Bright Spots in an Otherwise Long and Sad Week

-- Listening to (so far) the introduction and first chapter of the audio version of Al Gore's The Assault on Reason at the gym. The book is read by Will Patton, who is all right, but I was sort of expecting and looking forward to hearing Al read his own book. Patton does say "yumin" for the word "human," a word which, I would hasten to point out, "has a f*cking aitch in it." (By the way, if the 2007 me had an opportunity to tell the 2000 me how much I like Al Gore now, I have a feeling the 2000 me might not have done all that volunteering for Ralph Nader. This is NOT, please note, an apology.)

--Listening to the soundtrack to I'm Not There while going to and from the gym. I'm Not There is the forthcoming sort-of-biopic of Bob Dylan. Some interesting takes on Dylan songs from a movie which, given the long article in the New York Times Sunday Magazine last month, seems to gibe with what I've learned about how to appreciate Bob Dylan from my friend Chris. I'm looking forward to the movie, and enjoying the soundtrack in small doses.

--Caleb, having learned that his brother's name is Sam (pronounced "Zsha"), has since decided that everyone's name is Sam.

--Sam feels that everyday is Halloween, and therefore each day brings an occasion to carry around a plastic pumpkin and beg for lollipops.

Thanks to family for being able to baby-sit (read: toddler-chase) for us during funerals and benefit dinners, and for just generally being awesome at family-stuff. And thanks to my wife, who has been getting up early with Sam (who, like Robertson Davies or Charles Darwin, is totally opposed to all this daylight savings nonsense).

Lightbulb Jokes (Sam and Caleb Comics #6)

This was the month of September from the "Sam and Caleb Bad Joke Calendar" for 2007, previously seen only by family members.

The boys were probably around 11 months old when the photos were taken. They were still eating out of those little jars, and still drinking formula. In some ways it seems like years ago, but in most ways it seems like about six and half minutes ago. Watching two boys go from age point-five to age one-point-nine is one way to see time fly. (Another involves throwing a clock out a window...)

How I love the lightbulb joke: a tight little formula and limitless variations. Do you know how many neo-conservatives it takes to screw in a lightbulb?

In which we attempt collectivism and are renounced...

Sam: (Pointing at crayon) Mine!
Daddy: Sam, there is nothing in this house that belongs to any one person. Everything is shared.
Sam: No... Mine!

Sam Hinshaw: Objectivist, aged 20.5 months.

Sam also believes that if you sing loud enough, the words don't matter, so he's still quite loveable.

The Spoils of Victory

Happy Halloween (Sam and Caleb Comics #5)

Thanks, Grampa Jim, for the excellent costumes.

Thanks, Milwaukee neighbors, for all the Kit Kat Bars.

Caleb at the Fence

From Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Chapter II:

He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while -- plenty of company -- and the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village.

Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it -- namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign.

Things You Learn From the World Service

The deputy mayor of New Dehli died after an attack by monkeys.

If you're a devotee of monkey news, as I am, you'll note that this report follows on one from a few years ago in which a supposed half-man, half-monkey was stalking the city.

Aside from the monkey-on-man murder, what's particularly disconcerting is that New Dehli is trying to train larger, fiercer monkeys to combat the smaller macaques. Has no one in India ever seen a science fiction movie? That's a recipe for disaster -- just ask the guy who had the idea to mate the aggressive but industrious bees with the docile but lazy (though certainly stylish) Italian bee.

What if these larger, fiercer monkeys team up with the Rhesus macaques, travel to Cambridge, MA, and wrest control of the telepathic robot-arm technology? Before we know it, this happens.

I Nearly Forgot Connecticut

5m 24s

Click here to try the quiz.

True Tales of Toddlerhood

Daddy is looking over a bill for a $50 co-payment on Sam's visit to the Emergency Room in September.

Daddy: Sam, you owe Mommy and Daddy fifty dollars.

Sam: (Shaking finger) No! No, no, no!

You Can Call Me Cupcake

The kitten had to go to the Humane Society because it was marking its territory, which apparently included the master bed and the playroom. He's since been adopted, surely to a good home, but we miss the manic bundle of kitten energy that was known to us as Easie E. (The here-and-gone status of the kitten has been more traumatic for the adults than the children, thankfully.)

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