Important Update
It's been a long time since I've updated this blog. But something came up that was important enough to bring me out of hiding.

I have a difficult decision to make on the horizon, and one of the best descriptions I've heard on extroverts is that we draw energy from discussing things with others. On one hand, I think I know what needs to be done. However, the more I talk things through, the more secure I am in an unsecure state.

To move on from preamble, the situation is this: We have some great neighbors. But we also have some terrible neighbors that have been making our lives difficult. Until recently, we've turned the other cheek. But it's gotten worse. The people who already lived here were bad enough, but there's constantly new people moving in. In one case, I'm not sure if they just moved in, or have started hanging around, but the other day, a couple of guys were up to no good and started making trouble in the neighborhood. I got in one little fight and Marie got scared. She said 'You're movin' with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air'.

*****?

*****?

For some people, you're probably thinking, what? Did he just bust out "Fresh Prince" lyrics? If you're a nerd like me, you may have heard of goofy internet pranks like Rickrolling or the Bel-Air schtick. In the case of Bel-Air thing, the goal is to get someone engrossed in something you are saying, only to end by saying that you're moving with your auntie and uncle in Bel Air. It's purely to waste their time, and some people have written massive emails/posts/whatever that is all just a prelude to nonsense.

In the case of Rickrolling, which might be even funnier, you post or send a link that appears to be related to whatever you are talking about, but is in fact a link to Rick Astley singing "Never going to give you up." It's happened to me several times and I still think it's pretty hilarious.

These internet pranks have been around for a few years and have been further evolving. After the third time I had stumbled into one of these things, I had to look it up on online to find out more about it. You can get a more detailed background at wikipedia here. It's a pretty funny read if you want to check it out here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/internetmemes.

Two Lonely Men Behind Enemy Lines

Throwing the Gauntlet (at my wife)

Awhile back, we bought a Flip mini camcorder. It didn't have tons of bells and whistles, but the claim to fame was ease of use.

So far we've taken a video here and there, but that's about it. Well, today I was giving my wife a hard time about it, and she decided to bust the Flip out on me right then and there. But her excuse for not using it is "You need to show me how."

I don't know how to use it either!!

For some reason, even though we can't do laundry or remember our wives' 19 step instructions for taking care of the house when they leave (I generally remember the first 3, then nod my head mutely for #4 - 19) - and even though we're not trusted to buy groceries lest we get the green box instead of the blue, for some reason when it comes to technology we're supposed to be idiot savants while our wives throw up their hands.

So, in retaliation, I took 10 minutes, and I DID figure out the Flip. I figured it out, and I posted Marie's video of us talking about the Flip. But I'm not going to tell her how. I'm going to force her to learn on her own. And let's see how long it takes her to get a video up on her blog. Until she does, she must acknowledge that my blog (with it's moving pictures and sounds) is better!!

So without further ado, here's me and my embarrassingly big, fat head talking about which of the kitchen appliances the Flip reminds me of since it's never being used.

Enjoy - and tease Marie until she gets her own videos going.

Came across this password protection while trying to download a client for Open Office for the MAC.

Is it me, or is this too much security? Take a guess at what the correct response is. Btw, it looked just as grainy on the initial site as it looks in this picture.









Can you guess the right response? I'll post a response in a couple days with the correct answer.

AAAGHH!

Surfing the internet, this add was a banner at the top of a webpage. It scared me so bad I had to turn all the lights on.

Once my confidence returned, I decided that this might be the best wrinkle cream ever.







Oh, and by the way, I rarely blog, but have added two posts today just in case you miss the one below.

Ferdous from Belgium

While sitting at my desk working, I switched over to check my email, and saw that someone was trying to skype with me. Here's a transcript of the conversation.

Day#2 A Charlie Pictorial


Little Charlie Fuzzhead
Right after his first bath, chillin' in the warming bed. Charlie - this isn't indicative of Ohio weather, buddy. You'll need to wear a shirt.












Charlie Bucket
Well it's more of a bowl. A blue bowl of water, but I liked the reference. I like to pretend that this is his impression of James Brown, complete with microphone hand, and that he's shouting "Mercy!" with horns in the background.


















Little Charles Wethead
You thinking what I'm thinking? Mr. Magoo without glasses? No - that's not what I was thinking, at all. That's terrible. I was thinking this kid knows how to rock a sink.












Charlimus Aurelious Lizardfeet III
His feet look like the cracked steppes of the mojave. But we have lotion. This is a picture of me teaching him a couple dance moves that might come in handy when he meets girls.












Charlie Brighteyes
Checking out nonnie. Happy as a clam with eyes wide open.


















Charlie Smiggles
Getting kissed by mama on the forehead. We call Lily "Pickle" or "Pick" for short (at least I do). This kid might be more of a turnip. Perhaps a radish. Until I decide, I think I'll call him Smiggles. Is that a happy mama, or what?







Little Lily Sistobe
In all this ruckus, I can't forget my first baby. Here she is waiting anxiously for mama and daddy to come home with "Brudder Charlie". Love you pick. See you soon!

My son is here!

His name is Charles Oscar "Thor" Taylor, but his friends call him Charlie. Attached is a photo using digital chronology to show you what he'll look like around age 10.

As for the origins of his name, Marie was always touched that her mother wanted to name her children Charles after her father, but unfortunately, had no boys to bestow that name. She also loved the name Oscar, and for awhile we thought that might be the winner. But when Marie found out that my great grandfather from Sweden was named Charles Oscar, it was fate. Great Grandpa Charlie Johnson immigrated to Kansas City and built a house that is still owned by the family - and little Charlie will certainly visit there someday soon. With a great grandfather on one side and a great great grandfather on the other, we expect that Charlie will be... great!

As for vital stats:
Charlimus Aurelious was born at 12:14pm, and weighed in at 7lbs 13oz of pure manliness.

Little Charlie is 19" long and has a fuzzy little head. He's not quite as hairy as Lily was - she was a werewolf compared to him. However, I know Charlemagne is just biding his time, waiting for his chest hair to grow in.

Also unlike Lillimus, his eyes are open quite a bit, and he's looking around to see who's talking. In short, he's 100% undiluted awesome.

Also, he has no teeth.

We're in love with him, and once Marie heals up from having all her parts rearranged, it's party time at the Taylors'.

One word of caution: He doesn't like to be called Chuck.

Wingdings

Why does this font even exist? I mean really? Sometimes I feel the need to express myself and I think words are good, but not just words alone... Body language won't help. Italics? Shouting?

No... Fonts. That's what I need. And then goes the search. Lucida Grande? Verdana? Hmm... nice, but not quite. That slight squiggle on the lower case "f" just doesn't quite capture the pathos in my soul right now.

Trebuchet? Courier? Argh! Why isnt' there a font that can look into my soul and match the passion of my thoughts to pixelized letters, bent just right? Well, eventually I get to Wingdings, and sometimes I forget what it is. Two seconds later I think, "Um... no. Unless I'm emailing one of those little robots that vacuums the carpet to tell him that he missed a spot near the door, this has to be the dumbest way to express myself."

But in the interest of fontal equality, I'm going to tell a joke in Wingdings. Bonus points (absolutely no value anywhere) for anyone who spends the time trying to translate.

What do you call a fish with no eyes?

Fsh

I'll leave this post with some modern day philosophy. (In Arial).
1) I think we should replace "If a tree crashed in the woods, and no one was there to hear it, would it make a sound?" with "If you misspelled a word in Wingdings, and no one could possibly read it, would spellcheck let you know?"

2) The Wingdings equivalent for a lower case letter S is: "s" The Wingings equivalent to a Question Mark is: "?".

WHY??????

Two random thoughts-

1) New Blogimus Look! Same great Blogimus taste!! I'm tired of fighting with my pictures to get in line. I'm hoping a wider format makes it easier. I just can't handle posting something without pictures.**

2) I wish I could put my posts in time released capsules. I get creative once in awhile, and then Blogimus comes alive for a few days, or sometimes weeks. Then it hibernates for awhile. Rather than post 17 times in 2 days, I should find a way to spread them out over the "lean months".

**Note there are no pictures attached to this post, even though I'm proclaiming the necessity for pictures. Hypocrite.

Alright, so there's 2 random thoughts and a footnote. Keep the change.

The proliferation of gaming in everyday society-

Before I get underway, I have to say Marie and Lily got home well last night and I'm so completely happy to have them home. I rolled around on the floor all day with Lily and gave Marie a kiss everytime she came within 4 feet.

Now, onto a rare Blogimus Rex update...

Disclaimer- this may resonate more with the guys than it does with the girls, but even if this isn't your thing, at least jump down to the end of the post for a surprise ending.

I admit that I like video games. When I was in the vicinity of 6 years old my parents bought me a Colecovision for Christmas with one game- "The Smurfs". A few years later it was Keystone Coppers on the Atari, then I delivered phone books one weekend with my grandma so I could scrape up enough money to buy a Sega Mastersystem, replete with Duckhunt.

My Uncle Bill felt that his Nintendo was destroying his social life, so he donated it to the cause in the early 90's. Double Dribble, Double Dragon, Baseball Stars and the best game ever made... Tecmobowl rocked our world.

We still played basketball, soccer and baseball outside when the weather was nice, but we were growing up alongside videogames, amazed at the graphics of each new system. Super Nintendo had 16 amazing bits. I was about 16 years old at the time, one bit for each year of my life and it was all I ever needed. Zelda on the SNES rocked my world solo style, and Mario Kart rocked my world, and several of my friends worlds simultaneously. Then we hit Nintendo 64 and got upgrades to Zelda and Mariokart and a Gauntlet game. For the first time, Marie joined in the fray and for a short time we had 4 player madness at our house in Springfield. I thought she'd be down with the princess, but she's always had a thing for a green dinosaur named Yoshi.

Now I'm still fascinated as the colors get brighter and faster, but the controllers have so many buttons on them now that it feels like I need to be a trained air traffic controller to wield them. I used to be hot stuff with 2 buttons and a directional pad. I mean c'mon, I still remember that to get unlimited lives in Contra you have to press up, down, up, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Select, Start. But within the last year, I played Halo online at a friend's house and I felt like an Amish guy while 12 year olds were rerouting the space shuttle's flight path to land on route 8. These games have headsets and microphone voice chat now, so I could hear a little girl laughing at me while they tore me to pieces. I thought, "man, can't believe I lost to a little girl." but then I realized it was just some kid that hadn't even reached puberty.

That said, games will always have a place in my heart, and the "gamer demographic" has changed dramatically. The average aged gamer, taking the adults and kids into consideration, is now like 37 years old. There are Harvard professors addicted to games like World of Warcraft and who write about the genius of the virtual economy it creates. (Not that this helps my argument, but there's also support sites for those same people who are addicted- not tongue in cheek, but real support sites).

But if that wasn't enough, I now submit to my audience the following: Blogger.com, the blogging capital for millions of bloggers, has on their home page the following message. Pay attention to the last sentence:

"Old Blogger is dead! Long live Blogger!

Today at Blogger HQ we accomplished one of our most significant milestones ever: we changed old Blogger’s monitoring from “page us when it goes down” to “page us if it comes back to life in a horrifying, zombie state.”

Most of you probably haven’t noticed, since you’ve been happily (we hope) using new Blogger for several weeks or months now. But we’re excited to be done with it, since now we can focus 100% on the new Blogger and all we want to add to it.

While old Blogger totters off to realize its dream of getting to level 70 in the Burning Crusade, let’s take some time to remember what it took to replace the old Blogger with the new."

Burning Crusade? Level 70? Yep. A direct reference to the World of Warcraft. Just think, while the good people at Blogger.com are adding new ways to post pictures and stay connected to the real world, their minds are drifting off to a fake one where they can beat up dragons for fake loot.





The End