the secret blog

I can’t avoid it anymore: my ankles are swelling every day. Three cheers for Stay-Puft Marshmallow Incubator!

34w1

Dr. Phil is looking for people who “regret having a homebirth.” The best part is where he refers to hospital birthing as “the traditional way".

UH. I’ll tell the millions of women all over the world who’ve been giving birth outside of hospitals for thousands of years that, right away.

At my OB appointment today, the third (and final) doctor at our practice declared that we are now “on deck” – meaning that if the wee bebe decided to make an appearance any time soon, All Would (most likely) Be Okay. That made B and I squee a little.

I’ve been feeling really great over the past few weeks, too. Walking is less painful lately; my hips, pelvis, and back have finally seemed to get the hang of carrying all my extra weight. The babe’s head is still low in my pelvis, meaning that I am sometimes treated to what Brandon has nicknamed Ribbutt: I will feel a pressure, sort of like someone elbowing me in the ribs, and when I feel my stomach I’m treated to a handful of baby bottom.

Tomorrow we have another (what had better be the final, last) ultrasound to check her torso circumference. Saturday, we have a joint baby shower with Caroline and Josh. Sunday, we go and buy whatever it is we feel essential to have in the house before she arrives (right now my list is: changing table cover, crib mattress, and carseat undermat so we can install the seat). And then all we have left to do is pack a bag or two for the hospital and we’re ready to go!

34w

(Also known as: maybe I didn’t make my point well, so let me try this again.)

You have a company with a lot of wickedly smart people in it. You make all your money by conquering a SATURATED MARKET: search. Seriously? When Google started there were at least six search engines already out there (snap.com, Excite, AltaVista, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves?, MSN). Google is not much better, it’s just stripped down (although they did do fun stuff with targeted advertising).

So then you go take your millions, and your smart engineers, and solve really interesting computer problems, right?

No! You address the already saturated mobile market by re-branding Danger’s OS! WOOO! Totally innovative! (not) Or you reinvent email and make everyone think you’re awesome! (Hotmail, Yahoo!, Excite, anyone?)

So THEN you go take your millions, and your smart engineers, and solve really interesting computer problems, right?

NO! You address the boring, also saturated BROSWER market! It’s GENIUS!

Browsers aren’t BROKEN, people. They’re not broken just because you don’t like the latest version of Firefox (and I don’t think most people do like it, something which I am sure that will be fixed in the next release). They’re not broken just because IE is … scary in every way. There are a lot of awesome, interesting, big problems out there, and Google repeatedly decides… “Hey, forget that, I’m going after this low-lying fruit otherwise known as ‘point out the deficiencies in other people’s work, put in a little effort to do something marginally better which they would have done except they now have the overhead of an existing product that needs to be supported, and bam, product’! I can make BANK!” It’s nothing different than Apple pretending they somehow invented service-backed mobile devices when in fact they did it MUCH later than anyone else but MUCH shinier (and far more broken).

And that’s my point. I don’t care if you like the browser, or even if they’re doing a couple of fun things with it. the point is that the branding is all complete bullshit and people fall for it. Every. Single. Time.

If they’d just admit that yes, they are evil and lazy now, I could at least be apathetic about them. And I think it’s pretty awesome that they’re making money off of putting fun stuff on top of problems that have been mostly solved by other people – that’s smart money, yo. But I’m disappointed that a company who really could have done things differently is just another Microsoft/Apple at this point.

Uh, why not spend some time developing something new and cool? Seriously, a new browser? “Oooh, look at our special tabbed browsing features!”

I guess that taking over a saturated market (search) worked for them once, but really, get a new trick pony, guys.

… that the freecreditreport.com guy is really lip syncing and is, in fact, a French Canadian?

Trufax.

I posted a glider/ottoman to craigslist today because we ended up with two. I got an email five minutes later from a woman who had just had her baby on Friday, 3.5 weeks early, who it turns out works at the same company as Ava (a pretty big place, but I could tell from her email addy). So, I wrote her back, and then we went to the hospital to visit Ava, Shane, and Griffin.

While we were there, the new dad called me. It turned out they were at the same hospital we were at… in the room next door.

So, we’ll probably be dropping the glider at their house tonight (we figured a little easy furniture delivery was nice for new parents).

:D

I have been doing some crazy nesting over the last few days, yow.

33w4

1: The ~8 hours I spent at the hospital today with Ava, Shane, Griffin, and B passed so fast! I was surprised when I left that it had been that long. And, I really enjoyed myself, and was hopefully helpful.

2: We stopped by Babies ‘R Us to grab a coupon and B spotted the carseat we’d registered for, normally $180, for $120, in a different pattern. (The coupon, which was 20% off one item, doesn’t work until mid-Sept, but we were gonna use it on the carseat – $144 was a great price.) B asked why it was so cheap and it turned out that it was an online-only pattern that the store had accidentally ordered two of… AND they had put it on further clearance so it was another 20% off. It seemed like a no-brainer to buy it. THEN I found a coupon at the register for $10 off a carseat over $40. So, we got a $180 carseat for $86!

:D :D

We get to go see a baby today! HURRAH!

*does the wee baby dance*

Man, I really like babies.

Ava and Shane are in labor! She was due on the 1st (Labor Day, har har) but apparently G wants to spend the holiday weekend with his folks.

I am SO EXCITED I am not sure I’m going to be able to sleep. :D :D :D

Dina was nice to me when she had the baby – she did it fast and during the day. Jenna didn’t tell us until she was DONE to spare us the torment. :P

ETA, the next day: Griffin was born at 3:45am via emergency c-section. 6 lbs 9 oz and is 19 inches long! Woo!!!!

The ‘y’ key on my keyboard is borked so it makes half of my IMs look like the were typed by someone with a “special” spelling ability.

Last night, I came home to find that Brandon, even though it was about 2 billion degrees in our house (no a/c, yo):
a) was barefoot in the kitchen
b) had done the dishes
c) was in the process of making me dinner
d) had put out some wine for me

My comments:
+ It’s nice to come home from a haircut to a glass of chilled wine and no dishes.
+ It’s also nice to come home to a hub making eggplant parmesan. Yum.
+ B followed this up by then doing the OTHER set of dishes while I was in the nursery trying to figure out how to attach a bumper to the crib.

All in all, a positive review! I’m pretty sure that my hub is THE ROCKINGEST.

I wanted to watch “Exiled” because I like train wrecks. (Premise: the girls from MTV’s “My Super Sweet Sixteen” are sent to some remote region of the world for a week at age 18 because their parents want them to “grow up".) So, I recorded the first episode: Amanda goes to Kenya.

My comments:
- If you spend a week in Kenya, I really expect the show to be longer than 30 minutes, especially since 15 of those are you reacting to the news you have to go to Kenya or you returning from Kenya and talking about what you learned there.
- I saw an interview with Amanda after she’d been back as part of promos that MTV was doing and the girl is still a spoiled brat.

The rest was pretty rote – nothing special. I was hoping for more “holy cow, she really said that?” moments but because the show was so short, there were none to be had. Alas, one more reality TV disappointment.

After reading this article, B and I had the following conversation:
(our conversation)

I’m sure that the author’s husband is proud to have a wife who espouses feminism like that. Because honestly, if you don’t hate your spouse, what kind of feminist are you?

bold = tried it, eaten It, enjoyed it (or not)
1. venison
2. nettle tea
3. huevos rancheros (note: the ONLY reason I haven’t eaten this is that it doesn’t appeal to me in the morning. I live in CA, I could get it at any restaurant, for g-d’s sake)
4. steak tartare
5. crocodile
6. black pudding
7. cheese fondue
8. carp
9. borscht
10. baba ghanoush
11. calamari
12. pho
13. peanut butter and jelly sandwich
14. aloo gobi
15. hot dog from street cart
16. epoisses
17. black truffle
18. fruit wine made with something other than grapes
19. steamed pork buns
20. pistachio ice cream
21. heirloom tomatoes
22. wild berries
23. foie gras
24. rice and beans
25. brawn, or head cheese
26. raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. dulce de leche
28. oysters
29. baklava
30. bagna cauda
31. wasabi
32. clam chowder
33. salted lassi
34. sauerkraut
35. cottage cheese
36. cognac with a fat cigar
37. clotted cream tea
38. vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. gumbo
40. oxtail
41. curried goat
42. whole insects
43. phaal
44. goat’s milk
45. malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. fugu
47. chicken tikki masala
48. eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. sea urchin
51. prickly pear
52. umeboshi
53. abalone
54. paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. spaetzle
57. dirty gin martini
58. beer above 8% ABV
59. poutine
60. carob chips
61. s’mores
62. sweet breads
63. kaolin
64. currywurst
65. durian
66. frogs’ legs
67. churro
68. haggis
69. fried plantain
70. chitterlings, or andouillette
71. gazpacho
72. caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. gjetost, or brunost
75. roadkill
76. baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. snail
79. lapsang souchong
80. bellini
81. tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. hare
87. goulash
88. flowers
89. horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. soft shell crab
93. rose harissa
94. catfish
95. mole poblano
96. bagel and lox
97. lobster
98. polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. snake