Procrastinet

Laugh Out Loud Halloween

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Trying out the embedded Flickr slideshow tool flickrSLiDR for the Halloween pix!

Mouse to the top of the slideshow for controls, mouse to the bottom for tiny thumbs of all pictures to jump around. Neat!

Ape Lad, esteemed creator of the Laugh Out Loud Cats, posted two of our Halloween pics on Hobotopia. Fleeting Intarweb Fame - We Haz It! Big thanks to Mr. Koford - glad you liked our costumes, we sure love the Cats.

Our attempt at re-creation of one of the original panels we own:

And finally, my favorite picture from the inordinate number I took last night. Maybe one of my top five favorite pictures of the boy ever:

Photo Clearinghouse

I have been accused of neglecting Maxblogging in favor of "yuppiefagpicnicblogging" (I HAZ A AIRLUM TOMATOZ - LET ME SHOW YOU THEM). So, let's catch up on some pictures (click pictures for full size and other pix):

First day of school!

At school.

Max's portrait of Mommy.

Who, me?

Eaten by an egg at Ikea.

Sitting on the bed naked playing Scrabble Junior wearing safety goggles. What? Don't you?

Getting mad bounced.

Don't cut yourself, emo kid...

Playing with Kashi with cousin Christian (August, in NC)

Belated Fall Photoblogging

I logged onto the site today to see that, since we passed two weeks after election day (and my last flurry of posts), all those posts had disappeared and left poor neglected Procrastinet looking quite funky. So I will, belated, post some pictures from our early-October camping/apple picking trip upstate to take up the empty space.

To wit:

Mom and boy ready to pick some apples!

Stuart's Farm, our orchard-of-choice.

The Map'O'Apples (MacIntosh, Macoun, Empire, Fuji, Red/Yellow Delicious, Granny Smith)

That lush foliage? Yeah, that's poison ivy. The base of every tree was pretty much blanketed with it. I didn't breathe easy until the next day, when it was clear nobody had gotten rashy.

On the hayride, with Max still clutching the first apple he picked (he lost it near the end of the hayride, a very poignant moment)

Back at the campsite, at Fahnestock State Park. Camping on October 7 proved to be great fun, but cold at night with all three of us crammed onto a full-sized air mattress.

The portable DVD player: proof positive that (a) backwoods campers we ain't, and (b) the times they have a'changed.

From my "Portraits of Fire" series, available soon in limited-edition lithograph.

Cold Spring, NY. The Hudson, across to Storm King Mountain. Note to those considering a move out of the NY Metro area: you can live in a historic, 3BR, 1800's townhouse within one block of this view, a 1 hour commute out of town, for $619k. I know, because we gave it some serious thought.

For the family-photo gluttons in the bunch, the whole photoset (complete with witty captions) is available here.

I've Been on TV! I EXIST!

Top center is me and Dan at the Mets game. I had Lisa DVR the game, as we were in the fourth row behind the third base line, and I suspected we would show up in the telecast. Sure enough, in the 4th, a foul ball came in about six feet to our right, and there we are on TV.

For Dan, being on TV is all in a day's work. For me, it's still pretty novel. Even if the TV really does add ten pounds.

And now, Lisa and Noreen have graphic proof that we really did go to the ballgame, and not to get hookers or something. See, honey? Told you.

Upstate - now with improved Waterfalls

While I'm nursing my current impractical obsession with getting us a weekend place upstate (always a sensible idea on one income with one spouse in grad school!), we've been using EST's Lexington Center as a weekend getaway. This time we took the 1-mile hike from the end of Spruceton Road (in the idyllic Spruceton Valley, a few miles south of Lexington) to Diamond Notch Falls. It was Max's first official hike, and he even walked part of the stone-studded trail himself, watching the ground with intense concentration and holding tightly to my hand.

The waterfall itself was really beautiful, if only moderately-watered at this point in the mid-summer. It was clear from secondary grooves that there is often a much bigger cataract there. We took a dip in the icy pool at the bottom of the falls, which was so astonishingly cold that we could still feel it hours later - a nice touch on one of the hottest days of the year.

The whole photoset is here.

Upstate 4th of July Pictures

We went up to EST's Lexington Center for the Arts for the latter half of the Fourth of July weekend - missing EST's Member's Weekend (to which I am now invited, as a brand newly minted Member of EST), which was on Saturday and Sunday, but enjoying a lovely and relaxing weekend upstate.

See all the pictures HERE.

Daddy Day

Father's Day was spent barbecuing with Max's Grauntie Barbara and Gruncle Bob (short for "great aunt" and "great uncle").

But first we stopped off at the 7th Avenue Street Fair, where Max got the no-doubt dreamlike experience of stepping outside of his house and finding the street transformed into an amusement park, complete with his new favorite: the Big Bouncers, right there on our very block:

The swing ride represented, I think, the high point of Max's three years on earth.

Many more pix from the Street Fair, and from Father's Day...

Easter Island!

Yesterday we celebrated Easter with a visit to Coney Island - the Aquarium and Astroland, with a traditional Easter lunch of hot dogs at Nathan's. The photos are online at Flickr (with narrative blurbs, natch) in an Easter Island Photoset!

A random sampling:

Chaser! New Costa Rica Pix

On BoingBoing, whenever they show a disturbing image, they include a link to a random unicorn picture so that readers can clear their mind's eye with a "Unicorn Chaser."

So, with the same intent (and to get the gay foot porn down off the top of the site), here are links to the remaining photosets from Costa Rica:

Days 3 and 4

Day 5

Costa Rica Pix on Flickr

We're back from Costa Rica, and while I'm working on the trip report posts, here are links to the photos from Day 1 and Day 2 that I've managed to upload to Flickr. (You can view them as a slideshow, but that leaves out the captions so you won't know what you're looking at. I'd suggest clicking on the first photo and using the arrows, but your mileage may vary.)

Day 1

Day 2

The daily trip reports will be long and detailed, but it will all boil down to this: Costa Rica is awesome. You should go. Yes, you. Really. Go. You'll thank me for it.

Valentine's ToddlerHood

Max is in the full blush of toddlerhood. He keeps up a more or less endless stream-of-consciousness babble about anything and everything; invents arcane games with obscure, often-contradictory rules that only he understands but which send him into howling fits when violated; and oscillates between heartbreaking adorability and infuriating willfulness so fast he creates a 16-cycle hum.

Here's a photoblog of our Valentine's Day evening, for which the kid had been thoughtfully dosed with lots of sugar at preschool:

Max was immediately enraptured with Mom's roses. "A rose MOM!" he said, thirteen hundred times in rapid succession. While pointing. Frantically. "I WANNA ROSE MOM! A ROSE MOM! A ROSE MAAAAHM!"

(To get the full feel of it, you have to understand Max's "maxcent," a long-standing and geographically inappropriate collection of vocal/diction quirks. He started out sounding Chinese, often delves deep into the Bronx, and almost always sends the word "mom" to live somewhere near Boston, rendering it "Maaaahm!")

Making Mom smell the rose, for the first of seven hundred thirty-one times. "Smell it MOM! SMELL IT MOM! SMELL, MOM!"

Even Daddy, behind the camera, was not immune. "Smell it DAAAAD! SMELL, DAAAAADY!"

More after the jump...

Throughout the proceedings, the boy indulged in a long game of "HOOD" with Mommy. The rules of Hood seemed to be:

1) Mommy is to put her hood on.

2) Mommy is to take her hood off and put it on FASTER.

3) Mommy is to pull her hood down over her face.

4) NO MOMMY PUT IT ON!!!!

If HOOD was not played properly, emotional disaster ensued:

Which then had to be soothed:

The rose, after having been thoroughly smelled by all involved, was quickly dismembered:

Once it was rendered into confetti, Max decided he wanted it back. "Fix it, Mom? Fix it, Mommy? Daddy, fix it?"

Um... no, probably not.

This did lead to the next game, however, which consisted of Mommy flinging the petals into the air to rain down on them:

It was Max's job to count to three before the fling. Here, you can see that he got stuck on two this time around:

Mid-way through the game of "Fling," Max was seized with a sudden burning desire to improvise a Geordi LaForge costume:

Finally, on a touching note, Max revealed his predilection for Junkie Chic as he romanced his amoxycillin "works":

It's hard to tell from the still picture, but here he has decided to stab himself repeatedly in the face with the syringe:

He had such a great time doing so, in fact, that he decided Daddy needed to get down on that action:

But, of course, for every bizarre impulse, for every incessant repitition of the phrase-of-the-instant, for every random tantrum or crying jag, there were at least three counterbalancing moments of total and utter sweetpeahood.

Happy Valentine's Day, buddy.

Holiday Snaps

It's become a Thanksgiving tradition to take a picture of Max behind the turkey. This year, he was determined to prove his toddlerhood and refused to sit, preferring to tower, Godzilla-like, over the bird:

Last year, he only needed Mommy behind him to keep him in place:

And the year before still counts as infancy. Sweet, sweet, pliable infancy:

After the jump, more pictures - this time, catching up on Halloween.

(click for bigger images)

On the way to Nana's for Thanksgiving, wearing his Yankees hat. Which he requests by saying "I wanna N an a Y hat! Issa N an a Y for YANKEES! Issa baseball team."

Our little Halloween clown, who after weeks of excitement ("What are you going to be for Halloween buddy?" "A CWOWN!") had to be tricked into his suit by slipping it on with his pants after a diaper change. And he flat refused to wear his rainbow wig or pointy hat.

His candy bucket was another matter, and clearly made excellent headgear.

We "marched" in the Park Slope Halloween Parade (Best. Parade. Ever.) Here, Max is indulging his new fondness for random counting while Daddy wears the clown hat.

A number of children were dressed as Elmo, hardly suspecting the adoration this would earn them. He stalked this poor little girl for blocks ("Wanna ride on Daddy's shoulders! Wanna look fah ELMO!") and then practically prostrated himself before the Elmo-y goodness of her red furred majesty.

Totally rocked on sucrose, Max invented a new game when we got home, called simply "garbage." It consisted entirely of him climbing around on the garbage can corral while shouting "Garbage! Happy Halloween! Trick oh TREAT!" at random intervals. And refusing to come down.

For the next several days, any time we passed the garbage cans he'd begin shouting "Garbage? Wanna play GARBAGE!!"

Blossomblogging 2005

Despite the rainy/misty day on Saturday, we went to the Brooklyn Botanical Garden's Cherry Blossom Festival - and boy, am I glad we did. It didn't do more than sort of drizzle, and the mist made all the cherry trees look just spectacular. Plus, the crowds were way down.

The trees should still be flowering for a little bit - if you get a chance to go, don't miss it. It's one of those things.

In this picture Max looks a bit overwhelmed by the sheer pinky-purpleness of it all:

(click for full size on all pictures)

But by the time Mommy got a hold of him, he had the hang of it.

He became obsessed with the performance tent. "Tent!" he chanted, all day and up until bedtime. "TENT!"

"What about the blossoms?" we'd ask.

"'Soms," he's say, tentatively. "TENT!"

"It was a big tent," we'd admit.

"Uh-HUH!"

More pix after the jump...

Max's favorite part of the Festival was the game he and I came up with. It was a very simple game. It went like this: I'd lift him face first into the nearest rain-soaked branch of flowers. The rain would fall on his face and head, drenching him and worrying Mommy. Max would then laugh his ass off, to the great and indulgent amusement of passers-by. Here's the immediate aftermath of one round of our game:

He was also briefly obsessed with the pond ("Puh-AHHH-nd!"):

Eventually, he just wandered around in a Cherry Blossom stupor:

The Botanical Gardens are the kind of place that, if they were in a city we were visiting and we read about them in a guide book, we'd be there in a heartbeat - but instead they're a 20 minute walk from our apartment and somehow it's hard to motivate to actually go. But they're just stunning - even when the Cherry Blossoms (biggest collection anywhere in the world outside of Japan - go BROOKLYN) aren't in bloom, but especially when they are.

According to the BBG's online Cherry Blossom Meter (amazing!) almost all of the trees are, as of today, still in peak bloom. If you're in the area and can swing by, I can not recommend it more highly.

The Huge Manatee

[Found at Geek Family, which I surfed randomly through Defective Yeti's "Last 10 Referrers" feature...]

Introducing the Daily Zeitgeist

You no longer have an excuse to be bored online.

Through BoingBoing (which really should soon get a "P'net must-read" tag - I read it several times a day and recommend it highly), which pointed the way to Mind Hacks (a website and also a cool-looking book I will soon buy and report back on), comes the Flickr "Daily Zeitgeist," which runs an ever-changing mosaic of teeny thumbnails from the public pictures kept on people's Flickr (photo sharing) account. I've added the DZ near the bottom of my links (right side of the page), but here it is for a trial run:

I am almost endlessly fascinated by the mundane details of other people's lives (hence my relentless blogging of the most mundane details of mine), so the ability to simply click on any interesting-looking teeny tiny thumbnail image and look at that person's whole online photo album - parties, trips, friends, art shots, etc. - is online time-wasting NIRVANA.

Our Blessed Lady of Velveeta

So by now you've probably seen the once-bitten grilled cheese sandwich which sold on eBay for $28,000 because it bears an image of the Virgin Mary:

Except to me, it doesn't look like the Virgin Mary. It looks like Madeline Kahn:

And not that it wouldn't be nice for the spirit of Madeline Kahn to be making supernatural appearances in food products. I'm just not sure someone would have paid $28,000 for it.

Which is too bad, really.

Haircutblogging

It finally had to happen. Max's downy, errant curls and bangs finally had to be controlled, as they risked obscuring his face, poking him in the eyes and collecting enough food for three lunches at a time.

(the big haircut, before and after)

So off we went to Lulu's.

Just as Park Slope Babies (PSBs) are required by some mystical force to be pushed around in Maclaren strollers, and PSBs are strapped into Britax carseats, and PSBs are shod in those little leather bootie shoes whose name escapes me, and all PSBs must have the glittery ring grippy ball, and PSMs (Park Slope Mommies) must wear clogs, so must all PSBs go to Lulu's for their first haircuts. There's no use fighting it - you might as well try to live in Park Slope with neither a baby nor a dog. Yeah, you might make it a couple months, but long term? Uphill battle.

Lulu's is a combination toy store/childrens' hair salon, where they have become masters at mitigating the misery of a confused child who doesn't want his head touched by a stranger with sharp implements.

We had 20 or so minutes to kill before our appointment, and Max was determined to climb right up the wall of shelves to the giant four-foot Elmo doll unless distracted, so I rolled him around on a wooden bike for a bit. I don't really understand the concept behind this bike, as it has no pedals and is sized for children who can't balance on a bike, but also has no handle for a parent to stabilize or push it without walking around bent double. And costs over $100. Whatever.

We tried putting Max in the police-car chair, and while he did enjoy the steering wheel, once our stylist Gina spritzed him with the water bottle, he was having none of it. Even though the water bottle had a dinosaur head, and even though another stylist was feverishly blowing bubbles at him. Even though they had put Elmo on the DVD player and daddy was bouncing the Elmo puppet madly in front of him. Even once we moved to the sit-in-mommy's-lap chair, Max showed exceptional focus and for a while managed to keep Gina at bay, as in this nice straight arm move:

(click for full size)

All other options exhausted, we went for the most powerful weapon in our parental arsenal: the raisin bread and cashew butter sandwich. Distraction achieved.

With Max shovelling fistfuls of sandwich and hair (his and others') into his face, Gina had a few precious seconds. She moved like a ninja, and Max only managed to bat her hands away about half of the time.

Finally, Gina declared victory, or at least a negotiated truce (I believe her exact words were "Enh... I think that's probably close enough). She was tipped generously, and we headed out into the crisp fall night with a First Haircut diploma (including scotch-taped lock of hair... those Lulu's ladies sure are pros) and our clean cut little buddy:

The only lasting traumatic effect for Max is that he spent several days having to deal with his proud Mom and Daddy (way more excited about the haircut than he was) periodically screaming "OH MY GOD HE'S SUCH A LITTLE MAN!" without warning.

Halloween Costumery

Last year Max happened to bear a striking resemblance to Don Zimmer, so he went as Zim for Halloween.

This year?

Yep. Donald Trump. We just couldn't resist the comb-over. I'm not sure whether to be proud or ashamed.

How I Celebrated Hallowe'en, 2004

Hoochie on Craigslist

This is why I love the Best of Craiglist. Even though this entry, entitled "To the MAN who DID his hoochie on my hood!! \@@/ (PIC)" is probably fake and the picture probably staged.

Still, the picture is priceless:

Public Toys = Good Eatin'

Max went to the Childrens' Museum of Manhattan yesterday, to hang out with new rockstar buddy Chloe Lula. They kindly allowed their parents to tag along.

As would be expected on a rainy Sunday afternoon, the place was mobbed. The 2nd floor has all these little beehive alcoves, carpeted and padded, with railings for cruising, doors for opening and slamming (preferably on the nearest passing infant whose daddy looks JUST like Vin Diesel...), and soft toys for stealing from the kid next to you and sucking on.

Here, Max and Chloe Lula zone out on the chewy goodness of foam toys.

Happy BIRTHDAY dear Maaa-aaa-aaax!

Happy (belated - it was 6/21) FIRST BIRTHDAY to our little guy (aka Max, Maxie, Buddy, The Bub, The Bubba, The Bug, The Giblets, or His Royal Highness The Emperor Poo Stinkus)!

Just think, now you're old enough to drink! Oh, no wait...

Many thanks to those who braved a potentially rainy Prospect Park to sit under the big blue tent (which accounts for the smurfy tint to the above picture) and eat Cake-in-a-Bucket with us (patented Cake-in-a-Bucket designs courtesy of K8).

Special super big ups to Dots the Clown (pictures to come). I gotta say - while hiring a clown for your kid's first birthday party might smack of trying too hard, having a clown VOLUNTEER for the gig simply effing rules. Dots, we will make many lollipops out of your sweetness.

Max Pictures - catching up

Having started this website once Max was already 11 months old, there is a HUGE backlog of pictures that we can, and should, post.

Here, then, are some of the greatest hits (click on the link to go to the page of thumbnails):

More stuff added...

Well, slowly but slowly I'm adding content to the site, if we stretch the term "content" to include links... Look along the side, you'll see ways that we're starting towards our goal of helping people spend their otherwise productive time. There's stuff to read and think about, stuff to read and laugh at, stuff to want to buy, and silly games to play.

And now, just to include the always popular baby pictures, we bring you "Max-in-a-Box":

Max at 10 months

Here is Mr. Max at ten months old...