It's a whole new ballgame.

Boy, I haven't posted in a while. At least, beyond the different question/answer stuff I post now and then. Anyways, some catching up to do.

Our little one is now scuffling around the floor and pulling herself up to stand against just about anything. It's pretty amazing to see. It seems so cliche to say that time has gone by so fast, but it does not seem so long ago that we were at the hospital begging her to eat a half an ounce so we could finally take her home. Now, she's eating Stage 2 foods and regularly draining her bottle. Last night (and this morning) I went into her room in response to her making some noises to find her standing up in her crib and clutching onto the top railing. It's simply amazing.

Work has been pretty busy. I have not been traveling as much as I used to but I have a trip on tap for June. Ottawa, Canada for a week. At least it's not over Father's Day. I'm not sure what there is to see there but if there is I'm sure we (I am going with someone from work) will see it. No baseball team though, so that's too bad.

I've found that the combination of watching Tivo and listening to my iPod in the car has totally made me intolerant of commercials. I just can't stand them. If they could find some way to target them towards things I actually use, that's fine. But the majority of them are for beer (no thanks) or insurance (already have it in multiple forms) or for other products that I have no use for. Just about the only ones I enjoy are the funny ones (a rarity) or ones advertising new products like a new dish at Olive Garden or something. There has to be a better way, because literally 95% of the ones I see are for stuff I have never and would never purchase.

I think much like a person who drives in a ton of traffic ever day becomes numbed to it, and a person who doesn't gets bothered by the slightest amount of traffic, I can't stand commercials at all because most of the time I don't have to listen to them.

On that subject, when I listen to the Cubs games on the radio commercials are unavoidable. There's a beer commercial (at least I think it might be Old Style) where a guy talks about 'local traditions' with the catchphrase "It's a local thing"...the only problem is that these commercials are so annoying AND it seems like the guy is just reading various bits of Chicago trivia off of a script. I can't stand them.

Some days I find myself getting really annoyed at the smallest thing. Maybe I'm too busy at work or not getting enough sleep. Who knows, but I'm sure it's annoying my wife and friends.

I was able to order this, which I was very happy about. Wedge is one of my favorite characters.

I've decided that instead of aiming at last year's model of LCD TV I will most likely choose this year's model, which has 3 HDMI inputs. I'll mostly likely get it from Grants and try to get a good price and financing. Timeframe is TBD because I still haven't found a nice stand for it. I think the TV will end up getting mounted to the wall. I think this will make the front room look bigger. (oh yeah, and my 30th is months away...)

After looking at the ticket stub I have for Borat (dated 11/10/2006) I discovered it's been some time since I've seen a movie. I would like to see Spider-Man 3, Fantastic Four 2, and Pirates 3 and Shrek 3 can go hang for all I care, since I can't stand Shrek. Oh yeah, and I WILL go see Transformers on or around the release date. Hello, it's the original voice of Prime!

Podcasts I listen to:

Tony Kornheiser show on Washington Post Radio
Official Lost Podcast
Battlestar Galactica Podcast
Jim Butcher.com Butcherblock Podcast
ESPN's Eye of the Sportsguy Podcast