If We Can Dream It, We Can Do It

Stay with me here. It's a bidet for babies. I call it a Bidet-by (biday-bee).*

Sure, right now it's in the planning stages, and since I don't have the start-up capital it's just a squirt gun filled with warm, soapy water, but think of it! The baby gets clean, and your chance for fecal contact is minimized!*2

What we do is, build a small walk-in shower-type dealie, put a slot at toddler eye level for the display of the kids' favorite toy, run a hose at medium pressure in through the floor of the device, and put foaming soap dispensers that shoot jets of cleaner at butt level.

Let me know, 'cause I've got investors who could be interested in this if I tell them about it if they return my calls.



* I understand that the spelling makes it seem like "Bidet By", but this is a whole different thing. I admit in retrospect that surprise ass washings might not be everyone's thing. The court has spoken, and I am listening. Strictly voluntary this time.........for the parents, at least.

*2 Of things that we all would like to minimize, fecal contact is pretty high up there. Am I right? On my list of things I'd rather not do, 'touch poop' is somewhere between 'run unnecessarily' and 'step on a cheese grater while running unnecessarily'. Probably closer to the latter than the former.

Birthday and Daily Attempt

Two and a half months, you say? Bullshit. That can't be right. Anyway, here's some pictures of my babies and some cake. So begins the "Justin tries to update every day and probably stops after two consecutive days" TNOTBEM extravaganza*.

The badass sandcastle cake was baked by the lady of the house, but the pestle-ing of the graham crackers into a facsimile of sand par excellence was all me.





As my daughter Niamh turned a year old, I finally decided to help her with something. Prior to this, I had a strict hands-off policy in place. You'll notice that my "future glasses"*2 are hiding the shame in my eyes.




Niamh is about to go all 'Sean Penn'*3. Guess who's playing the part of the papparazzo?






Here's Neil. We go way back. Must be five years if it's a day...

Oh God, I'm so old.








Once I was a man (arguably). Now I am hammock.







* It's not going to be exciting, people. But then again, it hasn't been an exciting two and a half month silence, either.

*2 My future glasses are proof that not all drunken drug store purchases need be cause for regret. And they're red. Haven't worn red since the "Converse Debacle of 1996".

*3 No, she's not about to argue passionately for human rights. The other Sean Penn thing. With the punching and the yelling of obscenities. Tiny fists and "big girl" words are an adorably effective way to get knocked unconscious.

Why You Should Read Rival Angels

Shameless self-promotion time, loyal reader*. Monday morning on the Rival Angels web comic site, a little baby of mine will egg tooth the hell out of it's enclosure and breathe free among the internets for the first time.

What's Rival Angels? It's the web's number one wrestling comic. Created, written and drawn by my fellow Workshed Studio keyboard monkey, Alan Evans. I've helped out with storyboarding, editing, and some dialogue in the past (and will in the future), but this time the content is all-original, all-Justin. I promise, I will not let the awesome falter.

For those who follow Rival Angels, the long-awaited origin of Sun "Li'l Dragon" Wong will finally be told. For those who don't follow Rival Angels, give it a look anyway. What's the worst that could happen?

A postulation in steps:

1) You read Rival Angels at work.

2) Your boss finds you reading it.*2

3) He/she flips his/her lid and starts screaming "Porn Violation!"

4) You hurriedly try to explain that women wrestling doesn't always mean porn and lurch up from your desk only to knock over your coffee, scalding both of your groins in a feat of physic improbability.*3

5) While nursing your damp, toasted parts you are spied by a coworker who has long suspected panky of the hanky type between you and aforementioned boss and now has the proof, what with all the screaming and genital rubbing.

6) Your boss panics and wraps his/her lanyard around the throat of the ill-informed office gossip, ending their ill-informed life both easily and tragicomically.

7) You and your boss are now both on the hook for at least manslaughter.*4

8) While disposing of your 'prison ticket', you have ample time between grunts and daydreams of the Weekend At Bernie's variety to explain to your boss just what Rival Angels is all about.*5

9) Your boss is intrigued and reads Sun Wong's origin for him/herself.

10) A brief conversation ensues in which you tell your boss how to subscribe to the Rival Angels web comic.

11) A longer conversation ensues in which you explain to your boss just how to set up a Google or Yahoo homepage in order to receive no fewer than thrice-weekly updates from Rival Angels.com via a blog aggregator.

12) Days pass, then weeks; you both realize that the office is a better place for the loss of that silly gossip your boss strangled.*6

13) Still enjoying Rival Angels, you come to form a close bond with your co-conspirator. You've gained a friend.

14) Years later, a man comes to you demanding hush money. He threatens to expose your murderous ways. Your boss rightfully lets you deal with it. After all, he/she has already killed someone for your benefit.

15) Upon delivery of the hush money, you take some initiative for once and follow him back to his den of thievery and find a flourishing white slavery operation.

16) Remembering some of the awesome wrestling maneuvers from Rival Angels, you clean house, setting free the grateful slaves and feeling real good about yourself in the bargain.

17) The police refuse to listen to the blackmailer; because really, who's going to take the word of a blackmailing white slaver as gospel?

18) In fact, the gossip who your boss 'instantaneously laid off' was wrapped up in the white slavery operation too.*7

19) You write me an email outlining the events of your life since reading Rival Angels and I fictionalize them in a blog post to solicit others to read Rival Angels.

20) Some other person begins back at step 1.*8

If that's the worst that happens as a result of reading Rival Angels (particularly starting Monday, April 27th), you've got no reason not to.



* Shame filled self-promotion is just too hard to fake.

*2 Say it with me; "Alt-T to switch between tabs".

*3 Why were your groins so close?

*4 Manslaughter could be parsed to read "man's laughter", but there's nothing funny about the word without that apostrophe and that space. English, huh?

*5 Rookie wrestlers living together; laughing, loving, learning, piledriving.

*6 The replacement is nowhere near as gossipy, buys you a drink occasionally, and does not smell of citronella. Maybe they're hot, but let's not get greedy.

*7 That was fortunate.

*8 Spoooooky.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation.........Or.........The Eight Pound Excuse

I know, I know. I disappeared with no advance warning. I didn't call, I didn't write. I'm a jerk. But, I have the best excuse in the history of excuses...

Niamh Karen Rose Riley*
July 12th, 2008
8 Lbs., 6.7 Oz.
21 1/4 inches

Rather than put up enough pictures to crash the interweb here in this post, I'll use the handy slideshow gadget*2 (on the sidebar of The Name Escapes Me) to allow those interested in basking in babitude to get their fill*3.

Once I adjust (again) to even less sleep than normal, I'll be back to my normal comic book/politics/winsome rap retrospective posting*4.

*Is awesome.

*2 Or 'widget'. Or is it 'Gidget'? No, wait, that's the surfer girl who grew up to be The Flying Nun.

*3 Also, enjoy the Lego Forces created by my son, Neil. Their names are as follows: Brainulus, Space Rider, Shark Man, Bomb Head, Blast Face, Captain Clone Man, and Death. This is what two guys do to reaffirm their manliness in a house that now has gender equality.



*4 Oh joy.