Hannah's 2nd birthday

Hannah turns two years old today, as I've mentioned a few times already on Twitter and Facebook. She's having the most digital birthday of any of our previous kids. I've spent some time over the last few days wondering what I might write on her birthday post and I really couldn't come up with anything that didn't already sound like stuff that I had written for the other girls in other years. But then I realized that we would take some videos and some pictures that would (hopefully) let some of it stand on its own. Add up the photos and videos and you get a few thousands of words that are probably more interesting than than whatever I could say. But the only words that matter are these four:

Hannah, I love you.

*****

Lynda got her all dressed up for some nice pictures. (She got breakfast jelly and cake frosting on her pants from earlier in the day. Not suitable for pictures as I'm sure you will agree.)

Here is a video of her getting ready to eat her cake.

And here is a video of her opening one of her presents.

*****

You may know that Hannah is several years younger than her sisters. And the reason for that is because of me. I will admit that I had to be convinced to have a third child, as I thought that two kids was more than enough responsibility and work. But Lynda was patient and kept talking to me about it and made me realize that adding another person, another distinct personality, to our family would enrich our lives and make our family into something that it was not.

She, of course, was right. Hannah has been a wonderful blessing and a great enrichment to our family--which was, I admit, already pretty spectacular. I must also admit that she is at her most fun, engaging, and cute at the age of two. She still throws tantrums at times (and will continue to through the Terrible Twos and well into the Thunderous Threes . . . or whatever we choose to call it), but she is speaking so well and is full of excitement and thrills right now.

Congratulations little Hannah on becoming two years old. You are, and will always be, my favorite Banana.

Ted Olsen gets it right

Image via Wikipedia

If you haven't read former Solicitor General Theodore Olsen's explaination for why California's Proposition 8 should be invalidated, and why--by extension--the right of gay couples to be married should be recognized at the federal (really, at all) level(s), I encourage you to sit down for ten minutes and read this article.

I know I'm late to the party here, given that this article has been in print for over a week. But the case is being argued right now and its ruling, now and at the higher appeals courts cases to come, will dictate the quality of life for many, many Americans.

Be honest and rational in your evaluation of the arguments presented within. Set aside whatever religious stance you may have on the issue of homosexuality and consider the legal, civil, fundamental issues of equality that are being presented here.

(I do wish, however, that the six-page article had the same amount of pages as the seven-page ad for antidepressant drug Seroquel. Sigh)


-- Posted From My iPhone (so, I apologize in advance for any typos I missed)

"The cause of . . . and solution to all of life's problems."

We recently got a DVR at our house. (It was good timing, since our old DVD/VCR combo machine went belly up right before the Christmas holidays.)

Not only did we get a DVR, we also upgraded our cable with a few new channels that weren't in the last subscription. This combination of new options and effortless recording has proven to be pretty seductive. I've set up series recordings of the shows I habitually watch. But that doesn't really alter what came before. (Though it has shifted the hours at which we watch. Truly, I am become the Destroyer of Neilsen Ratings!)

What's REALLY dangerous to a TV fan such as I is the ease with which I can record 30Rock--a show I've admired but had only watched sporadically. Now I feel more compelled to record and watch as watch can. The complete ease of picking and choosing the specific shows I want and catching them when I want them just increases the commitment to televised entertainment. And when you consider that now I can record Buffy the Vampire Slayer reruns on the newly acquired Logo channel . . . well, there aren't enough hours available. Shows I just couldn't get anymore and suddenly back into a passable rotation. And if I want to watch upstairs in the bedroom while falling asleep . . . why not?

Basically, I'm the master of my own network. And I choose to never let Jay Leno onto that network.

I'll admit that I didn't watch tons of late night TV (and still don't) and I have NEVER watched much of any incarnation of The Tonight Show. But I just don't like Leno, have never found him funny, and think the monkeys running NBC shot themselves in the foot by giving up so much of their time to Leno (cheapness be damned) and then never giving Conan enough time.

Sure, some argue that Conan has been prepping for fifteen years, so why give him more time. But being outside of the Tonight Show mystique (so called anyway) and having it focused on you is something else. And I just think Conan is funnier. And I don't like Leno. And NBC is run by idiots. And I'll take the chance here to say that while I didn't exactly (or at all, really) predict this would happen . . . I think you may agree that I wasn't supportive of the experiment in my NBC Fall Preview column.

Well, I think that is all I'm going to write about tonight. I've got lots of TV to watch after all. Sorry things have been pretty hit-and-miss lately. I'll try to find some other stuff to say soon. But I just haven't felt clearly motivated to craft anything. That's a pretty poor admission for someone who is blogging and then hoping people read it.

(Yeah, just quit while you are already behind, David.)

-- Posted From My iPhone (so, I apologize in advance for any typos I missed)

Murder most foul, as in the best it is, But this most foul, strange, and unnatural.

(That's from Hamlet, by the way.)

I settled down to work on Monday morning, creating To Do lists, checking emails, shuffling papers from one pile to another, drinking coffee, being a busy little worker bee.

And then I got a phone call.

I don't usually get too many phone calls, and when I do get them, people accuse me of just waking up from a nap because my phone persona lacks that verve that you can only get with a one-on-one LIVE David experience. So, I've grown to be hesitant to using the phone. But since it was ringing and all, I guess I had to pick it up. Besides, my cubicle mates don't need to suffer due to my phoneaphobia.

I picked it up and the conversation went something like this, though I am sure to be paraphrasing it a week after the fact.

"David Martin?"
"Yes, this is he."
"My name is Jason Tanner. Have you seen the news today?"
"Um . . . no." [Now I'm trying to think to myself . . . who is Jason Tanner? An old high school friend? A contact at a vendor that I worked with a few years ago? And why the weird question about the news?]

Jason goes on to tell me that he works with me at our place of employment. He has only been working there for about two months. But according to the news that Monday morning, I was responsible for his death.

Now, THIS is a surprise to me . . . and apparently to him as well.

Jason had been receiving concerned phone calls and worried visits to his desk all morning long. And in the conversations where he explained that, no, he had not been in a fight and shot, people remarked that there was someone else in my department with the same name as the accused gunman. Since Jason and I did not know each other and it was a remarkable coincidence that the two of us worked in the same building (but neither of us was involved in the shooting incident that occurred in our city of residence), he got my number and gave me a call.

Once all of this was explained to me, I immediately apologized to Jason for shooting him and we wished each other well. He sent me the link to the news story above and I looked up his picture in the company database.

It was all quite odd. I half expected the Human Resources department to call me halfway through the day and ask me probing questions under a heat lamp. I also wondered why people were calling Jason, all concerned that he had been killed, but no one called me to ask why I did it. No one wondered what had driven me to murderous rage at a bar. Were they afraid of me? Were they afraid that they would be next?

Of course, I tweeted about the entire affair and then I tried to go about my business, feeling sorry for the other Jason Tanner who had died from the fight.

But it got me thinking. Something like this would make for a good movie, right? A serious case of mistake identity. Something like Vertigo or that Gwyneth Paltrow movie with the subway train. Of course the screenplay would need to be written by Charlie Kaufman since he's quite adept at handing the twisty logic of misplaced identity and unknown personalities.

Later in the week I got an email that said that my very own nemesis Jason Tanner would be filling in on my project in the upcoming week. And that is when it truly hit me what was going on here.

First, there was a story about a person (me, or someone with my name) living in my town that killed someone I didn't know. How could I be accused of committing a murder, especially a murder of someone I didn't even know for a reason I could not even begin to guess?

Is it starting to sound familiar to you yet? Are you understanding the plot?

And then . . . I find out that I don't YET know the victim, but I soon will become acquainted with him in the future!

Are you there yet? Can you see what is happening?

Yep. I'm staring in Minority Report, a futuristic murder mystery directed by Steven Spielberg and starring . . . TOM CRUISE!

When I made that observation, it all made sense. Tom Cruise was setting me up. He was using the plot of one of his own films to discredit me and all of the (FUN-LOVING!) accusations I've made about his murderous rage over the years.

By making ME a murderer, Cruise hopes to deflect away from the leads I've uncovered. He hopes to ensure his own safety.

But this post can also be my anchor to protection. I've laid it out there for everyone. If anything should happen to me, remember this. I didn't do it. You KNOW I didn't do it. And now the blame is pointed back at Cruise.

Disappointed

Spider-Man 4 Scrapped; Raimi and Maguire Gone; Sony Plans Franchise Reboot for 2012: "

I didn't spend a lot of time on the Internets yesterday and so I missed this big announcement.

I was a huge fan of Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2. (In fact, I've said many times that S2 is one of the best--if not THE best--comic book movies of all time.) I gritted my teeth and tried to find good things about Spider-Man 3, but it was pretty hard. I just don't know how they could have found a way to screw up the Venom story line as much as they did. And I have always said that they bloated the movie with too many villains. (Something the original incarnation of the Batman movies suffocated under the weight of.)

So, will this new reboot work?

It depends entirely upon the new director, the script, and the acting team that picks up where Sam, Tobey, & Co. left. (Not that that sentence is any sort of revelation.) But really, when rebooting something (a la Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins), a director's vision is supremely important. Who is the new director and how will his vision be different than Raimi's? (Or will it just be cheaper than Raimi's?) The article I liked to above is suggesting that Sony is wanting strong creative control and needs to control costs. All fine business decisions, but will it earn them a profit?

I know that I will be very hesitant before I jump back on this bandwagon.