I Am The 26th Best DadBlogger In The DadBlogospheriverse

Or, put another way, there are only 25 motherfuckers in the whole of existence that can top me in this dadblogging business. Thus sayeth Babble:

I have no words, other than these ones here of course. Truly, I'm speechless, other than this babble (ha!) that's dribbling outta my keyboard. It's cool to be on a best-of list, but I'm not really sure how I did it, seeing as how I hardly post in this space anymore. Looking through the most popular searches that bring people to my blog, I'm guessing that somebody over at Babble must like posts about Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor, werewolf zombies, Burt Reynolds, ninjas, militant Buddhism, atheists, and going to your happy place. Only possible explanation.

If I sound snarky, it's only because I'm confused, or maybe you are. Confused or not, I just want to say that I appreciate those of you who take the time to come by here. It's nice to have somebody picking up what you're laying down, you know what I mean? So yeah. Thanks y'all.

Oh Yes, Mistakes Got Made

Earlier this week during my internet travels, I ran across a rather entertaining article about a 1995 Newsweek article wherein the author editorialized on the many reasons why the internet was doomed to go the way of Betamax. In a nutshell, his case boiled down to a belief that the state of the internet at that time was about as good as it was ever going to get, and its state, as you may recall, was not so great.

Obviously, things have improved, and pretty much everything in the article turned out to be wrong. Even the author himself, an astronomer and writer by the name of Clifford Stoll, has commented on how very incorrect his predictions were.

I feel for this guy, I really do. I seriously doubt he was the only one back then who was too preoccupied with the internet’s wackness to stop and think about its potential dopeness. He just happened to be one of the ones ballsy enough to put his thoughts into print. And then the internet got all big and amazing and his thoughts went from print to digital and got spread all over the very medium that he predicted would have been long gone by now. I don’t know Clifford Stoll personally, but I’m going to guess that this article presents one of the most inaccurate declarations of his lifetime. And there it is one the internet for the whole world to see and pass on. Shit, I put it on Facebook myself, along with who-knows-how-many other people. But hey, if you’re going to go playing Nostradamus, it probably helps to have a taste for crow, huh?

Stoll’s blunder may be more public than most, but he’s hardly alone in having made big mistakes. So in that spirit, I thought I would share some of the things that I myself have been wrong about, right here on the internet. And I’m limiting this to mistakes that occurred in my adult life because everybody’s stupid when they’re a kid. 

Mickey's Fine Malt Liquor is good drinkin'!
Holy hornet balls, could I ever put that shit back. I fucking loved it. I drank it from the widemouth grenade bottles and I drank it from the 40 ounce bottles and I loved every drop. Now? I’d have to say it qualifies as swill. Plus it’s made by Miller, a brewer I'd rather not support any longer. Please note, however, that this admission of error with regards to the quality of Mickey’s is not a statement of regret with regards to my tattoo of the Mickey’s hornet on my calf. I’m still pretty good with that.  

Vaccines are scary and bad!
When we were pregnant with our first kid, we started running across all these articles about the link between vaccines and autism. Mercury in a needle! Being injected into our precious baby! I’ll admit it, we got ourselves good and freaked out. But then we learned a bit more and realized just how ridiculous the whole facts vs. nonfacts controversy surrounding vaccines really is.  

My 1st marriage will last forever!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAA!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!! Whew! All right then, moving on. 

I want to become a counselor and help people!
When I enrolled in a master’s program with the goal in mind of becoming a licensed professional counselor, I really thought I had found what I wanted to be when I grew up. I learned a lot, but after a few semesters, I figured out that mental health was not the profession for me. 

I will never be an atheist!
And yet here I sit, an unbeliever. 

I will never put a LOLCat on my blog!
Doh! Actually, I think I've probably already messed this one up.

Blogging is dumb!
This isn’t really too far off from Mr. Stoll’s statement about the internet as a whole. I remember when I first started to run across people’s online journals, many of which were anonymous. I perused a few here and there and found it to be the whiniest bullshit I had ever read. I got it in my head that a bunch of people just writing about whatever the fuck they want to and putting it on the internet was a stupid idea. Then not too too long after that, my friend Tim created the individual blogs on the Loaded Gun Theory site, and lo and behold, I became a blogger.   

So there's just a few of my mistakes for y'all to chew on. I wracked my brain trying to think of some more, but these are honestly the only halfway-interesting ones I could come up with, and that's stretching the definition of "interesting." For those mistakes that I'm unable to recall at the moment, hopefully I at least learned a lesson from them.

Change is always bad all the time always

Looking at my archives today, I noticed that I've been blogging under The Holmes moniker for three years as of last Friday. Of course, I've been doing all sorts of other stuff as The Holmes for much longer, but most of that required little if any effort. But this blogging thing, this whole maintaining the will power to not shut down a free webpage and occasionally write stuff on it, now that takes work.

So after three years, I figure it's time to perhaps make some changes to the old layout. Gone are the black background and the title written in Olde English font. When I was younger, I thought it would be awesome to put "Holmes" in Olde English across the back window of my 94 Ford Taurus, but then I grew up a little and decided maybe that wasn't such a rockin' idea after all. So instead I tacked it to the top of my blog.

I can't say I'm super-pleased with the new layout, but it's a step. I'm glad to be rid of a lot of the widget bling. Some of it may return in time, though some I can say with certainty is gone for good. I made sure to get the blogroll back in there ASAP since I know how testy some of y'all can get. The new header may need some more work, but the picture comes from some graffiti that sprang up one day on a building near our old place. I, of course, was a suspect. As usual.

Holmes Header # 1
March 14th 2005 - March 18th 2008

I am the Awesome

At least according to fellow Austin blogger Quirkee James I am. For you see, he has bestowed upon me this little beauty:

And really, how could I turn down such a perfect award? It includes two words that I've been overusing for almost twenty years, one of my favorite hand signals, and my favorite guitar, the beautiful Gibson SG. If I could have one in every color of the rainbow, well, I'd maybe sell you the yellow one. As it is, my status as guitarist lies safely in the amateur realm, so I content myself with the cheaper Epiphone version.

So it is now my job to pass this award on to another awesome dude blogger. I'm assuming that the use of the term "dude" here is gender neutral, especially since I label both guys and dolls as dudes on a nearly daily basis (see aforementioned overuse of certain words). To do so, I believe it is customary to hold some sort of contest on one's blog. If I hadn't just done the caption contest thing in the previous blog, I would go that route, but alas, I can't bring myself to do two caption contests in a row. Thus, I'm going to try something slightly more complicated. I may be shooting myself in the foot here, as the complexity may scare some folks off, and I might just have to give this here award away. But for those of you not frightened of a completely pointless challenge, here is your task: we all know that the original Star Wars trilogy was some of the greatest bit of film ever to warm a screen. But what if the ensemble had been different? Your job is to come up with an alternate cast to Star Wars. Feel free to cast as many characters as you like, but all the main players need to be covered. Polls close in 72 hours.

Carnival of the Mundane XXXVII

Welcome one and all to this week's Carnival of the Mundane, the XXXVIIth in the series. Here in Holmes-land, the Texas summer hasn't quite reached inner circle of Hell conditions yet, but it's well on its way. So grab something cold, kick back, and enjoy some good bloggin'. Let us go in, shall we?

Just inside the ropes, we have Jason at Roller Coaster Galaxy proving what a good son he is by helping his mom find and set up her new 'puter. At least I assume he's talking about his mom, he might be one of those guys who refers to his wife as Mom. Some people do that, ya know.

Next, Jooley Ann comes cleverly this way to tell us a bit about her baby's napping, breaking her TV habit, rediscovering the joys of babywearing, and solicits opinions regarding swimwear for baby girls. I think I'm actually stumped for an opinion on this one.

Behind this curtain, Tara of Thing What Squeaks fame relates a horrid nightmare of unpreparedness. Look upon it if you dare!

On yonder stage, you'll find Tim, he of the Loaded Gun Theory, realizes that his daughter is finally bored with the food that's being put in front of her. The little ingrate.

Over by the cotton candy, you'll find Erin of Flen Flyys telling us about a swaggerin' swankster at the local grocery who doesn't understand nature's little hints that he needs to GTFO. OMGWTFBBQ?!?!!

Right by my side where I can keep an eye on her, Ashley aka Yer Mama Sez aka my wife informs us why her mother is the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

And last, but certainly not least, over here by our virtual ferris wheel, Marsha uses her Marshalogues to give herself a bit of the old self-psychoanalysis to try and understand why she blames her husband everytime her baby boy drops bombs over a particular target. She is clearly insane.

That's it for this month's Carnival folks. Be sure to check out the Carnival's main page to find plenty of other good readin'.

Real Quick: Mundanity, or rather mundaneness, over yonder horizon

So real quick: this coming Friday, The Holmes is playing host the the Carnival of the Mundane. What is this carnival madness, you ask? And furthermore, how did the most virtuous and upright Holmes get involved with a pack of dirty carnies? Well if you must know, check out some of the past carnivals, as well as the carnival's guidelines. It's a fun way to find out about some other cool bloggers out there, and also get a few more folks over to your site. So what I need from you good bloggers are your very own blog posts that you would like to submit for this Friday's carnival. Just send your links to me via eeeemail at tarv six six six (in numeric format) at gmail d0t c0m. The theme is there is no theme. The prerequisites are that you've written a blog post since the last blue moon. Don't leave me hangin folks, I don't wanna be the Carnival host who only has one bearded lady and a broken down ferris wheel to offer his guests. Hurry hurry hurry step right up!

Nah, I ain't come to snuff no rooster

I found some Cheddar Bunnies mixed into the dirty laundry earlier. You know, like Goldfish, except in bunny form. The Ash tried to tell me that Henry had put 'em there and then she acted all innocent. Wife, please. I know she's secretly hatching a plot to turn all our clothes orange, though I can't imagine why since she's not the one that went to UT. That would be me, though I must admit, I'm a crappy Longhorn. I own not a single item of burnt orange clothing. I guess that's what happens when you're one of the three people in Texas who's not into football.

Lest ye think all I did today was laundry, I've actually been rather productive. I got up early to go join in a Habitat for Humanity build. First thing I see when I walk up to the work site was this monstrous rooster just walking around, proud as could be. Huge, I tell you. I asked if he was the foreman, but he just ignored me and wandered off clucking something about somebody owing him money and a ring in the basement of a bar somewhere.

Turns out I was assigned to the crew of yet another Holmes...Larry Holmes to be exact. No, not the boxer, nor any relation that I'm aware of. Thanks to Larry, I now know more about putting up sheet rock than I did yesterday, which was zero.

I left the build a little before lunchtime. On my way out, I looked in my rear-view mirror and spotted that rooster beating up a couple of teenagers. Sorry kids, I'd love to help you out, but I don't need that rooster pissed at me, and I've got a birthday party to get to. Besides, you're teenagers so you probably deserve it.

The aforementioned party was for none other than the first birthday of Stella, daughter of our friends Tim and Julie. Many babies, lots of food, a fridge full of beer, delicious cake, and plenty of familiar faces - can't ask for much more than that. Julie even dished up a baby-safe cake that the little munchkins scarfed down like it contained breastmilk. But I don't think it did. Anyway, Happy Birthday Stella!

Following the party, I spent the afternoon engaged in some serious playtime with the Googanator. That would be Henry. We don't have any one single pet name for him, more like hundreds, each of which has several variations and spin-offs of its own. Ash and I are the same with each other's pet names. It's just like that around here. If I sat down with a pen and paper, I could probably trace the pet names she calls me now back to the pet names she had for me when we first hooked up. These things evolve.

The morning's spirit of industriousness was apparently still lingering because I finally hung up the window shelf that The Ash has been asking me to take care of for a few weeks. I been busy, yo, lay off. But it's up now and it's beautiful. Only seven bajillion more projects to go and we'll be done.

On another note, you may have noticed that I've been messing with my template here recently. I just kinda got tired of having all my widget bling squished into one column. Not sure I'm happy with it just yet. I dunno honey, maybe we should put the couch against the other wall under the deer head? But in the midst of moving stuff around, I noticed that my archives go back to March 2005. The Holmes as a blog has existed for two years and I didn't even notice it. I should clarify, it hasn't always been at this address, I moved it over here last September when I decided I didn't feel like paying for my old site where I had pages devoted to what an amazing playwright I am. I couldn't stand the thought of all those posts just being lost in the ether, especially since that blog started right about the time The Ash and I went public with the pregnancy. I couldn't just let the record of the months leading up to our son's birth be lost, so I actually went to the trouble of moving them all over, which is why there are no comments on any posts before that, it's not just because I suck. And before The Holmes blog existed, I was blogging over at Loaded Gun Theory for I don't even know how long. Point is, this blogging thing has been a part of my life for something like four years now. I wonder if the day will come when I just decide blogging is for idiots and that I'm no longer interested in posting my thoughts and the events of my life for just anybody to read. I don't know. All's I know is that was one big ass rooster.

The Dirty 30K

Because I like the idea of large groups of people getting together to participate in a loosely defined activity with only the vaguest of rules to guide them, and because I seem to have shied away from discussing anything even remotely political on this here blog of mine as of late, and because I'll almost certainly need something to write about on that day, I've decided to participate in this here 30000 bloggers thing. The link has all the info, but in short it goes a little something like this:

1. Send an email to brian@bravehumans.com with the subject: Yop!
2. In the body of the email list the name of your weblog, and the URL.
3. Your weblog will be added to the list of participating weblogs.
4. Tell your friends who blog about it, and urge them to send in their weblog as well.
5. When the list reaches 30,000, a date and a word will be listed on the page. On that date, every weblog on the list agrees to make a single post with the word as the title. The content of the post should be about what you want for the world, whatever that may be. The purpose is not to make a particular political statement, but simply to make a noise. If 30,000 weblogs all post the same unusual word, it WILL be heard.

Honestly, I detect my naysayer side coming up here. I don't know quite what this can actually hope to accomplish. There is of course no expectation that everyone sing the same tune, only that they sing a song. But really and truly, if the most effort it's asking of me is that I write a blog entry about what I want for the world (wow, I might need to get started now), then I think I can maybe swing that. The true question, I guess, is what more can I do?