one in a million, doc...

is he effin' joking? tragic story, 2 dead, 1 critical, home invasion... this paragraph struck me:
"According to a criminal complaint, Zabawa told police that Tracy Kruger confronted him with a shotgun after he entered the Kruger's home and that Kruger was accidentally shot during a struggle for the weapon. He also said the gun accidentally discharged and wounded Hilary Kruger and then went off again after he dropped it to flee, striking Alec."

but on a happier note... taxes are signed (electronically), sealed (error checked), and delivered (emailed... well, not really emailed, but on these tubes of the internets, who really knows the correct terms?). and not only that, but our nominal refunds from state and fed have already been deposited. submitted them on jan-31... it's always a sad day... another 11.5 months until i can do taxes again. have 2007's taxes estimated, have adjusted w/holding, updated tax table calculation... but happy, in that i was able to work thru them, on a spreadsheet first (natch) and then using taxcut (matched my spreadsheet w/in 2 dollars total... i'll take it. also broke down and bought microsoft office 2007 for home use (excel, powerpoint, word). looks great, but under the hood, not much different. few nice tweaks here and there. backwards compatibility will be tough, in that new file formats are XLSX, PPTX, and DOCX, which (of course) office 2003 versions cannot read. can always 'save as' earlier versions, but that point may be lost on the unwashed noob masses. (i.e. "dennis")

and, here's another optical illusion-type thingie someone emailed me today... count the people, wait until they shift, and then count them again. patience... think... of course it's possible... you're seeing it

valentine's newsletter

so, we missed the window for putting out a christmas newsletter. didn't hit the kwanzaa window. even missed the epiphany. was ice fishing during MLK holiday... so, made it for valentines (when the wyf will get her usual valentine day present (no, not THAT)... it. will. be... NOTHING! to match her last christmas present (you. get. NOTHING!) and her birthday present (y.g.N!). of course, for her anniversary, yup, S.G.N! a card? bah! not yet in this century. she got a few last century, before we realized that every single day w/ me is like a holiday, and a card, gift, nice words would simply be redundant. in today's blog-era, what need for a paper newsletter? what need of a pic for the fridge? (altho we like getting them) me fail english? that's unpossible!

RRROARRRRRRGGHHHH! hunter is really into dinosaur pirates these days. haaarrrrrroaarrrrr! and dinosaur movies. and books, and action figures... cars the movie is SOO last year. funny how a 4 yr old's mind is wired... 100% superheroes. shirts, tatts, capes, action figures. then, 100% cars the movie. mader, lightning mcqueen, sally... route 66 song. then, drop that... then, all consuming 100% interest in dinosaurs. movie trailers, dinosaur park at mall of america, library books, coloring dinosaurs, dino and the aliens computer game, playing dinosaur (did i mention playing dinosaur? we had to put a curfew of about 1 hour a day on dinosaur play. our knees are too old for more). he can rattle off about 20 different dinosaurs by their pictures (even skeletons). take *that* preschool review board. he nailed the preschool screening (natch), but we may 'red shirt' him, so that he isn't the youngest in class (sep-10 bday and usual cutoff is sep-1, so that'll work. what's the hurry?)

ya, ya, optical illusions are passe.. but here's one anyway: (yes, of course A and B are the same exact shade... copy and paste it somewhere, and overlap A and B just to prove it, you skeptics...)




so, i made it pretty far w/out gratuitous family pix...