Recommendations

Hey, you guys remember Deadwood? The show from HBO? Know what I'm talkin' about? Apparently the guy who plays Seth Bullock is in a new show called Justified. Adam told me about this while we were out having beers for the old bastard's 30th birthday, and I'm going to watch this as soon as humanly possible. It sounds splendid.

Sweet baby Jesus... Deadwood was an awesome, awesome show. If you haven't seen it, check it out immediately. Then thank me. I appreciate being thanked. That's why I'm a teacher (pfft).

Anyway, here's more footage of my kids doin' stuff.

Slainte.

- Brian

A Love/Hate Relationship with Potty Power

I like to credit myself with having impeccable taste when it comes to most things. I also like to assume that if the world thought the same way about most things as I do, it'd be an overall better place to live.

Perhaps you scoff.

Regardless, my taste in 'what's watchable' is generally accepted by others as 'legit,' or 'right on the money.' Hence, you readers out there in cyberspace should lend an ear (preferably two) to what I'm about to tell you:

Potty Power is a soul-crushing, twenty minutes of pure hell.

Like I said before, it just may be the worst twenty two minutes you could spend in front of a television. Then again, I could never bring myself to watch more than three minutes of Glee without wanting to gash my own wrists apart, so I could be wrong there.

The production value of this children's instructional DVD is somewhere around the local, community college audio/video department's daily operating budget. In fact, I'm pretty sure Potty Power was produced by some sophomore for his midterm film assignment.

If so, he probably got a 'C,' with 'Do you have a soul?!' slathered across the top of his attached paper in bright, red Sharpie.

But let's get back to why I'm talking about this horrible, horrible program in the first place. There's a reason why I've been watching this DVD every day for the last few weeks: Alayna has been on the verge of using a toilet (instead of her pants) for the last few months, and we've driven ourselves mad trying various strategies to help drive the concept of 'its better to pee in a sanitary receptacle instead of in your drawers' home.

Potty Power, as it turns out, is the Holy Grail of potty training:





As much as I hate to admit it, the shit works. And it works really, really good. The Cannonball voluntarily uses the bathroom whenever she has to go, without asking or announcing (unless she's outside of the home), and only wears a diaper now if she's going to bed at night. That's it. After months and months of random techniques, tricks, bribes, rewards, peer pressure, and perhaps even a little degree of condescension (I get annoyed with kids crapping their pants, what can I say), Potty Power ends up being the end-all, be-all in potty training.

I hate to endorse something so horrifying, but, if you're a parent and you're willing to subject yourself to twenty two minutes of pure hell on a daily basis for a couple weeks, you'll have a potty-trained toddler. You can purchase it via Amazon here.

Trust me. I'm awesome.

- Brian

Goats and Amber

Howdy.

So recently we met up with the Voigts at Disney's Animal Kingdom. That's how the Houghs get down on a weekend. No nightclubs, no fancy dinner outings for us. Theme parks. With a double stroller.


That's how we roll.

By no means a new experience for us, but it marked the first time that we took our time with the girls at that particular theme park. Usually, we rush around in order to hit up the major rides, have a hurried lunch, throw back a beer (if I'm lucky), and hit the road. This time around, we passed up the main attractions (like the African Safari, the Mt. Everest roller coaster, etc.) for the smaller ones, and were able to walk around more with the kids.

A little more low key, but we were able to stretch the day out to last from the park's opening 'til its close.

For those of you who have never been there - of have no idea whatsoever of what I'm talking about - the whole facility is more or less a glorified zoo. It really is. It's a zoo divided up into varying themes (Africa, Asia, Dinosaurs, Livestock, etc.), and Disney - as many of you are aware of, I'm sure - devotes a lot of time paying close attention to even the minutest of details when decorating their theme parks.


The decor and layout of the 'Africa' section of the park, especially, impresses me whenever we go there.


Having myself spent a few years in that neck of the woods (observe), I like to think that I have some small degree of authority on the subject.

The Africa of Disney's Animal Kingdom is definitely modeled more after the more 'popular' regions of Africa, though - Eastern and Southern Africa. Those areas have lots of exotic animals, lots of beautiful scenery, and lots of movies that have been filmed there.

Not so much West Africa, where Yours Truly ruled over a small, Dagomba village with an iron fist.

All Animal Kingdom's Africa is missing is gutters flowing with human waste, running up and down the thoroughfare, as well as livestock wandering about the streets, vendors trying to overcharge white people, and the occasional sound of machine gun fire.

That might not be in Disney's best interest, though.

Anyway, this whole adventure of ours started off as quite the G-rated affair - visits with cast members dressed up in giant animal costumes, a rather-uneventful lunch feeding with the kids (and that's saying something), etc. It was most certainly without peril.

There was an ordering dilemma at one of the kiosks in the afternoon, however, and - through a series of events that I had little control over - I got stuck double-fisting pints of Safari Amber for the majority of the early afternoon. Out in the Florida sun. That ended up really kicking my ass.

Now, when you're in college, or around others doing the same sort of thing, that's fine. It's not so sweet when you're pushing a stroller with two kids, and are the only adult in such a state.

Not at all.

This time around, we ended up trying out a few different parts of the park that we hadn't previously, such as the petting zoo area. I forget what that was called, but it was essentially filled with livestock - goats, donkeys, cows, pigs, sheep, tourists. It smelled like Sankpala, but at least those flea bags were behind bars and not crapping all over my front porch.

I truly, truly despise goats.

A good majority of the evening - once I had sobered up somewhat from all that Amber, and after the Voigts had bid us all farewell - was spent in DinoLand.

Besides the carnival-esque rides and what not, there was this Excavation Play Area (whatever the hell it's called). More or less a giant slide zone for kids to run around in. We had never gone in there before, so we figured we'd give it a shot.


Not much there for adults to check out, and Abby was by no means having the time of her life, but the Cannonball loved it. That chick loves slides.


Anyway, pictures speaker louder than words, so here's a ton of 'em for you to marvel at (not in order, as I'm not about to waste a shit-ton more time uploading these in chronological order). Knock yourselves out.


Until next time, kids...

- Brian

Mongo and the Cannonball: Updates

Time for some random kid updates, folks.

Alayna's somehow turning into a scholar these days - since she's been enrolled in that mega-academic preschool of hers, she's excelling at tracing, reading letters, writing, and drawing/coloring. And while potty training itself isn't necessarily her 'cup of tea,' if you will, she does seem to enjoy watching Potty Power - a potty training video that is quite possibly the worst 20 minutes one could possibly spend in front of a television.

We're hoping the hellish agony pays off in the long run. Cross your fingers.

Abby can't do any of the aforementioned tasks that her older sister can. She can pull herself up and stand for long, wobbly periods of time, sure, but she's still bald. Hair's not very popular with either of our kids. Abby will, however, mow down anything you put in front of her. Liquids, solids, inedible plastic or metal objects of various size and shape - whatever. She's a big fan of eating. This is good seeing how the Cannonball is content eating three or four peas. I like to think the two balance each other out in the long run.

So... to warm your hearts or bore you to tears, here's some more footage from around our house.

Enjoy...

Apples for All!

If it's one thing that pisses me off, it's a computer that's outlived its usefulness.


Kris' old G4 Mac has been around since '03, and, in computer years, that makes it sorta like Dick Clark. Only, unlike Dick Clark, its fall from glory hasn't been so absolutely horrifying. At first, it merely took longer to launch iTunes. Then, it had to really think about how to open iTunes. Then, you couldn't have any other applications open while opening up iTunes. And finally, the computer would get frozen just trying to open iTunes.

There was only one way to take care of this Dick Clark-ish computer: we had to get it a flashy, young Ryan Seacrest computer to help it along as it faded from our daily lives.



...and that's exactly what we did.

Being the mega-nerd that I am, I nabbed an iMac from the Apple store and was able to transfer all of Kris' old files and programs off her previous dinosaur computer and hook up the new iMac in an evening (excluding her iPhoto and iTunes libraries, which took all the next day due to their size). Personally, I would think that receiving a flashy, new computer - and having your husband set the entire, damn thing up for you - would be more than enough to make any woman as happy as can be.

But Kris?

"Wait... there's no number pad on the keyboard?"

Seriously?!

I didn't think anyone outside accountants even used the number pad on a keyboard anymore. Evidently my wife is an accountant. Despite the fact that the enclosed iMac keyboard was a.) incredibly small and thin, b.) a $60 value, and c.) f****n' wireless, she really, really missed those 10 or so keys that make up the standard number pad.


So, being the heroic husband that I am, I went back into the Apple store in hopes of exchanging the wireless, number pad-less model with the one she preferred. Of course, the tech folk at Apple gave me a hard time about it (despite the fact I was in the store less than 24 hours prior, dropping $1400), but after I rose all sorts of hell in their store, and refused to cede an inch in my quest, I ended up obtaining the desired keyboard.

In addition, because I'm such a pain in the ass, I ended up keeping the original, wireless version as well. For free.

Huzzah.

So now Kris has her ultimate set-up. Hooray for her, hooray for our Ryan Seacrest computer. But what about Dick Clark? What happens to her old, reliable computer that saw her through seven or eight years of emailing, budgeting, picture management, and jam loving?

We gave it to the kids. Observe:


Yes, I swiped most of the unneeded apps and erased all of her previous files off the harddrive, renamed the primary user, installed a few new kid-appropriate programs, imported a ton of children's music and nature sounds, and - voila! - the girls have a new entertainment system in their bedroom.

I'm awesome.

...yet, some of you may be saying to yourselves, "Well, Kris got a new iMac, and the girls got a new stereo/DVD player/internet browser for their room... what about Brian? What the hell about Brian?!"

I hear you. And I took care of it.

The good thing about dropping $1200 on your spouse is that you can get away with spending $100 on yourself and there's really not a whole hell of a lot she can say about it. With my $100, I bought us the Apple TV.

Now, from the comfort of our living room furniture (which may be the next household item replaced, at the rate our children wage war upon it), we can browse both Kristina's iTunes library as well as my own, as well as view our iPhoto libraries, movies and podcasts, as well as stream YouTube, TV shows, and cinema. For $100, I'd say it's a steal.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go high-five myself in the mirror.

Awesome,

Brian

Superbowl XLV, feat. the Grandparents

Every few months, as you guys already know, we're fortunate enough to have one of our parental sets fly down here to visit.

There used to be some sort of half hearted, contrived attempt at assuring Kris and I that they were visiting us as well as their grandkids... but more or less everybody's now moved beyond this farce. Before Kris popped out the Cannonball, we saw our folks maybe once a year. Maybe. Now, we're importing grandparents every two months.

That's the way it works.

Anyway, this time around, my mom and John came down for a four day weekend. A shorter visit than the one they're planning in June, but enough for them to get their granddaughter fix for the time being.

We had no real plans for the weekend apart from watching the Superbowl on Sunday, as John's a football enthusiast. In the past, with Kris and I, the Superbowl is usually the sort of thing that is played in the background as we're doing something else, as neither one of us is big into sports unless a home team is involved.

Last time I checked, the Lions weren't in this year's Superbowl.

Football aside, we managed to go out to Downtown Disney for an afternoon and allow the parentals to enjoy the harsh Floridian winter (Michigan, as I'm told, is somewhat colder than Florida, so they seemed fine with our weather). This was me and Kris' first time hitting up the ol' stomping ground in a long time, and it turns out the whole joint is getting a face-lift. That whole Pleasure Island section in the middle is being retooled into something more family-oriented.

I guess Disney figured cute, animated animals and drunk chicks doing tequila shots out of one another's belly buttons didn't necessarily 'mesh' well. Who knew.

Anyway, it was a nice visit - shorter than we'd like, but we'll take whatever we can get. Enjoy the pictures, folks...

- Brian