Snowball's got soul

Found this on a neuroscience blog. I like how he loses it a bit when the bass drops out, and when it comes back in, he's right back on the beat. He mixes in a few different moves here and there. I wonder if Snowball can do the MC Hammer slide. Or the Ninja Rap dance that Vanilla Ice does on TMNT. Or the boot scoot boogie. I wonder if Snowball has an agent.

Home sweet home

We were out on a drive the other day, and we saw a nice little home that was for sale. We had some extra cash, so we bought it. (Thanks to our parents for the "training wheels").

Here are some pictures of it.


Front view



Nice tree



The backyard deck



View from the backyard deck



Main floor, view of dining room from living room



Main floor, living room



Main floor, kitchen



Main floor, office



Top floor, guest bedroom



Top floor, master bedroom



Basement, family room



We are seriously excited for moving day, August 16th. I've already started looking at options for a canine friend. I'm sad to announce to all those who supported me through thick and thin during the Bulldog or Bust campaign: I won't be laying down $2500 for a bulldog. I've never been a quitter, so let's just call this a rain-check.

Also exciting for me: I get to find out if I'm just a poser handyman or if I have what it takes.

a morning at the opera

Here's a clip from Sunday's journal entry:

I just remembered a funny incident that happened during conference today. A man walked by and Kristen nudged me and said, “Hey, doesn’t that guy look like he could be a broadway performer?” Honestly, the man was short, pudgy, had thin red hair, and wasn’t the type I’d peg as a broadway star. “I don’t see it, honey.”
“I’ve always thought that he looks like he could play the Phantom of the Opera,” she said. I strained my imagination, but I still couldn’t detect anything that would make him a good candidate to play the Phantom. After a few seconds, I think Kristen had an epiphany: “Maybe it helps that his name is Michael Crawford.”
For the Broadway-challenged, Michael Crawford is the name of the original Phantom of the Opera, and he looks nothing like this man. I love that Kristen keeps me laughing.

Speaking of opera, I had a pretty brilliant idea this morning:

O-perah: an opera about the life of Oprah.

Maybe Beyonce could play the role of Oprah. I guess Beyonce isn't really an opera singer, but can you imagine the millions of dollars I'd make if I managed to merge the fan bases of Oprah and Beyonce? I might even make more than Oprah herself. I'm starting the script today. Oprah and Beyonce, if you read this, have your people call my people.

Goose Gossage + Thundercats = Kids Incorporated

There's a cool post at Kristen's blog that highlights some of the radical things loved by children who grew up in the 80s. This prompted me to dig into the musty pockets of memories that constitute my own 80s experience. Here's what I found:

What 8-year old boy didn't want his own luck dragon to help him get sweet revenge on the local bully? I wouldn't know, because I was the bully, beating up on the little dweebs whose crying eyes looked up to the sky in hopes of finding Falkor flying down to rescue them, but all they found was clouds and my imposing silhouette. Actually, I was a puny little dork. But this clip is the opposite of a puny little dork.



And here's an awesome caption from the site that started the caption craze.



Below is my tribute to the Disney Channel. Kids Incorporated should have done far more damage to my psyche than it actually did. I dodged a real culture bullet there.



And here's my tribute to Saturday morning cartoons. 'Thundercats' is, in my opinion, the greatest cartoon series ever. How it didn't hijack the brain of every breathing organism alive in the 80s is still a mystery to me. Lion-O was pretty fresh, but Panthera, with his screaming nun-chuks, was my favorite. Notice the nice use of dissonance to create tension when Lion-O is summoning the thundercats at 5 minutes 30 seconds. I totally recognized that sound.



And here's a snork.








Sports were a big part of my 80s experience. Only now, however, do I realize that all of my victories were either accidental or confabulated. I swam on a team for 5 or 6 years. The only event I really excelled at was the one I hated most -- backstroke. I did 3 or 4 different kinds of martial arts, too. I have a trophy somewhere that says, "First Place, National Championship". Don't tell anyone, but the only thing I had to do to deserve this trophy was beat up an overweight girl. What can I say? A national championship is a national championship. And then there was baseball. I think it is telling that my fondest memory of baseball was laughing whenever my coach would say, "Good eye, Mike!" every time my teammate Mike would let a bad pitch go by without swinging. It just sounded so Australian. The only home run I ever hit was off a bunt and a bunch of fielding errors, but I still claim it. My coach signaled for me to bunt every time after that. He said I was the best bunter he'd ever seen, and now that I'm older I can grasp the true, cruel meaning of his words.

I collected comics and baseball cards during the 80s. I rearranged my baseball card collection in every way imaginable: alphabetical order, order of value, by team, by rookie year, by how much I wanted to be that person, etc. Thanks to Topps, Donruss, and Upper Deck, I was far too fluent with names like Steve Sax, Floyd Bannister, and Goose Gossage. I developed an irrational obsession with a player who wasn't even that great. His name was Greg Jeffries. He had a few decent, promising rookie years on the Mets, but the greatest thing about him was that he trained by swinging a bat under water. At the time, it seemed to me the absolute apex of coolness.






















This last picture technically isn't from the 80s, but I just couldn't resist -- here's one more caption for everyone. This has made me laugh a sum total of over 2 hours, I'm sure. Downloading it was a great investment.

Maieutica has a brother!

I've given birth to a newer, nerdier blog.

Check out its awkward stages of development at www.brainandsky.blogspot.com

Having this new outlet for my geekier impulses will allow me to unleash the destructive power of this fully operational battlestation . . . whoops, I lapsed into Star Wars. It will allow me to give free reign to my creative (and somewhat geeky) impulses on this blog.

The new blog is to keep me honest in my scientific pursuits. This old blog is to keep me sane.

In the words of Bib Fortuna (Jabba the Hut's acolyte), "Dae Wanno Wunga," which means, "Word up."

"My name is John Daker."

I give you the classic medley of "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" with "That's Amore".

I think he goes through every possible vowel on the last Hallelujah.

Frank is smitten.

Reason # 17 why you shouldn't have a sloth on your football team

Here's to you, Frito Balducci

Daniel (immediately after waking up): "Frito Balducci."
Kristen: "What?"
Daniel: "I said Frito Balducci."
Kristen: "Who is Frito Balducci?"
Daniel: "I don't know. I just woke up and I can't get his name out of my head."

We googled old Frito, but all we got were a bunch of links for chips. That's disappointing, so I'll do my best to describe what Frito Balducci must look like. Black hair, wispy on top, with a slight comb-over. Rail-thin with narrow, hunched shoulders. Probably 5'11" tall. Mid-40's. Always wears fluorescent Nike warm-ups and his Gucci sunglasses. Bobs his head back and forth for emphasis when he speaks. Has a gold tooth and a pet mini-Doberman. Owns a vinyl of every Maria Callas recording ever made.

Now, a few questions about my brain:
* Why can't I remember what I was dreaming about, but I can remember a name that was probably part of that dream? And why so Italian? I guess we did have pasta last night.
* Why did it decide to use the word "Frito" as a first name? I've only ever heard "Frito" used with reference to snack foods.
* How did it retrieve the last name "Balducci"? I can guarantee that I've heard this last name no more than twice in my life, if I've ever heard it at all.

If you've ever had a dream where your brain fabricated a name, and you remember that name, please respond and tell us all about it.

perfunctory update

Due to my lack of updating, I'm suffering from little, bloggish pricks of conscience.
So here you go:

click here


And on to other matters: doesn't this monkey remind you of Ted Danson (the guy from Cheers)?





















Hmm. Interesting.

A trio of buttons

Here is a list of the pin-on buttons that sit on my desk at school:

1. "Be in Command." A reminder for myself when students come in and try to argue about a mark I gave them.

2. "I have True Grit." A reminder meant to inform those same students that my will can crush their will.

3. "Happiness is . . . CLEAN, STRAIGHT TEETH" (included is a rather chilling depiction of a donkey wearing braces on its razor-sharp fangs). A reminder to brush my teeth.

Revised wedding speech

Brrrr.

Kristen and I have been married for two years today.

I don’t remember much about my wedding speech. I faintly recall reciting to the attendees a structured argument against getting married (an artifact from my bachelor days). I also think I awkwardly presented Kristen with a book of poems that I had written for her—and I have no idea why I chose to do this during my speech, given that the attendees had no possible way of knowing if it was something they should or shouldn’t applaud (it could have been really bad poetry). In retrospect, I don’t see why anybody should be forced to get up and say something intelligible on their wedding day. Some people pull it off. I’ve seen it happen. To make myself feel better, I’ve concluded that the people who pull it off don’t actually love their spouses.

Now that I’ve had two years to think about it, here’s the wedding speech I should’ve given (I’ve designed it for both the Toronto and Folsom receptions):

First of all, a million thanks to the wonderful friends and family who flew across the continent to stand in the -20 degree weather on our wedding day. And thanks to everyone who worked so hard to decorate, cook food, take pictures, and generally make the receptions run smoothly. Both moms deserve a billion more thanks than we could ever give. Dads, thanks for being patient with moms. We love you guys.

Gabby, Grammy, and Grandpa: thank you for making it to Toronto to support us. The day wouldn’t have been complete without you.

Nate and Ivy, thanks for flying out on your birthday. Happy Birthday! A special shout-out to Nate, who wins the award in the friend category for the longest distance traveled to make it (Elisabeth takes that honor in the overall category, having flown from Berlin!).

And speaking of birthdays, Happy Birthday to my little brother Sean. And thanks to Sean and Elisabeth for their wonderful musical presentation. My favorite piece was “When I’m 64.”

Ammon, thanks for the wonderful film you made and for flying out in the midst of your final preparations for the bar exam!

Tammy and Noel, thanks for flying out to the Folsom reception to represent the Wood girls!

Russ and Betsy, thanks for crashing your car, leaving it and hitching a ride just to make it to the reception before it ended! And thanks for telling the Packards about the wedding.

Grandpa Pallin, thank you for the tender way in which you conducted the ceremony. And thanks for showing my folks on the Wood side all of the places connected to my Grandpa Wood.

We want to thank everyone for the generous gifts and wishes.

Most of all, thanks to Kristen for settling for me.

Lesions learned

A quick update:

• Today I gave a presentation on a topic about which I knew practically nothing, and I gave it to a group of neuroscientists, some of whom happened to be experts on the topic. I saw one of them roll his eyes and snicker while I was speaking. That felt fantastic.
  And here is where I apply the life lesson I recently learned from rapper Kanye West: "N-n-now th-that that don't kill me/Can only make me stronger." This is wisdom, elegantly framed.
  (It's a sign that I'm reading too much neuroscience literature that whenever I try to write "lesson" it ends up coming out as "lesion".)
  

• I am officially a permanent resident in Canada. Perhaps I should rename this website www.maeuti.ca (?) As with all other dealings with the Canadian government so far, this process was mind-numbingly drawn out and brimming with arbitrary hoops. No matter. Free health-care and exorbitant taxes, here I come.
  

• I had the blessing of baptizing our friend Yves and his daughter, Elaine. There is always such a good, clean feeling at these baptisms, and I felt privileged to be part of it. Of course, I didn't feel privileged that the water heater was broken, there was a leak in the font (it was only up to our mid-thigh when we stepped in, making "baptism by immersion" quite the task), and I made the mistake of refusing offers of help with lifting Yves out of the water -- he weighs 400 pounds and has bad knees. He and Elaine were such good sports about it, and everything turned out just fine.
  

• Our friends the Reeves came over for dinner. They brought Frank, their bulldog. He was a mighty foe, and he would have defeated me in our wrestling match (he goes for the feet) if little Jack Reeve (10 months) hadn't hit his head on yet another piece of our furniture, distracting Frank.
  

Frank is photogenic.



Frank diligently attempting to give a "high five".



I still don't know how, but I managed to get Kris to pose with Frank. I think Frank can sense the silent animosity.

About faces

Here is the second wave, as promised.


"Shhhhhhhaaaaaaa!" said Frederick, for no apparent reason.




Frederick posing as a rather debonair Easter Island head-sculpture.



A pair of portraits in which our young Frederick is first dazzled, then delighted and giddy at your presence, and at the prospect of sitting down and tucking into a bowl of figgy pudding. So bring some right here.





Kip, the dolphin-boy, is also delighted at your presence. Kip, in his own little dolphin way, nods and says, "Sup."






These next 3 really bother me the most because they are so realistic. I get a little self-conscious and think, "Do I ever look like that?" Do yourself a favor and don't look at the enlarged version of the last one. Unless, of course, you feel prompted to get acquainted with my palatine uvula.




I wish a happy New Year to anyone who reads this.

Dreamtalking

So it's 2am and I'm getting into bed after having finished our Christmas newsletter. I start fiddling with the alarm and suddenly I can't for the life of me remember if the dot on the side means PM or "alarm activated". So I ask Kristen, who is starting to stir in the bed.
Daniel: "What does this dot mean?"
Kristen (without skipping a beat): "It means that if you want to get it at Amazon.com, you can get it there."
Whenever this happens, I try as hard as I can to keep the conversation going, hoping that more nonsense will follow. But this time she just flopped over and was back to sleep in a second.

Later that night, I woke up and told Kristen that I was going to start writing children's books. I must have been dreaming about Amazon.com.

I have acquired the remaining photos from my distorted photo shoot, and I'll be posting them soon. I think this next batch is even better than the first.