Madonna just won’t quit. After all these years, who would have thought that she would be the artist delivering the soundtrack to Mallory’s first unprompted pop-song sing-along: “Tick tock, tick tock.” Alright, for future reference Mal-Biz, here’s your Triple-B Madonna Mix Tape:

Side A
4 Minutes
Get Into The Groove
Borderline
Ray of Light
Crazy For You

Side B
Music
Holiday
Who’s That Girl
What It Feels Like For A Girl
This Used To Be My Playground

Labels: Mallory, music

Good chance I'll be logging heavy minutes at Animoto. Pretty amazing stuff and no doubt more impressive after digging deeper. Too bad the widget width swells my blog walls.

Labels: Mallory, vouchers, web design

Mallory goes to work on her art easel these days. She's learning from the magnetic shapes and also does a nice job with the whiteboard. Looking closer at her scribbles on this desktop shows a pretty well-balanced use of color. Of course, the scribbling is mostly done just so she can wipe the board clean again... "paper towel!"

Labels: desktops, Mallory

While thumbing through the latest Sensational Beginnings, you may have been taken aback by the photo above. However, I am here to report that Mal-Biz has not launched a modeling career.

Labels: Mallory

This title may have the makings of a quality “Same Name” Wheel of Fortune puzzle (new season starts Monday, 9/10, with all sorts of new wrinkles), but it actually sums up life as I continue to follow through with ‘07’s resolution: Enter more contests.

Thus far I’ve avoided letting the losses get to my heart. However, after YDR’s handling of their “Summer Photo Contest,” I’ve been sunk to Brittenum Twin status: My spirit has been broken.

“Summer Photo Contest” sounds innocent enough, right? Find a few snapshots of Mallory doing this or that in a seasonal setting and give it a whirl. The contest results were printed last Sunday and we didn’t make the cut. No biggie.

Dejection set in soon after when I checked out the archive of entries online. First of all, my pictures looked dark on a PC, no doubt the format of the machine the judges were using. The poor color representation zapped the sunsation out of a few of my shots, but despite Hodgman’s efforts, that’s just the way of the world I guess.

Then, I really hit rock bottom when I clicked to view my photos and saw a 5-star rating system attached to each pic. I didn't make the paper, now I've got to stand by as the people tell me how close I wasn't? Mally’s face is barely peeping out of the top of a ferris wheel carriage and you’re giving me 1.8 stars? I use my cam’s built-in “Fireworks” setting, but my killer July 4th shot can only muster a 1.7? My daughter’s first steps on the beach warrant a 2.4? This county is merciless!

Labels: Mallory, rants

MJ reports that Mallory’s been spending quite a bit of her Gymboree time hanging out at the basketball hoop (the bucket's like this one, but those aren't my kids). While the rest of the class is gathered for some kooky story-time or clown magic tomfoolery (the clown looks like this, but that's not my kid), Mal-Biz is off on her own, takin' it to the tin. Now while I can’t condone skipping class for a roundball fix, I’d be lying if I didn’t mention that was my Penn State York semester two game plan. Like father like daughter, for better or worse I guess.

Labels: Mallory, MJ wants to be on my blog more

Here's the challenge: What is the longest word you can come up with using only one magnetic alphabet? Can Mallory's eleven-letter word be topped?

How about this twelve-letter puzzle from last night's Wheel of Fortune: whippoorwill? Webster hyphenates it, but Sajak's wordsmithery is king in my book.

Labels: Googlecise, Mallory, photos, tv

April was a lousy month to shelf the blog. So I figured I'd recap some of the month's highlights.

First off, MJ turned the big 2-7, her first b-day as a mom. The 3 of us had a chance to spend a fun afternoon at the park.

Labels: Mallory, MJ wants to be on my blog more

Next time you're in Winchester, VA, be sure to swing by the new Foster's Grille at the Winchester Gateway. One-third owned by my sister and her husband, and one-third owned by my parents, I can unbiasedly (my gut tells me that's a word) vouch that it is too big for two hands. We traveled down last Sunday for the Grand Opening. I circled the fried chicken sandwich and it was like a new and improved Popeye's Po' Boy. Everyone really digs the fries. Nice atmosphere too.

Labels: Mallory, vouchers

Labels: holidays, Mallory

It's been awhile since I've created desktop pictures for my Desktops web site. So long in fact that Freeservers updated their site, including major improvements to their online site-building tools. If you can stand the barrage of banner ads they place on your site, their free service is worth a shot. I gotta vouch.

Anyway, 5 new desktops have been added to my site, which has a permanent link in the left column of this blog. They're fun to create so I hope to continue adding new ones in the coming months.

Labels: Mallory, web design

Okay Mr. Todd-Tastic, I'll play your game... movie talk! Despite swearing off Will Farrell movies, this new Talladega Nights, The Ballad of Ricky Bobby movie looks funny (even if the Create Your Own Poster feature is iffy).

Labels: Mallory, movies?

It's taken me awhile to get re-connected, but below are some photos of our new little bundle. First though, in true Blah, Blah Blog form, some stats:

Mallory Elizabeth
Birthday: Wednesday, May 3rd at 1:32 AM
Weight: 8 lbs., 12 oz.
Length: 21"
Most common nickname thus far: Mally Lizzy

Labels: Mallory

MJ and I have permanently (I think) settled on the name Mallory for our daughter. We like it. And what's better, it's nowhere to be found on this Top 100 Baby Names of 2005 list.

Of course, we settled on the boy's name Griffin months ago and, contrary to some opinions, that's not on the list either. We are consistent in our non-trendiness.

So of the little faces framed on our refrigerator door, which family is leading the way in trendiness? Well, using the BabyCenter.com list, here are the Trendiness Quotient rankings:

1. Miller's: Olivia (7) and Logan (19) = 13
2. Kirby's: Mackenzie (23) and Jackson (22) = 22.5
3. Jacoby's: Kayla (38) and Nathan (21) = 29.5
4. Bender's: Avery (46) = 46
5. Dell's: Cole (55) = 55

Note: Charlie is ranked at #81... on the boy's list.

Labels: Mallory, rank and file

December 19th: MNF stands for Monday Night Favre as the gunslinger's 3 win Packers square off against the 4 win Ravens. So thrilling that I actually watched a series or two, which was enough action to see Favre throw a few hail-mary's. It's amazing that he actually used to be pretty good.

December 21st: Gilbert Arenas scores 36 points on 14 of 27 shooting to lead the Wiz past the Nuggets. The Wizards are currently the 8th ranked team in the Eastern Conference and are not quite playing as well as they played last season. Big reason? 27 shots is not enough for Gil Arenas... keep shootin' Gilbert!

December 22nd: From the mouth of the Ultrasound technician... "If you promise not to paint your room pink, it looks like a 70/30 chance it's a girl." Fair enough. A gray room it is.

December 23rd: Nice! An early Christmas gift! The Papertown Fribble acquired Tracy McGrady and Joel Pryzbilla from Upper Echelon for Baron Davis and Emeka Okafor. I know, it sounds like Echelon got the gift, but the Fribble needed a shake-up!

December 24th: Good to see the George W. Bush Christmas photo was replaced by Olivia's Happy Hannukah craft at the Miller's.


December 25th: Christmas morning with MJ... good times. And how about that iHome? An alarm clock with a sleep mode that plays music from an iPod means no more John Tesh Radio Show!

December 26th: Team Jacoby/Snyder thrive down the stretch of "Think A Little During Christmas" and edge Team Dietrich/Kayla by 1 point. Clutch work on the Singers and Songs Jumble.

December 27th: The return of junkmail... it is amazing to me that I still only get 12 CD's for the price of one. In 1989, I got 8 tapes for the price of one. Considering the boom in digital music over the last 3 years or so, I would have bet the penny that you tape to the reply card that you could get at least 25 CD's for the price of one by now.

December 28th: On her way home from work, just as she's about to turn into the driveway, my wife decides to shine her high-beams in the direction of an oncoming police car. The officer figures he'd investigate and gets out of his car as my wife stops in the driveway. A brief exchange of "can I help you with anything ma'am" followed by "I'm sorry, I meant to turn on my turn signal" and the policeman left. The problem? MJ was driving with a headlight out. The cop either didn't notice or thought it was no big deal. Nice work, Ace.

Labels: fantasy basketball, holidays, Mallory, nfl, WashWiz