avablog

No apologies to the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band.

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Well, the week’s ending as it started. Thank goodness it was a short one. RIP, Harvey. If you never saw him in anything but Blazing Saddles, you still saw more comedic talent than you can find in any film made in the last 10 years. Gosh, this guy was good. Hedley Lamarr: My mind is […]

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Maybe not weird. But a mishmash, at least. We drove to Burlington yesterday to visit our friends Bob and Judy and to take in the Snake Alley Criterium. What a great race. I have all sorts of pictures here. The vast majority of the pictures are of people riding bikes, but there are a couple […]

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Leah and I finally got around to watching There Will Be Blood last night. It got me thinking.

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What better way to brighten the mood than to bring Hitler into the mix? If you haven’t seen Downfall, do yourself a favor. Bruno Ganz is mesmerizing, and I don’t mean that in the usual People-Magazine-movie-review sense, either. More like the Elizabeth-Berkley-in-Showgirls* sense. You know what I’m talkin’ ’bout. *Or, if you prefer, the episode […]

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David Price has a book out on the (relatively short) history of Pixar, one of my favorite companies in the world.

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Leah and I went to see Iron Man last night, and since we get to movies so infrequently, it seems worth posting about.

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It’s painful to watch loved ones make bad decisions. That’s how I’m feeling this morning about flickr’s decision yesterday to include videos on their site. I haven’t had much opportunity to really consider the implications of this move, but I do know that — for me — the act of looking at a photo is […]

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Two days, three birthdays. That’s a lot of celebratin’. Let’s relive the weekend in cakes, shall we? First, Alex’s cake: Next up, Dawn’s cake: Last, and not in any way least, Mac’s cake from this afternoon: Sarah really went crazy on Mac’s cake, as you can see. Ava managed to wrangle herself a car with […]

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We walked downtown to grab coffee over the weekend and took the opportunity to stop in a park along the way to pretend like it’s spring. Ava likes to play Three Billy Goats Gruff with Leah these days. Ava plays the billy goat. Guess which role Leah gets? (Hint: It’s the troll.)

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Or at least you’d think so by the way pregnancy is spreading at my office. I just had a visit from one of my female colleagues from the department to inform me — officially — that she’s pregnant. Just into her second trimester. The other woman of breeding age amongst the researchers here is also […]

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My friend Dennis sent along this story from the CoE today: U. of Iowa Writing Students Revolt Against a Plan They Say Would Give Away Their Work on the Web … “At the center of the conflict is a routine form that students and their faculty advisers sign for depositing students’ theses with the Graduate […]

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Leah’s decided it’s time to start a dress up basket for Ava. It’s a win/win for both of them. Ava gets to wear funny dress up clothes, and Leah gets to shop for funny dress up clothes. Here’s hoping Ava doesn’t become “that kid” who goes around everywhere wearing her dress up princess gown: Leah […]

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We scrambled to get out the door this morning, and in the rush, I left my iPod behind. Not good. And I’d just added about 75 new tunes last night that I was looking forward to hearing. I’ll have to remember to grab it when I’m home at noon today.

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From today’s WSJ: The CEO of Victoria’s Secret admitted that the brand has become “too sexy” and plans to win customers back to its core lingerie business by producing more sophisticated merchandise. You know, he’s right. We get the VS catalog at home from time to time, and I flip through it quickly just to […]

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I’ve been reading The Wall Street Journal for years, before it was online, in color, or ad-supported. It’s been fascinating to watch this grand old paper change with the times, and I’ve not yet had any negative reactions to the things it’s had to do to stay competitive. But there’s a new man in charge […]

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That’s life. We thought we had Ava’s cold beat, but she had a pretty good fever again last night, so no daycare for 24 hours. Rules are rules. The real kicker is that we were about 15 minutes from the end of The Painted Veil, which we got using Leah’s new Netflix subscription. We have […]

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Today I’ve witnessed an amazing outpouring of good will from the blogosphere, even by blogosphere standards. As thanks for letting me insinuate myself onto their pages, I present the following: Sure, a couple of my participants today were women, but everyone loves looking at pictures of pretty girls on the Internet, don’t they? Maybe it’s […]

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Here it is, in this particular order: An Iowa Mom Planet of the Aprilles arredonald The UI Daily Mayhem Danny Novo (is no rocket surgeon) DANNY, TIFFANY, AND FAMILY 😉 PhilosYphia Howe in the World Knights Who Writes mama-tchou-tchou Cindy and Greg daddytypes.com dlisted (I know. I KNOW!) OH NO THEY DIDN’T! (Again, I know!) […]

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