Establishing Ground Rules

Since I'm going to be a dad soon, I'm trying to figure out what my parenting style will be. Most people who know me would assume I'll be the type of dad who'll gladly let his son eat chocolate cake for breakfast and then leave the house with his underwear on his head. And I will be. However, there are going to be some ground rules for my child.

1. Don't speak against the family. In this case, the family is defined as all immediate family members, present and past members of the Texas Rangers, Bill Murray, and Elvis Costello.

2. Be nice to animals and old people. The only expection is if you suspect the old person is actually Hitler in disguise. Even then, I expect some sort of proof besides just a hunch.

3. If you ever go on reality TV, you are immediately disowned.

4. Say thanks a lot. I tend to over-thank people, to the point where strangers might think I was just freed from prison and thus really, really grateful to get things like breath mints and glasses of water. Is that so bad?

5. Don't pee in public, unless you're in a natural body of water. Clearly this rule doesn't apply to babies, who get to pee as much as they want, all over the place.

6. Cowboy boots and shorts is a totally valid fashion choice. Same thing goes for wearing a swimsuit instead of underwear.

7. No one likes a know-it-all, unless you literally know everything and bring great fortune to the family via televised game shows. Even then, we don't need to hear about it all the time.

8. Help clean up. If you've observed the natural surroundings of your parents, you know we need a hell of a lot of help here. Bonus: this gives you carte blanche to be as messy as humanly possible beforehand.

9. There's never a bad time for a pun, a Knock Knock joke, a weird accent (bonus points for Cockney), or an unrelated movie quote. You might be wondering if flatulence is covered by the same principle. My gut says yes, but we'll have to see.

10. Lord loves a working man. Don't trust whitey. If you catch it, see a doctor and get rid of it.

Ohhhhh Baby

Lavender Aloysius Powell?
Umberto Kawasaki Powell?
Lazlo Pegasus Powell?

Those aren't just random words mashed together; they're potential names for the first great superhero of the 21st century. For now, I'm just calling him Powell 2.0. This is my sneaky way of letting the whole Internet know we're having a boy in early December. I almost said baby boy there, but I don't want to discount the possibility of a Benjamin Button scenario.

We've known about the pregnancy for a few months now, but we just learned the gender on Tuesday. Everybody keeps asking me if I'm happy it's a boy. My response to this is always the same: boy or girl doesn't matter to me, as long as it's one of the other. I wouldn't have the slightest idea how to raise an in-betweener without making things way, way worse probably. (Step 1: rent the Crying Game?)

So far, everybody is happy and healthy. Well, the happy part might not be true; my habit of shaking Laura's tummy and shouting, "Punch harder, baby!" might be annoying Mommy and Baby. Unfortunately, until I can feel some fetal kung fu, I'm keeping that up. We've had a few of the standard pregnancy complaints (fatigue and whatnot), but nothing to indicate that the baby might, in fact, be a werewolf or a shapeshifter. (Why yes, I have been watching a lot of True Blood while reading What to Expect When You're Expecting.)

We're getting the house ready, we're reading constantly, and we're scouting out pre-schools. I will have many different reasons for being a bizarre father, including my own general insanity, my total belief in the Mayan Apocalypse of 2012, and the fact I was head-butted by a billy goat as a toddler. Lack of preparation will not be one of these reasons, though.

Mark your calendars for December 5, folks. There's got be a lot more crying and pooping around the Powell house, and we're hoping the baby's responsible.

Treme Fever

I don't think I've ever written on here about the Wire, and that's a huge mistake on my part. It was, of course, a gritty crime show set in Baltimore, and it's some of my favorite TV ever. I don't know why. I'm not that into crime/police shows, I've actively dislike Baltimore (Cal Ripken Jr was overrated), and I'm not even fond of grit. And yet, I love the show. It's funny, smart, packed with intrigue, really well-written, and full of great actors, and as a result, I've been smitten with it for quite some time.

In fact, I like it so much that I can't bring myself to watch the final season. It's been sitting in my Netflix queue for a year now, and I just keep bumping it back down the list. As long as it's still in the queue, I'm still watching the Wire; it's not yet over for me. Also, based upon how I've built this last season up in my mind, I think I really ought to save the show for when I need it most. I am sure that in the near future, all in the span of one week, I'll be fired, divorced, foreclosed upon, and then diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease. That week is when the final season of the Wire gets bumped to the top of the queue, and I have the viewing party to end all viewing parties.

Here's one of the classic scenes, with some language that's not for the faint of heart:

David Simon, the creator of the Wire, started a new show on HBO yesterday. It's called Treme, and it's a sprawling epic about New Orleans as it recovers from Hurricane Katrina. Let's get into just why I'm so excited here. New show from David Simon. Set in New Orleans, the most interesting city in the USA. Starring John Goodman, prince among men.

How does that get better? The only possible way would be for Roger Federer and Elvis Costello to get cameos, which isn't outside the realm of possibility. I am firing up Episode 1 as soon as I hit Post on this entry.

A Taste of Triumph

Sometimes, I can't help but brag about myself. According to alexa.com, this very website is something of a national phenonenon. You see, alexa claims that this very website is the 789,915th most popular website in the United States. Take that, live-in-switzerland.com! Take your weak ass crap back to 789,930th place.

I will admit that I had the high 700,000's as my ranking target for sometime now. Some years back, I carefully crafted a plan that centered around infrequent, rambling updates and a complete lack of publicity. Combine those two potent factors with many, many months, and it's easy to see how that translates into a varied and passionate readership.

Sadly, I'm not doing as well worldwide as I am in the US. I am the 1,241,701st most popular site worldwide. I have a hypothesis for the dropoff, too: this site is not very Mandarin friendly. I just tried to copy and paste the Mandarin characters for HELLO, FRIENDS and my text editor blew up, so I think it's destined to stay that way.

My main reason for posting is that I wish to propose a partnership to any other site in the high 700,000's. Let us join forces and storm the lower 700,000's. I will plug your content like a possessed man, until we triumph, we both die, or we forget about this whole thing and go watch Netflix instead. The choice is yours and web glory awaits us.

In other news, my excitement continues to build for The Pacific, the new miniseries from the creators of Band of Brothers. I've been rewatching the original series for maybe the 4th time. Why do I like it so much? I know why: I like to see damage inflicted upon the French countryside. No, not that, I just think the whole thing was incredibly well done.

Also, it's very evocative. I watch it and feel like I'm in a little slice of World War II, except that instead of dodging German snipers, I'm dodging Octopussy as she bats ballpoint pens across the living room floor. Also, my "battlefield" (read "couch") has considerably less shrapnel and quite a bit more turkey sandwiches. Anyway, I hope The Pacific can live up to the standard that Band of Brothers set, as the bar is set quite high.

The Dreadmill

I dislike runners. I don't dislike people who happen to run as a form of exercise, but I dislike people who say, "Oh God, I just feel so alive after a run and I need to do 13 miles a day to just clear my head and now let me tell you all about my special running underwear." I get it: these people like to run. As a human living in the 21st century though, I feel like someone needs to tell these folks how awesome cars are. It's faster than running AND it has air conditioning AND they charge your iPod!

I think I actually dislike runners because we got a treadmill for Christmas and it has quickly become the bane of my existence. Not only do I hate that piece of equipment, but I've grown to hate the entire act of running plus people who do it. The next step in my hatred progression: people who have feet.

Running is great exercise, though, so try to engage in it regularly. With regards to that aspect, running and I are okay. It's the act itself that gets me. I start running and I feel like I'm doing pretty well. I clip along at a high speed for a while and I think, "This is going great. I could be a runner. The time is just flying by on here. Heck, I bet I'm 20 minutes into this thing!" And then I glance at the clock and see I'm actually 27 seconds into it. From there, it all goes downhill. If I do make it to end of my 30 minute run without an asthma attack, I'm a sweaty, cursing maniac who shouldn't be trusted around fragile objects.

The part that makes it all the worse for me is that, even if I do manage to finish a 30 minute run, I don't get a chance to celebrate. It's because I have to get back on the damn treadmill in 2 days and do the whole awful procedure again. I would greatly prefer some radical new form of exercise that's so intense (think battling an adult gorilla), I only have to do it once a month. I'd actually accept the danger of gorilla fighting for a couple of hours if it saved me from getting on the treadmill and hating the world for 30 minutes every other day.

In spite of all of this, I've actually done a decent job at keeping up with the running and shedding the man belly. There is no chance in hell I will ever like it, though. From now until the end of time, the treadmill is known as the dreadmill.

Be Heroic

Big news, Goulashketeers! I have jettisoned the world of gainful employment to do a crazy startup thingee here in Austin. The joint in question is Famigo Games, and you can read a very trivial amount about us at http://www.famigogames.com. The idea, in short, is that we're going to change the ways families interact online. The initial way to do that is via games for the iPhone, but hopefully there'll be a lot more coming. If that whole thing turns out to be a dead end, then we'll go to Plan B: selling counterfeit Bugle Boy jeans.

Why make such a drastic change? Well, I've grown tired of health insurance. I think I can solve most of my own personal medical issues through the the vegetation found in my neighborhood. I feel a similar level of disinterest in large paychecks, paid time off, and retirement plans.

Actually, I don't know if I had a great reason for making such a big change. I loved my job at Grasshopper; I worked with really smart people on software that mattered, and all of us got along famously. I was missing something, though. I feel like if I want to be truly engaged and growing as a person, at least a little part of me needs to be terrified of what I'm doing. After a few years at a typical job, it's hard to find that challenge, even if every other thing is great. In the immortal words of Steve Earle, I ain't ever satisfied.

How do I bring the thrill of challenge back into my life? Simple: go and build this brand new company, where I get to be terrified all day long every day.

As scary as the whole thing is, I'm trying to mitigate the riskiness just a little bit. I was fortunate to meet a few other likeminded lunatics so I don't have to do everything on my own. I am also incredibly lucky to have a wife who's willing to go along with these oft-moronic adventures. Between that group, I'm feeling good about our chances.

One thing I was thinking around December was that I should try to think of 2010 as having a theme. That way, I could look back and say, "Ahh yes, that was the year of X." I've been kicking around a few different ideas for this theme (Like a Boss, anyone?), but ultimately I'm thinking my 2010 theme is Be Heroic. That is to say, pretend to be much braver than I actually am.

End result: I'll be rocking the business and technological world in heroic fashion. Failing that, I shall rock the Assistant Manager position at Church's Chicken in heroic fashion. I think there's roughly equivalent levels of heroism for both.

Fighting for Tacos and Podcasts

I wish I could get really excited about worthwhile causes, like the environment, health care reform, and climate change. I think about myself becoming activist and wearing shirts with witty, incisive slogans and getting together for big activist potluck dinners where we plot how we're going to stick it to the other side, perhaps by sit-ins or exhausing letter writing campaigns. That all sounds worthwhile and engaging, except for the fact that I'm just not that interested in all of that stuff.

Instead, I save all of my excitement for slightly less important interests, like Texas Rangers baseball, NBC's Thursday night lineup (deal with this: Parks and Recreation is the best thing on TV right now), and breakfast tacos. I've long since come to terms with this. Not only is it less stressful to care deeply about these things, but no one is going to mace me for liking breakfast tacos. (If someone does mace me for that, then that is one enemy that I WILL FIGHT.)

You can also add podcasts to the list of topics that get me inordinately worked up. They're great. Anytime you find yourself bored in the car, just fire up a podcast and you're instantly immersed in a fascinating conversation.

One podcast that I've been loving lately is the Moth. It's just one person telling a story each week, and I just love the crap out of the stories they tell. I heard one story earlier this week that everybody should check out, because it's interesting, fun, and surprising. It's Jewish Blood, Irish Heart by Brian Finkelstein. You can listen here, but first prepare yourself to be delighted.