Marcus Screams

Marcus went to the doctor's again for his four-month checkup this past week. He's slipped a little off his previous growth curve, weighing in at 15 pounds 4 ounces and measuring 26 inches in length. That's good for 70th percentile in weight and 90th percentile in length. His head is still small, but still growing, somewhere around the 25th percentile. Can't imagine why he has such a small head when his parents are such large-headed people. And his malformed ear is still malformed, but there's nothing to do for now. He can apparently hear okay with the good ear, which is good enough for me.

He reaches for objects a little bit more if he's interested, and looks all around the room to see what's going on. He still can't sit up straight, which is what I'm waiting for. His smiles and giggles still aren't quite as frequent as some other babies, but he does it enough that I know he's not abnormal. He loves to touch my stubbly face when I haven't shaved, and he reacts now when he looks in the mirror.

In the past three days, he's discovered a new voice that he likes to exercise. It's a shrieking sound that drives me bananas, like a parrot's screech. Mostly he does it when he's bored and trying to entertain himself, which is a lot of the time. It's a little embarrassing when we take him out in public, though it hasn't stopped us from going out. Just took him to Peter Luger yesterday, and tomorrow we're heading to Jean-Georges for brunch with my parents.

It's not a squeal, exactly. Really, it's a screech. And it's annoying as hell. I don't think he's asking for attention, and it's not usually when he's upset. He's basically replaced cooing and gurgling with screeching. A loud, long, high-pitched screech like an owl on the hunt. This had better be a phase, because I don't know how long I'll be able to stand it. Actually, as long as you keep him engaged, he keeps the screech holstered. It's the moment you leave him to his own amusement ... that's when he pulls it out. One screech after the next. And he doesn't get hoarse until the end of the day. He's got some lungs on him, he does. And very pliable vocal cords too, apparently.

We're trying to give him vitamin drops every day, and luckily he does like the taste of it. The doctor says it's important for vitamins A, D, and C, all of which are lacking to some extent in breast milk. If we were feeding him mostly formula, he wouldn't need the drops. The only reason we don't give it to him every day is because we forget. We're lame parents. But I don't know if he really needs the vitamins anyway. I mean, he drinks almost a quart of breast milk a day, and he gets plenty of sunshine because Janelle takes him out every afternoon. He's probably okay if we forget once in a while. Right?

Laces Out | Vick Debuts With Eagles

I wanted to watch the Eagles tonight against Jacksonville just to see Vick play, but I couldn't find a station that was carrying the game among my hundreds of cable channels. What is the point of having all those channels anyway? Do people actually watch them all? Enough people so that those channels can make enough money to actually turn a profit and keep broadcasting? You gotta be kidding me. So I ended up reading a live blog on ESPN and waiting for the game recap to be published.

Seems Vick played early in the game, just six plays total, and got his feet wet without making any mistakes. Coach Reid didn't make us wait too long to catch a glimpse of Vick, inserting him on the second play of the game. The crowd didn't boo him much (not surprised). He said after the game that he's about 70% of the way there in terms of his fitness level, and he just wants to contribute to the team in whatever way he's asked to. Good man.

Earlier in the day, a sad / funny story came out from Richmond VA. Seems the CEO of the local SPCA, a woman by the name of Robin Starr who has been outspoken against Vick's cruelty to dogs, inadvertently killed her own dog by leaving it in the car all morning while she was at work; the dog suffered kidney failure.

Now, I'm not entirely convinced I know what the word "ironic" means, and I'm not always sure I know when something is or isn't ironic. But I'm pretty positive this story is ironic.

Inside The Park | Johan Santana Out For Season

Not that it really matters that much since the Mets' season is already shot, but ace starting pitcher Johan Santana is done for the season after finding bone chips in his elbow. He will require surgery, and should be ready to return by spring training next year.

Do you get the sense that the whole team is just quitting at this point? Not that Santana's injury isn't real or anything. But I can't help but wonder if the players have all started their offseason planning. Wagner is gone. Santana is gone. Wright still isn't back. No Reyes, no Beltrain, no Delgado. Who else do they have? The other night, Fernando Tatis was batting cleanup. I think he has 9 HRs this year. It's just crazy.

Inside The Park | Mets Must Be Cursed

This one's for my good friend Michael, a die-hard Mets fan who must be feeling pretty okay about moving out of NYC just so he can stop reading about the Mets. I turned on the TV today to catch the Phillies-Mets contest this afternoon, mostly to catch a glimpse of Pedro. What a debacle for the Mets.

Oliver Perez, whom the Mets deemed worthy of signing to a hefty three-year $36M contract before the start of the season, got chased out of the game before the first inning was over after giving up six runs on two two long homers. Pedro Martinez, whom the Mets deemed not worthy of even being re-signed to a minimal contract, beat them on 6 innings of mostly strong pitching. And just when it looked like the Mets had an opening and might rally in the bottom of the ninth against shaky closer Brad Lidge, cruel and wicked Fate slammed the door shut.

The game stood at 9-6 when two fielding errors led to an unearned run and put two additional runners on board, still nobody out. Mets call a double steal on what looked like a hit-and-run scenario, and Jeff Franceour smokes a liner up the middle. But second baseman Eric Bruntlett was right on top of it because he was moving to cover second base on the steal. In the blink of an eye, he stabbed the line drive for the first out, stepped on second base for the second out, and tagged Daniel Murphy coming from first base for the final out. Unassisted triple play.

What a demoralizing way to end a rally. What a demoralizing season it's been for the Mets overall. I hate the Mets as much as I hate the Celtics and the Cowboys, but I really feel sorry for Mets fans. They're not bad people, but this season has just been the pits.

Their team has been decimated by injuries to their top players: Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado, and now even David Wright. That's the meat of their lineup right there, all sitting in the trainer's room. It looks like they may have to pay someone to take Billy Wagner, who has an enormous contract and has been injured, off their hands.

The most bizarre story of the season is probably the Tony Bernazard episode. Bernazard, who was a team executive, apparently went to a minor league game and was so disgusted with the play (and probably the attitudes) of the players that he got into a shouting match with the players and ripped off his shirt and challenged them all to a fist fight. What on earth is going on with the Mets?

And now the news comes out that the Mets are sticking with beleaguered and unpopular general manager Omar Minaya. Man, I would not wish this kind of misery on my worst enemies ... which I guess would be Mets fans anyway. But I wouldn't, really. They just need to euthanize this wretched season. There's no way next year could possibly be this bad or this weird.

Women Hold Up Half the Sky

The cover story in this week's New York Times Magazine is a great article about the under-reported plight of women around the globe. If you don't have the stamina to read the article, please consider viewing the beautiful pictorial narrated by the author of the piece.

As the authors mention, this isn't a story about what we in this country often think of when we talk about women's rights -- unequal pay, Title IX violations, sexual harrassment. This is a story about far graver injustices, primarily in developing nations -- sex trafficking, acid attacks, bride burnings, mass rape. The vast majority of us are so far removed from these places and these people that they are merely stories told to us by the media, if the media deems it newsworthy.

The societies in which these atrocities are committed tend to be poor, male-dominated, in some cases ravaged by war. And the root of all the evil appears to be poor education and inadequate health care for girls. Without education and good health, women in these places are more easily victimized from birth through adulthood.

The article makes several interesting points. The poorest families in the world tend to spend 10 times as much of their money on alcohol, prostitution, candy, sugary drinks and lavish feasts as they do on educating their children. When times are good, men tend to spend more money on alcohol and tobacco, whereas women spend their cash on food for the family. "When women command greater power, child health and nutrition improves," says Esther Duflo, and economist at MIT.

China makes a surprising example. Most of us know about the one-child policy and the tendency for families to prefer male children to the point of aborting daughters before they are born or exposing them to the elements after birth. The result is that there are now 107 males for every 100 females in China. In the 1990s, they estimate up to 80% of assembly line workers in coastal China were women, working long hours in the so-called "sweat shops" for seemingly little pay.

The surprising part of that last fact is that the authors suggest that working in those sweat shops actually empowered women by turning them into contributors of the national economy and allowing them some financial independence. The skills they acquired along with the money has elevated their status in society to some extent, though certainly the inequality and discrimination persist.

India is painted in a far worse light in the article. The gender gap is 108:100, worse than China. People, and especially women, are forced into labor of all sorts, include the sex trade. Bride burnings for inadequate dowry occur in India at a rate of about one every two hours.

Microfinance organizations that make small loans to start small businesses are increasingly targeting women as clients because that's where they get the most bang for the buck. It's becoming increasingly clear, according to the authors of the article, that empowering women to be productive members of the economy is an effective strategy in the war against poverty and extremism.

I was so moved by this article that Janelle and I have decided to make one of these microfinance organizations our first official charity donation. Because Janelle has worked in a microfinance company in the past, she does have opinions and resources to help us decide where to put our money. Of course, recommendations are always welcome. This is a global problem that needs more attention in the media, and I think contributing to the solution in whatever small way I can is the least that I can do.

Inside The Park | Jim Rice Disses Jeter

The AP printed a story today about new Hall-of-Famer Jim Rice giving a speech to the kids before the start of this year's Little League World Series held, as always, in Williamsport PA. During his talk, he urged the kids not to look up to today's players because they love themselves more than they love the game, and because steroids has tainted the current generation.

"You see a Manny Ramirez, you see an A-Rod, you see Jeter ... Guys that I played against and with, these guys you're talking about cannot compare," Rice said. "We didn't have the baggy uniforms. We didn't have the dreadlocks. It was a clean game, and now they're setting a bad example for the young guys." Flexing the muscles in his right arm, Rice said, "That's all the steroids you need ... It's called God-given talent."

Rice went on further to urge the kids to respect their coaches and parents, and to work hard on the weakest parts of their game. He, for example, had to work really hard to improve his fielding.

Okay, so his heart is in the right place, and the message he's trying to convey to the kids is certainly a good one: don't be a self-absorbed, celebrity-craving steroid user with poor work ethic. I get it. Good for him. But he really hung those other guys out to dry. He's basically saying he believes that those guys accused of taking steroids really did do it. Manny, A-Rod ... wait, Jeter? I think he went a little far with Jeter.

Derek Jeter in my mind is the last great hope of baseball. He seems clean, he plays hard, is apparently well-liked all around, and he's good-looking to boot. Now if he ends up getting named as a cheater, well the world is coming to an end. I have no love for the Yankees, but I respect Derek Jeter enough to leave him off the list of people I think are cheaters. Is he a bit of a pretty-boy? Sure. And he likes to have fun around town, no problem. You can't tell me they didn't have a few swingers back in the '70s and the '60s. Some of those old-time baseball players were notoriously shady characters off the field. Leave Derek Jeter alone.

And I always cringe when I hear old-timers talking about how today's players can't compare to the stars of the olden days -- Wilt Chamberlain, Babe Ruth, Ben Hogan, guys like that. Gag me. Have you seen footage of these old guys play? They can't compare alright -- they're not even close. Players of today are bigger, stronger, and faster. And it's not all steroids, gramps. It's better training, better nutrition, better technology ... everything. I don't bother comparing athletes of different generations because the circumstances are just completely different. Each athlete should be measured against their own peers and that's it.

Inside The Park | Cliff Lee Rules

I've been spending way too much time thinking about Michael Vick and Pedro Martinez. It's time to give attention to athletes who are actually performing. Cliff Lee has been nearly perfect in his first four starts since being traded to the Phillies on July 29th, and he's won over the hearts of Philadelphia fans while also making them instantly forget about Roy Halladay.

We have forgotten that Lee was actually our second choice when the Phillies were pursuing a front-line pitcher at the trade deadline this year. No disrespect to Halladay, but we got the best pitcher available. We got Lee for lesser minor-league prospects than Toronto was demanding for Halladay, and Lee costs about half as much to our payroll (not that I care, really).

And what has Lee done since he showed up in our clubhouse as the consolation prize? How about an ERA of 0.83, WHIP of 0.73, a whopping 34 strikeouts in 33 innings, and 4 wins in 4 outings, including 2 complete games. And just for laughs, he's also batting .385 with two runs scored.

Lee works efficiently, minimizing time between pitches to help keep the game in a rhythm and give it a sense of urgency. He throws a lot of first-pitch strikes and seems to have a great ball-strike ratio. He attacks hitters and then trusts his defense. Lee keeps his head down and plows forward, both on the mound and in front of the media. He downplays his success and talks about working hard.

Phillies fans love players like that. They like it when players keep their heads down and play hard. In his most recent game, Lee beat out a dribbler down the third-base line by running as if his life depended on it. You don't see a lot of pitchers taking their at-bats so seriously, and it's easily recognizable to fans. And he's spent his entire career in the pitcher-coddling American League where he doesn't have to hit. This guy is doing everything right. He almost makes us forget that Cole Hamels is struggling this year.

All credit goes to Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro, who went hard after Halladay but had the good sense not to mortgage the farm and instead go after the next best thing. Lucky for him, the "next best thing" turned out to be the 2008 American League Cy Young winner and a hard-nosed, competitive bulldog of a pitcher like Cliff Lee. Now we've got Lee for the stretch run of the regular season and throughout the playoffs, as well as all of next season and the playoffs, before we have to think about re-signing him. Way to go, Rube. Way to go.

Kids and Boob Tubes

Today, a good friend of mine posted this article from last week's Time magazine on his Facebook page. It talks about those video programs like Baby Einstein that imply that if you plop your child down in front of the screen they'll get smarter. That's a load of hooey, of course, and this article debunks that idea with research. But it goes further than simply refuting the notion and actually suggests that children who spend too much time in front of the boob tube actually have a disadvantage developmentally. Interesting. Not that surprising, I suppose.

Here's an article from the New York Times website back in March, also citing research to debunk the myth of kids learning in front of the TV. But its secondary conclusion indicates that kids who watch TV are no worse off than kids who don't, which probably comes as quite a surprise to a lot of new-age no-TV parents. It says that watching television is "neither beneficial nor deleterious to child cognitive and language abilities."

So who do you believe? Research data can be manipulated pretty much any way you want in order to reach the conclusions you're looking for. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that you don't let kids under 2 years old watch anything at all, and a lot of people take that really seriously. For us, we've discovered that Marcus, at the tender age of 3 months, will watch The Wiggles for up to 30 minutes at a time. I assume he's not understanding any of it at all, but the movement and the colors and the songs at least keep him occupied long enough to give Janelle a short break in the middle of the day.

I wouldn't dispute the idea that watching too much TV makes kids fat and lazy. But making them slow? I don't know about that. I think if you park your kid in front of a screen for too many hours every single day, you're probably not a very good parent and don't interact with the child much. You're probably a little slow yourself, and chances are your kid is going to inherit that anyway. But you know, for the 10 hours a day that Marcus is awake, if he spends 30 minutes in front of the computer screen watching grown men prance around in bright-colored outfits singing Old McDonald ... and if that buys you a little time and a little sanity ... that's probably okay.

I Love Philadelphia

Read this article. I love Philadelphia. I love the Eagles, the Phillies and the Sixers. It's a great town, and I'm proud to call it home. Janelle says that the only people who move to Philadelphia are people from Philadelphia. So be it. After living in Philly for four years, Janelle is an adopted Philadelphian and now she loves the city too. I'm happy to be moving back. Go read that article.

Laces Out | In Defense Of Michael Vick

Janelle and I caught the Michael Vick interview on 60 Minutes tonight. The interview was conducted by NFL sportscaster James Brown, and featured some tough questions mixed with quite a few pointless soft lobs. Sitting on either side of Vick were the irreproachable Tony Dungy and, surprisingly, Wayne Pacelle -- president of the Humane Society of the United States.

Vick handled himself admirably throughout the interview with Brown. He was appropriately contrite and remorseful, never mincing words when taking full responsibility for his dog-fighting days. At one point he admitted that "football doesn't even matter" compared to what he did, and that he didn't deserve to have that $130M contract he forfeited when he went to jail. I kept waiting to hear him try to blame anyone else, but he never tried to make excuses for his actions. The closest he came was when he told the story of his first exposure to dog fighting at the tender age of 8, and how police looked the other way even though they knew what was going on.

I don't know whether or not I believe Vick when he says that he is sorry about what he did to the dogs, and that he is a changed man and loves animals. But if he's lying, he's certainly an outstanding actor. He played his part well, and his team of superlawyers -- hired to rehabilitate his image -- have trained him perfectly. He seems credible, but I don't know if I trust my eyes.

But I do believe Vick may very well be rehabilitated, and that he intends to walk the straight and narrow. Not because of anything he said during the interview, but because of my own intuition. I think it's meaningful that a man of such character as Dungy stands by him, that a former enemy like Pacelle wants to believe in him, that a savvy businessman like Jeffrey Lurie (the Eagles owner) chooses to take a calculated gamble on him. I think it's significant that all the people who have spent time actually talking to Michael Vick -- Dungy, Pacelle, Lurie, coach Andy Reid, commisioner Roger Goodell, even his agent Joel Segal -- think that he has what it takes to turn his life around. They may all have ulterior motives for saying they believe in him, but you have to admit it's a long list.

I'm also impressed that he managed to surround himself with the right people. He is saying all the right things, making all the right promises, and even arranged a timely national interview on a respected show like 60 Minutes. At the very least, this is a very well-coordinated effort to get him back to his life. If you think about the list of disgraced athletes over recent times -- Mike Tyson, OJ Simpson, Barry Bonds, Kobe Bryant, to name a few -- you realize what a difficult feat this is to achieve. Not everyone manages to organize so well. So there's that.

Cynics say that he's only sorry because he lost all the money and the lifestyle. They say the Eagles signed him only to win, to make more money and not just to give some poor schmuck a second chance at life. Well *of course* the Eagles are in it for the money and the athletic potential that Vick brings to the team. That's so obvious, it doesn't even deserve to be mentioned. What the team's brass, from top to bottom, have been addressing is the risk that's involved in signing a convicted felon who has done time behind bars for cruelty to animals. They're spending all their effort in managing the public relations aspect, but it goes without saying that the Eagles signed Vick because they believe he can help them win.

And I'm sure a lot Vick's remorse is based on the shock of losing everything he had, all the benefits of being an NFL superstar that he thought were his god-given right. And what's wrong with that, exactly? Anyone who said they were only sorry about the dogs and weren't the least bit sorry about losing the money would be lying. I don't mind if the money is part of the reason he's sorry; that's natural. What I want to know is that he realizes what he did was wrong, that he won't ever do it again, and that he will go out and try to prevent other people from making the same mistake.

Vick is now under a microscope. He has gotten so much press coverage in the last week that everyone will be watching to see what he does next. Being in a large media market like Philadelphia will only further ensure that he does not escape the spotlight. People will watch to see if he behaves well, keeps his nose clean, and follows through on his pledge to be a champion for the Humane Society. And this is as it should be.

I believe Vick has earned the chance to come back, as well as the right to live his life. I do not forgive his past actions. But he has confessed his guilt, and he has paid the penalty according to the law. He has a long road ahead of him, with millions of eyes watching his every move. But anyone who begrudges him the opportunity to make his living in the NFL, doing the only thing he knows how to do, doesn't believe in this country's justice system or its penal system. Those people who lobby actively for the further ruination of Michael Vick, instead of sitting back and watching what happens, are essentially vigilantes demanding mob justice. They believe that people who commit wrongs in society should be judged and penalized by the public rather than by the legal system.

Keep in mind that fellow NFL player Donte Stallworth spent just 30 days in jail for killing a person while driving drunk, and will only be banned from playing for one year. Keep in mind that fellow Philadelphia newcomer Pedro Martinez is known to have been involved in cockfighting, but has never been banned from playing his sport. Yet we hear very little outcry about those cases. The mob mentality, you see, is fickle and inconsistent. That's why we have a legal system instead of mob rule.

If Vick fails to say and do the right things from now on, and his detractors would then like to say "I told you so" with their noses in the air, I think that's fine. But we should give him a chance to show whether his rehabilitation is real and his remorse is genuine.

Who's Going to Clean My Apartment?

Janelle and I are in a bit of a pickle. You see, a couple of weeks before Marcus was born, we decided we needed a thorough cleaning of the house in preparation for his arrival, so we found through a friend a housekeeper whom we'll call "Juanita". Juanita came for the first time back in April. And she did such a bang-up job that we decided to ask her to come once a week after the initial cleaning, just to keep things tidy since we'd be busy learning how to be parents soon. I don't know how much we pay her, but I'm pretty sure it's a competitive rate.

Juanita dusts all the corners we never got to in three years of living in this apartment. She mops the wood floors in the living room and kitchen, vacuums the wall-to-wall carpeting in our two bedrooms, and leaves our 2.5 bathrooms sparkling clean once a week. She'll do the laundry when it's piled so high that it's embarrassing (even though we've told her she doesn't need to), and once even reorganized our closets and dresser drawers. We've gotten so used to her, we pretty much make as much of a mess as we want because we know Juanita will clean it up for us every Thursday. We rely on Juanita; we depend on her showing up every week, and at this point it certainly feels like we need her. Pathetic, isn't it? She spoils us rotten.

She usually shows up on time, doesn't need any direction, and works efficiently and thoroughly. Well last Thursday, Juanita never showed up. Seemed kind of odd, but whatever. Maybe her kids got sick or something happened. House was a little messier than usual this week, but we knew she'd show up this Thursday. Well she didn't show up this week either. And not a word from her. We called her house, and the phone number was disconnected. It worked before, but now it doesn't work. Uh-oh.

We figure she got deported or something terrible. Juanita isn't from this country, though I don't know where she's actually from because I never asked. But she doesn't speak a lick of English, so usually I just use my broken Spanish to communicate with her. At this point, we're not expecting her to show up ever again. If she does, we'll be pleasantly surprised. But two weeks in a row of no show and a disconnected phone line pretty much tells me she's hit the road.

Now our house is a mess. There's countertops that need wiping, cat litter tracked across the hardwood floors, hair all over the bathroom (all Janelle's, thank you very much), and I think some mold is starting to grow in our shower. And I never realized how quickly dust accumulates in a Manhattan apartment. My god, it's only been two weeks! Janelle and I stare at each other on a daily basis, wondering which one of us is going to blink first and reach for the vacuum cleaner. So far, it's a tie. I think we're going into sudden death.

We should allow illegal immigrants to stay here. I mean, if they're willing to work for less pay or do the jobs that you and I don't want to do, they definitely have a place here. Yeah, they're stealing our jobs and driving the wages down for average joes, blah blah blah. The reality is, Americans are overpaid and do a crappy job anyway. They take too many breaks, have too many excuses, and expect too many perks. I have a message for you, Average Joe: you overestimate your value to society. You think you deserve more than you do. People from other countries come here, and they're willing to do the same work as you for less money. In most cases, they do a better job than you do because they work harder and pay closer attention. And for a lot of them, they're willing to do jobs you consider beneath you.

Illegal immigrants work in your fields, wash your cars, and cook your Chinese food. They're nannies, and housekeepers, and mechanics, and cab drivers. They make delivery possible in Manhattan, and that is no small feat. Delivery is maybe the single greatest thing about living in New York City; you can get anything delivered, from dinner to groceries to office supplies to McDonald's -- hell, even drugs -- right to your door. You can thank illegal immigrants for all of that. And if you still think illegal immigrants should get out of this country, then I only have one question for you:

Do *you* want to come clean my apartment once a week for me?

Laces Out | Eagles Sign Michael Vick?

Wow, I didn't see that one coming. Don't the Eagles already have a top quarterback in McNabb and semi-solid backup in Kolb? AJ Feeley as the third string sounds fine. I didn't really think QB was one of the positions we needed to shore up.

This officially makes Philadelphia the City of Second Chances. First it was Pedro, and now Vick. I'm all for second chances (sort of), and I'm quite okay with signing Pedro Martinez to see what he's got left in the tank. The guy is a future Hall of Famer and maybe the most intense pitcher I've ever seen. But Michael Vick? I'm a little less comfortable with him being on my team. Feeling this way makes me realize I'm not as forgiving as I think I am.

Let's look at this. Vick is a tremendous athlete, a number one draft choice and formerly highest paid player in the NFL. He's got tremendous ability and potential, and he was on his way up in the league. Two years ago the guy gets sentenced to two years in prison for running a dog-fighting ring. Dog-fighting, really ... who does that? Sounds like a story out of some third world country that I have nothing to do with. Sounds like it's from another planet. Dog-fighting ... really?

Now he's served his sentence, and he's been allowed to seek employment in the NFL again. He's even got a 60 Minutes interview coming up in which, it is rumored, he is contrite and remorseful. People around him say he is rehabilitated and transformed. Really, I believe the guy deserves a second chance, and we should forgive but never forget. He's lost his aura, he's lost his money, he's lost his job ... and who knows what else he lost in prison. The guy has paid for his mistake. The reason we let people out of jail is because at some point you've paid your debt to society and you have the right to move on.

But just because I think he deserves a second chance doesn't mean I like the idea of him on my team. Sure, he's probably still an elite athlete. I'm sure he still has his cannon arm, can run circles around McNabb at this point, and I read somewhere the other day that he's a lot more accurate than the stats seem to indicate. At $1.6M, he's a bargain. And now he's got Tony Dungy, one of the most respectable people associated with the NFL, in his corner serving as a mentor to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Even with all that, I'd rather he wasn't on our team. I mean, let me put it to you this way: I wouldn't want my sister dating him (I mean, if I had a sister). He's a criminal, and his character will now be forever questionable. He deserves a chance to prove that he's straightened out. I just wish he was doing it in Buffalo or somewhere. Not in Philadelphia.

As my brother pointed out when we were talking about this trade tonight, the Eagles build their team around character guys. They emphasize character when drafting and when signing free agents. The one time they threw that principle out the window, Terrell Owens ruined the locker-room chemistry (after registering a glorious first season, it should be mentioned). Maybe Andy Reid's changing his tune a little. Maybe he's gotten used to the idea of giving people second chances. Lord knows, he's had enough drama in his own family to know about needing second chances.

Whatever the reasons for this move are, one thing is for sure: it's going to be a lot of fun to see how the PR team spins this. They've got a little time to figure out their strategy; Vick won't be allowed to play a game until at least Week 6, and only if he's needed. And if Donovan McNabb gets injured and Vick replaces him, the Eagles are going to be in the national spotlight every single week, and not for the right reasons. Vick is a PR nightmare, and we just signed him.

And I'll *really* feel conflicted if Vick ends up leading us to a Super Bowl victory. It makes my head hurt just thinking about the swirl of contradictory emotions I'll have to sort out if that happens. I sort of hope that he doesn't work out well, and we cut him before he ever plays a down for us. Just so I don't have to decide whether or not to root for him when he suits up for the Eagles.

Typhoon Morakot

Typhoon Morakot has ravaged Taiwan, especially in the south near Kaohsiung. The storm brought more than 80 inches of rain and caused Taiwan's worst flooding in 50 years, triggering mudslides and decimating villages. The typhoon has also hit the Philippines, Japan and China. Search and rescue missions for hundreds of missing people in southern Taiwan are under way.

If you're not entirely sure what a typhoon actually is, well me too. There is an Asia Pacific typhoon season that I've always known about, and growing up I heard about typhoons in Taiwan on an annual basis, but I never had been in one until last year. I got caught in a typhoon last year in Taiwan and had my flight delayed by a day, but it wasn't nearly as bad as this year's. After my experience, I got curious as to what a typhoon actually was. Growing up in the States, I knew what tornadoes and hurricanes were, but I'd never heard of this country being hit by a typhoon. So last year I hit the internet and looked for an explanation of the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon.

Hurricanes and typhoons are exactly the same thing meteorologically: severe tropical cyclones that bring strong winds and heavy rains resulting in devastating floods (think Katrina). In this hemisphere they're called hurricanes; west of the date line, they're called typhoons. Generally, typhoons have stronger winds and heavier rains / floods than hurricanes because they spend more time developing wind speed and picking up moisture over expansive waters in the Pacific before making landfall. They can also trigger large tidal waves (tsunami) under the right conditions.

Typhoons form year-round but are most concentrated from July through November. They are by far the most intense storms on record. Just as a comparison, the most intense hurricane on record was Hurricane Wilma in 2005, tied for 18th all-time; the first 17 are all typhoons. They take a number of different paths, but generally hit Taiwan and China most often. Other countries frequently affected include the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan and Korea.

Inside The Park | Pedro Update

Well it seems the Phillies brass surprised a lot of people today, announcing that Pedro Martinez will replace Jamie Moyer in the starting rotation and bumping Moyer to the bullpen. They've been saying all along that Moyer is not fit to pitch in relief, and I agree with them on that point. But I've also said that Moyer is the least deserving of a spot in the rotation now, so I am surprised but pleased.

Looks like Pedro will be making his debut for the Phils on Wednesday against the Cubs. Here's hoping he's a real bargain at $1M for less than half a season. I wonder what will happen with Moyer at this point. He's obviously a leader in the clubhouse and an excellent mentor for the younger players. He's also a fan favorite. Perhaps he will be reinserted into the rotation when and if Pedro fails, or if someone gets injured. Curiously, Moyer leads the Phillies in wins (10) despite an ERA in the stratosphere.

I'm starting to worry a little bit about the Phillies. No, they'll make the playoffs because the rest of the NL East seems content to let them walk to the title without putting up a fight. But come playoff time, I'm not sure the Phils have what it takes to repeat. Neither Cole Hamels nor Brad Lidge seems like the pitcher he was last year, and those guys were crucial to last year's World Series run. We'll see what those guys are made of as we start heading down the home stretch here in the regular season and into the postseason. Go Phillies!

Preparing To Leave New York

Now that residency is over for me, it's time for us to leave New York City. We're looking to relocate to Philadelphia, closer to my parents and back in the city where we feel most comfortable. Don't get me wrong -- living in Manhattan the past three years has been an important experience, and New York obviously has more to offer than any other city on the east coast, in the US, on this continent ... probably in this hemisphere. Janelle and I agree that it's been an unforgettable experience, and we're glad that we'll be able to look back and say we once lived in New York City.

I think what we'll miss the most here is the food. You can find just about any kind of food in New York, from greasy spoons to $400-a-head sushi bars, and positively everything else in between. Great food can be had at modest prices, and the number of destination must-try restaurants in this city is unrivaled in the country. We've particularly enjoyed exploring the many options right here in our own neighborhood on the east side of Midtown. Honestly, we haven't tried half the restaurants we said we would when we first moved in. It would take us a decade just to try them all, but you can bet that we tried our best.

All the cultural offerings in New York are world-class, and the people here aren't nearly as rude or inconsiderate as I assumed they would be. We each have our own stories of strangers stopping to give directions or open doors, giving up seats to my pregnant wife on the train and the bus ... I have changed my mind about New Yorkers in the three years I lived here. They're not the nicest people in the world, but they aren't the meanest either. Oh, and I love delivery in New York. You can get *anything* delivered to your door here. Seriously, anything.

But I'll tell you what I won't miss. I won't miss getting stuck in traffic every time I try to leave the city or come back. I won't miss $550 monthly parking. I won't miss having to walk 15 minutes to get on the subway, or standing on a crowded smelly bus to get home from work in the hottest months of summer. I won't miss wading through the masses in Times Square or Soho because I happened to go there on a weekend, stupidly.

I won't miss paying twice the money to live in an apartment that isn't half as good as the one we had in Philadelphia three years ago. I won't miss generally having to overpay for everything here (except the food). I won't miss having to plan an entire afternoon around trekking to the Whole Foods, because the produce in the regular grocery stores in my neighborhood is sheer crap. I won't miss having to haul it to Flushing or North Jersey to get some decent Chinese groceries. I won't miss loud sirens and honking cars at all hours of the day and night.

Yes, we're moving back to Philadelphia soon. I'm relieved, I'm excited ... in my mind I've already gone. So long, New York. It's been fun.

"Almost Famous"

Janelle and I curled up to a DVD tonight after the baby went to sleep. Ordered some wings, sat on the couch and watched Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" courtesy of Netflix. Netflix, by the way, has become our new best friend. Since we don't get out much anymore, and I'm a huge fan of movies, Netflix really is the next best thing. And they threw in a special on-demand feature free for anyone who has Xbox Live, which I happen to have. Lots of great movies on that list, though not nearly as comprehensive as the actual Netflix library, but better than any cable on-demand service. And Netflix threw it in for free! Plus, they deliver The Wiggles to Janelle's computer screen on demand, and that alone makes it well worth the $7.99 per month or whatever it is I'm paying.

"Almost Famous" is one of those movies that I always heard was good, but really just never got around to watching. I've seen clips here and there while flipping through the channels on TV, but never saw it in its entirety. It won the Oscar for best screenplay in 2001, and also Golden Globe awards for best movie and best supporting actress (Kate Hudson). Hudson has never impressed me as an actress, but her turn as the queen of the groupies definitely deserved the critical acclaim she received. Too bad it's the only good role she's ever had.

Apparently, this movie bombed at the box office but did well with critics. And while I usually don't agree with hoidy-toidy critics, I'm giving them this one. "Almost Famous" is a winner, and if you haven't seen it, you should get to it. If you have seen it, here's a reminder that it's time to watch it again. This movie is definitely worth watching more than once.

The movie is filled with memorable characters, big and small, and the casting was truly outstanding. There isn't that much of a plot -- teenage kid chases his dream of being a rock journalist (now *there's* a job I never thought of), tours with the band, falls in love, meets disappointment, wins in the end. It's apparently semi-autobiographical for Cameron Crowe, who actually was a teenage journalist for Rolling Stone magazine and toured with bands including The Eagles and The Allman Brothers.

No, this movie is more of a character-driven piece than a plot vehicle. The lead character is played perfectly by Patrick Fugit, whom I don't think I've ever seen before, with just the right amount of naivete and wide-eyed innocence. Frances McDormand (from "Fargo") plays his neurotic mother so believably I think I actually know her from somewhere, just brilliant. Billy Crudup, as the most significant band member, is someone I've heard of but never could put a face to the name, but after this movie I will always remember who he is.

Jason Lee, who most people probably know as the title character on the TV show "My Name Is Earl", also deserves mention as the lead singer of the band -- overconfident and insecure at the same time, a very well-developed portrayal of a shallow man. Philip Seymour Hoffman makes his living doing character work, and nails his role as the older, rock-journalist mentor to the main character. Hell, even Jimmy Fallon does a great turn as the big-shot band manager who sweeps in to take over the band in the second half of the movie.

This movie is also a gold mine for people who love to quote lines from movies. After I finished watching the movie, I got on IMDb and read through the memorable quotes section, and there are some real doozies, which I won't bother repeating here because they won't make sense without the context. But for the quotes alone, this movie is worth watching over and over again. It's a great script with a great cast, and this movie will definitely join my very modest DVD collection shortly.

I leave you with one of my favorite lines from the movie. Patrick Fugit is telling Philip Seymour Hoffman about how he's a nobody in high school and everybody hates him because he's several years younger than them, and Hoffman responds wisely:

"You'll meet them all again on their long journey to the middle."

Marcus Update

Today, we took Marcus to the audiologist for a different kind of hearing test, called the BAER, which stands for Brainstem Auditory Evoked Response. The machine is pictured above, and it's basically a laptop computer connected to some electrodes by wires that plug into the laptop. The basic idea of the test is to give direct stimulations that bypass the ear and head straight for the auditory nerve. The goal is to figure out whether or not the auditory nerve is intact, because there are surgeries that can be done to restore hearing if it is.

Marcus, it turns out, has an intact auditory nerve, which to me is neither here nor there because I'm leaning against having surgery anyway. Usually if a kid has unilateral deafness, they develop perfectly normally and it seems unnecessary to subject the kid to an elective surgery to restore hearing that he doesn't necessarily need to function. I, for example, have an intact auditory nerve on the right side but I'm deaf on that side. And I've done okay.

In other news, the baby slept through night for the second night in a row yesterday, bringing his overall total to three times, all in the last couple weeks. We may be turning a corner here, and tonight we're going for three in a row! I've got my fingers crossed. I should probably clarify what I mean by "sleep through the night", as it seems different people have different definitions.

We put the baby to bed at 7pm, but then we wake him up at 10pm to drink more milk. If he manages to sleep until at least 7am after that 10pm feeding, we call it sleeping through the night, mostly because it means *we* get to sleep through the night. He gets 8-9 hours of uninterrupted sleep in that case, which is pretty sweet for us. I've heard people call it sleeping through the night only if the baby sleeps like 12 hours in a row which, I mean ... geez. That might never happen at all. So we're happy if he gets 8-9 hours overnight and we get to sleep soundly until morning.

He's still underachieving with his "tummy time", which is an exercise where he lies prone and is forced to pick his head and chest up off the bed to strengthen his muscles. He gets very upset after only about 5 minutes of it. And so I've heard about other babies his age already pushing up with their arms and lifting up their head and chests. Marcus just kind of weakly lifts his head up and looks around for a bit, then puts it back down to rest. That's about how well I do at the gym, so I can't criticize.

He gurgles and coos, smiles often if you play with him, and looks around the room at specific things and people to check them out. The other day I caught him looking at the cats for the first time. And yesterday he laughed. Well, not really laughed ... sort of a soft chuckle. But it's a big deal to me. Sort of a heh heh heh. I enjoyed it.

He's also got a new ride: the MacLaren Techno XT. Woo, it's a beauty. We originally got a Snap n Go that just carries around his infant car seat, and we thought it was fine. But he was getting so hot and bothered riding around in this summer weather that he was complaining, so we thought we'd get him something a little cooler. Now he's stylin', facing forward like a big boy, and he's got multiple settings for his seat back so he can practically lie flat and sleep, or sit up and watch the world. And we love the way it handles, so much better than the clunky Snap n Go. At under $300, it was an easy purchase. And will last him well into toddlerhood, probably until he's ready to walk full-time. This will probably be his last stroller.

Ah ... one more thing. Marcus has discovered The Wiggles. For you single and non-parent people, The Wiggles is an Australian kids band that has been extremely popular for a few years now, and we found it on Netflix instant playback. So Janelle played it once on her computer screen as a joke, and wouldn't you know it ... Marcus was enthralled! I had no idea a baby that small could watch something as complicated as a TV show, but man he definitely is watching it. We feel like bad parents plopping him in front of a screen at such a tender age, but you know what? It gives us up to half an hour of peace at a time, which is totally worth swallowing your pride for.

Inside The Park | Pedro Looking Good For Phillies

Pedro Martinez struck out 11 batters in 6 innings of work today pitching for the Phillies' Double-A team as part of his rehabilitation course before joining the big-league team, hopefully sometime soon. His performance has been up and down so far as he works out the kinks from being out of action all year, but this last game pretty much says to me that he's close being back to form.

When he returns to the majors, it's going to present a problem for the Phillies coaches because they will have too many starting pitchers. That's a nice problem to have heading into the final months of the season, but it's a problem nonetheless. Cole Hamels, newly acquired Cliff Lee, and workhorse Joe Blanton clearly belong in the starting rotation. Of the remaining pitchers, including Pedro, it's hard to say who should start and who should head to the bullpen. If the Phillies are smart, they'll make Pedro earn his way into the rotation instead of handing him a spot.

J.A. Happ is the youngest, and he did start the season in the bullpen. But he's also been money as a starter this season. Tonight, he pitched a complete game shutout against Colorado and struck out 10 batters. He was highly coveted by Toronto at the trade deadline when the Phillies were trying to acquire Roy Halladay, but the Phillies were rightfully reluctant to let go of such a talented young player who is already major-league ready. This is the kind of guy you want in your pitching lineup heading into the playoffs, and it would be hard to send him to the bullpen.

Rodrigo Lopez is a recent acquisition who has filled in as the fifth starter since Brett Myers went down, and the Phils won three of his four starts, which is probably more than they were expecting out of him. But he's already out of the picture, sent to the bullpen when Cliff Lee arrived.

Jamie Moyer is a 23-year veteran who was an integral part of the Phillies' playoff run last year, but this year has struggled quite a bit to recapture last season's magic. You'd say he's the most deserving of a demotion, except that he isn't a bullpen type of pitcher. He throws in the low 80s and doesn't overwhelm anyone, and really makes his living outsmarting batters the second and third time he faces them in a game. There's also the issue of respect for his experience and age (he turns 47 this year), but that's less important in my opinion; as a team player, which he definitely is, Moyer should be willing to do whatever is best for the Phillies, even if it means going to the bullpen. The more important issue is that he wouldn't be very effective there.

And that leaves Pedro Martinez, one of the greatest pitchers in history and certainly of our time. Pedro pitched the 2006 season in typically dominant form, but injured his hip toward the end of the season. Probably due to poor compensatory mechanics, he subsequently injured his lower leg and his rotator cuff too, ending his season in 2006 and preventing him from pitching most of 2007 as well. He returned at the end of 2007 and had several excellent starts which boded well for the next year.

Unfortunately for Pedro, he injured himself at the beginning of the 2008 season and lost about 2 months, and when he returned his velocity just wasn't there and he was ineffective. He wasn't re-signed in the offseason, and no other teams wanted to take a chance on him either. He pitched one solid game for his country in the World Baseball Classic, but still no takers. So he has sat out the entire 2009 season without a job, until the Phillies called last month and signed him to a teenie weenie million dollar contract to pitch the rest of this season.

Pedro has said he's a team player and he just wants to be back in the bigs, and that he wouldn't mind being a "backup", whatever that means. But when you've had as great a career as Pedro, and you're as fiery a competitor as he is, you don't come out of involuntary retirement to pitch out of the bullpen, even if your new team is the defending World Series champion Phillies.

There's an additional factor to consider in this decision, and that's the lefty-righty situation. The candidates for the starting pitching jobs are four lefties and two righties. The two right-handers are Blanton, who is definitely staying in the rotation, and Pedro. You'd like to have three lefties and two righties for balance, but that would mean either Moyer or Happ would have to go to the 'pen. If Pedro goes to the 'pen, that would be four left-handed starting pitchers.

Normally, having four left-handers in your starting rotation might not be too big of a problem, but in this specific case it might be. It seems that the Dodgers, whom the Phillies are likely to face if they want to get back to the World Series, feast on left-handed pitching this year. Both Moyer, who is aging, and Happ, who is inexperienced, might get victimized by that situation in the playoffs. That would seem to point toward sending one of them to the bullpen and letting Pedro be the fifth starter.

The right thing to do is to make Pedro earn his spot in the rotation by outpitching Jamie Moyer. If he can't, he should do his "backup" thing like he said at the beginning. If he does, then the best thing for the team is to marginalize an aging and increasingly ineffective Moyer by putting him in long relief with occasional spot starting to keep him active. His best days are behind him, and maybe his biggest contribution to the team at this point will be his experience, which he can do by mentoring the younger pitchers like Happ and Hamels.

It will be interesting to see how the Phillies work this problem out. I haven't read anything that indicates which way they are leaning, but I'm betting they start Pedro in the bullpen and slowly work him into the starting rotation while pushing Happ into a relief role by the playoffs. It might not happen instantaneously, but I see that happening. They won't send Moyer to the bullpen, and the Phillies didn't pick up Pedro from unemployment just to pitch in relief. Happ will probably just have to pay his dues as the youngest pitcher, knowing that he's going to be a big part of the Phillies' future.

Clinton Wasted an Opportunity

I'm going to preface this post with a disclaimer: my point of view is ignorant and uninformed. So there you go.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's proceed to my opinion on the whole "American journalists detained in North Korea" story, a tense and delicate diplomatic situation which apparently was resolved today by Secretary of State Hillary former President Bill Clinton. It seems ol' Slick Willie has built up a good reputation in North Korea, and might be the most influential American we could have sent over there. So kudos to Bill for braving the treacherous journey deep into the heart of a nation ruled by one of the most fearsome and dangerous leaders of our time in order to negotiate a peaceful solution to an international crisis.

Now I'm a relatively apolitical guy, and provincial enough not to follow world news too closely. But as far as I can tell, North Korea belongs in the "bad guys" column, and Kim Jong Il is one scary man, with all of his saber-rattling and his nuclear program development. He sounds like a classic James Bond villain, if you ask me. Power-hungry, egomaniacal, and very controlling. Couldn't you see him capturing James Bond and, instead of killing him, explaining to him his most detailed plans of how he intends to take over the world? He's in that mold, at least in my imagination. For all I know, he's actually a really nice guy. But I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. I'm going with my gut here.

So there's Kim Jong Il, threatening that North Korea has nuclear power and isn't afraid to use it on the U.S. or whoever stands in their way. And here we've got our ace in the hole, Bill Clinton, a smooth-talking salesman who could charm the pants off a nun, fearlessly traveling to meet the big villain himself, mano-a-mano. And when they finally get together in Pyongyang over a cup of tea, what do they talk about? A couple of silly girls who got caught breaking a very simple rule: KEEP OUT.

Isn't that pretty much what happened with Laura Ling and Euna Lee? They're a couple of novice journalists who recklessly and irresponsibly flouted some clear ground rules, played at being the "intrepid reporters" who bravely laugh in the face of real danger to chase the big story at significant personal risk -- probably more for their own glory than for any real altruistic motive to get "the real story", if you want my best guess.  I don't think they're even disputing that they did something wrong. Basically, they just got caught breaking the rules.

So Ling and Lee are stuck in jail, literally. And they need daddy to come and bail them out. Those two yahoos basically forced the U.S. to play its trump card, Bill freaking Clinton, rescuing their sorry little tushes instead of saving him for something a little more useful, like say ... preventing nuclear war. Preserving international peace. Saving millions of lives? Something along those lines.

And you know what gets my goat? They'll probably come home to a hero's welcome. They'll probably do the talk show circuit, write gripping autobiographies that millions of Americans will eat up, and parlay this colossal blunder into long and prosperous journalistic careers. Probably get their own shows like that Greta van Susteren, who parlayed her commentaries during the OJ Simpson farce -- OJ Simpson! -- into a full-fledged career in "journalism" with her own TV show and everything. Every time I see her crooked mouth and mousy hair on CNN it makes me want to throw up. How does covering OJ Simpson's three-ring circus ... ? Bah, never mind. I think I just came up with an idea for another post.

Ling and Lee work for Current TV, and that station was co-founded by Al Gore. So Bill basically did Al a personal favor to get him out of this public relations nightmare. Good for him, and lucky for them. If I were Laura Ling or Euna Lee, I would be embarrassed and ashamed for what I did, requiring a man as significant and influential as Bill Clinton to fly to the other side of the planet to save my sorry ass, possibly squandering my country's biggest asset in the struggle to keep North Korea in its place and prevent nuclear disaster. If I were them, I would hope to god that coming to rescue me was a smokescreen, a cover for Bill Clinton to meet privately with Kim Jong Il and talk about something more important than my misbehavior. But he probably didn't. So much for that.

Air Supply = Chinese Pop

  
Fatherhood has been wonderful for these first three months. Little baby Marcus keeps growing and changing and developing. Now he's starting to observe the world around him -- he looks around the room, stares at the items on the bookshelf (which is a mess), is completely enthralled with my screensaver, and watches The Wiggles on Netflix instant playback. I even caught him looking at the cats, which is new. He smiles appropriately when we look at him and engage in play with him.

I completely adore my child. When I hold him, it feels like nothing else in the world matters. When I watch him sleep, his face looks so peacefully blank. Whenever I look at him, I see endless possibilities for his future. And when he smiles at me, I just melt -- really, I melt.

Which is why whenever he starts crying, I just want to pick him up. If I pick him up, he stops crying and it's like everything's going to be okay. His crying drives me bananas. I know I shouldn't pick him up at the drop of a hat, but I have a very strong urge to do it. Janelle is much better than me at this; she knows what the book says, and she can execute like it's a work order. I'm glad one of us is like that.

So now we're on the next chapter of whatever book she's reading, and it says right there that we need to train the baby to lull himself to sleep, rather than relying on the bottle or our soothing him to sleep. We're supposed to make sure he's not hungry or in need of a diaper change (or sick, of course), and then once we're sure of that we're supposed to put him down for his nap or bedtime and just let him cry it out. Gradually, of course, not all of a sudden. First we let him cry for 10 minutes, then 15, then 30, and so on.

But because I can't stand his crying and just want to go pick him up or feed him or whatever to make the badness stop, I had to come up with a way to distract myself. So I started playing music to drown out the sound of the baby's crying. Now, I've got a little over 60 gigs of music in my library to choose from. Lots of things I could be listening to, a really wide range of genres.

Naturally, I chose Air Supply. I've got a greatest hits album where virtually every song takes me back to childhood, sitting in the back of my mom's car listening to EZ 101 or whatever that station was. Great songs, really cheesy and really easy on the ears. That little guy with the curly hair has got one of the all-time sweetest high voices. He's right up there with Steve Perry, the guy from Survivor (the '80s band, not the lousy reality TV show), the guy from Styx, and Freddie Mercury. Just a crystal-clear high tenor voice. I could listen to him all afternoon, and he's perfect for drowning out the sound of a baby's crying in the next room.

Don't pretend you don't love Air Supply. "Making Love Out Of Nothing At All", "Even The Nights Are Better", "All Out Of Love", "Two Less Lonely People In The World" ... the list of hits just goes on and on. Maybe you have some Air Supply in your music library, or maybe you're lying. You can't not love Air Supply.

In the process of blocking out the sound of the baby with "Every Woman In the World", I came across a song I hadn't heard before. It's called "Goodbye", and it's a nice melody written in their typical formula for a love ballad, so it turns out it's pretty good. And because I didn't really know the song, I wasn't singing along like I do with every other song. Instead, I just listened. And that's when I came to the realization that Air Supply sounds just like '90s Mandarin pop.

Every freaking Chinese love ballad from the '90s sounds exactly like an Air Supply song. If you close your eyes and listen to any Air Supply song, you could imagine some Chinese guy crooning it on stage in Hong Kong. Seriously. It's almost as if the Chinese music bigwigs all sat in a room one day in 1990 and decided to model their industry after their western counterparts, and they chose Air Supply because their list of English rock bands was in alphabetical order. And the ripples of that decision can be felt to this day as Eason Chan woos the crowd on tour in Taipei, singing songs modeled after Air Supply. It's been a very successful formula, of course. Private karaoke rooms all across Asia echo with the sounds of cheesy love ballads that could have been sung by a short, curly-haired white guy nearly three decades ago.

Go ahead: bust out that Air Supply song from your iTunes. You know you have at least one, don't lie. And close your eyes, and tell me it doesn't sound like every Chinese love ballad from the '90s. You know I'm right.

Bing!

In the wake of the news that Yahoo and Microsoft are joining forces to do battle against Google for search engine supremacy, I decided to read up a little bit on the Bing search engine that Microsoft offers. I didn't really know that much about it, because I've always been a Google user pretty much by default. Plus, as a die-hard Mac user I don't really pay much attention to what goes on in the Microsoft world.

So it turns out that of all people, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak praised Microsoft's repackaged search engine (sort of). So I decided to take Bing out for a spin, and boy was I impressed. It's pleasing to the eye, it's pretty fast, and it seems to come up with what I'm looking for.

So I've decided that for the next month, I'm going to try to use Bing exclusively to see if I'm happy with the output. After all, I'm a pretty open-minded guy (not really) and I don't mind a little change (no way) even if it means adopting something from Microsoft (eww). Anyway, I'll probably post again in a month with my final decision (I'll hate it).

Microtia

Within 24 hours of the delivery, the doctors noticed there was something wrong with Marcus. He had a deformed left ear that was a little lower-set and a bit smaller than the right ear, which appeared normal. The medical term to describe the appearance is "microtia", which just means "small ear".  Before leaving the hospital on the third day, Marcus failed his newborn hearing screen on the left side, but passed the test for the right ear.

Now, your typical parents might flip out to discover that their first child is already deformed and imperfect before even leaving the hospital, but fortunately for us (sort of), I know a little bit about microtia because I've got the same problem. My right ear is a little lower-set, smaller and a little deformed (though not nearly as noticeable as Marcus), and I'm functionally deaf in that ear. For me, the imperfection is not disfiguring, and I've learned to live with the deafness. So I had an idea of what might lie ahead for Marcus, and I wasn't to concerned.

We've now taken him to see a specialist for this microtia problem, and he failed his hearing screen again with the audiologist there. We're going to try a BAER test this coming week, which is another type of hearing test where you measure brain activity after giving an auditory stimulation, basically to see if any sound is getting into his brain at all on that side.

Regardless of the result of that test, the doctor told us there isn't much to do, considering it appears his right ear is fine. If the appearance of the left ear is significantly deformed, we can consider surgical options later for cosmetic reasons. And if it turns out that his auditory nerve is intact and only the middle and outer ear are dysfunctional, it may be possible to restore hearing surgically, but not until at least age 5 or 6.

So far, the ear seems to be growing with him, and while it certainly doesn't look normal, I'm not so sure it's going to be so bad cosmetically that it requires surgery. We'll see, I guess. I'd be interested in restoring his hearing at age 5 or 6, but honestly it's not that hard to live with deafness on one side. A little inconvenient, but you're really perfectly functional. Language skills develop normally, and even musical skills are essentially unaffected. I'm hesitant to subject a child to elective surgery that isn't *really* necessary. But we'll see.