I'm pretty sure that our Preznit going to buy it...

... but a 710 year old copy of the Magna Carta is up for auction.

The Magna Carta established rights of the English people and curbed the power of the king. The U.S. Constitution includes ideas and phrases taken almost directly from the charter, which rebellious barons forced their oppressive King John to sign in 1215.

Of course, once the dumbass-in-chief has his grubby mitts on the great charter, he'll take a big batch of white-out (yellow-out?) to the nasty bits about habeus corpus. Because, you know, King John was weak on Terrah.

No time for posting today

Sorry. Don't have anything interesting to say, I'm too busy listening to the new Foo Fighters album for the 3rd time.

In the absence of anything interesting to say of my own, let me post a pic of my little guys at Six Flags New England outside the gates of Thomas Town.

p
When we got to Thomas Town, we immediately boogied over to the replica of Knapford Station and Jonny (pictured on right, but whose eyes I couldn't pry from Thomas for the picture) ran with his sister down the winding path of railings that organize the line for the Thomas the Train ride. His sister navigated the serpentine path all the way to the front easily(the park was near empty). Jonny, however, wasn't so lucky. About two-thirds of the way there, he couldn't take his eye off Thomas as he pulled into the station and walked straight into a metal pole. There he stood for a moment contemplating a newly bloody lip. He wiped it with his hand and examined the blood. Now, I'd expect most three year olds would be retty dismayed at the sight of their own blood, no? And under other circumstances, I'd definitely be expecting an apoplectic meltdown from little JB. But, this is apparently not the case if you're in the middle of a Thomas euphoria. Even a bloody lip couldn't stop him from riding his favorite train. He kept right on running to the front of the line and paid no attention as I dabbed his lip dry with a napkin while he yelled "Thomas, Daddy! Thomas!".

That Thomas the Tank Engine is powerful stuff. Must be all the lead paint on the toys.

sidebar: See, it's the trump card of parenting. Even when you don't have anything interesting to say about yourself, there's always a cute little story about the kids to bore your friends with.

One game back in the all important loss column

Yoo Hoo! Anyone there?

Hello? Red Sox? Anyone home? It's us, the Yankees! We're just two games out of the loss column today and were just wondering if you guys would mind terribly if we kept our major-league-leading streak of winning division titles alive by winning our tenth. Just a few more appearances by Eric Gagne ought to do it. Thanks in advance! Btw, this is what it will look like. See you guys in October!

This piece of art truly sums up how I feel today

Interruption of Service

FYI, I've been mucking around with the Template and what not. In doing so, I inexplicably decided to switch comments from Blogger to Haloscan. I did this despite the fact that it's often a little goofy. They just look a little nicer and I'm superficial like that.

I was surprised to find that the comments that my millions of readers have dutifully typed into little misshapen Blogger windows were subsequently gone. I'm not sure why was I surprised by this - I am, after all, a software engineer.

So, to all my peeps who took the time to comment on my posts, I say this: BWAHAHA! Suckers! Those comments are gone forever! That's what you get for commenting on the crappiest blog in the internet. Serves you right.

I love Shelley Duncan

I'm sorry, I think this is hysterical. I liked it so much, I made my own motivational poster out of it. It now adorns the wall of my cube. Good times.

This Just In

The Giants suck. I have said for sometime that this season could go one of two ways. First, the defense would be better than last year, as they looked in the final three pre-season games, and the team might surprise for a playoff spot. Or, I'll be scouting college players by week 8. After an 0-2 start and a defensive performance that looks like it was schemed by Harry Reid, the Giants are officially bad. The over-under on the team completely tuning out lame-duck coach Tom Coughlin is one week.

Can they get better? Osi Umenyiora sets the bar hilariously low:

Is there any hope that things can get better as they head to Washington next weekend?

"We don't really have a choice," defensive end Osi Umenyiora said. "We're 0-2 right now, we're not going to get any worse, that I can promise...."

Ladies and Gentlemen...The 2007 Giants! We're not going to get any worse!

There is only one good thing to come out of this season. Eli Manning is legit. He played great in the first game (a loss) and well in this one with a slightly-separated throwing shoulder. He may look like a mama's boy, but he's a tough dude. There's maybe only a couple QB's I'd take over him. He's the franchise. Everyone else can go.

A Five-Year old comes to a difficult realization

The following conversation occurred between me and my daughter in the car on the way to catch the bus after dropping my son off at pre-school.

Daughter: Dad, how do babies get out of their mommies' tummies?
Me: [pausing to consider - Truth? or Lie? WTF!] Um, usually they come out of their vaginas.
Daughter: What the heck!?!?!?!
Me: Uh, yeah, sometimes a doctor has to take them out of the tummy, but ususally they come out of the vagina.
Daughter: [dumbfounded]... But, vaginas are so small...
Me: Well, babies are pretty small, too.
Daughter: NOT AS SMALL AS VAGINAS!
Me: [really hoping this conversation is over soon] Yeah, well, you're right. I guess vaginas get bigger when you have a baby.

With that, I was relieved that Emma had no further questions. She quietly pondered the implications of this. I would have loved to know what she was thinking, but was not at all prepared to go into further detail about it. I later called her Mom to let her know she should expect questions along these lines.

I guess the notable thing to take away from this is that, in addition to her increasing understanding of biology, it's pretty clear Emma also has a good understanding of spatial relations. So, that's good.

Slow Down, People

It's raining here on the beautiful Connecticut shoreline. When it rains and I'm driving, I'm always reminded of the words of a guy who was a regular at my Dad's bar.

This guy ran a very busy towing and body shop. During a big Nor'easter snow storm, he like many of the other guy who were out plowing came in for a few pops to shake off the cold. Thinking that icy roads were good for his business, I said, "You should be doing a nice business today, eh, Tony?" He said, "Nah, not in the snow. People stay home. I love it when it rains. People don't slow down."

There you have it, people. Right from a man who depends on you crashing your car to meet his payroll. Driving in the rain seems deceptively safe. It's not. Please slow down.

Happy Birthday to Me

I haven't been checking in much recently. There is just so much going on both at work and at home. It's safe to say that this week that I have been on vacation has been the craziest roller coaster week for me ever, sometimes in a good way, sometimes not so much.

So, instead of commenting on the week, allow me to take this moment to remark upon today, the 38th anniversary of my birth. Happy Birthday to me because I am clearly awesome. My arrival on this earth has been a boon for humanity with my life's work most profoundly affecting the arenas of smart-alec comments, fantasy baseball and software design.

The world would certainly be a lesser place in the absence of me and as such feel free to take a moment to reflect on how thankful you are that I'm here. Go ahead, I'll wait right here.

Right, well, thanks for the kind thoughts. You may now return to pretending to work.