So, I turned 40 on Friday, I had a party on Saturday. (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

The party was awesome, and there are pictures of it here taken with takayla's camera by gyspy_sylvin. I had a great time! I think we topped off at 35 people.

I want to thank takayla for all her hard work, from planning, to coordinating, to writing the whole murder mystery. I love you VERY much! I want to thank a lot of my guests who helped out, including tth, Chris R, and Chris... another last name (you know, MSD)... who worked the kitchen. I'd like to thank ironkite for working on my back with the same skill as he did on my door. Thanks to those that stayed behind and helped clean up, too. That helped so much, I hate waking up at noon the next day and having to clean up alone.

I Twittered during most of it. The costumes were awesome. stodgycat went through like 3 costume changes.

I... can't thank you all enough for coming. Really. I am truly blessed with the best friends anyone could ever ask for. Posted in: 40 , 40th , birthday , party

Happy birthday, Porter!! (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

My best four-legged friend turned four on Monday. Actually, I have no idea when he turns four exactly, just sometime around now. Here are some important snapshots from Porter’s life. Warning! Lots of pictures :) Year 1 My little guy in action mode. First Christmas. Year 2 Rosie moves in, everything is ruined ;) I was glad there was another [...] Posted in: birthday , dogs , porter

99 red balloons …. (Gibberish is my native language (DrFaulken)) by drfaulken

More like almost 150 ones of varying color and shape. My co-worker and good friend jammed my entire cube full of them while I was out for my birthday yesterday: Posted in: balloons , birthday , gibberish

bi-monthly update (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

I’m nothing if not consistent about not being consistent. With the annual camping trip, new geek gadget, and now Vacation Bible School at church, blogging’s been the last thing on my mind. Actually, that’s not true. There have been several instances when I’ve thought about it, but have been too lazy to follow through with it :P

This was probably the best year so far for our camping trip - six families from church, kids that all got along, perfect weather, and plenty of food. It took a little longer than usual to get completely set up due to one of our sites being occupied until 2:30 (checkout is 2:00), but by the time we were all situated I was definitely ready to slip into camping mode. Friday was (mostly) a chill out and do whatever kind of day, with the entire group going down to the amusement park after dinner. After a Saturday morning session of laser tag for half the group, everybody headed over to the pool. I was perfectly content to just relax in the water, but the husband had fun dunking all the teenagers (who still think they can sink him) and generally acting like, well.. a kid in a pool :P The plan was to stay around for most of Sunday, too, but we ended up heading out around noon. Overall, it was one of the better group vacations I’ve ever been on.

I say Friday was mostly a chill out day because the Friday we were gone was also iPhone 3G release day. The husband was nice enough to be dragged away from the campsite before 7am so I could go park myself in line. Truth be told, the wait wasn’t nearly as horrendous as I expected. The campground is in a tiny town, so there just weren’t many people around - probably 20 people in line, total. It took longer than it should have because of all the activation issues that have been written about time and time again, but at least the store employees were nice about everything and came outside to talk to us every now and again. At some point they decided that they were going to stop activating in store, so I ended up leaving with a totally non-functional phone and was completely disconnected for the rest of the weekend. Kinda nice, actually.

Yesterday was the husband’s birthday, which we will celebrate once VBS week is over. I don’t know how we did it last year without the week-long break between camping and VBS. It’s only Wednesday and I’m already tired :P At least with this year’s Western/Cowboy theme, I don’t get picked on for saying “y’all” all the time. Now if only I could get them to learn that the plural form is “all y’all”…

Posted in: birthday , family & friends , tech , travel

Impromptu birthday gatherings: nothing wrong with that! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Yesterday was a rather nice and new approach to my birthday gathering. It used to be that we invited the whole bunch to come 'round at the same time as seems to be the tradition in the Netherlands. Family and friends, all together at the same time in the same house.

This time around though, we hadn't planned anything real for my birthday; we were actually planning on either ignoring it or postponing it for a few weeks. Our family had other plans though, so a few folks invited themselves ^_^ Since things were underway anyway, I just told the others to come when it suited them. So instead of having a house chockfull of guests, we now had a stream of people taking turns. That was actually quite nice! :)

It gave us the time to have a chat with Menno and his new girlfriend. It gave us the time to talk the whole baby-deal over with my and Marli's parents. We were able to discuss some important stuff with Marli's brother and I was able to finish off the evening with a showing of Clerks II with some of my good friends.

Thanks everyone! We had a great day :)

Posted in: birthday , family , friends , gathering , impromptu

happy 4th birthday! (Never melts (meef)) by jen

(with apologies because from now on my pictures will blow out my layout but damnned if blogger's image upload isn't so friggin TEDIOUS can I get a fist pump??) So 4 years ago tonight T and I were eating macaroni and cheese and were very very late for my induction. We were supposed to be there at 6 or 6:30 and it WAS whatever time we were supposed to be there, and there we were, eating macaroni Posted in: birthday , l

birthdays (Never melts (meef)) by jen

A bunch of years ago I started a livej0urnal entry on my birthday, and so every year on my birthday I'd post about what I did, what I was thinking, or maybe the year in review or something, I don't remember. I remember reading them, and it was neat to have a marker in the same day of each year. But somewhere along the line I lost all those entries. I remember some odd birthdays though. Like the Posted in: birthday

lincoln? lincoln who? (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Happy Birthday Daddy :)

Posted in: birthday

Happy 4th Birthday! (Never melts (meef)) by jen

You thought I was talking about a kid, right? Not so. I'm talking about Ch3wie, whose name doesn't really have a 3 in it. My FIRST baby. I got him when I was many months pregnant with L and people thought I was nuts for getting a puppy, and I, um, don't think I could have stepped over that many gates while pregnant with J, that's for sure.



Today was his birthday and no one realized it till the end of the day. Poor dog had to go to the vet and get SHOTS on his BIRTHDAY! aww. But I gave him lots of love and even a Kong full of fake peanut butter. He even gave it back to me and nudged it, as if to say "more, please." Maybe tomorrow.



Plus, he got to go on a car ride, that's fun, right?

T was gone, so I called him on the phone while he was driving to tell him he forgot the puppy's birthday. he he. When he gets back we'll make him special treats. The dog, not T.

So today I went to a new vet, and as usual I'm second guessing myself. The new place is so nice. And so expensive. He got 3 shots, and the vet seemed to know what she was talking about regarding the issue of tracheal collapse that I asked her. C even obligingly honked at her while we were there. Unfortunately there's nothing she can really do, but the good news is it should be fine. If it gets worse, we can talk X rays and cameras on scopes. At least they knew what I meant, and didn't ask me "well what do you want me to do about it?" But I still feel bad, looking over the old paperwork! (note: I felt the same "well maybe they weren't that bad..." way when I ditched my old OB... so I'm nuts. Just so you know.) I also told the old vet's receptionist that I was just ditching them to go closer, but you know they are going to laugh at me when they realize where I went. Because the place I went is easily double the distance from my house.



Also looking back at his vet records, I awwwed at the fact that at his first appointment he was only 6.5 lbs!!! Today he was 13 lbs. Sigh. At one year, he was still only 11 lbs. Note: C is NOT overweight. He's just reallyreally big for a yorkie.

That's him on the left. Note keyboard for scale.


C looooves the beach. Even if I were to mention it RIGHT NOW in the dead of the winter, he'd be all excited and then I'd have to take him somewhere just to shut him up because he'd be pouncing on me and running to his crate every time I got up off this chair, until I took him somewhere.



ahhhh...


In other news, T took the kids to the Y this morning, leaving me alone with the baby. I don't remember the last time he did that, but it was nice. I did a LOT of cleaning in a small amount of time and just felt better by the time he got back. I've been going a little insane with cabin fever. It's been in the single digits.

I am in a cooking mood, so I'm going to cook a bunch of crap and freeze some of it. I wonder how waffles freeze... Posted in: birthday , chewie , children , random

05 dec 2007 (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Posted in: birthday

Happy birthday Peter! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Last night we got together with some friends to celebrate Peter's birthday, which was last week. It was nice to finally meet some people from Peter's WoW Guild.

As a present, we gave Peter a bottle of Drambuie, which is a whiskey-liquor with honey and various herbs. Opening the bottle immediately made me think of our Daro cough syrup :D While I usually loathe whiskey, I have to admit that I'm surprised that I actually -like- Drambuie!

Anywho: it was a great evening and made for a perfect distraction from my homework. ^_^

Posted in: birthday , drambuie , party , peter

Par-tay (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, my birthday party was this weekend.

It was a “Vicars and Tarts” party, which makes the third risque party theme I have held (previous ones have been Rocky Horror and Mardi Gras). Why do I do this? Anyway, while the guest list was supposed to be about 30, many people did not show by the end, and so I really had about 15 or so. But they were good, quality guests. I won’t tell you who they were, because some people may not want to admit it because it could affect future security clearance. But there was drinking. And boobage. No toplessness this time, so that makes the Mardi Gras the most risque party still, but this came close. Big on the bewbs. Two dildoes made their rounds. There was a Cardinal Rapture with some whores.

One of our guests had a permanent erection as part of his costume. Half the pictures took, I did not upload to Flickr. I still am debating on some I did put up there.

It became apparent that I screwed up the invitation list with Evite. Some people didn’t get invited like they should have, mostly because I didn’t have a current e-mail address for them. If you were not invited and think you should have been, it was definitely not a snub. It was a clerical error on my part. I profusely apologize.

That dominated my weekend: party prep, the party, cleanup, and crashing most of Sunday. Again, great thanks to those who came, stayed until 4am or later, and drained a lot of my remnant alcohol (the bottles less than half full). We downed so many bottles, our recycling tomorrow will look like a dumpster outside a bar. Posted in: birthday , party

It's all in the numbers (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I am 39 this week, which is 3 x 13. In hex it's 27, but that's misleading since it's not "twenty seven" but rather "two seven." The equivalent of decimal 27 is actually 1B in hex.

When my dad was 39, my mom was 37 (a prime number), and I was 8 (two cubed) in 1976, the bicentennial of the United States at 200 years since the Declaration of Independence. My father was working at a then fledgling PRC. He had already gotten a yacht and had a house in McLean by age 39. I have a nice house in Fairfax, but little other trinkets of wealth. In fact, I am more in debt than I am comfortable with. I am way ahead of him in the kid department; like him I only have one son, but he's 17.

24 years ago, I turned 15. My mother was rip roaring drunk. She put a cake in the oven and forgot to turn it on. When she realized her mistake, she turned the oven to 250, 100 degrees cooler than the instructions on the box. The cake did not so much bake as dried. This was fine, because she passed out and the cake was in the oven, I suspect, for over a day. When she woke up, she tried to put frosting on the cake, but failed because whatever she mixed to use frosting was green, smelled like stovetop cleaner, and sort of ran like syrup. "It's a dribble cake," my mother explained. In her drunken balance, she stabbed the dried cleaner cake with one oversized wax candle shaped like Daffy Duck, splitting the cake in 2 pieces. She then went to bed, and sang happy birthday three times to nobody in a dark bedroom, and forgot my name twice. I tossed the cake, fearing my dad might eat it and get poisoned (I may hate the guy, but don't wish death upon anybody). I will point out she made this cake 4 days before my actual party, and was sober enough on the date to make a better cake and invite a friend, stevonwolf over. This was the height of my mother getting drunk on holidays, birthdays, and other special occasions. Later this would turn into a general stoned grin like those on who overdose on Valium, without any specific target dates for drunkenness.

23 years ago, I turned 16. My father, whom I suspected thought I might be gay, gave me a nudie calendar with 12 months of tasteful nudes in a spiral-bound, 16 x 24 calendar. I had now officially been creeped out.

21 years ago, I turned 18. My father was 50. My mother was 48. She would not live to see her 49th. I spent my 18th birthday with my 4 best friends; I was incredibly bitter at my mother for various things, and there'd be no way in hell I'd spend it with my dad. I played D&D; on the last birthday my mom would be alive.

20 years ago, I turned 19. I was living with Bruce and Cheryl of FanTek, and helping them out at Philcon 51. Utterly depressed about my life, I vowed to forget my birthday, fearing failure and the crushing depression of celebrating my birthday alone. Bruce honored my request, and somehow, I actually forgot my birthday and was reminded I turned 19 the Sunday of the con, 1 day later, when Bruce stopped by the 2nd elevator and said, "Hey... didn't you turn 19 this weekend?" Score. The fact I successfully forgot my birthday gave me a reboot, the control I needed, and prevented further birthday trauma.

This year, my father is 70. He could have officially retired 5 years ago. He lives in a 1.2 million dollar condo on Mission Bay, in voting district 6. He has spoken to me 0 times (also 0 in hex) since 1999, when he moved away and didn't tell me where. Recently, I got a letter from a political group he and his wife attend: he claims to have 0 children. This makes me 50% sad. He has 1 grandchild. He has seen him 3 times in person. He will die alone (1).

The best thing I heard today was this:

Boss: I don't celebrate birthdays. It only reminds me I am one more year closer to death.
Coworker: But every day that's true, anyway. Why is your birthday any different? Posted in: birthday

I am out of trash bags (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

That makes me sad.

I don't remember who first told me this, but I suspect it was on one of Nancy's buttons:

"When you throw something away, where is 'away?'"

Febreze is one of those new products that I think about with this phrase. "Locks away odors," it will say. "Eliminates odors in the air, rather than just covering them up." Okay... so what happens to them, then? I decided to look it up. Wikipedia says:

"The product's active ingredient, cyclodextrin, is a type of modified starch having a shape similar to a donut. The molecule binds or entraps various hydrophobic compounds within the donut shape. In this way, malodorous molecules are retained so that they are no longer detected as a scent."

So the odors don't really "go away," they sort of mask the scent so we can't detect it, rather than overpower it with a stronger smell. Like putting that bad odor in a nice hat, or more like putting it in an attractive inner tube pool toy.

"That's not cat pee, that's ... er... happy fun lucky yellow ringu! KAWAII!"

I wonder if that would work on other things? This is where I need my readers. I want you to take any spare inflatable pool toys and put them all over things you don't like: hole in the drywall, ugly bush in the yard, a coworker. See if it makes it better, or any less noticeable.

I expect photos as evidence.

Come on, it's my birthday week! Chop chop! Posted in: birthday , cleaning , febreze , housework

:) (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Happy Birthday Mom :)

Posted in: birthday

it’s my party, and i’ll cry if i want to. (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

I really am turning 29 today. For the first time :P

Posted in: birthday

Saturday - Part 2: Stodgycat's Party (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I forgot how old he is, but he's sore about it, so I think... 50? 75? maybe even 80, that old fart. He's got like a bajillion kids, too. I was invited because they needed someone FAMOUS to attend, to get more draw.

Okay, enough with the ribs. Truth is, I was so tired when I got to his party, a lot of it was a blur. The night before, I babysat his kids, and I had some of the most amazing conversations with aksident until like 1am. I got to his party early and ended up helping clean as well (I did dusting and vacuuming). Then I went with stodgycat to pick up ninjacooter. We got food.

Then the party guests started to trickle in. There were a LOT of ex-AOL employees there. stodgycat said he pretty much emptied his address book. Many of them I hadn't seen for a long while. One of them was my former boss, "El Korbo," as we used to call him. He was a old-school computer geek (1970s tech) I think a fish out of water at AOL, but he's thriving as a photographer these days. I got him introduced to Anime conventions a while back, and now he's running Digital Cosplay. I hung out with the likes of Rich Anderson, Ray Catabay, Brian Symmes, Benu Bhargava, and even John Patterson was there.

But I was winding down fast. My feet hurt so bad, they were swelling. I got a ride back with moliarity and lohquesse, and had to leave during the cake part (I tried to take pictures, but my batteries died).

And spent Sunday sick. In fact, I am not well as a type this, and probably did not give the party a decent review that it deserved; I DID have a lot of fun, and want to thank stodgycat and cheesy_reads for having me. Posted in: aol , birthday , heares , party

a day to be girly, indeed. (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Happy birthday, Neaners! :)

Posted in: birthday

important things first. (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Happy birthday, Lal :) I’d have gotten you a sheep, but, well, I don’t think your hubby would ever allow me to step foot in your house if I’d have done that. So instead, you get an awful, glittery, cheesy “happy birthday” image :D

Posted in: birthday

Lego. You never outgrow it! (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Tomorrow's officially Marli's birthday. We celebrated it last Sunday with all of our friends and family, which was awesome. We also part-celebrated my birthday as well, though that was back in June. We got some absolutely lovely presents from everyone, so thankyouthankyouthankyou to everyone!

Our collective parents+partners pitched in together, to buy Marlijne the latest Harry Potter Lego castle. She's absolutely nuts about Harry Potter Lego, so there you go :) I have to say that it -is- a lovely boxset!

And one never outgrows Lego!



Posted in: birthday , harry potter , lego , marlijne

CR turns 17! (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

My son, who they thought wouldn't make it past the first week of his life, is now in bonus overtime at 884 weeks. He didn't want a big party, and so we had a bunch of kids over at Shadowland (Laser-tag like place). We ate cake and pizza. In attendance besides CR and us parents were cyaneyed, the Heares, three of CR's friends (who did NOT go to Otakon; we lost more of his friends due to Otakon), mysticpaws, anyarm, and Brian.

It ended at 9, where takayla went out with mysticpaws and Brad (who arrived late) to go out drinking. It was a success, everyone got drunk. I stayed home and worked on upgrading the house's networking from 100mb to 1gb. I also arranged my SETI array fairly nicely. I thought that was the end of my evening.

But no! No, I got invited at the VERY last moment to go out with anyarm and Brian to pick up his midnight copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." I had never been to a Harry Potter event; they always scared me because creepy people dressed as Hagrid among children make me queasy. My book arrives later today via FedEx and Amazon.com, and I can wait. But it wasn't so bad. I say not "so" bad because there were severe crowding issues, even though the Borders in Fairfax is pretty big. And MAN, maybe it's just the foster parenting classes talking through my dark humor, but what an opportunity for pedophiles. Underaged kids and teens alike, wandering around in scant summer clothing, costumes, and even pajamas... unattended. But no creepy people seemed to be about, so it's all good. The majority of the attendees were teens, I'd say 13-17. Not many of them dressed in costume, it was mostly adults and little kids that did. And God(dess) bless them for it.

I wanted tot ake pictures. But I was stopped in the door by a Border's employee who said NO photos allowed, and either put away my camera, or be asked to leave. Luckily, anyarm, who could charm an Eskimo to buy an ice chest, took the camera and took some for me. THANK YOU ANYA! :)

I got an "exclusive" (meaning a pallet of 500 on a table) Harry Potter poster, which is really just the front cover, but I am not complaining.

The way they did the ordering was people stood in line for a number. Later, numbers were called out like boarding announcements at an airplane gate. "Now serving 800-850! Get in LINE!" But they never ran out of books, and after 1300, they just said anyone can line up because the store finally thinned out. It was 2:00am before we were able to get out.

I was so happy to see so many young readers. I said this to anyarm, but some... person of the vocal persuasion overheard me say, "It's so surreal to see this. I am so happy to see young kids caring this much about a fantasy book. Back in my day, you'd get beaten up if you so much as admitted you read for fun." That is true. But this kid, who was probably about 13 and gangly-awkward, started decrying how this was a sham, and that it's only because it's pop culture, and you still get beat up if some jock catches you reading Machiavelli or Voltaire. Man... stuck like glue, he did. I tried to brush him off, but anyarm did a better job and breaking him following us, even though I said it was too late at night to argue philosophy for me.

My hindsight wit says I should have mentioned he got beat up for different reasons other than his reading choice, but I am glad I didn't think of this, or worse, say it to an easily-bruised teenager's ego. I am 38, I shouldn't be trying to one up a kid. That's just pathetic.

I was thirsty and dizzy, so I got a latte iced tea from their inside coffee house... which was "Seattle's Best." I have a long history with that stupid company, and while I can honestly say that I didn't get a shirt tail in my coffee, nor spoiled whipped cream, my iced Latte wasn't very pleasant.

After that, we went home, put takayla to bed, and I ended up unable to sleep. Which is why this entry is at 6am. Posted in: birthday , cr , drinking , harry potter

another one.. (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Happy Birthday to the tallest Asian I’ve ever met… the one who got all the smart genes :) Ignore the fact that he hasn’t updated his blog in half a year. Apparently I got the blogging genes ;)

Posted in: birthday

happy birthday, lil buddy. (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

I’m either 2 days late or 4 days early. The breeder we got Dakota from accidentally wrote the wrong birth date on his puppy folder, but she called me a day or two after we brought him home to inform me of his actual birthday. It’s either the 2nd or the 8th - whichever one wasn’t on the folder that I got rid of a long time ago. Dakota’s two now, and he’s definitely got his own set of personality quirks:

• He’s terrified of any stainless steel bowl after it clatters. Or anything that makes noise when it’s not supposed to. He ran into a box of blocks at my friend’s house the other day and afterwards gave it wide berth because, y’know… those blocks… they’re scary.
• Thunder/fireworks/rain/loud noises emanating from the sky cause him to run around whimpering until he can find a lap to crawl onto (usually mine).
• He will not get into a car that’s running. Actually, I’m rather grateful that he refuses to go near any running vehicle. This is a vast improvement over his previous car chasing habit.
• Dakota will only cock his head to the left, never to the right.
• When playing fetch, he’ll run to the human that he wants to play with and high-five them. If he runs back to you and doesn’t high-five you, he’s not interested in playing anymore, unless you want to play tug-of-war.

Life with a Shiba Inu… never a dull moment :P

Posted in: birthday , dakota

Happy birth-month, Grayhwak! (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I'd like to wish a happy birthday to grayhawkfh, but that secretive bastard won't give me the actual date of his birthday when I asked (some bullwipe about how it's not important). I had to find out back when when FanTek security was still leaking information, and only then was a guess at the month.

So may your cake be the wrong flavor, you jerk! :-P

Seriously, Happy Birthday, whenever that is. Posted in: birthday , grayhawk

That's a lot of reading to look forward to (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Ever since February I've been steadily adding books to my wish list. The list's grown rather large and it was about time we did something about that! Which is why I've asked people to use the list for my birthday should they desire to grace me with pressies (yay pressies!) ^_^

So anyway... This afternoon, Marli and I paid our local, huge-ass bookstore a visit. And this is the first time in months (years?) that I've bought fiction or normal books! We left with exactly zero books about Apple, computers or work. :)

Here's my reading list for the next few weeks.


Robert Rankin - The witches of Chiswick.
Science-fiction. Involves time travel, victorian England, witches, a global conspiracy and steam punk science. Niels recommended me this book in February and my mom and her husband sent me the book from Finland :)

Charles Schultz - Peanuts 1950 - 1954.
Ever since I was young I've enjoyed the Peanuts comics as they are simple, friendly and funny. My mother had two books from the later years lying around the house because (I've been told) they used those books for English class in high school. This book covers the first four years of the comic and it's obvious that Schultz was still getting a feel for the cast. It's also funny to see how some of the faces remind me of Calvin, from Calvin and Hobbes.

Ivan Wolffers - Heimwee naar de lust.
This books title can be roughly translated as Longing for lust. In 2002 Ivan learns that he has prostate cancer. Initially he's absolutely sure that he'll do anything to just keep on living. However, after a few months of hormone treatment he realized that he was no longer the virile man that he had known, but that he'd changed into a soft, hairless eunuch. Ivan was posed with a very hairy conundrum: is it more important to live, than to survive? I've been wanting to read this book for a long while. Originally to see what it would be like to be in such a situation and these days because my libido hasn't been what it used to be.

Oscar Wilde - The picture of Dorian Gray.
A timeless classic. I saw the movie on TCM one day and now I really want to read the book. So here it is ^_^

Nick Griffiths - Dalek I loved you, a memoir.
Nick Griffiths has had a long standing love affair with the Doctor Who stories. He grew up as a wee lad, cowering behind his dad's chair (because the sofa was up against the wall), amazed by his hero The Doctor. In his memoirs, Nick describes how Doctor Who has been a part of his life, all of his life. As a youngster in school, as a young professional writing for the Radio Times and these days... still writing for the Radio Times.

Jaime Hernandez - Maggie the mechanic
I'd only ever seen one drawing from the Hernandez brothers' series Love and rockets before and that made me kind of curious. Like their colleague R. Crumb (who's work I love, even if he comes off as a sexist and racist dick) they have no qualms portraying strong women. Let's see what all of this is about... So far it reminds me of the other, angry, seventies underground comics I've read. Hmm :/

Posted in: birthday , books , reading , reading list

We gon' party like it's yo birthday (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Well, technically we won't and technically it is ^_^

Officially, in about half an hour's time, I've turned twenty-eight. Doesn't feel much different than twenty-seven. *looks around* Nope... Everything still seems to be the same. *shrug*

Oh hey! I got a great present in the mail yesterday! Wrapped in a big Moomin enveloppe, so I just knew it was from my mom and her husband :) They got me The witches of Chiswick, which I was recommended a few months back. Awesome :) Thanks mom! Thanks Erik!

EDIT:
Some of you may wonder whether I'm not just a little too old to be into Moomin. First off I'd say in a Bugs Bunny voice that you don't know me vewy well, do he? Then I'd explain that Moomin stories never fail to make me feel just a little more relaxed and happy. They are stories of adventure and of small joys... Of being happy with what life provides you with.

Posted in: birthday , moomin

A great family get-together (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

It's my dad's birthday today; he's turned 61. Congrats dad! ^_^

What with the big staff meeting this afternoon, Marli and I visited my dad's place in Veenendaal last night. We'd decided to go for a pretty long stay since my sister+boyfriend would also be there, as well as my brother Mistoffelees who'd come over from Finland. All the siblings were together again for a day :)

It definitely was one of our nicer family get-togethers, with a barbecue, great food and an alltogether good time. My best friend Menno also dropped by since it'd been a long time since he'd seen everyone. I ended up crashing at Menno's place, since Marli needed to get home earlier than I wanted to leave. Unfortunately I got called for my stand-by duty around 0030, so that put a little dent in my mood (especialy given the fact that it was a false alarm caused by $CLIENT's customer).

My darling sister had brought my dad two bottles of champagne for after dinner and she was sweet enough to bring me a can of Guiness as well :D This allowed me to mix two Black Velvets, which were as good as I remembered them to be! It was also great to see the horrified looks of some of my family members as I was "ruining good champagne" by mixing it with Guiness ^_^

Posted in: birthday , family , fathers day , get-together

misc thursday and friday ramblings (Never melts (meef)) by jen

1. I've never put a band aid on my child before last night. Why is she all of a sudden demanding band aids to be put on all her grievous little injuries?

2. "I need cookies I need cookies!"

"we don't have any cookies, I'll make some but you have to wait. What kind of cookies do you want?"

"ROUND. I want ROUND cookies!"

"what kind of round cookies?"

"I want da brown ones. Daddy make da white ones he gotta go buy more!"

(okay to any random stranger that'd imply I burn all my cookies but that's not the case! Just the grocery store pre-cut, throw-on-a-sheet-and-bake kind always come out white.)

3. You know what I hate? I have a web site with the kids' pictures on it, and no one in my family can be bothered to comment or even say anything to me about them. If we ask the in laws if they saw such and such a picture, they will just stare at us like a slack jawed yokel and say "yes." and my inner mind is screaming "AAAAND....??" I have no idea why this bothers me so much though. It's like I am making the effort, they could at least choke out something cute. Friends, and perfect strangers on the internet comment all the time. Sometimes I want to close my flickr account to everyone except people who leave comments! Yes I am vain! leave me be!

4. I am finally feeling the baby move after a few weeks where I guess he was facing the other way and it was really unnerving even though I went through the same thing with both of the other children. I remember when I was this far along with L I was completely and totally convinced she was dead. I laugh when I think about that and I don't know why. I remember thinking one night in the shower, I was totally 100% positively sure this was the case. No, I don't know what is wrong with me.

I have an ultrasound a week from today. I am sooo tempted to find out what it is even though I was adamantly against it the last two times. Someone planted the idea in my mind that maybe I want to know how the other half lives. And hey, if I don't like it, I guess I'll have to have another baby! And not find out! But T will not go for that.

5. I'm starting with the "three years ago today!" and I honestly cannot remember what I did 3 years ago today. I can't remember if I knew I'd be induced when I woke up, or if it was decided later in the day. I had an appointment this day, and ended up meeting the drs at the hospital later, around 6. Well, we were supposed to be there at 6 but we didn't leave the house till 6, after having a meal of macaroni and cheese and leaving my poor puppy alone in his box, not to see him again until a week later (yes someone came to take care of him) I still remember walking into that room, the bed made up nicely, with the monitors draped across it... the afternoon sun streaming through the window. And I vaguely remember that night. And it's so silly because I had D in a room with the same layout, 2 doors down, same day/time-frame, so it all blends together.

Today I have to clean and make some baked goods and put a tricycle together. Sigh. Posted in: birthday , misc , random

happy birthday to mee (Never melts (meef)) by jen

things that have happened since I've bothered to update last: 1. MIL and FIL came over saturday to.. hang out and annoy us, then watched the kids while me and T went out to dinner alone. We went to a place we call George, which is a place I like to go because it's casual, the food is good, the menu is practically a book, the service is good, and it's close. They almost know us too. What' wrong Posted in: birthday , kids , preg , random , swimming , videos

2550 (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Happy New Year :D

and

Happy Birthday, J!

PS: I’m not insane.

Posted in: birthday