That hurt me, too.

Just this instant watched my middle child get her ears pierced... held her hand, soothed her, gave her a lollipop.

She'd been wanting to do it for a while -- years, really -- and kept freaking out but today, she overcame her fear and got it done.

So now I'm waiting here in Claire's while she picks out more earrings... apparently, jewelry can ease the pain.

WTF? Neil Patrick Harris as an Evil Scientist?

Not sure what's going on here, but I'm soooooooooo in.


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.

But where's Harry Hamlin?

Great stop-motion animation, courtesy zefrank:

Pretzel Robot

I gave my kids a bunch of pretzel sticks after dinner this evening and challenged them to make something interesting; my five-year old made this awesome pretzel robot (with mini marshmallows as part of some processing unit, I think).

UPDATED

Whoops! This was my seven-year old's creation. My five-year old spelled her name, and my nine-year old spelled out a sycophantic comment about me being cool in order to procure more marshmallows.

Edward Hopper, Nighthawks, and Star Wars

Gotta love the web. This is from Worth1000.com (for the Star Wars gallery, click here). Click the pic to see it full-size.

Time for some Campaignin'

Asimov's 30 Laws of Robotics

A must-read for any Asimov fan. Here. Three examples:

8. A robot may not act in such a fashion as would make dogs obsolete, because dogs are less expensive than robots, and robots should be reserved for science things.

10. A robot, when given contradictory orders by two human beings, and assuming those orders do not violate the First Law, must decide which order to follow based on which human being has a deeper voice.

16. A robot may take only one item from each house when trick-or-treating, unless that robot has been tasked with collecting as much candy as possible for me, Isaac Asimov, in which case that robot may ignore the First Law.

[Thanks, BoingBoing, for telling me about this.]

Oil From Canada

Did you know we get most of our oil from Canada? Sure, if you treat OPEC as one exporter its numbers look bigger... but Canada is the single largest exporter of oil to the United States.

Check it out here, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Graphic Designers Love Appropriation,And Here's Why

[The artist who created the one on the right is Shepard Fairey, now very familiar for his Barack Obama poster.]

No, it's not the newNerf Herder song.

Trees of Mystery

And here's what the view looks like from the Sky Trail at the world-famous "Trees of Mystery" in Klamath, California.

B2

Getting Gas

I stopped in Brookings, Oregon, today to buy gas... we were nearby.

Gasoline was only $4.37/gallon, a full $0.40 cheaper than back over the border in Crescent City, California (where we are staying on vacation)

AND

in Oregon (the pump jockey told me as he filled 'er up) the public can't operate the pumps -- so that the price for FULL SERVICE

AND

he washed the windows

AND

he recommended some a good place to eat dinner.