Quote of the day

Brendan: "Can we watch a movie in the car?"

Erin: "No, we don't need to watch a movie. Let's just talk."

Brendan: "That's so 1990's."

I'm sure Ringo Starr never had this problem

I have a love-hate relationship with Silly Putty. It fascinates me from a science/chemistry standpoint and is a great stress-reliever at times. I even have a Silly Putty egg in my top desk drawer at work, and often will stretch and pull the stuff while I'm on the phone. But the kids know that one of my biggest pet peeves is finding empty Silly Putty containers around the house, because an empty Silly Putty container means that somewhere else in the house there's Silly Putty stuck to something. (I hold the same disdain for magic marker caps for much the same reasoning.)

Molly's been playing around with Silly Putty lately, and fortunately gets it back into its ovoid home most of the time. Unfortunately last night, she was thwarted in her attempts to put away the Silly Putty properly as it had become adherent to the surface she had smoothed it out on- the rubber-coated drum head of the Guitar Hero drum controller. To her credit, she came to report the situation right away, but in a somewhat comical exchange, was pointing to the family room because she couldn't get the words out to explain what had happened. (This condition, which I refer to as "Fonzi's palsy"- named so because of Arthur Fonzarelli's inability to say the words "I'm sorry"- is quite common in the preschool population.)

It was clear immediately that the Silly Putty was not going to be removed easily. Cooling it with an ice pack for 20 minutes or so made it a little less pliable, but still didn't get it to chip off as I hoped it might. So I sat down, and for the next 60 minutes or so, slowly scraped away pieces of Silly Putty with a razor blade until only a stain remained.

Molly was happy to see that she hadn't caused any permanent damage, and didn't bat an eye when I told her I was throwing the Silly Putty away. Hopefully any further attempts at Silly Putty play will involve just the Sunday Comics.

Housekeeping issues

I realize my pace of one post every few weeks has dropped readership to an all-time low, but after finally getting some spam-type comments, I'm having to beef up security around here just a little. You'll notice now that if you do choose to comment on a post, you'll have to enter a security word first before your comment can be posted. As for now, the comments aren't being moderated, so play nice.

Hopefully you'll see some more posts coming up in the next few weeks. I'm hoping to get back to about a twice weekly schedule by late December so as to keep the traffic from the post-Christmas letter bounce. But you're here now, which makes you special. You were always my favorite anyway.

The Punt of Red October

Now that Satan's Series has begun, I should have plenty of time to catch up with the ol' blog here. Take a minute or two to read the great post that I linked to above- it's from one of the best Mets blogs out there, and puts into words just how most of us who bleed blue and orange are feeling right now.

There is no way I can root for either team in this series. The lesser of the evils may be the Yankees, but only because of the fact that I now live in the Den of Iniquity (otherwise known as the greater Philadelphia area). Yankee fans may be annoying and self-righteous, but Phillies fans are downright insufferable. God forbid the Phils win this year and become back-to-back champions- the city will demand that Congress return to Philadelphia after over 200 years and proclaim it the capital of the United States of Philmerica.

But there's no way I can root for the Yankees either, not with their $200M payroll and their Bronx attitude and their claims of ownership to October, as if they were some baseball team emeritus who get to come back and play in the World Series whenever they damn well please. Not to mention the grief I'd get from Yankee fans for rooting for their team, proving in some way that my team wasn't worth rooting for in the first place.

No, there is no team to root for. I'll root against both teams, pray for rain every night, pray for more horrible umpiring that will surely make the loud, annoying fans of each team more loud and annoying, pray for snowstorms and bug swarms and all the plagues that have corrupted World Series past. And I'll pray for February 15 to come soon, so pitchers and catchers can report to spring training and redemption can begin.

Off to the races

The big weekend has finally arrived- heading out in the morning to Chicago for the marathon. Weather doesn't look stellar, but it seems like they've taken the rain out of the forecast so it'll only be the cold to deal with. Amazing to think that last year's race was run at 85 degrees, and this year will struggle to break the 50 degree mark.

Wish us luck- I think we're ready. If not, we'll be the youngest people riding those annoying motor carts in the airport on our trip home Monday.

Wicked good weekend in Bah Hahbah

Had a blast this past weekend in Bar Harbor, ME celebrating the nuptials of Nappi and his new bride Christine. Nappi, as you may know, was the best man at our wedding, and has been saving himself for all these years for the perfect woman. By all accounts he has succeeded, finding someone who matches him in wit and charm (though is certainly better looking).

The weekend was fantastic- great times with old friends, beautiful fall weather and enough wine and spirits to bring out the breakdancers in a bunch of old farts like us.

Mazel tov, dear friend, and thanks for a great party.

Cakes + Snarks = Fun!

Got a new favorite blog- Cake Wrecks. Don't remember how I came across it, but it's one of my daily stops on the interwebs now. Photos of unintentionally hilarious cakes, all done by so-called professionals (many of which seem to be from supermarket bakeries), and hilarious comments from the blog's author, one Jen Yates.

Definitely worth trolling the archives for some of the classics, like the Olympic Rings cake, the Fireman cake, and the iconic Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys cake.