the couch watching Definitely, Maybe and there's the part when someone says, "Like Lennon and McCartney."

To this, my wife says, "Wasn't Lenin the leader of the U.S.S.R. or something?"

I clarify, "John Lennon."

To which she counters, "Who's John Lennon?"

There's a long pause while I decide how long I should allow her to retain a state of being in which she can seriously ask that question. Finally, I stumble, looking for the right words to describe what she's missing, "um... John ... Lennon... of the Beatles..."

"Why should I know that?"

Haiku: V-Day

If you're down and blue,
At least you have a haiku
That says I love you

Stupid Warnings

Either our education system is worse than we admit or our nation is
too litigious for a society to properly function.
I see warnings like this everywhere. Don't put your kid in a bucket full of water. Don't trap your kid in a plastic box and put the air tight lid on top. Warning: You might be a moron.

This really gets me because many years ago, I was eating a peach and found, to my delight, that the seed was cracked open, revealing a supple, ripe almond like center. I ate it. It was slightly bitter and oily but tasted rather like an almond. Soon after, I started to feel strange. Much like a mushroom trip, my nose felt like it was made of plastic and my face seemed to be leaking fluid, although countless napkins revealed that my face was bone dry. My housemate noticed my strange behavior and upon telling him about the peach, he exclaimed that peach pits are poisonous. What?! Says who, where are the copious warning labels that plague our society? They warn me not to put a plastic bag over my head but they don't inform me that something I might eat, lacking better information, is actually poisonous?! This is messed up.

Stay tuned for future posts where Ninja and Child will tackle the warning label industry in search of answers.

Super Powers

People often ask me, since I'm a ninja, "what's your super power?"
I usually retort with some meandering story like the following:

My wife has a valuable super power. But the sad thing is that it's only valuable to everyone else.
Here's an example of her power at work:

We are at the supermarket with Code Name Alice ready for a nap and a huge cart full of warez.

"Which line?" I ask my wife.

"Um...." she looks all around. "That one." She points at a seemingly quick line.

"OK.... let's do this one, then." I use my deductive reasoning to choose a different lane.

Shortly after stepping into place, something backs up the line she chose. The clerk has a problem processing something and really, REALLY needs the manager to come over and help. The line is stalled and begins to overflow, people who would have been in front of us bailing out and landing behind us in our quick moving lane.

See, her super power is that whichever shopping lane she picks will be the longest lane.

My daughter is imbued with a similarly remarkable power, although, I dare say, more useful in the super hero sense. She laughs. She laughs like the best joke you've ever heard in your best moment in life. I say, "take 'em down Alice!" and the mightiest foes with a sense of humor (and possibly the absurd) fall to their knees begging for the hysteria to stop.

So what then, you continue, is your super power SDN?

Well, you see, I am a super power facilitator. You might think this means that I have no super powers of my own, like one of those super villains who relies on the power of others to get things done, but hold it right there in that mode of thinking because I will put the hurt down. I have the power to make my daughter laugh. Oh, and it will hurt. I also have the power to know when my wife is using her power and when I should avoid her best guess.

Oh, yeah, I also have the power of sleep deprivation madness. It's kind of like the Berserker power of some elite Scottish warriors. When my baby keeps me sleepless, my funny factor increases, which increases the likelihood that all those around me will perish in a blast of childhood laughter. Sleep deprivation also increases my need to destroy those who offend my sense of human decency (see my first few posts last summer when I encountered a few unsavories).

What's your super power?

Wordless Wednesday: I love drinking water...

...straight from a cup!

Open Letter to Code Name Alice: Sleep Woes

I'm downstairs right now, listening to you scream. I feel so sad. My face is cringed, I can feel it pinched and pulled inward. I can't stand this. I want to run up their and pick you up and hug you. I want to bring you down here to play and play until we both are so tired we can't stay up another instant. I want to stop your suffering.

But I can't. It's not up to me right now, baby girl. This is your fight. You've got to figure this one out. We can't come running in every time you wake up. Believe me, we tried. We did that for a very long time and you woke up all night. I think it's our fault you are having so much trouble right now. I used to quote Robert Heinlein, from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love (his best book, which I will read to you someday), "Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy." But then, he also said, "Keep your children short on pocket money — but long on hugs." And I do so want to hug you right now.

You are so easy, baby girl. You are so easy to love and cherish and hold snugly and be all gushy over. I can't stand listening to you in pain. My ninja might just melts to mush when you cry. Either that or I turn to stone and try to deny my true desire to turn you upside down and blurble your little belly. Then we would both laugh, you'd see. I'd roll on the floor like a little dog and you would cackle a little bellylaugh and grab at my head. We would roll around stare at eachother and you would rub my chin, giggling at my funny facial fuzz.

You'll make it baby girl. You'll get through this. This too shall come to pass. You will be stronger, you will... hey, it stopped. You're back asleep. No more tears. No more pain. Sweat sleep.

I can't wait until morning so I can see this baby girl again:

Karate: Your Doing it Wrong

Warning: This man is not a ninja:

I Stood Up All By Myself

Then, I fell down...

OK, Today is Just a Random Assortment of Funny From the Interblogs

Not My Kid: Stoned After Dentist

This is so sad, yet funny:


Stoned Little Kid After Dentist Visit
Source: www.break.com
Surprisingly, the effect that a trip to the dentist has on your little brother is not that different from the effect that a mushroom trip has on your roommate.

Haiku

I'm just here to say,
My post death blogs have been pushed.
I'm not quite dead yet.

Typical Night at the Ninja Fortress: Writing Blog Posts

Sleep Deprivation Ninja: I need to write my blog post for tonight. I don't have one scheduled.

Solar Dancer: I think you should not make yourself write every night but write good stuff infrequently.

SDN: I see your logic there but there's a slight problem. I have posts that are scheduled to auto-post in a month in case I die. When I post every night, I remember to look at my scheduled posts and I bump those ones up if they are coming up too soon.

SD: You have posts that are going up in case you die?! What, are you taking on the government?

SDN: Yes, I'm taking on the government. *eyes roll* The first one is just basically a 'call me if you read this and make sure I'm not dead' post. Then there are some more after that.

SD: There's more?! Why are you planning on dying in a month?

SDN: I'm not "planning on" dying in a month. I'm just preparing for the case.

SD: Do you realize how weird that is?

SDN: No.

...is it?

Wordless Wednesday: Eating the foot

Open Letter to Code Name Alice: Status Check - 8.5 months

We were playing today while mom was out tutoring. I had a lot of fun. We played music, we danced, you even had some grumpy moments that weren't so much fun. But I realized something:

I've never been mad at you. Ever. I've never felt that you were a burden or an annoyance. I've never once thought you were a bad person, even for a second--and what a ridiculous notion that I could; you are an awesome person. Just look:

Your laugh is so easy, so emphatic, honest and joyous. It's infectious. I can't look at your face without smiling, without wiggling mine like a happy puppy.

Whenever I'm with you, even if you are unhappy, I love every second. When I'm not with you I wish I were. I've never missed anyone like I miss you. I don't think I even really missed anyone before you came along. I didn't know how. I always just thought that I could get new friends and lovers if people moved away, drifted away, if things fell apart. But I could never, ever, replace you. You've only been here 8 and a half months and in this time, you've given me nothing but joy.

The other day, I put you in the stroller and we walked to your swim lesson. I held on so tight to that handle. Visions of cars flying around corners or gusts of wind trying to take you away all plagued my mind. My overactive imagination played out events that were too horrific for me to witness without cringing. I'd squeeze tighter and keep walking. I have these thoughts, terrible fears that something will happen to you--or worse, that I will go crazy and accidentally do something stupid. And, yet, I know you will be safe. You've already encountered dangerous situations and come away unscathed. You have magic, girl. I know you will do great things with it.

But for now I'm just content to watch you play.
O, frabjous day! Callooh, Callay!

Haiku: My Golem

My golem is fierce.
She is made of clay and peas.
Beg for your life, please.

Single Sentence Story #3 - Spring of Eternal Youth

Beneath the sludge and the ruin, under the edge of the world, within the soul of that ethereal abyss they call the edge of nothing, a dreamer, who began with ambition, having sought to be free from gravity, to break free of death's grip for eternity, now rests his longevity in misery, distraught for what he thought was to be the free flowing spring of beauty and youth is in truth at the base of an inescapable place where only in dreams can we hear his screams, begging and pleading for all to recall that there is no spring without a winter and no winter without a fall.