Entries from August 2008 ↓

So the other day while mowing the lawn, I knock over one of the lights that goes up my walkway. You know the kind, drive a stake into the ground every few feet.

So I stand it back up, take my hand away, and the light goes off. Rats. I straighten it back up again, light goes on. Take my hand away, light goes off.

Damnit, I've gone and broken the thing, something is loose.

I touch it again, light goes on, then I very slowly move my hand away. No good, as soon as I pull my hand back, it goes out again.

I went through this process maybe half a dozen times, getting frustrated that I've broken the thing.

Until I remember that these lights are solar, light-activated lights, and that every time I grab it, I am covering the sensor and thus causing the light to turn on. When I pull my hand away I uncover the sensor, and since the sun is still up, the light goes back off. I look up and realize that the other 8 lights are off, and have been right along.

"Daddy? I just realized something. When we say 'potty', it sounds like we're saying 'party.'"

"Yeah, that's called living in Boston. You're gonna want to get used to that, it's going to come up a lot."

– the 6yr old discovers her accent

Yeah, the cute girl singing the anthem? that was fake, too.

It's not so much the lipsynching that's a big deal, it's the idea that the girl who actually sang it was not cute enough. And China does not have a problem with this, publicly stating

"The audience will understand that it's in the national interest," Chen said in a video of the interview posted online Sunday night.

Free Tibet

Just a little something to keep in the back of your mind as the announcers talk about how open and harmonious China is these days.

We went to the Mt Pleasant show and it was AWFUL. It lasted 45 minutes. They only had one person working the merchandise stand and No special effects at all. By the time that we goit to the front of the merchandise stand I paid 6 dollars for a flag that they had run out of sticks for. Even my 4 year old said he did not have fun….

"Daddy? What was that game you were playing while I was asleep on your ipod?"

"….what?"

Just got back from taking the kids to their first Shakespeare show. At 6, 4 and 2, that's not too bad. I'm not sure how much they understood – unlike a video that they can play over and over again, if you miss something in live theatre, it's gone. You can't rewind or watch it again.

Details up at the Shakespeare site