Baby-sitting, part next.

The word is out that they think that, somehow, I know what I'm doing as a babysitter.

BTW, there's a special place in Hell for the people who design the packaging for children's toys. Imagine having a new collection of Disney figurines in a thick plastic package with each of the figurines also wired into to place so that you have to untie these tiny wires while a three-year-old is waiting to play with Remy and the other Ratatouille characters. We finally freed the characters and had a delightful time, in spite of my malevolence vibrations directed at the packaging engineer.

Scientists vs. Gray Beards

Even though Scientists say time is slowing down, they aren't saying so from the perspective of people living their lives. For me, the days are getting smaller. No matter how precious each day's activities might be (and precious indeed they can be), the bags get smaller and slide past more quickly.

About the Patriots and winning ugly

Some days, we aren't great. Some days, in fact, we aren't even good.

The New England Patriots sneak into the Super Bowl. - By Charles P. Pierce - Slate Magazine: "His greatest gift always has been his ability to go completely egoless while playing a position designed for egomaniacs."

NPR: In Today's World, the Well-Rested Lose Respect

NPR: In Today's World, the Well-Rested Lose Respect

Listening to people claim how little they sleep reminds me of the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch by Monty Python (and others).

The north county is falling apart

Pine Street in Gardner, where my grandparents lived, has been closed for several weeks because part of the old Heywood-Wakefield complex has collapsed onto the street. In addition, the part that hasn't collapsed is none too steady and could fall over in strong storm or a bad case of the hiccups.

Then, we learned that the Westminster library, where my mother worked and where I spent a lot of time as a nerd-in-training, was damaged by water from a broken pipe. The break occurred over the long weekend and was discovered on Tuesday morning.

What's next? A plague of frogs clogging the snow guns at Mount Wachusett?

Video Chronology of The History of British TV Comedy | MetaFilter

A terrific compendium of 50 years of BBC comedies: Video Chronology of The History of British TV Comedy | MetaFilter

Easy may be your word, but it's not ours.

I followed a link from Digg to this site:

Snow White and, um, Godzilla

Yesterday, Cassie and I hung out at my father's house while the good guy from Country Fuel cleaned the furnace. Cassie had a backpack full of figurines - princesses, princes, and a dwarf-sized Godzilla. We spread the toys out on the carpet in the den and played. The play mostly involved standing up the figurines and knocking them down.

It's hard to imagine, but we did grow tired of that after a while, so we switched over to hide-and-seek. This game, for the most part, had one of us hide in a closet while the other counted to 10, walked around for a bit, and then opened the closet door. The person inside the closet yelled.

The time passed quickly and we didn't have to try figure out other games to play.

This week's miscellaneous links

• The Presurfer: Lederhosen Dance Generator ( Tuesday, Jan 22 at 09:01 PM )

  My first visit to the ocean was on a high school trip. I was probably a freshman. My aunt and uncle had recently gone to Germany and brought me a pair of lederhosen. I thought that it would be cool to wear something unique on the trip. I was wrong. Very w

• Reserve A Spot In Heaven - The Only Way To Guarantee Your Spot In Heaven ( Monday, Jan 21 at 08:43 PM )

  What if there was no room for you?

• Do we need computer competence tests? | The Register ( Monday, Jan 21 at 08:33 PM )

  It is, surely, a loss of liberty to say "You can't buy a Formula One racing car and drive along the motorway at 200 mph" - but how important was that freedom, really? And are we doing something equally daft in insisting on the "freedom" to let someone loa

• LOLinator: i can haz websiet? ( Monday, Jan 21 at 05:23 PM )

  This web site translate a web site into lolcats dialect. Try it out with http://roasterboy.blogspot.com.

• The page cannot be found ( Sunday, Jan 20 at 08:34 PM )

  via del.icio.us hotlist

• weirdconverter.com ( Sunday, Jan 20 at 03:51 AM )

• Rules of Thumb for Writing « // Internet Duct Tape ( Saturday, Jan 19 at 04:15 AM )

  Read your work out loud to locate problems. If you run out of breath, the sentence is too long.

What is your best quality?

What's Your Best Quality? Your Result: Intelligence Your best quality is intelligence! People like you because you are smart and always make the right decision. Your intelligence also helps you handle tough situations.
Loving
Personality
Ambitious
Sense of Humor
Out-Going
What's Your Best Quality? Take More Quizzes

This week's Roaster Boy's playlist

• U2 Pride Live From Syracuse,NY(Joshua Tree Tour 1987) ( Tuesday, Jan 22 at 01:10 AM )

  U2 Pride Live From Syracuse,NY(Joshua Tree Tour 1987)

• YouTube - Lyle Lovett - If I Had a Boat ( Monday, Jan 21 at 11:44 AM )

  YouTube - Lyle Lovett - If I Had a Boat

• Pete Seeger-Waist Deep In The Big Muddy ( Sunday, Jan 20 at 07:30 PM )

  From the Smothers Brothers show: YouTube - Pete Seeger-Waist Deep In The Big Muddy

• Frank Zappa - Joe's Garage ( Friday, Jan 18 at 09:00 PM )

  The story about just about every kid who picked up a Fender guitar and had a dream.

• YouTube - MIKE BLOOMFIELD :ALBERT'S SHUFFLE ( Thursday, Jan 17 at 12:47 PM )

  YouTube - MIKE BLOOMFIELD :ALBERT'S SHUFFLE

• FARK.com: Fark YouTube Player (3334828) Muddy Waters live in 1968, doing Long Distance Call. Bonus: Otis Spann on piano ( Thursday, Jan 17 at 12:41 PM )

  FARK.com: Fark YouTube Player (3334828) Muddy Waters live in 1968, doing Long Distance Call. Bonus: Otis Spann on piano

• Nils Lofgren - No Mercy ( Wednesday, Jan 16 at 08:13 PM )

  A sharp, little story about a boxer. It's also a keen reminder of the depth of the talent in the E Street Band .

• YouTube - Randy Newman - Sail Away ( Wednesday, Jan 16 at 01:43 PM )

  American history retold from the deck of a slave ship: YouTube - Randy Newman - Sail Away

Old work

A former co-worker used to pride himself on staying a couple of steps behind the technology. He said that there was plenty of work because no one was interested in working on the old stuff. That worked pretty until perhaps five or seven years ago when companies started to outsource the old work to India, Russia, or some other low-cost workplace. It's to the point now that many companies, including places where I used to work, have quotas on how much work they will ship overseas.

The pace of change is also present in the consumer market. Today, we tried to have the furnace cleaned at my father's house. It's an old burner, probably not original (more than 50 years old), but certainly more than 20. The guys from one company showed up, took a look at it, and gathered their gear and left. It was too old. They'd never seen one like it and didn't want to take responsibility, should anything go wrong. Fortunately, friend E. knows lots of people. I stopped by his plumbing supply store. We talked about who might have worked on it in the past. One guy was dead; another is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's. E. gave me three additional companies to try. The first wouldn't make a service call because we weren't an oil customer. (We probably would be an oil customer now if they'd been willing to do the work.) The second company was not only willing, but had worked on the system before. They'll clean the furnace on Wednesday.

Of gasoline and grass clippings

The closing date for the sale of my father's house is approaching, so it's time to make sure that we have taken all of our stuff. It's easy to stop seeing things when you've looked at them for so long. Today, I brought home our lawnmower. It had been in the garage. It would have been a lot easier if I'd brought it home in November, before the snow, but, well, you know, .... My car smells of gasoline and grass clippings, a summertime smell, even though the temperature didn't make it out of the teens today. And then, once I got the mower home, I had to carry it through the snow to the shed in the back yard. (Our snowblower has been out of commission for a while, so we don't have a path cleared from the driveway to the shed.) The smell of gasoline and grass clippings is now on my clothes. It's not an unpleasant smell, just out of sync with the season.

Howstuffworks "How Hip-hop Works"

During a mid-morning coffee break, we were discussing Tess's hip-hop dance lessons. "What is hip-hop?" asked Sandra's mother. I mumbled something about a style of dance and music that evolved from rhythm and blues, but I couldn't provide a very description of any of it.

So, once again, the Internet helps a family of white folks understand urban culture: Howstuffworks "How Hip-hop Works"