Musings of a Dad Man IV

Things I never knew before I had kids (in-depth study):

"Breast Pump"

No, it's unfortunately not a new move. I found that out very early on. It's more like the complete opposite of a new move. Picture the torture machine from the "Pit of Despair", but instead of sucking the life out of Wesley, it's sucking the milk from your wife's rack. This is useful for creating an extra supply of milk, or to help the lactation (in depth explanation of this word in a future post) process. I am sorry for the graphic description, but nobody said this would be pretty.

Dog Bites

A few thoughts:


At the end of the show "24" they say, "In the next hour of 24...", and then I say out loud in the same style voice, "THE BAUR HOUR!" Try it, it's a good time.

The amount of human feces in my garbage has increase a lot since I've had kids.

I am playing in a second fantasy baseball league this year, outside of my traditional "These are the Jokes" league that I have played with "friends" for many years. My new team is MUCH better looking, and I really enjoy spending time with it. My old team is starting to seem tired, it's not performing, and I get easily frustrated with it. I find myself screaming at it, even when I know the problem is me, not the old team. There are times when I am spending time with the new team when I really know I should be with my old team. I am a fantasy baseball adulterer.

What number is higher: The number of blog posts in the past month of Kark Hungus' "B-Logjammin" PLUS "Those Aren't Pillows", OR the number of times a hummingbird flaps it's wings in a second divided by 80 (rounded to the nearest whole number)?

The top songs ever made that somehow genetically force a person to sway their beer back and forth are: Piano Man, Sweet Caroline, and Margharittaville. Yet these songs are impossible to dance to. I guess you'd have to add "The Beer Barrel Polka" and any other Irish drinking song to this list.

The Yahoo CEO just made $70 million last year. Note to self, go back in time to 2000 and don't work for Bidcom.com. Consider your other options.

Those Aren't Pillow's blog has "Hump Day Ramblings" which is a clever name considering his swinging single life, but it really should be called "Pillow Talk".

Thoughts on working in a cave

Yeah that's right. I work in a basement. But I only call it that because... well, I work below the main floor of my house, it's freezing down here, and there is no natural light. It's actually more like a cave. A cave with the Internet.

A few things are nice about workign in a cave below my house, like I don't have to succumb to the social pressures of fashion, or hygiene. In other words, I don't shower or dress most mornings, or afternoons, or most days ending in "y". I am but a simple cave man, to quote one of the greats.

Last week my 2.5-year-old pointed at me after I emerged from the cave and said "Daddy has a beard!" She knows the word "beard"? Fortunately, I don't think she meant that in a Katie Holmes kind of way, but more of a comment on my grooming and cleanliness of the moment. Hey, it was nicer than pointing at me and saying "Daddy smells like a hobo" or something, which she also could have said. She might know the word "hobo".

I do thouhg have this nice detachment from the out-cave world. Hell, I don't even know what the weather is outside most of the time except for this icon I set up on my explorer toolbar. This past NFL season I had our Seahchickens on the TV while I was working down here on Monday night, and the whole story on MNF was the snow storm absolutely blanketing Seattle. "Holy s#!t! It's snowing" I thought, and ran upstairs to see.

Oh, another benefit is that I can have the TV on at work. That's a plus. Oh, and fantasy sports on the computer screen, and music, and maybe even get a workout in some months. Oh yeah, this cave has an elliptical. Nice caves these days.

Somehow I have managed to pull this off for two years and still be considered a fully functioning member of our little company... let's call us "Scmoculous Innovative Sciences, Inc." to keep things anonymous. To be fair, I do work my a$$ off for these guys, but sometimes I just do it with the M's on the radio. Hey I even closed our recent Pen Deal, and stock was up a little, so that keeps me legit for another few months:

Drug Enhancement Company of America Licenses SchmOculous' Microcyn(R) Technology for Use in First Responder ''Pen-Like'' Applicator

So the anonymity didn't last too long. Oh well. But don't go looking here for inside information on Schmoculous because, well, I hate the idea of jail. Dudes would use a guy like me as currency in the po po... and even if I did slip up and say something, our volume is so low WE COULD SEE YOU TRADING ON THE INFO. So don't try.

And it looks like I'm talking to nobody... time to leave the cave.

Musings of a Dad Man III

A good thing to remember is that if your baby is crying, there is usually a reason for it. Now I know this seems obvious, but I think some people stress out when their child is crying because they feel powerless to help them at times. Well, stress no longer. I have created a list of reasons your child may be crying, and I even created a helpful mnemonic device to ensure that you can remember the reasons, even in the most trying of times. So the next time your baby cries, don't fret, just go through this list and try out my suggested remedy (followed in parenthesis):

Yawn (Your baby is tired. Put them to bed)
Over-stimulated (Mellow them out. Stop playing with them)
Under-stimulated (Bored. Entertain them)
Ravenous (Hungry. Feed them)
Envy (they want something, like a toy. Give them the damn toy)

Fiery (hot. take off their jacket)
Urine (or "pee". Change diaper)
Cold (put them in more clothes, or close the window if it's winter)
Ka-ka (or "poop". Change diaper)
Evil (you're baby just might be evil and cries a lot)
Dehydrated (or "thirsty". Give them liquids)

Welcom to Fenway Stray-Rod

Boston fans had the appropriate greeting for Stray Rod this weekend, dressing up apparently as "Mystery Blond Strippers from Toronto". I don't think he was rattled too much though as he hit a game winning home run off Papelbon in the ninth inning last night.

OK Rod, enough

Just when I thought Alex was trying to fix his image of being a goody-too-shoe-whiney-little biatch that everyone hates, he goes out the very next day and yells "I GOT IT I GOT IT" while taking third on an infield pop-up with two outs in the ninth. Poor ole' Howie Clark was playing his first game of the season (filling in for Troy Glaus yesterday) and thought his shortstop was calling him off. When the ball hit the groud, A-Fraud easily rounded second, took third, and scored on the next play. Like the night before with the Canadian stripper, he has shown a willingness to do almost anything to get to third base, and score.

Obviously Howie should have caught the ball, and in no way was this an illegal play, but cheating, drinking, fired up Stray-Rod shouldn't need this kind of crap. This is more in line with when he tried to slap the ball out Arroyo's hand in the ALCS without anyone noticing. This is WHY EVERYONE HATES YOU Alex. What is your problem?