Liloia.com

Back to Work

As I start back to work this week after being away, I give you this. Hopefully as I get settled and have more time I will post something a little more interesting...

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An Indian walks into a cafe with a shotgun in one hand pulling a male buffalo with the other.He says to the waiter, "Me want coffee." The waiter says, "Sure chief, coming right up."

He gets the Indian a tall mug of coffee. The Indian drinks the coffee down in one gulp, turns and blasts the buffalo with the shotgun, causing parts of animal to splatter every where, then just walks out.

The next morning the Indian returns. He has his shotgun in one hand pulling another male buffalo with the other. He walks up to the counter and says to the waiter, "Me want coffee."

The waiter says, "Whoa, Tonto! We're still cleaning up your mess from yesterday. What was all that about, anyway?"

The Indian smiles and proudly says, "Me training for upper management position: Come in, drink coffee, shoot the bull, leave mess for others to clean up, disappear for rest of day."

Grandpa Paul

This week I have the unfortunate opportunity of being with my family in New Jersey. Being with them is fun, but the reason I am here stinks.

My grandfather Paul Liloia passed away on sunday night while in the hospital being treated for pnuemonia.

He was 92 years old and is survived by three sons, five grandchildren, one greatgrandson and their families.

Triangulation

I'll admit, when Trevor said to us last week, "Mom and Dad, I know how to triangulate," I was impressed. He's a smart kid, but I didn't think he was that smart—Dave and I would be hard-pressed to triangulate anything accurately these days.

We asked him, "Really, Trev? How do you triangulate?"

He led us into the bathroom, where a washcloth was folded into a perfect equilateral triangle next to the sink.

"See?" he said proudly. "I triangulated the washcloth."

Yep. That's about right.

Brrrr.

It's cold out here tonight in Vermont. Stupid cold, where you can't think straight. Your nostrils freeze and your hands get minor frostbite from gripping the steering wheel.

Trevor had indoor recess and didn't walk across the street to swim class. Our breath froze on the inside of the car windows in spiky patterns. The Weather Channel says it's negative eight, but it feels like negative nineteen. My wet hair froze this morning during the twenty-foot walk to the garage. I even considered unpacking my hat and gloves.

Quote of the Day...

Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
-- Frank Zappa

Is it 3:20 yet?

To follow up on my post from a few days ago....

See Paul run.
Run Paul run.
Paul runs fast.

Today as Paul ran the Houston Marathon, I received text messages informing me of his progress in this grueling event. Unfortunately since I was up until 3 AM last night watching movies with Tara, he was done running by the time I got up. Something about that makes me feel like I failed somehow in not supporting him. Oh well, I am sure he wasn't worried about whether or not I was receiving the updates on his progress. By the way, he finished (awesome!) with a time of three hours and twenty minutes.

Zelda: Minish Cap

This week the newest Legend of Zelda game game out for the Gameboy Advance SP. It's called Legend Of Zelda: The Minish Cap. In this version of the Zelda franchise, Princess Zelda is turned to stone by the evil wizard Vaati, and it is up to Link to restore her.

To do this he must explore all of Hyrule top to bottom. In order to get a close look at everything, Link shrinks down to the size of an ant with the help of his cap and the creatures calling themselves "Minish" who live in the nooks and crannies of every area of the game.

Being a huge devotee to Zelda and especially 2003's Windwaker for GameCube, I was especially excited to pick this version up. Tara surprised me by having it in the house when I got back from Boston this week so Trevor and I could start chipping away at the endless puzzles and quests.

So far, the game is a lot of fun and I expect to be frustrated by it for at least a few weeks, give or take a few depending on how often Trevor let's me play it! :)

Unwrap this!

Do you know how the Tootsie roll got it's name?*

Do you know Cap'n Crunch's first name?**

If you have the 2005 Unwrapped Mini-Calendar you do!

Tara and I are fans of the show Unwrapped and when I saw this on my boss' desk, I was intrigued. The page-a-day calendar offers a trivia question each day based on pop culture food.

Todays question: What is another name for a jelly filled donut?

* Tootsie was the name of the owners Daughter
** Horation (weird)

Houston Marathon

My friend Paul Clasby is running this weekend in the Houston Marathon. As with the Boston and New York marathons, HP is doing something cool.

By logging into the Houston Marathon website you can sign up to receive text messages or emails on the status of your friends run.

I will be following Paul's success this Sunday and rooting him on from my living room in Burlington while playing Paper Mario 2.

Good luck Paul.

A Win for the Squeaky Wheel

New software in research stages at USC can analyze your tone of voice (as well as your sighs, grumbles and groans) as you wait in a phone queue to determine exactly how frustrated you are. The software then moves you up in the queue the more annoyed you sound.

I'm glad we're rewarding people for being rude, impatient and out-of-control with their emotions. Do I have to sigh loudly into the receiver, even though I'm willing to wait, just to get faster service? Should I yell at the bank teller from the back of the line so that I can move up? If this catches on, it will set a bad precedent.

Bam!

Trevor has always loved cooking with us and helping out in the kitchen. So, for this Christmas we decided that we would surprise him with a "real" chef outfit and related paraphernalia so that he could really get into it.

He was really excited to get dressed up today to help Mom with the very complicated process delicately crafting a culinary masterpiece....pancakes.

:)

All that... and more.

We all have someone on our shopping list that's hard to buy for -- if money isn't an object, Bluefish Concierge can make quick work of your problem present. Is a trip into space on your list? How about tickets to the Golden Globes? Anything you want... they'll figure out how to make it happen. Priced accordingly, of course.

Now me, I'd want something like a crash course in computer animation followed by two weeks working on the latest Pixar flick. Or and around-the-world scavenger hunt for items and locations found in classic movies.

Wonder what I can get for twenty bucks...

Six Apart buys LJ

Big News in the blogging world. SixApart makers of MovableType and TypePad announced that they have purchased the popular blogging community and service LiveJournal!

LJ as it is known to its users is a blogging community which is very popular with the 25 and under college crowd as well as those bloggers who are less technical in their use of blogs.

Six Apart makes the ubiquitous blogging tool Movable Type (MT to us veterans) that is used to administrate self run sites such as ours.

Check out the interesting and candid explanation of this change on the LJ site.

Stay on target.....

Check out this neat link that my buddy genomebasher sent along today.

Boston's Logan Airport - Arrivals and Departures

It is a sample of a software package that the company Passur puts out called Airport Monitor which allows you to track the arrival and departure of planes from your local airport.

If you click on any of the planes it will give you some details about it such as the altitude and aircraft type. It's completely useless but still fun to watch.

In classic Tara style, my wife asked if clicking too many times on one plane would cause it to crash. Bad girl. ;)

Sleepy Mommy

Ever have one of those days when you come home from work and pass out, exhausted, on the couch right after you get home without meaning to?

Ever have one of those days when you're home alone with your kid?

To his credit, Trevor did have his pj's on when I woke up at 10:00pm. I had to run to the computer and put up a post for work, but otherwise, the unattended house didn't explode or anything. Phew, I'm either coming down with something or these 2:00 am nights are catching up with me.

Ew.

Uh oh. One of Dave's new frogs died. Shhh... nobody tell him. Let's just hope he checks the blog tonight. *walks away whistling nonchalantly*

And for those of you who think this is heartless -- if this had been a person, I would have obviously used a more appropriate means of broaching the subject. Like IM.

K'NEX Ferris Wheel

Dave was awake until after 4:00 a.m. on Friday assembling this three-foot motorized ferris wheel. I think -- at about 3:30 a.m. that morning -- he was in the mood to drive back to NJ and beat the Gillet who picked this out.

Seriously, it's the most amazing toy ever. Many action figures have already had life and death fights on the moving ferris wheel and I saw at least one Lego guy use a grappling hook to rappel from the top of it. We saw one of these ferris wheels in the front window of The Construction Site toy store in Waltham last year. Trev and I were in awe of it then -- and he was amazed to receive it now. Thanks, guys.

Link's DNA

For Christmas, I picked up a book for Trevor called, "How to Draw Nintendo Characters." He tried a little mushroom from Mario and I, while the boys were playing with Christmas toys, sketched out Link from the Legend of Zelda.

Though I have no artistic ability whatsoever, it's at least recognizable as Link. But Trevor insisted that his eyes are too far apart. Is it my fault that Link has some sort of genetic disorder?