Technorati Tags: daschund, dogs, puppies, wiener dog

But I digress.  Why am I writing this.  Because they’re is something wrong with me.  I’ve been waiting for God of War: Ghosts of Sparta ever since it was announced.  I reserved it (as if a PSP game was going to sell out).  I bought it on Tuesday morning half an hour after Gamestop opened.

How is it, you may ask.  And my answer would be: I have no freaking idea.  Because I haven’t even opened it yet.  Not even to glance through the instruction book.  It is sitting in my car under piles of mail and bills, which in turn sit under a jacket.  Weird behavior, I know.

But I have an obsessive side, as most people do, and I know the moment I slip that game into my PSP and fire the sucker up (after dusting it off), I won’t put it down until I’m done.  And when that happens, other important activities, like showering and paying  bills and sleeping get pushed aside.  I become a hermit of sorts, spending zero time with my kids and eschewing reading while in the bathroom for my game.  And if it is a Wii game, I’ll turn off my kids cartoons and force them to watch me play games.  My DVR gets backed up.

And my wife gets irritated.

I remember going on vacation while in the middle of Super Mario Galaxy 2 for a week and I felt like a heroine addict going through withdrawal.  Luckily, I had Picross 3D with me, and I stayed up every night until 2:00 in the morning playing, leaving me a zombie in the morning.

So when will I crack open God of War?  Maybe when the holidays come and TV is all repeats and I have some time off.  If that’s the case, I wonder when I will open the new Donkey Kong Country which comes out at the end of November.  I’ll probably pick it up the morning it comes out.

I’ll be lucky if I actually open it by New Years.

And by the way, I dreamed last night that I killed a man by stabbing him with colored pencils.  Should I read anything into this?

Technorati Tags: God of War, PSP, Wii

If you said they both have back problems, you would be closer.  After all, Friday is a daschund and my father is a dentist, both of which are prone to back issues.

But if you said they are both diabetic, well then, give yourself a pat on the back because you win the Kewpie doll. 

Less than a month after needing to have one of my dog’s teeth extracted, he stopped eating and started drinking alot.  And peeing.  Alot.  He was always a little overweight, but we managed to get him down to a healthier weight recently.  But he was suddenly looking a little toothin.  Ribs too prominent.  Waist too narrow.  I can think of several women in my life who would love to shed four pounds in less than a month, but this is definitely not healthy for a dog who spends most of his life sleeping and gnawing on bones.

So, having our suspicions, we took the dog to the vet where they did some blood tests, and they came back with a diagnosis of canine diabetes.  After doing some research ourselves the night before, this basically confirmed our suspicions.

Freaking diabetes.  In a five and a half year old dog.

I know how much the vet bill is, and while not astronomical, its significant.  But I can’t even imagine the cost of the soon to be needed daily insulin injections.  Or the cost for weekly or bi-weekly blood sugar tests at the vet.  But it is what it is. (My wife hates it when I use that expression)

Someone at work asked me what I was going to do.  I looked at her strangely.  But I guess that’s the mindset of someone who doesn’t own a dog.  What am I going to do?  Try to give him away (because there is a waiting  list for diabetic dogs)?  Put him to sleep?  Not get him the medication he needs?

The dog is almost 6.  My children are 2 1/2 and 6 months old.  He’s part of the family.  And we treat him like part of the family.  He’s been around twice as long as either of the kids.  Now, if his back gave out and he was borderline crippled, well, that’s another story.  That’s a quality of life issue.  But he’s sick, and can be treated with meds, so that’s what we’ll do.

Its this part of pet ownership I don’t think a lot of people understand.  You have kids coming out of college or grad school and living in their own house or apartment for the first time and they suddenly have the desire to have a dog.  But its not that easy, and I don’t think enough people truly understand the responsibility of owning a dog.  It’s more than feeding them and walking them and putting a house of their head and playing with them.   It’s being aware that, like children, like adults, like people, dogs get hurt.  They get sick.  They get diseases.  And you must, as a potential pet owner, understand the financial toll of having a sick animal before you own one.

A dog isn’t a fish or a hamster.  He’s your friend.  Your strange adopted child.  And when you own one, you better be prepared, and willing, to do everything and anything required to maintain his health.  If not, you should probably get a fish instead.  That, at least, can be flushed down the toilet.

My dog has diabetes.  Maybe he will get better.  Maybe he won’t.  But I love him, and if I have to sacrifice so that he is healthy and happy, then that’s what I will do.

Because that’s the price of being a dog owner.

Technorati Tags: canine diabetes, daschund, diabetes, dogs, pets, vet, weiner dogs

My wife and I adopted a wiener-pup over five years ago. We were told he was a tweenie, not quite a mini, up to 7 pounds, but not a massive standard dog, either. But the breeder was wrong. Our dog Friday is a beast.

To read the whole post and see some adorable pictures of Friday through th years, click over to the Lighter Side.

Technorati Tags: Children, Daschunds, dogs, wiener dogs

Before my first son was born, I thought that the actual physical preparation would be the toughest part, you know, buying stuff, setting stuff up, getting ready.  But I was wrong.  the hardest part was deciding on a name, and I think that eventually coming up with Nathaniel was a miracle.

Now here I am again, 2 years later, having to move furniture, build furniture, and shop for lots of crap.  And I would rather do these activities multiple times than come up with a name for my daughter to come.

You see there, are rules.  Rules that can not be broken under penalty of death.  And here they are:

1. Can not be a name shared by one of our cousins.  And we have ten female cousins between us.
2. Can not share a name with an ex-girlfriend (easier to deal with since several of my girlfriends share names with our cousins)
3. Can not share name with a girl either of us has a bad association with, you know, the fat girl, the stupid girl, the trap, the cheerleader.  No names that elicit the image of someone who brings back bad memories
4. Can not begin with “C’ or “K” if it has the hard consonant sound.  My last name begins with C, and I don’t want my daughter to sound like a comic book character (ala Perter Park or Reed Richards).
5. Can not be found in the list of top twenty popular names of the past 5 years.My wife does not want her to be 1 of 4 girls with the same name.
6. Must be more than one syllable so there can be a natural nickname.
7. If there is a natural nickname, it can not sound stupid (For example, Sebastian because Sebass, a type of fish)
8. Must not be too weird, or too ethnic.
9. Means of making fun of the name can not be too obvious.  We liked Natalia, until someone told us that you can change Natalia to Geni-talia real easily.  So scrap that one.

So… I’ll admit it, we’re struggling now.

I think the only name left that fits our criteria is Michelle.  But that’s my mothers name.

I’m tempted to pull out 10 Scrabble tiles and arrange them randomly into a name.  And I won’t pull out the Q, X or Z’s before hand.

So, world, please welcome my daughter Quiznox!

Technorati Tags: baby names, Fatherhood

Being a 31 year old father of two who works five days a week, my time is limited. Between television, sports, reading, writing and blogging, the amount of time I can allot to video game playing is minimal. but I make sure I find a couple of hours here and there because, well, I am a male and I grew up playing video games. I love ‘em, and lord knows, if I didn’t have a family and I didn’t have kids, I would love to spend more mindless time playing.

That all being said, when i purchased a next-gen console two years ago, I had a choice to make. i already have a PSP and DS, and there is always something to play between those two systems. So I knew that I would only be able to buy 1 system. So which one would it be? I chose the Wii.

Now, to a lot of you out there, that may seem silly. As an adult, shouldn’t I value the technical and graphical superiority of the Xbox 360 and PS3? Of course that was an issue. I bought Madden ’09 for the Wii, and when compared to the PS3 and 360, the graphics were awful (though I did enjoy the motion controls). And of course each system has their own franchise games that i can not enjoy on the Wii: God of War, Gears of War, Ratchet and Clank, Halo… and those are but a few examples. And I will miss not playing them.

But I am a child of the 80′s. I grew up playing Mario. And Zelda. And Metroid. And when decision time finally came, I asked myself, “Which games do you really want to play?” And you know what? I wanted to play Super Mario Galaxy. And Twilight Princess.  And Metroid Prime Corruption. And I don’t regret my decision one bite. Video games to me are everything about nostalgia. And don;t get me wrong; if these games sucked, I wouldn’t be playing hem. But Mario Galaxy is one of the bets games ever made, and there is a sequel on the way. Both Metroid prime: Corruption and Twilight Princess were great, and there’s just soothing about the music, something about the characters, that brings you back to a simpler time. And, like Galaxy, both of these games are getting sequels sometime.

But you can’t build a system on a handful of games, and I will admit that the other systems may have more non-first tier games than Nintendo, and more of the games are better. I won’t deny that. But the fact is, Mario Galaxy had such great replay value that I played it for four months, and both Metroid and Zelda were long, engrossing games.

And the Wii does have some other games that are of high quality and can fill in the time between these first tier games: Boom Blox, Punch Out, Super Smash Brothers, Zak and Wiki. And many of the cross-console games reach the Wii, though the graphics and controls are often inferior. But the fact is, there is enough on the Wii to keep an old fart like me entertained, and nothing brings me back to those good old days like watching Mario and Link and Samus save the world.

I won’t deny the pure superiority of the other consoles. i won;t deny that they have more, and in many cases, better games. But for someone with limited time who grew up fighting Ganon and Mother Brain and King Koopa, the Wii is enough for me

Hopefully Nintendo will remember Kid Icarus and Starfox and bring quality games to the Wii based on these franchises soemtime soon.

Technorati Tags: Link, Mario, Metroid, PS3, Wii, Xbox, Zelda

TV is not the problem.  TV can even help to solidify words and concepts in a child’s brain as long as the parents are spending adequate time teaching the child!  TV, when used properly, can help to expand vocabulary as long as it is not the sole tool of learning.  True, today’s shows, like Dora, encourage interaction, but that interaction is for older children, not for younger children.  Younger kids need one on one learning with parents every night for television to have any value.

Anyway, that wasn’t what I meant this post to be about, but I figured I would lead into this with that.

With a new child here and the demolition of my home office to make my son’s new room, we got a laptop for the dining room table.  Now, whenever my son is bored and he sees me on the computer, he will come over to me and start saying “numbers”.  he wants to sit o  my lap and play on the keyboard.  Stupid me, I though I would make it work.  You know, open up Microsoft Word and set a very large font, type some numbers and letters and let him identify them, and then ask him to find some numbers and letters.  yeah, great idea.  In  theory.  Worked for about a minute, until he got bored and just wanted to pound away on the keyboard with his ham fists.  And then he ran his stained fingers over the screen.  Complete disaster.  Now I don’t let him on my lap and he cries.

So I went out and bought this V-tech keyboard/computer for $20.  It has thirty or so little programs on it, but he is only old enough to really do 2 or 3 (It is made for 3 years and up).  But there is a program for identifying numbers, and one for identifying letters, and one that asks him to identify the largest of three objects.  So it will be more useful as he gets older, but it gives him a keyboard he can bang away on without destroying a $700 dollar piece of computer equipment.  He absolutely loves it!

Of course, he saw me putting in the batteries, and after playing with it for 30 minutes, he flipped it over and demanded that I open the battery compartment for him.  I didn’t, and he cried for a bit.  Hopefully he will forget it is there.

Though made for older children, if you have reached a point with a younger child who is bored with pointing out numbers and letters in a book, this is a great durable and relatively cheap toy to make learning more interactive.  And since it looks somewhat like a laptop, your kid will think he is a big boy, too.

Peace out.

And remember, TV isn’t a substitute for time spent with your child, but it can be a great tool when used to enhance what he or she already knows

Technorati Tags: 2 yera olds, Children, computers, development, Dora, learning, TV, V-tech

Months ago, he would spy my toothbrush sitting next to the sink while he bathed and demand it.  And if I didn’t give it to him, he would throw a fit in the bath.  So I would give it to him.  I quickly learned that I needed to keep my brush safely tucked awayinn the medicine cabinet where he couldn’t see it.  It worked for a while; out of sight out of mind.  But one day, while in the bath, he looked up at the cabinet and pointed a finger and said, “Want toothbrush”.  And I promptly told him i didn’t have any.  He obviously didn’t believe me because he continue to point his finger and ay, “In there.”  So, admitting defeat at the hands of a two year old, I opened up the cabinet and revealed my new green toothbrush.  he took it with glee.  “Daddy’s toothbrush,” he screamed, and proceeded to violently brush his teeth.

I am always careful to keep my toothbrushes out of sight.  While he know they are there, he is less likely to ask for it if he can’t see it.

He’s taken about twenty toothbrushes from me in the past several months, and he carries them around the house like toothbrushes, proudly proclaiming, “Daddy’s toothbrushes”, every couple of hours or so.  He’ll brush with all of them in a five minute time span, lining them up on the floor and using each one in order until he gets to the last one, his own small orange toothbrush.

He doesn’t hate his own toothbrush.  I guess he just likes daddy’s toothbrushes.  Thankfully, we order them in bulk at the office, and I always have a handful in reserve at home so when he steals mine, I won’t be left empty handed.

Once I tried to retrieve a stolen toothbrush, but Nathan had managed to destroy it in less than three hours.  I’ve had toothbrushes for a full six months which displayed less bristle wear and bend than what my son is capable of inflicting in less than a day.

Eventually, when a brush becomes too disgusting, I’ll throw it away.  But Nathan always knows, and those are the times he inevitably points at the medicine cabinet and asks for Daddy’s toothbrush.

Now, as dental professional, I can not endorse any child walking around with a toothbrush in his mouth.  It is a very dangerous practice.  So don’t let your children do it.  As the old proverb says: Do as I say, not as I allow my child to do.

Technorati Tags: Children, Dentist, toothbrushes