We miss you, Lisa. My first  interaction with Lisa was a snarky insult right to her face. It was TequilaCon 2008 — and I had heard of her. I was one of many across the blogosphere who supported a trip for her and her family to visit Walt Disney World.  She had never heard of [...]

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“Do you have a step-brother?” This was a weird question to get asked while driving Av home from school the other day. A bit of background: I have one brother who is three years older than me. His name, as revealed here previously, is Captain Awesome. (Also revealed previously: I gave him that name on [...]

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All the cool kids seem to be doing one of those “Top 20 Albums which Changed Your Life” Meme.  Pretty straightforward: you put down a list of… well, 20 albums which changed your life.  Oh — and then you have to tag 128 of your friends and demand they do the same. I want to [...]

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“List on the 3s” is … well, if you don’t know it by now, you’ll never, ever, ever know it. Hey, everyone! What did you think of the Oscars last night? I assume you all watched the telecast, right? Not me. I mean, I watched a few snippets of it here and there, but it’s [...]

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Wow. It’s been an entire week since I’ve blogged here. That’s not great — especially since my goal was to blog every single day of 2009.  I didn’t want to feel like I was creating a huge presentation for each of these blog entries, but rather just some thoughts from the day. Should have been [...]

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According to my WordPress installation, this is post number 200 on Shiny’s Takeout. Which, in my opinion, isn’t so bad:  my first post appeared on March 11 of last year, meaning that I’ve blogged 200 times here in 333 days. That’s  a ratio of about 3 blog posts for every five days –certainly a far [...]

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“List on the 3s” is back after a short hiatus! Here’s the scoop: If there’s a calendar date with a 3 in it, then I provide some sort of list to the wonderful readership of this here blog.  It’s as simple as that. Today marks a special occasion — an intersection between List on the [...]

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We got home late this evening. But for a good reason — when I went to pick up Avi at school, he was in the gym.  There was a double-header (middle school) basketball game going on.  Our school’s team is part of a league of other small private schools in the area. Some of them [...]

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Lots of things on my mind this evening: * What is the sound of sixteen fifth and sixth graders on a Saturday evening? On the most part it’s a high-pitched shrill with the intensity and volume of a jet engine.  Believe me — I now know. I experienced this (voluntarily) last night.  I was tapped [...]

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Have you heard of Microsoft Songsmith yet? If you haven’t — well, it’s Microsoft’s newest venture into the artificial intelligence entertainment business. Here’s the premise: connect a microphone to your Windows based PC and start singing.  The program will analyze the melody and come up with some musical accompaniment tailor-made for your voice!  You can [...]

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