The Occasional Solipsist

The soft lap of the water as it hits the dock, the rustle of the night wind as it lingers through the trees and leaves behind that clean, sharp, familiar taste. The brilliance of the night sky, unfettered by the lights of a city with too many people in it.

I must be up north again.

Superwife, Trinity, Maya and I (hereafter to be known as The Fam) have been staying with my in-laws for the last 5 days. Ostensibly the stay was to give her parents a chance to help us with the baby, and give us a chance to recharge and maybe catch up on our much needed sleep.

And its been doing that.

But its also been providing me with a welcome working vacation. Emphasis on the working, but I've been squeaking in the vacation part when I can. When I get frustrated with a bit of code it doesn't totally suck that I can put it aside for a few minutes and go jump in the lake.

And today I got to perform the first of what will be a lifetime of ridiculous tasks I will undertake in order to soothe my daughter:

I put her in her stroller and marched her up and down the deck, back and forth across the length of it about 30 times, until she was calmed. The whole thing reminded me of that bit from Monthy Python's Meaning of Life where Michael Palin is bellowing about anyone else having anything better to do than go marching up and down the square. And of course, they all do, so he lets them go. Really funny bit.

And tonight's highlight was a lesson in burping Trinity properly.

On advice from a friend (Thanks Justin) we've begun having Superwife pump a bottle for me to feed Trin late at night so Mom can get a little extra sleep, and I can bond with my girl.

So, just a few moments ago, I finished tonight's feeding, and was attempting to convince my little princess that going back to sleep was a brilliant idea. She thought otherwise, until I gave her her soother. But she began making some loud, kind of croupy noises in her throat, and as I began to get worried, I leaned in close to see better what was going on. At which point she let out the mother of all burps, forcefully ejecting the soother into my face like a cork from a champagne bottle.

By the time I'd stopped laughing, she'd gone back to sleep.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow's lesson.

Labels: trinity

So the miracle worker himself finally ran out of miracles yesterday.

James Doohan, fellow Canadian and actor best known as Montgomery Scott of Star Trek fame has succumbed to Alzheimer's disease at the age of 85.

Now I know that I've often made fun of his silly scottish accent over the years, and maybe he wasn't the coolest of the original cast. He certainly got the least amount of on-screen ass, so there's that.

But Scotty was a key member of the first Star Trek series, and he was cool, in his own silly way, and he should be sent off with all of the respect due a legend.

And he will be sent off appropriately too, as it turns out: He's going the route that The Great Bird of the Galaxy went a few years ago, with his ashes released from a satellite so that they'll burn up as they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.

Not a bad way to go out.

Here's a list of some of my favourite Scotty quotes, to remember the guy in style:

• “Hello computer”
  (STIV)
  
• "Why ? How do we know he didn't invent the thing?"
  (STIV)
• "Admiral, there be whales here!"
  (STIV)
• Kirk: “How long to re-fit?”
  Scotty: “Eight weeks. But you don’t have eight weeks, so I’ll do it for you in two.”
  Kirk: “Mr. Scott, do you always multiply your repair estimates by a factor of four?”
  Scott: “Of course sir. How else to maintain my reputation as a miracle worker?”
  Kirk: “Your reputation is safe with me.”
  (STIII)
  
• “Laddie…don’t you think you should…rephrase that?”
  (ST:TOS "The Trouble with Tribbles")
  
• Kirk: (on communicator) Scotty?
  Scotty: Aye, Sir?
  Kirk: Did you find the engine room?
  Scotty: Right where I left it, sir!
  (STVI)
  
• Turbolift computer voice: Level please?
  Scotty (exhasperated): Transporter Room
  Computer: Thank you
  Scotty (under his breath): Up yer shaft!
  (STIII)
  
• Scotty: She’s all yours, sir. All systems automated and ready. A chimpanzee and two trainees could run her!
  Kirk: Thank you, Mr. Scott, I’ll try not to take that personally.
  (STIII)

And my personal favourite, spoken in the single worst rendition of his scottish accent ever, from The Undiscovered Country, after Kirk and McCoy receive a life sentence on Rura Penthe:

• "Better to kill them now, and get it over with"
  (STVI)
  

Labels: star trek

The American body that hands out ratings for videogames in that country, the ESRB, has dealt out a death sentence for the Rockstar game GTA:San Andreas.

They changed the rating for the game from Mature to Adults Only, based on the outcry from family moralists across that country. But the game has been shelved not because of the horrific violence, cop-killing, car-stealing or drug-dealing. It has been all those things since it was released months ago, and nobody said shit. Or not very loudly anyway.

The game got its ass handed to it when some punk exploited a mod that had its code broken by Rockstar before the game's release. This kid created a method of rebuilding the code through a hack, thus making the mod playable. And can you guess what the mod had to do with, if not the afforementioned violence? Yup. You guessed it: Sex.

And the sex scene itself consists only of a naked chick and a fully clothed guy, doing some moaning and dry-humping.

Big fucking deal.

What kind of a country is okay with kids playing out violent images of murder and mayhem over and over, but only becomes concerned when a nipple comes out? Oh yeah, the same country that went apeshit over a nipple popping out during the Superbowl.

Fuck. Am I glad I don't live there.

Personally I don't mind the violence in games one bit. I play violent games all the time, and I believe myself to be no worse for it. In fact, I think they perform the opposite of what all the free-thought-destroyers believe, by providing a safe outlet for gamers to vent. I just think that if you're going to throw a tizzy about videogame content, lets get our priorities straight.

Another great article about the rating change and what it means for gamers everywhere can be found here.

Labels: gaming

Came across an interesting article today about a man being prosecuted for leeching bandwidth from a wireless home network that wasn't his.

Apparently in the US, there is a third degree felony charge for unauthorized access to a computer network, and this dumbass is the first to get hit by it.

I have heard that warchalking is quite the rage amongst the hacker crowd, but I wonder if they'll be so quick to try it once they find out they might go to prison for it.

Personally I think the whole thing is ridiculous.

First, what harm is there in it, if the user was only using their connection and didn't have any network access, aside from a drop in bandwidth.

And second, what kind of idiot goes to the trouble of setting up a wireless network, but is too lazy to turn on an encryption protocol and/or MAC filtering? Serves him right I think.

Check out the complete article here.

Turns out the bottle feeding went surprisingly well last night. Trinity thought about giving it a hard time for the first few minutes, then the old hunger instinct kicked in and she settled right down.

Finally, a success!

Anyway, this should help Mom get a little more sleep, and me even more great-husband points, of which I frankly already have quite the surfeit of.

Maybe I can save them up until my mid-life crisis and trade them in for a sportscar.

Anyway, my daughter's first website went live today, and can be seen here. I've also permalinked her site in my links.

Trinity tells me she's planning on maintaining a photo gallery on her site, for anyone interested.

At least, that's what I think she said.

Who can understand babytalk anyway?

Labels: family, trinity

I haven't gone on this little sleep since I was a teenager, and then I had the excuse of all those foreign substance experiments and the occasional (okay, very occasional) latenight booty call.

My advice for anyone considering having kids: Absolutely do it. I've only known this little girl for less than 2 weeks, and I'm already crazy in love with her. However, don't do it thinking that your life will ever approximate whatever passes for normalcy for you again.

Ever.

Sleep has become a kind of currency around this house lately, thanks to our new addition. Kind of like the way sex might at a house without children. You know, 'Honey if you paint the bedroom, there might be oral sex in it for you'. Except in my case because Superwife has been breastfeeding, she will always have more 'sleep credits' than I will, which means that she can call a nap whenever the hell she wants.

But I'm working on changing that.

Tonight is the first night I'm going to try feeding Trinity some breast-milk-in-a-bottle. And if all goes well (cross your fingers), the 'Who gets the next nap?' game might get a little more evened out.

Except of course, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Meh. How hard can it be, right? Right?

Labels: family

Tonight is the first night since Trinity was born that I have not been:

a) staying up with the little night owl so my wife can sleep, or

b) ridiculously overtired and trying desperately to get some z's myself.

In fact, I sent Superwife off to bed around 10 o'clock, and Trinity fell asleep in my arms watching Monthy Python and the Holy Grail. Gotta get her started on the classics early you know.

Knights Who Say Ni, indeed. People who don't find that movie funny have no sense of humour at all.

So Trin crashed and I spent the first night since she arrived watching a movie and not worrying about her like a lunatic.

And during this wildly unexpected reprieve from changing shitty diapers, rocking, cajoling, singing old Pink Floyd songs (because as yet, those are the only songs that I can remember the complete words to), and mostly carrying unconscious weight around, I not only found out some more info about a supercool movie that's getting made right now, I even got screen shots.

Silent Hill 3, easily the scariest videogame of all time (makes the Resident Evil series look like Pacman by comparison), is being made into a movie to come out next summer. Apparently the movie will incorporate elements from all of the games, though I hope they leave out 'Part 4 - The Room' because that plot was just plain stupid.

I am so looking forward to this movie. Its different now that I know that its a movie that I won't be seeing at the theatre due to the case of separation anxiety I'll certainly come down with for being away from NewMom and Trinity (just like this summer's Fantastic Four, War of the Worlds, The Island, etc), but I can look forward to the DVD all the same.

Labels: family

Got a great joke sent to me from a buddy this morning. Funny, and local:

A young blonde woman in Niagara Falls was so depressed that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the Niagara River.

She went to the Rainbow bridge and was about to leap into the frigid water when a handsome young sailor saw her tottering on the edge of the bridge, crying. He took pity on her and said,"Look, you have so much to live for. I'm off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take good care of you and bring you food every day."

Moving closer, he slipped his arm around her shoulder and added, "I'll keep you happy, and you'll keep me happy."

The girl nodded yes. After all, what did she have to lose? Perhaps a fresh start in Europe would give her life new meaning.

That night, the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a lifeboat.

From then on, every night he brought her three sandwiches and a piece of fruit, and they made passionate love in the boat until dawn.

Three weeks later, during a routine inspection, she was discovered by the captain. "What are you doing here?" the captain asked.

"I have an arrangement with one of the sailors," she explained. "I get food and a trip to Europe, and in return, all I have to do is let him keep screwing me."

"He certainly is," the captain said. "This is the Maid of The Mist!"

Labels: funny

Superwife has been up the last few nights with the baby, not only to feed her, but also to make sure that she gets to sleep afterwards. This has led to Superwife getting basically no sleep whatsoever.

I have repeatedly asked her to get me up to help out, but I guess she figures why should we both be up.

So tonight, I took Trinity downstairs after her last feeding (well over three hours ago now) with the intentions of me sleeping on the couch once she nodded off.

But then I started watching her sleep, and became totally mesmerized by her.

She is just the most amazing thing that I have ever encountered.

Her expressions, the little grunting noises she makes as she hops in and out of rem sleep. Her tiny, tiny hands occasionally reaching up on some random grasping impulse.

She seriously makes my heart stop a little when I watch her.

I could never have been prepared for the depth of emotion that came along with this new person's introduction to my life. Totally blew me away.

I know I'm a n00b at this, but that fact diminishes my feelings for her not one bit.

Labels: family

It's funny.

So many people have been complimentary about Trinity's name, how pretty it is, how unique, etc.

But then there's the people that feel compelled to comment on their interpretation of her name, and what a personal problem it is for them.

What brought this whole thing to a boil was a comment from a neighbour of mine while I was walking my dog this afternoon.

I'm walking Maya along the street and one of those neighbours who I know nothing about except for the fact that she has a dog and a boyfriend who never says hi back stops me while sitting on her porch.

Up to this point in our neighbourly relationship the entire content of every conversation we've ever had has been 'Hi how are you?', 'Great, How are you?'

You know what I mean.

So today, probably due to the absence of my wife who heretofore has never missed a walk, this neighbour asks if we've had the baby. I say yes, she says congratulations. She asks if its a girl or a boy. I tell her she's a girl. She says 'How nice, what's her name?' and I say 'Trinity'.

Then there's a long pause, followed by a 'Why that name?', and in the snide way she asks, I already know she has an opinion, and I have a real good guess at what that opinion is.

So I tell her the short version; that we loved the name from The Matrix movies, and that we thought it was pretty and unique.

And then this person who I don't know says 'You must be pretty religious then', as if she believes that by the end of the conversation I will be changing the baby's name if I tell her we aren't. To which I reply that we are both in fact atheists, and that her name does not refer to the big three from Christian religion.

By this time I'm getting annoyed. I was after all just out for a walk, not a lecture from some 'thumper.

So then she says 'You know that everyone will think you are very religious with a name like that' in a tsk tsk sort of voice. Now all I want to do is punch her out.

So I smile at her and say 'Only people like you' and continue my walk.

Now I don't really feel the need to justify our decision, but because of our unique choice, people like the aforementioned twit will occasionally offer an uninvited commentary. So what follows is for them, for once and for all time:

We wanted, in naming our daughter, to find a name that 1) had some significant meaning, 2) be pretty enough for a little girl and still be suitable for a woman, 3) be unique enough to set her apart from all of the usual suspects out there, and 4) have a short form that we didn't hate.

Tall order.

After a lot of thinking, and scrutinizing movie and tv credits, novels, babynaming books, and the internet, we decided upon Trinity.

First, the significant meaning. Yes, we first heard the name in The Matrix, and yes, I love those movies. So there's that. But we only chose the name after we uncovered its true historic meaning.

I say true meaning first, because contrary to the wide misconception, the Christian religion did not create the word to refer to the three principals in their dogma. The word Trinity is actually from ancient latin, derived from trinitas, for triad, or group of three. We felt the significance of this name in the context of her being the third member of our family was very powerful. That other, more mainstream interpretation of the name Trinity, the one from Christian doctrine, began seeing use much later when they adopted the entire Roman language.

As for our other criteria, we feel the name Trinity is very cute for a little girl, and is at the same time a strong woman's name. It is definitely unique, and I doubt there'll be too many other Trinity's in her class at school. As opposed to the 12 hands that will shoot up when the name Madison is called out. And we call her Trin sometimes, so that's as good a nickname as any.

So here's the last words on my daughter's name. If you like it, great. So do we. If you don't, that's fine too.

If however, you feel the need to tell me your views on our naming choice and why you think its inappropriate because of our absence of religious belief, I'm going to go ahead and invite you to shove your opinions all the way up your ass in the hopes that you can then keep them to yourself. Seriously.

Name your own kids whatever the hell you want and leave mine alone.

Labels: family, trinity

So here I am, again watching my two girls sleeping, this time at home, and I can't help but go over the events of the last two days.

The whole experience has been crazy, and terrifying, and staggeringly emotional, and every cliche you've ever heard.

And some you haven't.

We had a few unexpected bumps, but otherwise, as with Superwife's entire pregnancy itself, it went better than any delivery I'd ever heard of.

Some of the bumps involve Superwife going through some particularly unpleasant female things that I won't share and only Dooce would blog about. In fact, likely she has. You gotta love her.

But The Bump I will talk about occurred after Trinity was born.

Immediately following her delivery and the successive vigorous towelling off of the goo she had been firmly ensconced in for the last nine months, the nurses gave Trinity her first APGAR test of the night. This for those not in the know, is a 5 item test for 1 minute old newborns concerning Activity, Pulse, Grimace, Appearance, and Respiration, wherein each item is scored from zero to two.

Trinity, trooper that she is, would have scored a ten, but for the fact that she wasn't belting out that nice loud cry that one expects a newborn to hear. Why wasn't she crying? Well, in a surprise move that will likely predict a lot about her personality, because she decided to drink her way out of the uterus when things weren't going quickly enough, of course!

Apparently, she drank a ridiculous amount of fluid on the way out, and couldn't cry because she was jammed with the stuff.

So the nurses whisked her away to the aptly named Nurses Room for suctioning, at which point The New Mom issued her first command and told me to quit gawking like a landed fish and follow the nurses. So I did.

And what followed was my very first taste of the anxiety that will now live forever in me wherever my daughter is concerned.

I spent the next 90 minutes holding her hand and wiping mucus away from her mouth, while the nurses suctioned and poked and tested, and I imagined my wife going into total apoplexy from being cut off from both of us.

As it turned out, everybody was fine.

Trinity came around after that 90 minutes, and I was allowed to hold her for the first time and carry her to her Mom, after carefully stepping over the pile of my own hair that had fallen out during my 90 minute anxiety attack.

And once we returned to the room, Superwife wasted no time in bundling our baby girl into her arms, nursing her like a pro, and making it clear that Trinity was not to cause us that kind of worry again.

I hope our daughter was paying attention.

And I have now changed 3 of my baby girl's diapers unassisted. I did passably well I think. And according to the estimated 7,000 diapers she'll use before she's done, I'll have some time to get even better at it.

Labels: family

Its now 7:40 am, on the day following the longest, greatest day of my life.

We had a girl. Her name is Trinity Rose.

And she is easily the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Superwife gave birth to her at exactly 11:09 pm on July 4th, about 10 hours into an induced labour. If I haven't mentioned this before, and I have, my wife is amazing. What she went through, and how well she handled it. Just amazing.

I am watching the two of them sleep the sleep of the very well-deserved across from me, and I can't imagine a happier moment than right now.

As soon as I have time I'll talk more about the whole experience. But right now, I just want to stay in this moment as long as I can.

Labels: family, trinity

Tomorrow as it turns out, will finally be the big day, whether we're ready or not. And believe me, we're ready. Or as antiquity will prove later, we two first-time parents think we're ready.

Superwife will be induced sometime after 12 tomorrow afternoon, and I don't think, between now and then, I've looked down the barrel at a longer 24 hours in my life.

We've been living on 'borrowed time' for over a week now, since babybrown was originally scheduled to show up. Its been pretty surreal, carrying on what passes for normal lives for us, visiting with friends, shopping, working, whatever, while knowing that at any second, the baby could decide to make its entrance and forever change this mostly peaceful little thing we've got going.

I cannot describe how much I'm looking forward to tomorrow. So I won't. But I'll write about it later.

But for the sake of posterity, I will say that right now I am feeling all at once elated, excited, anxious, and more than a little terrified.

Labels: family