I'm on a kick with the beading lately, using pretty much all of Stellan's naptimes to play some more. I should probably slow down, as I'm neglecting other tasks that need doing. But I'm having fun, and it's been a while ( Read more... )

The iTunes visualizer is spectacularly good at soothing a sick, cranky baby.

I'd always wondered what it was for. But man, on the "jelly" setting, with some James Taylor, suddenly the kid who'd been crying and fussing all day was content to sit on my lap for 30 minutes, just watching the pretty colors.

Thank you, good folks at Apple.

I wonder how long it's going to take for it to really sink in that we just elected a mixed-race, dark-skinned man with an African name, Muslim father, teenage mother, lower-middle-class background, sharp intellect, and liberal voting record to be our next president. That America is a place where that can really truly happen, that the election wasn ( Read more... )

It's probably good that baby monitors don't have snooze buttons, but still, there are mornings when I wish for one anyway.

If it's not one preoccupation, it's the other:

I've been checking the electoral projections at fivethirtyeight.com at least once a day for the last many weeks (that is, the days that I've made it to my computer at all), to try to keep myself reassured that Obama's got a very good chance of becoming the next president. The daily poll tracking has ( Read more... )

Just so we're clear, that's me wailing, not a baby. No baby to speak of yet ( Read more... )

I feel embarrassingly clueless asking this, but ( Read more... )

Okay, first off, I have to say a few HUZZAHs, because huzzah! We have a working satellite again! And I know, I owe comments to a few of you. But for right now, my Very Important Query ( Read more... )

1) I just saw what may be my favorite creatively-misspelled spam subject line ever:
      "Haven't you always wanted a big duck?"I have to say, I hadn't really thought about it before. But now that they've asked, why YES! I *do* want a big duck! Where do I sign up ( Read more... )

Today's NYTimes contains the best headline ever:

"Monkeys Control a Robot Arm With Their Thoughts"I don't even want to read the article, because it can only be disappointing after a set-up like this. Because they're going to tell me that it was monkeys in a lab, who were hooked up to some kind of sensitive equipment, and yes, that's impressive ( Read more... )