The Eichenblog

“Can I play puppy now?”

I have to think for a minute.  We’re shopping at Target.  Isaac is behaving nicely, but he’d like to start one of his favorite games.

He love to pretend to be a puppy.

This has its drawbacks.  Instead of a hug and kiss at bedtime, I sometimes get a hug and lick.  Blech.

A high pitched yap of a bark drives Carol insane, but so far doesn’t really bother me.

I am informed by the puppy in question that puppies eat only brown food.  Playing puppy during meals mostly means eating bread, chocolate, and meat.  It also sometimes means dumping cereal on the table and eating it as one might expect a puppy to.

“Chocolate is really bad for puppies, they’re not allowed to eat it.” I inform my son.  He is unphased.

It actually comes in handy sometimes.  Puppy Isaac knows sit, stay, and even heel.  He yaps at Kiki sometimes, but Kiki doesn’t seem to mind.

“Can I play puppy if I walk on my hind legs?”

I pause for a moment.

Finally I respond, “Sure.  Walk on your hind legs, no barking, and you have to heel.”

A person could not ask for a better behaved puppy.

Recent events have taught me a great deal about my musical preferences and those of my first son.

For years now I’ve listened to Pandora.  Specifically, I listen to a Pandora station seeded with Indigo Girls.  It behaves exactly as one might expect such a station to behave.

I needed a change.

“What better change,” thought I, “than to go back and listen to a style of music I liked a decade ago?”

So I seeded a station with the musical Rent.

This is what I learned:

• Most musicals are generated by Disney.
• Many of them are pretty good.
• I really want to see Wicked.
• I really like The Beatles’ music, but not really when it’s performed by The Beatles.
• Glee has produced a significant quantity of music.  I like most of it.
• Starting with Rent, clicking “like” whenever something is good, and adding Glee can result in Pandora recommending a solid stream of punk rock.
• I like punk.

I guess I sort of knew that last one already.

I’m not the only one who’s musical tastes are evolving.

Isaac is now a hardcore fan of “symphonies”.

I have always encouraged him to like rock and roll.  I’ve usually listened to classic rock in the truck or alternative rock in the car.  He’s always been neutral on the subject.

But he loves symphonies.  Now, whatever radio we are near, he demands symphonies.  He knows the classical music MPR station, and notices immediately when it is changed.  He even complains whenever the DJs start talking.

And….

Pictures.

Before brewing this beer I must admit that I had never heard the word Kolsch.  I still don’t really know what it means.

But it is a good beer.

The local brew store had a sale.   They wanted to get rid of their Brewers Best kits in order to make room for the new, improved Brewers Best kits.

By the time I got there only three kits remained.  Kolsch was by far the most interesting.

Now that it is finally in the kegerator I have to say I made a pretty good choice.  It’s smooth, hardly bitter, and really pretty tasty.  The small amount of wheat in the recipe intrigues me, but I can’t honestly say that I can taste it.

The white, fluffy head might be a little too much, but I think that’ll be better now that I’ve turned down the flow of CO2.  I can hardly blame the kit on that.

The advantage of the kit is its simplicity, since the cost is roughly the same.  Everything is laid out ready to go, and brewing becomes a fairly simple formula.  Really, the only time it saves is during shopping.  Instead of choosing and grinding a couple pounds of grain I just popped open a bag and dumped it in.

I may end up trying more of these kits in the future.  It is definitely a good option when time is limited and no brews are brewing.

Like now, for instance.

The value of my satellite based television source is rapidly declining.

House, which I don’t even watch anymore, is fully available on Hulu, which can be enjoyed in comfort in the study.  Heroes, which I watch but do not enjoy, is available via Netflix, either on the computer or downstairs on the Big Screen.

Chuck, which I genuinely enjoy, is viewable on Hulu.

That traditional conduit for programming is losing its hold on this household.  The television goes unused for days at a time, firing up only to deliver the occasional movie.  It really is no surprise, then, that Isaac continues to call the TV ‘computer’.  He just doesn’t know the difference.

We will be leaving the satellite hooked up for now.

I would hate to miss an episode of Lost.

——————

Those two boys sit in a single office chair, the bigger on the right for better mouse access.  He clicks, the other points.

“That one?”  Gabe intones it as a question, meaning it as a command.

They started with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

When that video finished some recommendations appeared.  YouTube comes up with similar videos that just might be deemed worthy.  They choose one and continue on.

The chain continues like this for a while.  Slowly quality degrades.  A small child recites the alphabet, someone ends the alphabet with zed (hilarious).  Various languages are heard.

Then something wonderful happens.

They stumble upon a YouTube link trap.  A subject appears which somehow only has related links to other, very similar items.  They all appear to be from the same album, and they all are of a reasonably high quality.

Isaac discovered They Might Be Giants.  Better still, he discovers a cache of science themed songs.

Our YouTube travels now have a new starting point.

“Mac and cheese!”

I love that the boys know that they’re supposed to say cheese when people take their pictures.  I like that they’ve changed it into any variety of cheese based exclamation.  I don’t like the way it makes all of our picture look, well, cheesy.

Following is a collection of some pictures that I think turned out well, but without the cheesy grins.  In fact, these pictures have no grins at all.  I do love to overachieve.

Most of these pictures were taken with the help of my new tripod.  The tripod allows me to take pictures without the flash in slightly darker conditions, so long as the kids don’t move.  The lack of flash makes the whole process less intrusive.  Apparently the “Cheesebuger!” exclamations are somehow tied to the flash, not the camera.

The tripod also makes the whole process extremely interesting to both of the boys.  Set low enough, Isaac is able to run the whole operation himself.  He can even take pictures of himself if I set the ten second delay.