The Princess of Catan

Coles and Mikes came up last weekend - here they are to prove it. Real nice visit with some good eats, good company, good golfin (I snuck out), good chats, and good gamin - word on the streets is LA ain't all that great, but things are going well for thems. But most importantly they got to meet little adeline, and michael even held the little bugger. Also importantly the berns is officially the queen of catan - with her first full 10 point crown, which of course makes adeline the princess of catan and rightful heir to the throne.

Sidebar-sidenote - I'm adding the new picasa widget which allows me to post my web albums here on the right side without much work. I'll post random images in there for perusal. Its cool cuz we already manage our photos with picasa and use them for web albums so its a nice simple way to share without devoting a whole post to a photo or two... werd.

Music Widgetry

So a widget is a typically thought of as a small window on your desktop or blog or my space page or wutever - with certain functionality - click on the image to see a bunch of examples. I've been searching for a decent way to post here on the ol blog exactly what I'm listening to lately - preferably with album art and a sample if not full streaming song. Tried out imeem for a few mins - but I dont want to upload my entire library to some site - plus it may be illegal i dunno. Then I saw itunes has some widget but it falls short only showing you recent purchases (which doesn't tell anyone if I like it or play it a lot) or it can show your reviews (but only what you've reviewed on itunes store - not your own personal rankings) and lastly - what you can see to the right - which is cool but not useful - 'my favorites' - I have no clue how itunes tries to figure my favorites nor how it calculates some artists to be larger than others - so while it does show stuff I own it doesn't show what i like currently...

Enter 'ilike' and so far... ilikes. its a little piece of software that sits as a sidebar on your itunes and then has a website where you can log in and manage what you like. It effectively and efficiently looks at your itunes data - how many times you've played a song, how recently, your rankings, etc. and can create lists (see the widget to the right). Better still once you build up your profile a bit by selecting artists that you 'like' it will find other people with similar tastes so you can browse their libraries to find new stuff. Good thinking. Still could use more real-time customization and more control over the widget itself - but so far it wins the battle of the music widgets - I haven't looked into last.fm too much but but that may be another one to scope...

imeem - is it cool?

So imeem is a company poised for some dopeness. They make deals with the music labels to share ad revenue instead of charging people for music. Upside - its free, downside - its add supported and you don't 'own' it. SO it doesn't really replace itunes - at least not yet, but its a nice place to listen and find new music in your taste spectrum... now this is what they 'say' so I just created an account and I'm gonna play with it and see how it works - but miguel you might be interested - as might bt and jg... anyhoo I found this dope lil reggaemon tune - only problem is that it is filed under 'groundation' and I can't find the real artist... so far - immem gets 1 point for finding me a nice lil jam, but minus 8.5 points for not letting me find out who it is!

Mooooooves

Sooooo yeah these guys are crazy strong, crazy double jointed, crazy coordinated. If you got 20 mins and need to be amazed - check it. Intro is kinda long but worth the wait!

Lost n Found

Tomorrow is the day we see our long lost friends mr. miguel and colers (pictured at left in 1926) who've been gobbled up by the southernly beast of beautiful bosoms and bastardly bourgeois we call SoCal. Seems our friends all have some sick need to be there. Oh well, wutever works - good news is they're coming to meet the little queen of sweetness, my little adeline. Gonna hang out for the weekend with us, driving the long drive - hopefully the infant screeches and poody diapers don't scare em off (or scare em from havin there own little grubs). Might be able to shoot away for some golf possibly... thats a good idea. maybe miguel will write a song for sweet adeline - cuz the elliott smith one - while not his most depressing stuff by long-shot - is not all that good. And the barber shop song 'sweet adeline' is just lame. oh and this will also mark the return of the treasured travel idol herbert - who's long trip from home has undoubtedly allowed him the time he needs to recover from his ails and return to his god-like status - protecting us upon travel and also while looking for parking in the city. We miss you herbert - your room is just how you left it.

Mulching My Nerves?

So I goes into the dentistry office today for a quick drill-n-fill of what was supposed to be an occlusion (small cavity) in good ol tooth numed 15 (top left molar) - but doc gets in there with his little tiny drill spot and goes 'uh oh'.... I'm like - 'ummmm uh oh?' so he was all 'looks a bit bigger under the little cavity opening' so I'm all 'ok no prob bro just do your do, I can handle a bigger cavity, after all I gots fillings for days' so he pops out the dremel and a bigger bit and goes to town on my tooth. This ain't no high pitched lil drillin this sounds like one of them drill they go thru mountains with - "garbel grumble graggle" goes my tooth - he's coring it out like a damned woodshop project. After a few extra doses of the feel good - he goes 'awe dammit' and he looks concerned. 'Thats not a good thing' I says to myself. He flips off the cnbc and says 'wow, I really got sand-bagged here - none of this shows on the xray...' so I says to the dental doc 'what seems to be the problem officer' and he says I'll show you. Whips out the 'orifice camera' and shows me my tooth - or wuts left of it. There is a hole the size of a chicklet straight thru to the nerve (maybe a tictac)... he says the the tooth was decayed, right thru to the nerve and he's gonna need to give me the old root canal.He proceeds to show me some nasty diagrams in which the tooth is cored out (done) and then, now heres the good part - they take some kinda drill or file or some other instrument of torture and mulch the nerve up until its out. ug. see the pic if you can stomach it. Then they fill that space where the nerve was with some kinda super-plastic - then - oh its not over - then they chip away the outer layer of the rest of my tooth and crown it up. Hopin for gold, or platinum, with some bling in it. So thats my next Thursday. wheee. damned dirty xrays. hornswoggled.

First Phone Call... Hi Grammy!

What Breaks?

Yeah, sooooo.... there are no more breaks. As the berns can attest - and every parent who's come before - there are no breaks. At least not for a while. I think thats the ONLY reason babies are made so cute - so the tough times seem less tough. Not that baby adeline has been 'tough' on the scale of 'toughest babies of all time'. Apparently I had colic - and if the books are right, colicky babies are 100 times worse than our sweet adeline's most raging moments of inner-gas-fury. but still - it pains me to hear her def-con 5 level of whaling - even if its only for a moment. it stings inside and makes my blood boil - like the fight or flight instink or sumthin... I dunno, but its a new sensation I'm gonna need to learn to handle better cuz I just want her to be smiley, and when she's not I feel like I have to DO SOMETHING FAST! Good thing i have magical lady-like fingers whose power is trumped only by "the boob". I pop the ol indexer in and she almost always goes zen on me within seconds. Its my 'go-to move'. werd. Oddly berns finger does not compete - not sure if its the shape, texture, taste or what but she told me she was going to cut it off and keep it throughout the day to calm her fury. I told her we could just make a mold.

jg in the place to be

So on Sundee JG joins the ranks of us TriDecathagenerianicals... wutever. So we're looking forward to seeing him and the Gabriel clan along with what I'd guess would be a bunch of other folks like some neighbors, some gladwells, some turnbull's, etc. Should be fun trampsing around the piers then having a nice lil dinny at le gran cafe (oui oui). Weren't sure what to get him - thought about a nintendo Wii - but its like $4oo hunny bones. Or a ps3 but thats like $600 hunny - plus i'm pretty sure it'd be cool for a month or two but then get shoved in the corner like our previous consoles... wut else? well he likes weaponry - but anything worth having is gonna be way too pricey - but a 3rd century roman plumbata dart would be pretty sweet... no we settled on something else - something cool. not as cool as the aformentioned - nor as expensive but we thinks he'll like it. Miguel has one - its a box device who's purpose is to be squozen. No more hints - pics later.

Oh it'll also be our first real outing with little sweet. Not sure how that will go, but I predict a win. She's pretty cool n tha gang. Also work has got me hangin by a very thin thread - having to muscle up and pound through some long weeks - with a pretty thing at home - its tough. grin n bear it - for now...

Adeline - Chillin in bed at 2 weeks old

Adeline - Swingin It

Adeline Loves this swinging thing. Its ourr saving grace come dinner time - We pop her in this thing and she's good for at least 15-20 mins... just enough to scarf some food together. Thanks for the gift unky brian and auntie cass!

Adeline's First Bath - Ends in Disaster