Obviously a product of the American education system

Check out this sign at the San Francisco protests against the Olympic torch.



Hmmm. Let's ask Jesse Owens.

Zoltar KNOWS!

We rent our videos at the Hollywood Video down the street from us. It's a pretty eclectic collection they have there, too. They get all the counterculture documentaries and angsty gay films, which is what you'd expect on Hawthorne Avenue. What's more puzzling, though, is they carry all the latest Mormon comedies? What's up with that? And lots of times, those films are never in... not that we've tried to rent Mormons and Mobsters over five times but it's NEVER in. (Maybe it's how people are getting their Sopranos fix now that the series is ended.)

Anyway, Hollywood Video now offers a service called "Zoltar," which is a database that takes your previous rental history and offers suggestions of what you would like. We tried at and I was impressed, then mortified by some of the suggestions. Check these out:

Television
Arrested Development-good suggestion, and I'm embarrassed to admit that I've never seen this show but I think Zoltar got it right that I'd like it.
Big Love-All those Mormon comedies we rent must have tipped Zoltar off that we knew a thing or two about Utah.

Okay, now here's where it gets embarrassing. Check out these suggestions:

Comedy
The Prince & Me 2: The Royal Wedding-?!?!?! Wha? We didn't even rent The Prince & Me 1: The Formulaic Romance!
Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen-Huh? I can't even imagine what would have prompted THAT suggestion!
Ella Enchanted-Okay, seriously! I think Zoltar thinks we're a fourteen-year-old girl. Rent High School Musical ONE TIME and look what it gets you!

On a brighter note, we can rent one of Zoltar's suggestions for free! I think we'll get Win a Date with Tad Hamilton Resident Evil.

Manna from heaven

Can you imagine anything more glorious than being caught in a Diet Coke rainstorm? Check out this picture from the biggest Mentos-dropped-in-Coke explosion EVER! Although if it were me, I wouldn't have worn the raincoat and just looked up with an open mouth and a funnel in the hopes of drinking the sweetest rain in the history of rain! As it was, all those hooded raincoats makes the scene look more like some druidic sacrifice to Seltzer, the god of carbonation.

You can read about the event (including more pictures) here. And it happened in a town in Belgium where a good friend of our lives, so Pam, when you read this, let me know in a comment if you got in on the action or saw the Coke River flowing through Leuven.

In case you weren't feeling inadequate enough

I ran across this quote today that made me feel like I really don't have an excuse to get things done:

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. — H. Jackson Brown

No pressure! So maybe I should commit to work on a couple of masterpieces, inventing nuclear bombs, feeding starving children... and sleeping with a slave.

Prepare to cringe

Okay, not to be completely fixated on baby stuff, but yesterday I stumbled upon this video when I was getting the diaper change video and just had to share it. WARNING! This video may cause former or currently nursing women to cross their arms over their breasts, fall to the floor curled up in a ball, and mumble "they're mine... they're Mine... they're MINE" over and over--just a forewarning).

Speaking of which, that reminds me of a time in Norway when we were visiting a church member that was living with a guy. After talking about the law of chastity one time, the next visit she excitedly told us that for the past week whenever her boyfriend started getting amorous in bed, she crossed her arms over her chest and said no. I'm sure her boyfriend LOVED when we visited after that. This was the same member whose three-year-old wanted to nurse one time while we were visiting and so walked over to her mother and pulled open her snap button shirt for access. Oops!

By the way, I think a good rule of thumb is that if your child asks you to sit sideways so she can watch CSI while she nurses, it's time to wean her.

A glimpse into the future

My uncle sent me this video of fathers changing diapers. Of course in his day (and I'm going by my own father here) men didn't change diapers. My own father would either endure the stench until my mom got home, carry me to my grandmother's house to get changed, or strip me down, hose me off with the garden hose, and let me run around naked... which reminds me of a time in Norway... but I'll write about that later.

How times have changed. Now men are expected to change diapers, help around the house, and take hormones so they can experience the miracle of breastfeeding themselves.

Ah the price of egalitarianism.

And I have to admit, my favorite clip in this video is the gassy baby that blows a cloud of baby powder into her father's face. Juvenile, but classic.

The perfect onesie!

Check out this girls onesie. It's perfect for the new Hawthorne baby. Now if we can get patchouli-scented baby wipes and figure out a way to give a baby dreadlocks we'll be all set to walk in our neighborhood.

The official fragrance of church

I wonder if this is only available at the Church Distribution Center? Hmm, let me see here. I'll just --click-- check their website --click, click, scroll, scroll-- Bibles, Bang curlers --scroll, scroll-- Pious jewelry, Precious Moments© figurines... oh here it is: Scents --click. What in the world? Only MEN'S fragrances? It says here they refuse to carry Matriarchy. What's up with THAT?

Three weeks and counting!

Well today marks the three week mark before... you know. Twenty-one short days for me feeling the pressure to finish up all the last-minute projects and twenty-one long, drawn out days for Margaret feeling the pressure on her pelvic floor.

The plumber is coming tomorrow to finish the installation, which means we will be practically done and able to move out of the dining room. Phew! Just in the nick of time!

Moral dilemma

Okay, I need some advice from the internets... and don't fail me. The fate of my soul is in your hands. So be gentle. Here's the situation:

About five weeks ago, I ordered the fixtures for the clawfoot bathtub online. I ordered the whole shebang, including supply lines, waste line, faucet, shower, shower ring, and soap dish. When I got home and showed Margaret the pictures, she pointed out that she wanted a shower with an additional handheld shower so we could wash the baby, water the plants, and spray down the bathroom to make a burst water line claim on our insurance.... I kid, I kid. We'd never water the plants in the bathtub!

Anyway, I called them the first thing the next morning and told them that I needed to confirm something or other with our plumber and could I put the order on hold. They told me that the order had already been packed but that they would hold it until I contacted them again. In the meantime, we found the fixture that we really wanted, so I called the first place back and cancelled the faucet, shower, and shower ring but left on the order the other things, which they said they would promptly ship. A few days later, a GIGANTIC box showed up on our front porch--much too big for two supply lines and a waste line. I mean, a LION would have fit in that thing! I opened the package and, lo and behold, the entire original order was in the box! At first I was aggravated, as I thought I was going to be stuck with the shipping costs to return it. Then I looked at the shipping invoice: it only had the modified order listed as the contents of the box. At the time, I didn't have the time to deal with the situation, so I just stuck all the boxes upstairs to deal with later.

Okay, fast forward to last week when I was breaking down the shipping boxes for recycling. I noticed a giant neon sticker on the side of the shower fixture box that said, "INSPECT PACKAGE: AFTER 5 DAYS WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR DAMAGED OR LOST ITEMS" and I thought, "WHAT?" So if something gets lost and the hapless buyer doesn't tell them in 5 days, they're off the hook? That's messed up! Well, that got me to thinking, does it work the other way? Am I responsible for their lost items? Since their self-declared window of claiming loss is long expired without them notifying me, what claim do they have on this stuff? What am I supposed to do to minimize the cost to my eternal salvation yet maximizes what goes in my wallet. (Just kidding). Seriously, though, what should we do? We tried giving the set away to our friends the Burningman's, but they, sensing the bad karma surrounding it, declined.

I know I should just call the company and let them deal with it, but a part of me really wants to screw them for having a policy that probably has screwed a lot of people. So the next time you visit and we offer to let you wash your car with the beautiful clawfoot tub shower and faucet that is mounted on our driveway, you'll how it got there.

...seriously, though... what would YOU do?

...no, seriously... what should I do?

...dude, SERIOUSLY! I'm in a conundrum!

...hold me... uh, but don't judge me... I hate that.

Isn't it ironic, don't ya think?

Okay, today at the gym, I'm watching CNN as their covering the develop story about the food riots breaking out... well, all over the place. Eight people have died in Haiti in various riots. Their food prices have jumped 87% since last year! Yikes! Egypt's bakers are selling flour on the black market and people in Asia are going hungry because the price of rice has skyrocketed. The headlines seem ripped from Mad Max. (Something that I've been thinking lately, anyway, since diesel is now $4.30 per gallon (!!!) here in Portland! We've cut back as a result... no more driving to the next-door neighbors house for us!) Any day now I'm expecting roving bands of pirates looking to steal gasoline and hearing about a Thunderdome set up just outside the city.

Anyway, with that story fresh in my mind, here I am at Taco Bell waiting for my usual order (soft taco, fresco-style; side of chips; pintos and cheese; and a large pop) when they call my number and they have a crunchy taco, pintos and cheese, and a side of Spanish rice. I pointed out the error and the woman took the wrong items (which hadn't been even opened at this point) and THREW THEM IN THE TRASH! People are literally DYING from not being able to buy food at the same time that people throw perfectly good food away. (Although in my defense, it really wasn't what I ordered.)

Gentle encouragement

This morning reading a daddy blog (Daddy Types), I almost choked laughing reading the following post:

All your kid talks about is butterflies? Fine. Just run with it. They're just dinosaurs for girls. With the Butterflies of the World poster, your kid'll be the best damn lepidopterist this side of Vladimir Nabokov.

Rainbows? All you hear is rainbows? You can go the optical science route, sure, or hustle the kids off to MoMA & PS1 next weekend for the opening of Olafur Eliasson's show. I'm sure there'll be rainbows out the wazoo.

Now for the cream...
You say your kid's got a bad case of the unicorns and faeries? I'm sure it's nothing a few unsupervised screenings of Ridley Scott's Legend can't fix.

Ain't THAT the truth. I'm an adult and that show freaked me out! Shudder.

Anyway, I had to tell our friend Twink (who has a daughter in the danger zone of such things) and Margaret and both of them said the EXACT same thing, "Well what do you show them to cure them of a bad case of the princesses?"

Well? Weigh in, internets. What movie can traumatize the princess urge out of little girls?

Huh?

I guess I REALLY don't know what a newborn baby looks like. And doesn't that just ruin your appetite for a Gordito Burrito from Taco Bell?

Sorry about the lack of blog posts. Our remodel is winding to a close. (The carpet was installed on Friday!!!) I spent yesterday assembling a crib that I had to repair somewhat, as the bars had a pesky habit of falling apart. THAT needed to get addressed, as I absolutely HATE it when my baby's crib collapses on her when she's in it! (And I'm sure she wouldn't be a fan of it, either!) I tested it by getting in it myself, and despite Margaret's estimates at how much the baby weighs, I'm SURE that I weigh more than twenty times the baby.