There we were, playing happily as a family, doing what every American family does: family wrestling. And then my son, the thirteen-month-old Hulk Hogan, headbutted Valerie — SMACK! — square on, No Holds Barred, right in the nose.

Thus and so, the Boo Boo Bear^TM being applied to the slightly swollen bridge of my lovely wife’s nose, above. No black eyes, and the swelling appears to have gone down, so we don’t think it’s broken, thank God, though Val swears she heard something give a squicking crunch inside her sinuses. And yet Carl shows no ill effects, no crying, not a scratch on him. Hell, he laughed. (So did I, kind of. Come on! How can you not?)

But yes, ha ha. Funny now, until you realize that if he does it to us, he’s probably gonna do it to some poor unsuspecting toddler at the daycare, and then we’re going to get that Special Call from the daycare director to come in and talk about Carl’s Little Problem and how we’re going to appease the parents of the Kid What Got His Nose Broke.

Sure glad to see that emails I sent to Blogger on Monday are showing up today. That’s a nice turnaround time for the API.

/snark

Apple-dude Steve Jobs = Willy Wonka?

Maybe.

[via kottke]

Not all spam is worthless, as it turns out. Sometimes, it unspools into the greatest unsolicited commerical love story you’ve ever read.

Larry somehow got a hold of Apple’s newest PR campaign before anyone else.

…I still think their new monitor- and keyboard-less MacMini looks cool, though:

But yeah. That’s funny.

Weird double post, there.

Got off my lazy butt yesterday and went to see a movie I had been dying to see–“Sideways.” I mean, a movie made over a backdrop of wine tasting? (But not, as Gus insisted to me, a movie about wine!) Should have been a dream movie!

I say “should have” because it fell far, far short of my expectations.

Though I thought Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church both give great performances, the story left me feeling, I don’t know, bored? Disinterested? Not giving a rat’s a$$ about what happened to the characters?

Sure, I was rooting for Giamatti’s character to snap out of his funk, even though you know his low self esteem can probably never recover. And I hated Church’s womanizing, deceptive, B-list actor. But I didn’t feel strongly enough about either to really care how it all ended up.

Apparently, I’m not alone in my disappointment: A.O. Scott in the New York Times this weekend dubbed the movie “The Most Overrated Film of the Year.”

At least one scene, however, really drew me in: Virginia Madsen’s soulful character gives a monologue about why she loves wine; it’s enough to make anyone look at their next bottle just a little differently. But the moment is short and fleeting, nipped by more attention to the schlubby main character, Miles, and his insecurities.

My advice? Wait for the DVD.

My pal xtop plays his first piano recital:

I never have dreams about showing up naked to school or sitting down for a test and realizing I forgot to study for it. My anxiety dreams tend to revolve around haunted houses, falling and losing things. So I’m confused, sitting up here on stage in front of a piano, my hands shaking like blurry exposures and the songs I’d spent all week practicing suddenly gone, inaccessible, while 20 strangers, my teacher and Matt & Kelly Sue stared up at me in expectant horror. I start to play, and then I hit a wrong note. “Wait. Let me start again.” I know I know how to play Musette; I’ve been playing it for two goddamn months now. This is ridiculous. But eventually I give up; I go on to the next song. Same thing, same wreckage of bad rhythm and forgotten notes. I can feel sweat building up, that same flop sweat that comes on during lessons, but this is so much worse. I am able to just barely play Sleeping Beauty Waltz by Tchaikovsky and everyone applauds, mostly out of pity, it seems. I bow as instructed and walk back to my pew and sink down. I’ve just had my ass handed to me by a 7-year old girl in a black dress. Tell me this is a nightmare.

More at thoughtpeach.