My first princess party

Earlier this month I attended my first princess party at Super Franks to celebrate Tia's birthday. I've always heard of these princess parties but with raising two boys, I've never gotten a chance to witness one. Now that Justine is three, I'm getting the feeling we'll be attending more of these girlie parties.

This is a huge departure from those Pump it Up and Chuck E Cheese parties. Energy and chaos is replaced with manners and beauty. Less stress, calmer, and better food too.

No running, jumping, or yelling, just little well-behaved girls and their gushing parents romping about. It's like nothing I've ever experienced before! There must have been some sort of drugs permeating the air.

In the dressing room behind the castle, the girls fight for select an outfit and gets their hair done by the professional princess.

The girls are then given instructions on how to be a proper little princess. How to lead on boys to make them do things for you and how to dump them while faking the tears. That boy was the test subject.

Each princess is then individually introduced with their princess wish. Justine's princess wish is to have her brothers live with someone else.

Last minute instructions before eating. "Pizza is to be properly eaten with a fork and knife." That poor lonely knight will grow up wishing these pictures never resurface again.

I don't need no stinkin' fork and knife!

Yes, I am a princess and I will have you wrapped around my little finger!

Christmastime (long overdue)

Sorry for the delay, I meant to get it up sooner.

Shot from approx. 70 ft. away in 720HD with the incredible Canon Powershot SX20is.
(Thanks, Wong See Mo)

Dropbox - A must have for multiple computers

Do you have multiple computer at home? Or do you always take your work home with you on a jump drive? Or do you email yourself files so you can access from another computer? Your solution: Dropbox.

I recently started using Dropbox and it's great. I can upload/download files from my computer, laptop and iPhone. And I always know where the most up-to-date file is. It is fully integrated into my operating system, so it's just listed as another folder in my home folder. Other than the first time setting it up, there's no logging in, just instant access as if it was resident on your hard drive.

This cloud-computing service is a stripped down version of Apple's $99 MobileMe, but it's free for the first 2gb of storage. After that, it's $9.99/mo. for 50gb and $19.99 for $100gb.

Learn more about and download your Dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/tour

So are you REALLY a PC??

Here's a shout out to all my Chinese peecee readers. I just ran across this ad this morning and HAD to ask one question: Are the people at Microsoft nuts?? Are they really that clueless?? Okay, that was two questions.

Do they really think that featuring this handsome fella is a positive representation of the "pc" people? Do they think this will really drive sales or reconvert Mac switchers? Yes dude, I totally believe Windows 7 was your idea. And I do believe that Windows 7 was made for people like you, just like parenting classes and tetanus shots.

I mean really, if Microsoft bought General Mills, I could only imagine what kind of social rejects would be gracing the Wheaties boxes – Dennis Rodman? If Microsoft was smart, they would parade this guy to all the Apple Stores just to drive customers away. And what the heck is he buying? Looks like vinyl at Rasputin's.

Question: so are mohawks making a comeback? I've seen a couple lately. Honestly I see no benefits of looking like a freak unless you want a career delivering pizzas. And even if it were making a comeback, I'm not sure it's working with this particular guy. Maybe he needs some piercings or tats to complete the look.

Sure, he's younger and hipper than John Hodgeman of the "I'm a Mac" commercials, but I just don't see normal, civilized, non-skateboarding-trailer-punk people wanting to be more like him. Those castoffs are already on Windows because OSX won't sync their Zunes!

And the worst thing? He's Asian!! Is there any other ethnicity that is sure to fail as trying to be anything remotely non-law-abiding! This guy looks like a former playground bully that never grew up and still likes beating up nerds. PC's beating up on fellow pc's – that's gotta suck.

Though I saw this ad on BostonHerald.com, my guess is it was originally aimed for the Yakuza-wannabe crowd in Japan or the gangs in Chinatown. Sadly, here in the United States, Wiliam Hung would've been the best choice. Sigh.

I'm sorry, but some pc people just need to remain as pc people.

Hello outside world...

A few of you have inquired about my lack of blogging or my inconsistent blogging the last few months, and I thank you for your concern. My life has been busy and eventful as usual, and there's lots going on at my job, but my communications have been crippled. Yes, I've been cut off from blogging at work.

Back in October, Godfather Merciless dropped the hammer and blocked all internet access to all social networking sites including my blogger site, Facebook, and Scrabble! – my one and only joy around here. Yup, all gone! He realized that all these external sites were providing an unnecessary source of happiness and hope... all of which are detrimental to the corporate morale code. In fact, happiness goes directly against our company motto: "If you are cheerful, you better be fearful!" Happy people have a tendency to disappear around here.

To further push his message across, last week I was summoned to attend the meeting of the Enormously Vile Infamous Leaders. Together with the Godfather, Captain, Sarge, and Major, we snaked down to the darkest depths of the underworld. I was told to bring my camera to capture a few beheadings to serve as a warning to my fellow inmates of the consequences of any illegal outside access. (The picture above is all I dare to publish. It is shot far from the back to spare you from seeing these hideous beings up front.)

Right now, the only way I can get this blog out is to bribe one of the prison guards with contraband. In return I get temporary secret access. But to keep the bribes going, I would need to further stock up on cigarettes and toilet paper…

So yes, I'm still alive. And hopefully I can find time to keep on blogging. The problem is, most of my blogging is done spur of the moment and on the fly. Without instant publishing abilities, I don't know if my material can come out on a timely basis. And when I get home, I'm instantly swarmed by the demands of three little monsters. Sigh. So please be patient, and I thank you for visiting.