The bismuth anniversary

I was recently researching what kind of gift is appropriate for a couple’s 18th wedding anniversary. So I go to Wikipedia and learn that the “traditional” British and American 18th-anniversary wedding gift is bismuth.

Bismuth. Motto: “Not as toxic as lead!”

Bismuth: ingredient in cosmetics … and the anti-diarrheal medicines Kaopectate and Pepto-Bismol.

My friend Snoop suggested that the 18th anniversary was the “cardboard” anniversary. Compared to bismuth, that doesn’t look all that bad.

Fortunately, the “modern” list of anniversary gifts offers a respectable way out: porcelain. Next to bismuth, that’s lookin’ pretty good.

Wrangler-McDonald’s: 1-2

I’m late doing this, but the Buttercups’ undefeated regular season came a cropper on Saturday when they lost to two all-star teams, 6-2 and 7-2. The first team was bigger and faster; the second team was bigger and better at ball control.

But on Sunday, with Memie there to watch, the Buttercups won a thriller 3-2 on a shot by one of Victoria’s teammates with less than 30 seconds left. That other team had a keeper who was built like a fullback; she regularly punted the ball from the front of the box well past midfield. She was good on defense, too, but not quite good enough.

Afterward, we gathered at Coach Ricky’s for pizza and the presentation of trophies. The girls had a blast, and at the moment it looks like everyone is coming back next fall. Thanks again to Coach Ricky and Coach Bob for all their time and hard work, and thanks to the Buttercups for making this season one to remember.

Because I am still not tired of this stuff …

(h/t: DrFrankLives)

Raiders of the Lost Ark. With Legos.

Just another reason to love Gizmodo.

It’s a puzzler, all right

Says here that MGM could be remaking “Red Dawn.”

That’d be the Cold War-era flick about when Soviets and Cubans take over big chunks of the U.S. and some high school students in the Midwest wage a successful guerilla insurgency. Patrick Swayze starred. My take: It was unlikely as hell and cornball besides, but it had a few good lines.

The Soviet Union now being but a memory, my question is: Why would you do this?

Unless, of course, you come up with a different set of bad guys. Ah, but who might they be?
Corporate greedheads? Islamic terrorists? The ruling junta in Myanmar? Ida know. Anyone else got any ideas?

No good deed really does go unpunished

In China, 158 relief workers have been killed in landslides.

Relief work is noble, but it also can be dangerous, and not just because of natural hazards.

The fame, it is spreading

The Wildcats are now a pop-culture reference!

(h/t: Mom)

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled political invective for some facts

It’s an election year, which means that all manner of e-mails will be making the rounds purporting to dish the big secret that Candidate X is trying to hide. You could just delete them … or you could turn them into what my friend David Allen calls a teachable moment.

David is an unabashed liberal, but his advice on how to handle erroneous political e-mails actually is admirably nonpartisan and practical.

Invasion of privacy?

Although I post frequently here about my kids, it tends to be very surface stuff. I’ve kept it that way even though I could write books about the joys and frustrations and inspiration and despair that go into being a daddy and the many ways in which the kids engender all of those feelings.

A lot of parents blog a lot about their kids, however. Some of them are remarkably good at it. But I’m not them.

My kids are entitled to their own identity, offline and on. Victoria’s teetering on the brink of adolescence, and if there’s anyone who guards her privacy more than an adolescent girl, he/she probably works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Do I have the right to violate her and Hooper’s privacy by writing more about them than I do? Yeah, probably. But is it the right thing to do? No, not for me and not for my kids, I don’t think it is.

So why write about them at all? Because besides my wife they’re the most important people in my life, and so much of what I do every day revolves around them. And some of it is so cool that I have to fight the temptation to share it.

But holding back is my choice, and after six years of blogging here I’m content with it. That said, if I were going to blog a lot more about my kids, I could find some good arguments for it in this.

Pressure Boys reunion

I was a fan of the Pressure Boys from the moment Tony Plutonium brought me a copy of their cassette “Jump! Jump! Jump!” when he came up to New York to visit in the summer of ‘83. They were a band way ahead of their time, and suffered the fate such bands usually suffer.

Last weekend they did two reunion shows at the Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill to raise funds for cystic fibrosis, which lead singer John Plymale’s daughter has. Sadly, I couldn’t make either show. But a bunch of people shot video and have posted it to YouTube. Here’s Tony’s shot of the song “Is This Normal?”

Enjoy.

UPDATE: Peter Cashwell (May 5 entry, “You’re Living In My Town”) on the Pressure Boys reunion: “Clearly, the music scene in Chapel Hill in the 1980s was like a cross between Laurel Canyon in the 1970s and the royal house of Thebes in Oedipus Rex.”

Champions

I missed it because I had to work, but Victoria’s Buttercups soccer team won out last night to close the season undefeated at 7-0-1. They won 4-2 against the team they tied earlier. V. didn’t score but was very happy with her play.

Up next: Wrangler-McDonald’s. And then a well-deserved summer rest.

Movies vs. real life, cont.

In the movies, sunshine kills vampires and makes ghosts disappear. In real life, unfortunately, the evil spirits and the Undead tend to be a great deal more persistent.

Who’s the fastest gun?

The Associated Press, apparently.

7:30:00 P.M.: Polls close in North Carolina.

7:30:05 P.M.: AP News Alert:RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Barack Obama wins Democratic presidential primary in North Carolina

And that’s about all the Election Night stories I have to tell.

A loss in Iraq

Local blogger Patrick Eakes has lost a relative in the fighting in Iraq. My prayers go out to the family.

Buttercups 7, Sharks 3

The good news: Victoria scored. The bad news: she gave up mumble goals as keeper.

And the ‘Cups are 6-0-1 with one regular-season game remaining and the Wrangler-McDonald’s tournament coming up.

Some things really are more important than winning

I dare you to read this without tearing up.

(h/t: Athenae at First Draft)