Smiley Scale

I'm in need of something to post, and as I'm subscribed to emusic and love it, I tend to get in a fair number of albums each month, so why not give my quick and dirty smiley ratings for them? Here's the very simple ratings scale designed to make me not take too long to decide on a rating:

:) = I like it!
:| = It's OK.
:( = Disappointing.

Now on to this episode's ratings!! The rating is followed by the artist and then the album title. No links are provided so this takes me even less time to post. Search for the bands/albums at your favorite music store.

:) Earlimart - Mentor Tormentor

:) Les Savy Fav - Let's Stay Friends
:) Les Savy Fav - Go Forth
:( Les Savy Fav - The Cat and the Cobra

:) And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead - Madonna

Record Model Rocket Launch, 05.12.07

965 out of 1000 model rockets launched successfully at the same time, shattering the previous record of 400: Record Rocket Launch, 05.12.07

The Queen

Yes, the Queen of England was here at work today. We had a good view from our building as she walked by a few minutes ago. She wore a pastel green dress and hat. There was a crowd of well-wishers behind gates, a group of kids from the daycare center who gave her flowers, most of which had been beaten into submission while they waited (rather patiently, but the flowers didn't have a chance), and of course lots and lots of men in black suits and snipers on the rooftops. She got lucky with a near perfect day, though a bit windy.

My memory for colors is terrible. I had originally written in this entry that she wore blue, or perhaps turquoise, but just having seen a photo taken by a colleague, she wore green. No blue in it at all. Turquoise was pretty close, but the prosecution would be in trouble if they relied on my as an eyewitness.

Kanga

A while back, with Emmett having not had a respiratory problem for some time (while on his breathing medicine), we just couldn't take the "no stuffed animals in bed" rule any more, and let him have "Kanga" with him at night. It didn't seem right for the poor guy to have to go without any more. Kanga, named by them, after the character from the Winnie the Poo stories, is a largish stuffed kangaroo that is suppose to be a "pajama warmer". It was from Annie and PJ. We've never entirely understood the pajama warmer bit, but as a stuffed animal Kanga is just about perfect. Not so big that she gets in the way, but big enough, as Bek said, to be a friend. Not to mention the pouch. And friend she is indeed. Emmett has taken to Kanga like, well, you know the saying. The other day Emmett was playing "Hi Ho Cherrio" with Kanga. Tonight Emmett came out of his bed and called down to ask me to put his covers back on him. When I got up there he said Kanga had thrown off the covers. He also said that the other night Kanga and he had pretended that his cover was a tent. Max and Emmett also got from A&P a pajama warmer penguin that they call "Pingu" and he's great too, but Kanga is the one Emmett has been especially drawn to, perhaps because Kanga was the one he got to cuddle that first night.

The Cheat

I admit it, I cheated. I used my computer fairly extensively the last two days of "No TV Week", not for work purposes. Also I slipped in a little web browsing during breaks at work, which was probably against the "No TV Week" rules too, but overall I did substantially cut down my internet time, even picking up a book and one quarter: "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink, and "Open Secrets" by Alice Munro, the latter of which I've only party finished. Max and Emmett did not cheat at all.

For the most part "No TV Week" was a breeze. You'll be disappointed to know, however, that we didn't actually get to do much of anything anyone suggested, but that's not a bad thing. The boys were content to play with their toys, and managed to fill up every day to the breaking point, being just as upset about having to end the fun and take a bath as ever. Which is not to say that they weren't anxious to get back to their video game time allotments today, and watching of Curious George in the morning before school. Yesterday there was plenty of video-game related talk from them, discussions of what they were going to play in their "afternoon time" and their "evening time".

We did do some of the suggested ideas, though. We never did the lady bug rocks, but there is still talk about them, so hopefully we'll fit that in in the near future. They enjoyed building their Lego Star Wars kit and playing with it - a "V-wing fighter" that Mom-Mom gave Max, and they "helped" me plant some grass, though we didn't finish that task, only managing to do one side of the walkway. Their grass-planting "help" was more akin to hindrance, but they had fun doing it. For them it was mostly the watering that was fun, which consisted of a little watering and a lot spraying the water around at things (including at one point, into the open front window) and each other. Yesterday was filled with a visit to the Honeygo playground, a visit to a TV/videogame-free-for-the-day Liz's house and a visit to the inner harbor with David S, including a ride on the water taxi to Fells Point and back, which Max declared, Fun, "until it got boring". They were both enthralled with the water taxi, actually, but Max wanted to get out at Fells Point and we didn't do that. He was a little scared on it, but I held him tight.

I should end this on some clever note, but this is it. It was a good, if somewhat exhausting, week.

Data Entry

This is one of those obnoxious "GIF animations" that you sometimes see on web pages that repeats over and over and over, so I've put it on a separate page to keep it from making my blog unreadable. Having said that, it's at least a little bit funny if you have seen at least some Star Trek The Next Generation. Here it is.

Student of the Week

Max is Student of the Week in his class this week. Things started off in a rocky fashion, with power going out at the school (at many schools in Baltimore County) due to high winds. Max was to bring photos of himself and his family to school. Here is one of the photos he's taking with him.