Flickr "interestingness"

Anyone know how it works? I thought it was based upon being favorited by people who favorite a lot, but out of nowhere the circle breakfast picture shot up to #2 in my photostream. And I'm pretty sure nobody will ever favorite that one.

On the subject of "parenting"

This is from my notebooks that I'm typing up.

Watching the way children and their handlers interact lately is kind of like watching a car accident. The backlash against child abuse has unfortunately removed all forms of discipline. Parents now seem to want to do just about anything except the only two things they're really supposed to: raise their children and prevent their children from burdening and annoying everybody. Saying "no" is always the last resort, and following it up with any action at all is, well, nothing, since there isn't a resort after that last one.

So now Mom and Dad have taken to bargaining with Tyler and Tiffany. They say "please stop that" when they should be saying "the kitty will die if you don't stop" or, really, just "no." The word "no" coming from a parent should get a child to stop whatever he is doing immediately, because if it doesn't, the consequences can be rather significant. Case in point: a toddler runs from his mom, as they are wont to do. (This is why those kid leashes make so much sense. A toddler, after all, is actually less self-reliant than a dog.)

"Tyler, please come back. Tyler. Tyler, please. I'm going to count to ten if you don't come back. I mean it, Tyler. I'm really going to count to ten. Ok, I'm about to start counting to ten. I really mean it. Ok. One, two, three, please, Tyler. Please? Four, five, six, seven, eight. Tyler, please. Please don't make me count all the way to ten. Ok, Tyler, here it comes. Nine. Nine and a half. Nine and three quarters."

Parents never get to ten because they wouldn't even know what to do once they did.

In the meantime, little Tyler has made his way to the shiny object that caught his attention. Unfortunately, it's a reflector embedded in the intersection. Try as he may, he cannot pull it free; they are designed to be driven over.

Mom is lucky for one thing; she didn't have to worry about finally reaching ten, because she was interrupted by screeching tires, shattering glass, and twisting metal. If anyone screamed, she never heard it, because the moment Tyler learned to scream in public, she learned to ignore it.

The car that swerved to miss Tyler killed a pedestrian before hitting another car. All the passengers in both cars were killed. Tyler emerged unscathed but ever since then he cries even more than he used to. Mom is suing the surviving family members of the drivers and pedestrian for the emotional distress she thinks they caused her son.

He's actually just crying because the road reflector is the first thing he ever wanted that he didn't get.

Microwave omelette

As promised, I tried to make an omelette using a microwave and a plate today. It didn't go as smoothly as I thought it would. Microwaves are known to have a hard time heating things evenly. The turntable helps a lot with that, but as you can see below, there's still a cold spot. In fact, this experiment was a good way to map out where all the cooking power goes in my microwave.



I cooked it in 30-second bursts, hoping the center would finally fluff up. It refused. Not wanting the edges to get all dried out and hard, I took it out, folded it in half, and swirled the liquid parts around the outer edges of the cooked parts. After 30 more seconds, it was mostly done; enough that by the time I ate it, it'd be fine. But it sure was ugly. I decided to dress it with a little cheese and salsa so you wouldn't wonder how I could possibly gag it down.



It actually wasn't significantly better or worse than any omelette I've made in a pan. I'm really not a good cook, so they always break or look like Freddy Krueger's ass cheek. Fillings could have easily been slid in there before I folded it. But unless I get a wild hair, I'll stick with the bowl. It's easier, for one thing. I just put the bowl in the microwave for 1:15 (two eggs, today's was three) and it comes out perfect. It's also much cleaner. The plate I cooked it on is covered with chunks of egg I'm not looking forward to scrubbing off.

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These days leave me
Hopelessly lugubrious
I wish these days would end

The Mariners are 2-0

Think they'll go all the way to the Super Bowl? Go baseball!