Pops and Booms

All around the cobbler's bench, the monkey chased the toad, the monkey thought it was all in fun. POP goes the toad.

If there was ever a reason for digital photography and video to have been invented, the phenomenon described below is it. But, no photos/video were included, darn it. Perhaps too gruesome?

Exploding toads puzzle German scientists -- more than 1,000 creatures have puffed up and popped

However it is unfortunate that video was invented if you are this aspiring sportscaster who cracks under the pressure of the bright lights. The silver lining is that he was able to deliver his signature "BOOM goes the dynamite!!!" catch phrase that he has been, no doubt, dreaming of since he was 12. Props to Ill Jackass for finding this.

3rd Degree

Text and picture from a great blog, PlanetDan:

If you really want to freak people out next year, you should carve watermelons instead of pumpkins for Halloween:

I would name her Burn Unit Betty.

I thought the picture was cool before his last comment. Then, looking at it again, it does look like a severe burn victim. Ugh.

Odd Ball

Kind of a strange thing happend to me today. When I was moving Liam from the grocery cart to his car seat, one of his fingernails slashed across my left eyeball. I've been cut in that same eye before (during a volleyball accident when I was 15 -- blood actually dripped from my eyeball) and today felt just like that. Fortunately, there was no blood, but it sure felt the same.

I couldn't see out of it or keep it open for more than a second or two. I sat in the parking lot for about five minutes trying to get well enough to drive home. I finally managed to keep my eye open, and thought my sunglasses would help make the eye feel better. They did, but then I got worried because my vision in the injured eye started blurring badly. I took off the glasses and my vision cleared. I thought, hmmm, the lenses can't be dirty, because they started clear when I put them on.

I put the glasses back on, and, again, my vision blurred. I realized my injured eye was emanating so much heat and moisture, that it was fogging just that left lens.

Eye still aches now, but I can see fine. I just have to take it easy on computer screens for a few days and get some good rest. Speaking of which, I'm headed to bed.

Oh, and it's my birthday today. I wish I had reason to use the name I learned from Chelsie that made me chuckle a few months ago -- Drunky McBirthday -- but being that I was home alone with the kids on a Sunday when the Red Sox steamrolled the Devil Rays...you can call me Papi McBirthday.

And, a belated note here on Archi-blog-o that my mom's birthday was on the 21st. I forgot to recognize it here like I did with my dad's birthday. Suffice to say she is one my best friends. Here she is holding Liam at the Maine beach house back in July 2003. (Liam looks a little like a doll -- in not a good way.)

Funny Videos

My sons and I enjoy watching videos on stupidvideos.com. I'm glad this one went over their heads. It made me really laugh.

Ahead of the Curve

In my March 18 post, I talked about how I had visited a new bar, called Doug Fir. The owners had converted an old Travel Inn motel into an "in" place (get it?). Anyway, I was really impressed by the bar, and how the owners had renovated all the rooms, and had cleaned up the courtyard to include a big outdoor fireplace. There was a green aura/lighting on the balconies of the rooms that gave it a hipster feel. Doug Fir and the adjoining Juniper Hotel is being nationally recognized in an MSNBC article about the new breed of moteliers renovating run down motels.

The motel gets its groove back


A shot of a room at the Jupiter:

Pop Quiz

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I took the 3 minute test and here are my results:

Rob's Linguistic Profile:

45% General American English

35% Yankee

15% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

Chester the Gagging Cheetah

Last night we served the boys ham & cheese sandwiches and Cheetos. After a recent trip to Subway, we discovered Cheetos are both of their favorite snack foods. So, we indulged them last night.



Colleen and I were discussing how Liam will probably grow up to be an engineer or architect because of how he always stacks things and puts them in order. He had just taken all the cheese from his cut up sandwich and stacked them from biggest to smallest in kind of a pegoda.

Grady chimed in and said, "I'm going to be a cheerleader when I grow up" (or at least that what we thought he said). We told him that would be fun and started asking him cheerleader-type questions. He said, "No, I want to be a CHEETO EATER when I grow up. I'm going to eat Cheetos all day, and even all night." He was cracking himself up, and as he's bound to do when he's laughing, he moves into gross out territory.

"I'm going to wipe my Cheeto hands all over my bedroom wall. Then I'm going to put pieces of hair all over the cheese."

Colleen and I shouted, "EWWWWW!" Then he put the cherry on top...

"I'm going to lick hair and cheese off the wall."

Happy Birthday Blog!

Well, OK, it's a little late, but I'm wishing my blog a happy 1st birthday. Archi-blog-o went through several name variations over the past year. First it was Hearsay, as an homage to Erik Henne. Then it was the ill-fated 12 0 13 (numeric reprsentation of my name ROB). Finally, I settled on Archi-blog-o, a play on my favorite word, archipelago. So, Archi-blog-o, I wish you a belated birthday. I've written 145 posts, so that's a post about every 2.5 days.

Tulips

We had a nice weekend, despite a bunch of next week's work on my mind. We made our way to Woodburn, OR (about an hour from our house) to take in prime tulip season. Custom made picture opportunity if you have kids. Not one to buck the system, we snapped some colorful shots.

Weekend Lover

My 4.5 year old son is a sucker for all kinds of music. Reggae, classical, punk, kid's themed stuff, rock 'n roll, 80s glam rock, you name it. Here he is doing a serious Prince impression to Purple Rain earlier tonight. Almost a 7 MB file, so be patient.

**Update: I've heard that some people are only getting audio when clicking the above link. If so, navigate to BeauregardPictures.com in my Favorite Sites to the right. Then click Movies and click Purple Rain.