Tonight we went out to eat to IHOP for dinner. It was pretty good, but going anywhere with a 3 year old is tough. Ever since I started my new job, I feel like crawling in bed at 6 PM every night. It's not that my job is tough, but I get up so early compared to when I used to get up that I am spent right after dinner. I think maybe I will go laze around on the couch for a while....

We also ordered Tara a new computer last night from Dell. More news on it once it arrives.

After 3.5 years of life on this humble planet, Trevor has decided that he wants to start wearing underwear.

Okay, I admit that didn't come out the way I planned it.

Potty training Trevor has been only slightly successful at best and really it isn't for lack of effort on our part. He just never seemed to care about the whole process. Tara, in an effort to help spur this on, purchased a package of Scooby Doo underwear for him last night.

From his response to this, you would think it was us that was holding him back all this time. He now is making a fantastic effort to ask for someone to take him to the bathroom, and also wants nothing to do with his diapers. This is obviously no indicator of the level of success he will have, but his determination is impressive.

We sent him to school today with the underwear on, let's see if he comes home with them on too. Good luck Trev!

That simple device that we ignore every day is the backbone of this Japanese company that has been a staple of clothing worldwide for as long as most people can remember.

The reason I post this is that most people would not think that something as widely used as the zipper is owned by one company. Do yourself a favor, look at any zipper you find, and I am sure you have many around you. I have three right now, and all of them have the symbol YKK stamped on it. If it doens't (and you'll be hard pressed to find one) it's a counterfiet.

These guys are totally serious about the zipper, so much so that they call the product a Slide Fastening device. Check out their info.

I was riding into work this morning, and on the radio (NPR), there was someone complaining about the quality of television/radio and how there was little if nothing they could do to control what was coming into their home. His main concern was how to protect his children from potentially offensive material or content that would be inappropriate for his young children to be exposed to.

Being a parent of a young child, I can understand his concern for making sure that his children aren't experiencing programming that is not suitable for them. Where I disagre is where the responsibility falls to protect against this. As long as the program being broadcast does not break any of the FCC or other regulatory bodies rules for transmission, each company has the right to program any shows that it feels will be in line with developing high ratings and therefore more advertising dollars for that company.

It is the responsibility of the people who access these programs via the device (be it a TV, radio or the Internet) in their home, office, car to control how these programs are viewed. For example, Trevor watches TV, and uses our computers all the time (both online and offline) on his own. Although it is convenient to be able to let him play on his own and give both Tara and myself some time to do other things, we vigilantly check to make sure that he has not switched to something that he should not be watching on his own, without supervision. Parents need to stop blaming the media for letting their children view objectionable items, and take control of what happens in their own homes.

Wow, just when I thought that this day, created by a card company had lost all of it's magic, I am surprised once again. CmdrTaco the head honcho over at Slashdot asked his girlfriend to marry him on the front page of his site!!!

BTW - She said Yes!

Everyone gets hyped up about all the awards shows each year, although few actually mention one of my favorite.

Razzies.com - Home of the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation

This is one of those stories that makes me wonder why people are always so reluctant to pick up and move.

I was riding the train this morning and looking at all the people around me reading on their way to work. I tried hard to peek at hte titles of what they were reading, but in many cases, their books were tipped forward in a way that I could not see the titles. This Let me to think, "Are any of these people similar to me in their reading preferences?", and for that mater, what about anyone else? I just finished reading Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and I am currently working on Geeks.

What are you reading? Please post here in the commments.

Finally we are back from our training in Meriden, CT. I really have nothing against the place, but there really wasn't a whole lot going on there. We started 8 AM this morning taking calls for Perkin Elmer/Packard at our department. The phone wasn't too bad, and we actually got a lot of orders which was nice.

The first two weeks are going to be tough, getting used to everything being new and all, but after that I would hope that things improve.

Leave it to bored people online to come up with this colossal time-waster; the Googlewhack. The object of the... ahem, game... is to find a two-word query (no quotes) that will bring back exactly ONE result from Google. There are a few more rules that make this even more difficult to accomplish. But when you succeed, you can post it on the Googlewhacking board - much to the chagrin and astonishment of your Googlewhacking peers. I found trebuchet cytoplasm.

Googlewhacking. I think this is exactly the kind of Internet activity that Tim Berners-Lee was hoping for.

I love finding out weird stuff that is happening in the universe like this one; CNN.com - 'Something funny's going on' with galaxy's spin. It appears that this galaxy which has been under observation for some time is spinning in the wrong direction. Very cool.

This week, Adam showed me a new and really cool mapping service.
I don't think that they do driving directions like Map Blast or MapQuest, but they have some great features.

What makes TriScape different from these other services is that they allow you to do "real-time" zooming in and out of the target focus area, all the way down to the street level. The site requires a download, which is relatively small, but the benefit of actually being able to see the street that you are trying to get to is great.

Their website is not all that flashy and they have some affiliate programs that are worth looking into if you want to include your map location on your website. Check it out.

The Budweiser Ad "satin sheets" got a resounding thumbs up from Superbowl watchers yesterday and was given the #1 spot for gametime advertising. It was also one of the ads that Dave and I rolled our eyes at and declared to be "lame" and "dumb". I guess slapstick a la Three Stooges and gender stereotyping is just not our thing.

One of the ads we liked much better was from HotJobs.com in which a woman interviews for a court stenographer position. It caught our attention, made us curious and made us laugh.

You can view all of the good, bad, and really lame ads on the USAToday site.

K-Mart has released some additional information about their bankrupcy. It seems that they are going to make a go of it and keep the ball rolling.