Category: Life

Yes, April 15^th was Paige’s birthday. Thanks to everyone who bought her things from her wish list. It’s much shorter now than it was before, and she got lots of nice gifts.

We spent most of yesterday in Dallas. For her birthday dinner, we went out to eat at Arcodoro & Pomodoro. This was, without a doubt, the nicest restaurant I’ve ever been in. Paige had the Ravioli Arcodoro, voted the best ravioli in the world. It was stuffed with a mix of cheeses and seafood and topped with crushed pistachios.

I had the Stinco di Vitella Logudorese (yes, I copied and pasted that from their website). It was the most amazing veal shank. The waiter told me that the proper way to eat it is to scape the marrow out the bone when you’re done and mix it with some of the risotto. He even brought out a little marrow scraping fork. Paige and I both tried it, but I’ve got to say that the meat was much better than the marrow.

I’m sure we looked totally out of place in that restaurant, but everyone there treated us very well. I’m sure we’ll go back from time to time since the food was so good. Unfortunately, a meal there costs about as much as we usually spend on groceries for a week, but I think it’s worth it. You’ve got to live a little sometimes.

Dude, this is like the coolest site ever – Eighties Speak.

I can’t believe people used to talk like this. Thank god I never talked this way. Psyche!

Matthew is getting pretty good at rolling over now. Here he is practicing on his cloud blanket.

If he keeps going at this rate, he’ll be crawling soon.

There used to be something else here, but now it’s gone. Sorry about that. I’m afraid I linked to a site that was a little undesirable.

Let’s just pretend this never happened…

I am, obviously, no fan of golf. As a matter of fact, I don’t really care for any televised sports, or television in general. But occasionally, I will see something that impresses even me to the point that I feel compelled to share it with the world.

I think that everyone can recognize a fantastic play even if they don’t care for the sport. You know the type – an outfielder who snatches the baseball from just over then fence and turns a grandslam into the game winning out, or the basketball player who throws the ball from half court just as the buzzer goes off and score the three points that win the game.

There’s a video clip of Tiger Woods demonstrating just such a play going around today. I’ve heard this is from the 16^th hole at the Master’s (whatever that means). Anyway, a clever guy named Joseph Jaffe converted this into a Nike commercial and posted it on his website. You can see it for yourself at Jaffe Juice. The 60 second version is 4 MB, but it’s well worth the download.

This is almost as impressive as my amazing hole in one through the blades of the wind mill and up the hill. Unfortunately, I never could master hitting the ball into the clown’s mouth…

VH1 showed the Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster last night commercial free. So, being a pretty big Metallica fan, I watched it.

I’ve gotta say I was a little surprised by this movie. It was a lot more real than anything you’ll ever see on “Reality TV”. I think the main reason I like it is because I’ve followed the band for so long and I really felt like I knew the characters.

Seeing what really goes on in the lives of people like James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich was interesting. On the one hand I feel like these guys have more money than they’ll ever need, and they should just get over themselves. But, at the same time I can see what they’re arguing about. It’s the same kind of stuff that lots of us go through. Everyone wants to be in control, and no one is willing to compromise.

It was commercial free on VH1, but unfortunately it wasn’t uncut. This led to what was in my opinion one of the best scenes from the movie. Everyone in the band was really frustrated, but still trying to work. The dialogue went something like this…

Bob Rock: OK Lars, as soon as the drums kick in I want you to scream *beep* as loud as you can.

The music starts and Lars gets ready to scream.

Lars Ulrich: *beeeeeeep* (for about a minute straight)

I’m sure it was very therapeutic at the time, but on VH1 it reminded me of the test of the emergency broadcast system.

I just hope this post doesn’t draw out the raving, all-caps typing lunatics like my last mention of Metallica. Also, if you’re that guy and you’re reading this: My opinion of St. Anger is still pretty much the same. I actually want to listen to it every once in a while, but it will never be as good as Master of Puppets or …And Justice for All.

I’ve been meaning to post this picture for a while now. It’s almost two months old. I figure since I made fun of Ben for wearing a “Dukes of Hazard” shirt around their baby the other day, I should show what we’re doing to Matthew.

For those of you who aren’t Star Wars fans, like Paula – that’s Darth Vader on the shirt and it says “Who’s Your Daddy?”. That’s funny because Darth Vader is really Luke’s father… Sorry if I just ruined the Empire Strikes Back for anyone.

Blame Geoff for this outfit, he bought it for Matthew.

How could I have missed this? I used to check the Astronomy Picture of the Day religiously.

Back on April 1, they showed a picture of Water on Mars. Those rocket scientists sure are clever.

Is regular Tetris a little too hard for you? Maybe you should try Tetris 1D. That’s right, One-Dimensional Tetris.

I’m playing it even as I type this post. As a matter of fact, my score just passed 40,000. I think I’m really getting good.

On second thought, maybe not. I just looked at the High Scores. The top score is 943,718,400. It looks like I’ll be up all night playing…

I saw some pictures like this the other day on Flickr and I couldn’t wait to try it out myself. Luckily, Paige is usually a willing subject. Here she is relaxing in the chair and watching the baby:

This time she’s sitting on the couch and standing up and smiling:

These are actually pretty easy to do with a digital camera and a few minutes of editing. First, take two pictures of your subject without moving the camera (a tripod really helps here). Then layer one image on top of the other in something like PhotoShop or The GIMP. Finally, erase the area in the top layer so that the image of your subject shows through from the bottom.