Comments Provided by Google+

Comments have been turned off on my blogs for months, and I’ve been happy with the result. Gone were both the SPAM comments and the less than useful comments. There is a full discussion of my reasoning in a Google+ post, should anyone be interested. Recently, I learned that one could add embedded Google+ Comments on any page. Naturally, this appeals to me since I send my users to G+ to comment anyway. This...

Pain, Uncertainty, And Bodily Fluids

Before we start, let’s alleviate your fears: This yellow liquid is not the bodily fluid that you are currently thinking about. So don’t worry, everything is safe. This is simply water with food coloring in it. Unfortunately for me, that is much, much worse. The Twinge Back in the last days of January, I got a small twinge in my left knee. I noticed it while I was sleeping: a sharp pain on the side of my...

There will be blood

This is a story written for my wonderful sister-in-law, who recently wrote a post about giving stickers to her toddler’s classmates as an Easter gift. To her, the point of the post was actually about succeeding in giving the gifts, to me, it was a story of destruction and death. The story struck me as horrifying, because I have a specific memory of being a very small child that relates directly to the subject...

To Dress Is Human

Roughly one hundred million years ago, I took Jessica to Paris for the entire month of April to celebrate her 30th birthday. It was a magical trip in many ways, but lately, one aspect stands out in particular: Dress. In Paris, we dressed. I don’t mean that in the sense that we covered our bodies in cloth, for surely– despite anything you may have heard– everyone did that in Paris. No, I mean that we spent...

The Made Up Holiday

Today, Google’s doodle is an homage to Valentine’s Day. It’s cute. There are two ferris wheels1 carrying random animals falling in love. There’s a horse and a tiger watching the moon, hoof in paw, and an octopus and a bear going out for sushi and realizing that, uh, that’s not so fun for the octopus. I like Valentine’s Day. It’s a reminder that even though we have differing...

Ingress: The Culture of Game Dynamics

For the last few months, I’ve been playing Google’s massively multi-player game called Ingress and, though it’s something of a niche topic and superficially unrelated to my normal writing, wanted to write on my thoughts about a specific aspect that is troubling me. Background For those who are unfamiliar (those who are familiar can skip down to “Culture and Nomenclature”), Ingress is a...

A Month Of Letters

This month, I am participating in A Month Of Letters. It is a NaNoWriMo-like event where the challenge is to mail one letter every business day of the month. The interesting thing about this is that I started it before I’d ever heard of it. I started writing letters like mad a couple weeks ago1 due to my new found love of fountain pens and my re-discovery of the blissful joy of writing by hand,2 I had decided...

When was my last post?

This was the question i just got. My answer? Now.

The Journey, Part III, The Rock

This entry is part 4 of 4 in the series Found WritingsThis is the third part to my epic poem. As I’ve been leaving through things, I realized that this was originally the conclusion– written sometime during the later half of my senior year of high school. It was meant to complete a trilogy. By some point in the spring of my senior year, I had probably 20-30 more pages. Not sure what happened there, but the...

The Journey, Part II: The Tree

This entry is part 3 of 4 in the series Found WritingsThe second part to the epic poem penned by the young High School John. As with The River, some minor editing1 and even some discussion notes at the bottom! The Tree The Tree spoke to me, Laughing in its language Of leaves and of hopes. And although I did not Understand her words I knew that what she said was true.   The birds, perched on her Thoughts and...

The Journey, Part I: The River

This entry is part 2 of 4 in the series Found WritingsThis is the first part to a sweeping epic poem that I wrote, re-wrote, and re-re-wrote over the course of maybe four starting between my junior and senior year of high school. I thought it’d be fun to post a few of them.1 I’ve got about seven versions of this in various states of editing. I’ve tried to post it as close to the “original...

Found Writings

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Found WritingsRecently, I was going through a stack of old papers that I’ve been holding on to and found something truly special. My “Collection of Previously Unpublished Poetry,” which I had written during high school and just after. Now, the special thing about this is that I had not, in fact, published any poetry. Thus, a “collection of previously...

Announcing The Analog Blog

Tonight, I began a new writing project. Rather than type out my thoughts on the keyboard, I’m going to write them long-hand with a pencil/pen, in a real paper journal, scan them, and then post them here in a new category that I’m calling The Analog Blog (I really want to call it Anablog, but that just sounds silly to me). I know what you’re thinking. “Why the hell would you take the trouble...

Did You Really Just…

We interrupt this parenting experience to bring you the following news bulletin: Know-it-all idiots have been sighted in the vicinity and are expected to criticize your parenting skills immediately. Please take precautions and secure your confidence and self-esteem. Above all, stay calm, you are doing quite well. And please, whatever you do, don’t smack the living shit out of them. This, as it turns out,...

Yes, Virginia, You Can Make Taco Seasoning

As ridiculous as it is, my long list of food sensitivities includes all members of the Capsicum family. This includes all hot and sweet peppers.1 Unfortunately, this makes the common anti-gluten culinary retreats of Southeast Asian and Mexican food almost completely off limits. One day, my mother-in-law made tacos for everyone. Being aware of my sensitivity, she didn’t use the store bought taco seasoning (it...

The Wake Of A Battleship

She was an incredibly frustrating woman. I know, that is exactly not what we’re supposed to say, and not what anyone wants to hear, but it’s the first thing that comes into my head when I think about Barbara. An incredibly frustrating woman. She’d do these things that would drive you crazy. She wanted things her way, and if she didn’t get things her way she– well, honestly, we don’t...

Social Security Numbers: The Future Is Now

Here’s an interesting situation: My daughter’s social security number is invalid. Well, I’m not actually sure of that. I mean, since I got it from the Social Security Administration at the same time as my son’s SS#– which is valid– I’m assuming they haven’t completely screwed up and that it is, indeed, valid. Still, the number doesn’t seem to work in any HTML form. Every...

God Bless The New Wave

So I’m sitting at a gathering of friends and talking about what I want to do for my Last Baby-less Birthday Party, and the subject of music comes up. Now, this is a bit of a sensitive one for me, because I have a brother-in-law who was a DJ, so I’m conscious of certain DJ rules, tips, and tricks– but I’m not conscious enough to be able to pull off DJing well with my current library. Into this...

Seeing the Music

About a week before the twins were born, Jessica and I were talking about all the fun things we were going to do with our kids. One topic was music, and I looked across the living room to our piano and said “We’re going to put them in piano lessons, because they should know how to play the piano.” The thought was in my head for about thirty seconds before I realized what was going on. Did I really...

Scenes From Five Days In Heaven

I wanted to write about our birth experience, after finding time to emotionally digest the experience. It’s five days since our birth and I’ve done neither. I wanted to at least post some images before the little ones wake back up, so here you go. [Show as slideshow] [View with PicLens]

Introducing TeamMetta!

The waiting is over! Today– right now, in fact– as you are reading this post– TeamMetta is officially expanding. You’ve all been waiting for some time. We have too. Lovely Jessica has been waiting longer than anyone.1 A while ago, we were worried that we’d have wee small premies. More recently, we’ve been worried that we wouldn’t have babies at all. It seemed like the wee little...

The Waiting

I’m at an interesting period in my life. One that I never realized I’d be in because I never knew that it existed. It’s the transitional period between “Your babies can be born safely now” and “You’re babies are born.” I sort of thought that the transition between those two states would be instantaneous. Not really a period at all. More like “Your babies can be...

Babies are safe!!

Hurray! Today starts week 35, when babies are mature enough to stay healthy outside of mommy! We don’t have to go to the neonatal intensive care unit if they arrive now. Although, they’re not showing any signs of coming early. Jessica, proud mother to be, is carrying them as if she was designed to have multiple babies inside her. Tired for sure, but not in any to deliver them until the little buns are...

The Key Number Here Is 35

The number 35 has some interesting properties. It’s the atomic number of bromine, for instance. It’s the sum of the first five triangular numbers, making it a tetrahedral number. It’s also is a centered cube number, a pentagonal number and a pentatope number, which is pretty cool. Of course, these are purely impersonal properties, unless you are a mathematician or a chemist or a pool...

¡¡ The Last Baby-less Birthday Party !!

The last party. The last hurrah. The last time I can get trashed with no responsibilities. From here on out, it’s all work and worry. From here on out I can’t get drunk and naked at a party because I have to worry about things like Oh my god! Where is my child? and Oh my god! Is my child playing with a butcher’s knife? and even Oh my god, I forgot that I had twins! Where’s the other...