what we've learned from daytime televsion

Lessons learned from The Price is Right spokesmodels on the difference between cars and trucks:

Drum on a truck. Stroke a car.

discerning consumers

birthday uno

Here it is: video documentation of the big celebration, complete with gift opening, birthday song singing, candle blowing, cake eating, hair cutting, and rare archival footage of a neighborhood cat eating out of a garbage can. Feliz cumpleanos, kid. Which, without the appropriate diacritical marks, means something like "Happy fire extinguisher."

Pictures, too.

one is the (un)loneliest number

Today is Finn's first birthday. One!

someone needs a new suffix

Lately I've found myself calling the boy by a variety of spontaneous nicknames ending in "-saurus". As in "Who's a talkative little chatasaurus?" Other recent embarrassing transgressions from the -saur suffix family include grabasaurus, snackasaurus, napasaurus, and distractasaurus rex.

We clearly need to shake up the nicknaming protocol around here.

UPDATE: This is exactly what I'm talking about, people. Dinosaurs are everywhere: sleepers, shirts, onesies, you name it. As a boy-child fashion motif, dinos rank right up there with puppies, dump trucks, and Li'l Champ footballs. Geez. Overloadasaurus.

finncrane

The Schwilligs have been absent from this space for too long, what with all the childrearing and indolence and such. The Schwilligs beg your forgiveness.

Surely, dear reader, somewhere in the hazy back room of your smoky, beer-soaked past, you've stored a memory of playing that frustrating existential joke disguised as a coin-operated bar game known as SkillCrane. I can see the light dawning in your eyes. It's all coming back to you now: the glass box bathed in chilled white light, the enticing tumble of stuffed animals and trinkets yearning to be free, the steel claw that glitters with such menacing promise. You eye your prize---there, that green froggy thing in the corner with the big head----commit your quarters, push the directional buttons, and drop the claw, which has the mighty grasping power of (quick, name something really small and powerless, like a cricket, or an anemic kitten, or a Ford Festiva, or something like that. . . okay, let's go with the Festiva) a Ford Festiva and falls harmlessly, fruitlessly, impotently, empty-handedly away. Convinced that you ALMOST HAD IT THAT TIME, you pump another 30 or 40 bucks into the machine (lather, rinse, repeat) before realizing that winning a prize is a mathematical and metaphysical impossibility, that you will never liberate those cuddly stuffed animals from their glassed-in bondage, that your hope for the future of humanity was permanently removed during a simple, painless surgical procedure that took place while you were mesmerized by mirrors, lights, and claws, and the resultant cavity was neatly filled with sawdust.

As a token of our affection, and mostly just because we think it's hilarious, we offer this remake of the classic SkillCrane game, a loving homage starring Finn. FinnCrane was created using Scratch, too much spare time, and a rogue's gallery of Finn's animals and toys. Note to the PETA people: No teddybears were harmed in the making of this game.

No coins necessary. Just click to start. Abandon hope, all ye who drop your claws here. The animals will always remain just beyond your grasp.

official ID