April Fool's in Matrix Form

This is why I hate April Fool's

	April Fool's Sad News
		Is it true?
			Yes			No
		Congratulations!			Congratulations!
	Yes	You're a pesimistic ass			You're a gullible ass
Did
you
believe?
		Congratulations!			Congratulations!
	No	You're an insenisitive ass			You're a pretentious ass

	April Fool's Happy News
		Is it true?
			Yes			No
		Congratulations!			Congratulations!
	Yes	You're a pompous ass			You're a gullible ass
Did
you
believe?
		Congratulations!			Congratulations!
	No	You're a cynical ass			You're an arrogant ass

Mall Store Intervention

Sometimes, when you love someone and they are doing something to piss you off destroy themselves, you have to step up and perform an intervention. Typically, this is in the form of a letter to the interventionee. Here's a sample of mine from a recent trip to the mall:

-Dear Abercrombie & Fitch/Hollister,
You are a festering pustule on the backside of humanity. I say this to you, not out of hate, but out of a deep, unending loathing for you. You offend me on so many levels. First, the outside of your stores looks very similar to a back alley abortion clinic.

Both have lots of shame and clothes hangers.

Second, that"music" you insist on blaring at decibels approaching "permanent hearing loss " levels may serve as some sort of siren call to the throngs of your frequent customers that Urban Dictionary best describes as, "[individuals] who have over-inflated senses of self worth, compounded by a low level of intellegence... [and] no sense of how moronic they appear", but to the average mall shopper it sounds more like a screech owl being fed through a wood chipper.

Third, while I've never actually been inside one of your stores, a quick Google image search reveals that the walls inside which are not covered with painfully over priced douchebag clothes, are covered with imagery that at best could be described as "Greco-Roman" but more resembles "homoerotic". George Michael's bedroom probably has straighter wall hangings than you. I'm fairly certain that the brief glimpse of your advertisements that I got doing the image search was enough to turn me from mostly well-adjusted straight guy to complete homosexual^*.

^*Not how actual homosexuality works. Sorry to break it to you, Rick Santorum.

And your smell. Dear God, your smell. It permeates from you like radiation from a nuclear blast and is probably just as healthy for you. In a recent trip to the local mall in Omaha (we've become pretty familiar with the city lately), the smell from one of your stores managed to not only make us sick as usual, but overpowered the scent from the "Perfume Palace" that is only two stores down from you. When your stank is smellier than the store whose primary purpose IS to smell, you need to reassess you priorities. We feel like we need a shower just walking past you.

A dead skunk, baking in the hot sun for weeks after being doused in garbage juice and killed while suffering a particularly nasty bout of food poisoning would smell so much better than your stench. It can only be described as "distilled essence of concentrated douchebag".

In short, Axe Body Spray.

-Dear Teen/Tween Girl Clothing Store (Delia's, Claire's, etc),
Please stop assaulting me with the neon nuclear explosion that you call clothes. Looking near you is painful. All I want to do is walk past you on my way to the Cinnabon, the two of us ignoring each other. But, you insist on bombarding me with violently neon colors that look like a rainbow dropped acid and vomited all over your store. Tone it down. Your target demographic are already enough of attention whores.



-Dear Dippin' Dots,
You are awesome. I want to have your liquid nitrogen dipped babies.



-Dear Women's Clothing Stores (Limited, Lane Bryant, etc),
Please place in your stores, preferably near the fitting rooms, one (1) bench, chair, or stool for your client's significant others. We are about to be put through some of the roughest 30-45 minutes of our lives:

Clothes Shopping Itinerary

0-9 mins: Pace around store as wife tries on clothes. Desperately try to avoid accidentally looking at intimate section for fear of looking like a filthy pervert.

9-10 mins: Get caught accidentally looking at intimate section and look like a filthy pervert.

10-15 mins: Wife storms out of fitting room, utterly disgusted with herself, the clothes, the world, and life in general.

15-25 mins: Stoney silence. Walk around mall in huff.

25-26 mins: Make comment about the wonderful smell of Cinnabon. Receive icy glare.

26-45 mins: Wife realizes that there is a walking outlet for her rage tethered to her. Take blame. Dream of death.


As you can see, the least you could do is throw us a bench. Doesn't even have to be a comfortable one.


-Dear Dead Sea Salt Hand Scrub Free Sample Person,
The answer is, and will always be, no.


-Dear Food Court Vendor Free Sample Person,
The answer is, and will always be, yes.

-Dear Torrid,
You are a plus sized clothing store. You have four jeans styles in your selection and three of those styles are labeled as "skinny" jeans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irony

A change.

I think the major problem with this blog, aside from the whole "not writing on it ever" part, is that the scope is way too limited. I feel like just writing about my children (or FOR my children, as the case my be) is just too constricting. So, with that in mind, I give you the new blog format. Less "baby blog", more "whining adult blog". Hopefully, this will keep me more interested in doing this, and the two of you that read this (hi, mom!) will get a kick out of seeing the exploits of Carly, Jack, Sam, Lily, Milton, and me glaring at you in tantalizing black and white on your computer screen. Or not. Totally up to you. I understand if you don't give two flying pig farts about it (and I mean that, mom).

Rest assured that Jack will continue to write frequently, occasionally, not really that often. And you never know, special guests may show up on occasion. In conclusion, when you see that I've posted a new blog, mainly by bombarding Facebook with status updates like some high school aged attention whore, don't expect it to be about babies. You've been warned...

Road Trips, Memphis Beat, and Mr. Potato Head

It seems that my titles have expanded yet again. I am now not only a soon-to-be big brother, but also an older cousin. For those of you that don't know, I'm already a cousin, but a younger one. Now, I have even more responsibilities! It's like they think I'm some sort of robot sent back in time from the future to be extra awesome to all of my relatives, teach them things, help them grow up in the proper manner, and destroy the future leader of the resistance against the machines while he's still young!

With that news on my mind, my parents then proceeded to pack up all of my toys, clothes and food, and put me in the car saying that I had to go meet my new cousin. First, though, Mommy had to do some work for her job that made her stay in a nice hotel and eat for free. And Badger-Face gets to come along too.

And off we went to a place called "Jefferson City" for something Mommy called a "conference". I've never been to the capital of our great state of Missouri before! It was a riveting experience! One of the largest buildings in the city is this giant recreation of a nursing orb. "How metropolitan!", I thought as the homage to my younger days pulled into view. What a big bustling metropolis filled with interesting sights, and even more interesting smells.

Remind me to tell B-F not to park downwind from the trash bins again.

Since the hotel is "pet friendly", the dog managed to come along too. The cat, however, was sequestered to the house for the duration of our trip. I was assured that he would be ok, since he would have a big bowl of water, a big bowl of food, frequent visits from Nonny to check up on him and all the shows he would want to watch on Netflix while we were gone.

The best thing about this particular hotel, however, was the indoor pool! I got to go down and swim in it while Mommy went to her "conference" (which, if I understand correctly, is a place where people sit in a room with strangers trying not to look bored and listen to people talking about selling timeshares or something). Now, I've been swimming before. But, an indoor pool is pretty awesome. Especially when they have a blow up basketball hoop. Daddy taught me how to "dunk the ball" into the hoop which was made far easier for him since gravity stopped being a factor. And the hoop was only a foot high.

After the pool, I demonstrated for Badger-Face my recent mastery of the English language by pointing out letters on the TV can sounding them out correctly. Of course, if you're reading this blog, chances are you deduced that I can not only recognize letters, but put them together to form words, sentences, and a mildly entertaining story. But, he was truly astounded by it. Ah, the gift of a parent's simple laughter...

Once the conferences were over, it was time to get back in the car and head down to Memphis to see my grandparents, uncles and aunts, and my new baby cousin. We did make two stops of note on the way: 1. a place called O'Connell's in St. Louis. I mention this because I had the chance to sample one of the greatest inventions ever created aside from pie. The Gooey Butter Cookie. Imagine, if you will, a confection that closely resembles heaven, if heaven was made out of cream cheese and butter. Then, slap a large amount of powdered sugar on top. Then, take out your awesome stick (I found mine at Sharper Image), and smack it a few times with it. I'm pretty sure this is a portion of the recipe for these cookies.

2. Lambert's in Sykeston. They fling baked goods at you here. Seriously. And they give you a massive balloon while you eat, and not in the gassy sort of way. (OK, maybe that way too) Apparently, only the awesome people get them, since I was one of only a handful that did. I guess if they gave more out, it would impede the "baked good flinging process", which seems the most expedient way to get them from the oven to my mouth.

The way to tell that you are getting close to Lambert's is the appearance of large advertisements on the sides of the road, that Badger-Face tells me are called "Bill's Boards". Bill must have a lot of work to do and money to spend buying them, since there are so many of them. In Memphis proper, Bill has put up some boards for a TV show called "Memphis Beat". She cursed loudly every time that we passed one, because, she says, "they don't actually film in Memphis. They film in New Orleans! Hate you, Memphis Beat!" I think we made that the official rally cry for this trip...

Seeing my baby cousin was very nice. She's a tiny little thing! Mommy said that I was that small once, but I don't believe her. I mean, how could I have contained all of my beefiness in such a small package? But she is adorable, and I don't mind so much that I'm going to have to show her the ropes from time to time. I'm considering it practice for being a big brother. Also, I'm finding it hard to believe that I slept and pooped that much when I was younger...

As an extra bonus on the trip, my awesome uncle Jay (who, like daddy, has some sort of dead animal on his face.) gave me an equally awesome gift: a Mr. Potato Head made to look like someone called R2-D2. Badger-Face reminded me that he's the trash can from that Star Wars movie he's always going on and on and on and on about.

An excellent trip overall. Got to see my grandpa Poppy and grandma Yoda, my aunt Ashley, uncle Jay, cousin Katie, and all of my other family members. I miss you all very much when I am not down there!

Big changes

Right, let's get this out of the way first. I've been busy. Growing. Learning. Getting more awesome. Let's leave it at that.

It seems the biggest change that's happening around Chez West is that my parents tell me I'm going to be a big brother soon. Apparently, this is something to be excited about, according to them. I wasn't sure what all this new job entails and it seemed like such a big deal. I felt like I was going to undertake more than I could handle (dubious, I know, but a guy needs to know his limitations) It was time to ask for help. But, who could I turn to? Who would have all the answers to all of life's burning questions? Where could I find such a massive repository of knowledge and insight about this most critical of questions without judgment? What singular person on this planet could walk me through life's big conundrums and solve all of my major problems? The answer to that was clear:

The Internet.

But, how to get access to it? My plan was as elegant as it was simple: Wait for Badger Face to open his computer, bring him a nice yummy cup of Goldfish crackers (laced with a prescription strength laxative), slip on a gas mask, and wait.

Worked like a charm.

I punched into the friendly search engine on the screen (that will not get mentioned here until they pay me endorsement fees), the words "Big Brother". After an exhaustive search of 2 minutes, I have deduced 2 possible job descriptions:

1. My parents are going to enroll me in a TV reality show, in which I am stuck in a house with 11 douchebags and forced to humiliate myself for cash or,

2. They are going to give me a foster kid to take care of.

As my parenting skills are not quite to the level of child rearing (although I am a professor emeritus in Baby Studies at Harvard), I can only assume that the former is the case.

Just to verify that I heard correctly, I asked the dog what it meant to be a big brother. She told me that he was always watching us, everything we do, at all times. Now, I may be awesome, but that's a little too much responsibility for me. It was then that the bearded one came out of the bathroom, reeking of shame and messy diaper. He asked me if I was ready to have a new baby in the house and be a big brother to it. Then, I understood.

I am to teach this child the ropes. I need to help him not make the mistakes that I have made.

This morning, for instance, I accidentally (and by that I mean on purpose) grabbed the flat iron while it was on. People should warn babies about hot things! There should be a manual!


So, You've Just Been Born: The Newborn's Guide to Your New Life

1. Don't Panic!
2. Hot things are hot!
3. Cold things are cold!
4. Dogs are evil would-be dictators
5. Hot dogs, however, are yummy
6. Crawling may seem like the best means of transport, but walking is much more efficient
7. Been carried, doubly so
8. You like cheese. You always will. Just give in.
9. Yes, they will babble at you like morons until you give them a complete sentence. Better sooner than later.
10. Crapping in your pants is awesome and the toilet is the devil. (It is fun to flush, though)
11. Wake up in the middle of the night often and as loudly as possible. This makes your parents very happy.


It's a work in progress. It'll be hard to compile a list of everything I've learned in these long 19 months, but I think i can do it before the baby comes. Then I simply have to get the list to the baby before it's born so they can be briefed before coming out of Mommy. It'll be tricky, but I think the best way to do it will be to teach him/her Morse code. I must make a list of what to do before the new kid comes to town. Not the New Kids, though. I've already got my tickets.

1. Make list
2. Teach "Cleatus v2.0" Morse code.
3. Finish book
4. Blog more often
5. Rollover 401(k)

A Year In Review

Whew! Has it really been one year since I came into this world? It's been quite a ride. Let's take a look back, shall we? If you're still reading, then let's go!

One year ago today, I was resting comfortably in my wroom (womb room) grading some papers from my Baby Studies class at Harvard, when suddenly INS (calling himself Dr. Burke) comes busting in and deports me into the outside world. Side note, I left some of my papers in my wroom. The students were understandably upset, but not so much as my mom will be in a few years. Sorry, Mom.

It's so hard to believe that this time last year I was introduced to the two people that have made the biggest difference in my life. Without them, I would not be the man I am today, what with my Ph.D. , professorship at Harvard, living large with my big house, five cars, I'm in charge, comin' up in the world, don't trust nobody, gotta look over your shoulder constantly... Sorry, just flew into some Cypress Hill there.

I'm talking about the two most important people in my life to date. Yes, Hall and Oats, your dulcet tones and heartfelt lyrics have gotten me through many a night when my teeth were hurting. Your private eyes are watching me indeed.

But, I would be remiss if I did not mention the other two that have meant so much, Badger-face and Mommy. I love those two guys, and to tell the truth, I think I'm finally getting around to learning their proper names. I had Mommy right, but I think that Badger-face is called "Daddy". I've started saying it around the house and every time I do, the furry one points to himself. So, either his name is Daddy or he has some weird tic that makes him do that every time anyone says Daddy. Like the Pillsbury Dough Boy and his stomach. Or Dan Foglelburg and his awesomeness.

Next, the long difficult road to self-mobility. First, it was rolling around on my back like a turtle, which moved into doing push-ups (not just for mobility, but to stay beefy), then army crawling, and now full-fledged crawling! Not sure where to go from there, but as I see at work with the other kids, it looks like walking may be the next big thing.

A few more teeth have popped up. Hasn't seemed that long ago that I was eating liquid fruit and veggies. Now, I can chew and have moved up to real big boy meals! Long nights and cranky days for me!

Well, I'm tired and I do have work tomorrow. So, I'll close for the evening, but fear not:

Coming soon: Part 2 of my retrospective on my first year!

Unfunny update time!

I realize I'm not as funny as either Jack or Badger-face, but I am a mommy, and that means I have this uncontrollable urge to tell everyone everything I can about my kid. Since Jon and Jack are falling down on the job, I'm going to pick up some of the slack and let y'all know what's been happening around here.

Jack is doing wonderfully. He's mastered the delicate art of army crawling, and is getting into all sorts of mischief. I didn't tell Jon, but he got into the book case and managed to tear a page out of one of Jon's favorite books. It seems that if there's something he's not supposed to get into, he makes a beeline for it, and doesn't give up, even if you drag him back to his toys time after time after time after time... He's a tenacious little bugger. Also, even though he has all of these toys all over the place (and I really do mean ALL OVER THE PLACE), he's completely uninterested. His favorite plaything so far? An empty 7-up bottle.

Lily has mostly gotten over her last bout of seizures. We've changed vets, and I think we found a pretty good fit. She's gotten really clingy, though, and has growled at Jack a few times. We're working on teaching her to walk away, and I think it's starting to work.

I've become a bit obsessed with fixing up/decorating the house. I think I'd be less obsessed if I actually had the funds to carry through with the ideas I have, because all I can do at this point is think about it.

Jon got us a Wii Fit, and I think it's actually doing us some good! Hooray! Of course, Jon is losing about twice as much weight as I am, and I think it's partially because he doesn't really care much about how he looks, and just like with everything, if you want it too much, you don't get it. Awesome!

I think that's all. I'm hoping the "Christmas Update Letter" feel of this post will light a fire under someone and the next post will be from someone funnier than me!

That's all I can think of for now.