Baby Geek clothes

I came across this today and I thought to myself - Man, I would really hate to be the baby that has to wear this. I wonder if you can buy baby-sized, thick, black glasses (with the tape in the center) to go with it? Like from the "Revenge of the Nerds" movies. That would be pretty cool…

Clever Cuties

Revenge of the Nerds @ IMDB

Country music makes me really uncomfortable

Yeah, I know more than half the country listens to this stuff, and something about roots in "American Culture" or whatever, but I really don't like it - at all. In fact, it really makes me a little squirmy, stings my ears, and makes me reconsider techno. If I'm somewhere shopping with my wife and for some odd reason (In Southern California mind you, not Ohio or Georgia-bama) the manager decides to add some Hee-Haw song to the store play list - I want to immediately leave, never to return. I can expect that kind of music in other state, rodeos, western movies, or "themed" restaurants. In cases like that, it's part of the soundtrack/atmosphere. I'm all jiggy with it. But in cases where I'm at a family party, and some uncle who just downed 8 too many beers turns up some twang song about loosing his 18-wheeler, to some hooker, at a truck stop poker game again... I get pretty upset and wonder what kind of world I brought my daughter in to. I guess I can say that about rap songs too, that's another gripe...

Really Bad Country Song Titles

L.A. Homeless like Starbucks

So my wife and a co-worker went to Starbucks for a "coffee-meeting", and a homeless guy outside (with no teeth and smelling like a Frenchman in the summertime) asks them if they could buy him a "grande, caffè Latte- double, Non-fat, with room" or something like that. I find that little weird. Don't these guys usually ask for change to buy booze and hang out in front of liquor stores...

Starbucks

Teaching moment

I've been teaching an art class on Saturday mornings, a few years now, and I can't even begin to explain how many times I've tried to convince myself to quit. There are those kids who don't try as hard as they should, some are there because their well-off parents make them, some kids think I'm an art-Nazi since I'm tough. I work full-time, was recently promoted, have allot more responsibilities now and teaching seems like such a waste of free time when I could be doing more important things like spending time with my wife and baby. But its things like this that make it really tough, this week one of my students was just accepted to Art Center College of Design (a place I attended). Although not my first student to get into a great place to further their training, I couldn't be happier to think I had something to do with it. And this kid had something I had when I was that age - a real drive and passion to be a great artist. Honestly, how can you walk away from that?! I sure can't. Until I go teach again...looking for another excuse to quit.

Swearing in public when kids are around

So my wife, daughter, and I were eating at some local 'casual dining restaurant' over the weekend and a few tables away was this huge group of people (mixture of kids and adults) that looked like they've just come from a little league baseball game. Maybe this is something I've never noticed before or paid much attention to, but this one dad-type guy was swearing it up to the other dads in some intense conversation about sports. He was so loud his face was turning red. It made practically everybody in the place really uncomfortable since most people there had young kids. The other parents with him didn't say anything, not even give a glance or some distressed look. It totally reminded me of that scene in that George Pal movie "The Time Machine" when Weena falls into the river and nobody does anything - just kind of look away and ignore it. Is this what we've come too? Are people just so afraid of these crass adults that they just try to ignore it? I was almost ready to use a line my George Carlin-type uncle once said to a guy swearing at a kids party long ago, "Hey Buddy, watch your F***in language! There's kids around".

CD Swapping at Lala.com

I just signed up for something today that allows people to swap something called a "Music CD" (Remember those things, and record stores? Seems like only yesterday...). iPod, P2P, and iTunes seem to have killed that old-school concept. This service is a good idea for somebody like me because between my wife and I, we have something like 122,413 of these things stored all over the house - in closets, boxes, etc. collecting dust. No, we really don't have that many, but it seems like it. Anyhow, this service allows users to swap CD's with others and provides Netflix style envelopes to do it. It costs $1.49 (with shipping) to swap. I wish I could just sell and not receive though. Or maybe I can sell them to some still-surviving record store for a 3-cent credit, or just have a garage sale and sell them 10 for $1.

Lala (Closed Beta Invite) Sign up

The part-time actress, full time assistant.

It wouldn't be L.A. if we didn't have at least a few part-time hopefuls in the office. The big boss's assistant (nice gal by the way) happens to be one, but she actually gets jobs here and there. Not too long ago she was on that show "Nip/Tuck" on F/X. She was pretty excited and told everybody to watch, even sending a mass email. I wasn't really familiar with the show (Just knew it was about plastic surgeon doctors from commercials) until I saw it with her in it. To tell you the truth...it was really creepy. She was playing some stalker sex-crazed fetish freak who liked paper bags...over her head. I came into work the next day and wondered why she would tell people to watch. It's like not like she was on "CSI", "Joey" or some other cheesy sitcom. This gig was something pretty risqué'. I don't know, maybe actors/actresses are just excited to get work on TV or Films. I still get pretty surprised when people we know, try really hard to get their kids in acting - always dragging them to auditions and such. My wife thought I went too far when I said, "No daughter of mine is ever getting into acting!" Call me jaded, but did you see what happened to those "Diff’rent Strokes" kids? Willis is still picking up trash off the 101 freeway from his last drug arrest, Kimberly did porn then worked at a dry cleaners (before a drug-overdose that killed her), and Arnold is begging for work outside a model train shop in Burbank.

Nip/Tuck

The smell of McDonald's Fries

I'm not liking somebody today and I'm not sure who it is. But they brought their McDonald’s food into the office just before lunch and now half the building smells like fries. First of all, I'm not a big fan of McDonalds except when they have really cool Happy Meal toys (yes, even before I had a kid), and I've been trying tremendously to cut back on fried-foods like fries ("French" for traditionalist, "freedom" for them' freaks) in the last year to about once or twice a month now. But when somebody grabs McDonalds for lunch and brings it into the office, I may not be hungry, but that smell haunts me, I want those freakin' fries!! Now I know what it's like to be on a diet. I've always made fun of those people in the past when I had a pretty good metabolism (meaning pre-30) doing stuff like eating in front of them, waving Oreo's, Chicken Fingers, or whatever. But now, I'm really sorry. Really I am. If that fry person were to walk past me right now, I’d grab them and run.

Why McDonald's Fries Taste So Good

St. Patrick’s Day at the Office

Some day’s I just feel like a complete idiot. This morning I unconsciously wore a shade-of-green shirt and while walking through the office halls I realized that I had made a huge mistake. Everybody (well, the older women types who normally wear those hand-made Christmas sweaters with puffy paint) is wearing some form of a green shirt – it looks like some ghetto office baseball team. Now I’m too embarrassed to even walk to the water cooler or bathroom without somebody popping up from a cubicle, like a mole, saying something like “Hey! St Patty’s day, huh?!”. Or somebody who baked saying “Have a cookie to match your shirt!” I might as well paint my face green and ride a tricycle.

Leprechaun Movies

Back from Kauai!

So we're back, refreshed (sort of), and back into the daily routine. I have some thoughts about Hawaii (well, only Kauai since we didn’t visit any other island, except Honolulu’s airport). Good and some not so good, but overall the place was picturesque but not exactly what we expected. Not sure if that’s because we chose Kauai over Fiji or that we’ve been to other Polynesian places like Tahiti (and really nothing tops that!) and our expectations were too high or because all the enthusiastic reviews about visiting Kauai really weren’t “all that and a bag of chips”. It did rain allot the last few days, which accounted for that horrible dam break in Kilauea. When we were there, there were lots of reports on home floodings in the news and newspapers.
I’ll be putting up a photo-log of places we stayed, saw, visited, etc. Some are great recommendations for infant-friendly, and not at all child friendly places or “touristy-attractions”. Also some really great places to eat - my favorite part of any trip. It’s all coming soon…

Vacation to Kauai!

Finally! Tomorrow we leave for our vacation. Taking some much needed time off of work and our normal daily routine. It's been nearly 2 years since our last vacation so we're itching to go. This time, since we intentionally planned a low-key vacation (primarily because traveling with our 7-month-old), I'm taking my sketchbook and drawing when I'm not sleeping, eating junk food or shaved ice. I'm also planning on posting any interesting sketches up here and writing about any baby-friendly places to visit - since there aren't many guides or books about traveling to Kauai with infants (I've looked and found hardly any except some hippy Berkeley parents message board.) Man, I can't wait to see Mr. Roarke and the little guy ringing that bell yelling "Aloha! Aloha!”

First tooth! Real food...and poop. Oh my

So it begins! Something happened this morning that was quite a shock. A tooth appeared. We've been checking a few times week wondering where they were. Everybody says somewhere between 4-7 months. Well, our daughter is nearly 8. But this morning we awoke to a really cranky baby - unusual for her, since she's really chatty in the morning after her coffee. Although it's very exciting to know she's growing up and will soon be eating KFC, just like daddy (well, when mommy lets him) it scares me to know that "adult food=adult sized poop" diapers are around the corner. So I'm now wondering, which adult food doesn't make adult sized poop? I would guess off hand, anything fried, beans, pickled - like olives. Or...just make sure one of our friends without children is around so you can recruit them for a diaper change! That happened to me once a long time ago, haven't been the same since.

Dancing, Skating, Boxing with (Marginal) Celebrities

Am I the only one bothered by these cheesy T.V. shows with these so-called celebrities? I count real celebrities as actors actually working, and somewhat internationally known. A football player, or "star" of a reality show from 6 years ago isn't a celebrity in my book. To make my point- Harrison Ford, Nicole Kidman, Governor "Arnie", even David Hasselhoff (remember HUGE in Germany) celebrities. Giselle Fernandez? Kenny Mayne? Jerry Rice? Bruce Jenner? And....who are these people? Honestly...never heard of them, so therefore not real celebrities. On that skating one maybe- Todd Bridges (Glad rehab worked out for him, again) Debbie "Deborah" Gibson, well O.K. (I had a lunch, date, or uh...thing, with pre-Deborah sometime ago... That's a story for another day.) So the day I'll start watching these "Celebrity" shows is when Sean Connery does the hustle. On Ice.

ABC: Dancing with the Stars

Fox: Skating with Celebrities

Mini is sleeping in her room!

Yes, at 7-months old, in her crib, for the last week. There are probably millions of parents out there that'll probably say "uh...no big deal" to this. But this is a big deal to us. Our daughter has been sleeping in a co-sleeper, in our room, since day 1. Sometimes she even sneaks into our bed early in the morning, from which from what I've heard, can be good or bad. Depending on who you’ve talk to and what they've read. She's actually sleeping for about 9-10 hours now with maybe one wake-up call during the night in her room - the one we spent millions on creating...well, maybe not millions. Anyhow, to all those who say a baby should sleep with you until age 2 so she'll be able to get into Harvard, good luck with that and with 30k tuition. I'm happy for you, save lots of cash now. For those who want their baby to sleep in their own crib/room without "letting them cry" just like us, just keep at it. Of all the books we've read, nothing really worked. So you rely on something people use to do called intuition, and then 'wing it'.