Jaryth saw his first movie last Saturday – Finding Nemo. And he loved it, what he watched of it, that is.

He’s known who Nemo is for a while, because he has a Nemo swimming suit. Of course, he calls the fish on his suit “Emo” and “Emo’s Dad. But you can’t have everything.

What’s funny to me is that now he wants to watch Nemo every day. We watched it on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and now he’s downstairs watching it with Mark. I suspect that even though I like Finding Nemo, I’m going to eventually feel about it the way I feel about Dumbo. Good movie, but I saw it too much.

Jaryth got really excited when I asked him to pose in front of Marlin.

What’s interesting is watching Jaryth figure out more of the movie every time he watches it. He now understands that the little red balls at the beginning are eggs. But he says “Eggs go?” when the fish knocks Marlin out and eats them (and Coral, Nemo’s mother). We’ve tried to explain to him that they are all gone except for Nemo, but I think that’s still beyond him today. Maybe tomorrow.

Yesterday, every scene that didn’t have Nemo in it would generate a “Nemo go?” query from Jaryth. (And if you’re wondering, he hasn’t gotten the concept of interrogative words like “where” yet.)

Jaryth Smiling for the Camera

There is this big rock off Highway 9 that we pass when we’re going to the Post Office. And the local high school students regularly paint it with various things. The typical paintings are like “Sarah loves Jesse” and “Panther’s Rule!” but today the rock says:

“Get your own rock!”

And on the other side it has the icons for Snohomish High School.

I don’t know what they were responding too, but I’m guessing that students from another school painted it and SHS students were “taking it back”.

I did have a laugh at the “get your own rock” phrase. You tell ‘em, kids! I’m sure that’ll keep them off your rock!

Today I received a comment on my web design blog complaining that a previous comment was “clearly spam”. The post in question talked about web design books I was looking forward to seeing. And the (possibly spammy) commenter linked to an ebook he was looking forward to.

My question is: what makes this spam? The fact that he bolded the title of the book? The fact that he included a link to the ebook’s web page? The fact that he didn’t say “I am not the author, I just like this book” or something equally obsequious?

Actually, I have two questions:

1. Why is it so important that you report this spammer by posting crap to my comments? Have you never heard of email?
2. And what made this comment so annoying to you, but the many “I love this article! Thanks for posting. URL” comments don’t cause you to report them as spam?

Two days ago, I got another spam report for my web design forums complaining about a post where the person linked to their web page.

Okay, this might very well be spam. But…

The poster was asking for feedback on his site. You can’t very well request feedback without including a URL. Yes, his signature then included the URL again, but holy crap people, just because people include their URL for their web design business in their sig doesn’t make them a spammer!

I used to respond to these submissions, thanking the spam police officer for his/her diligence and asking what made the post seem spammy to them. But I have never once had one of them reply to me. So now I just delete them.

I like to think that I’m growing as a person by deleting the police reports without responding. But it’s probably just laziness…

I’m hot, which is a nice change from the whole of June, where we had fall weather, but still, hot is no fun. Because it’s hot I’m furious that the post office can’t seem to mail my post cards. I’ve sent the below postcard twice already. And yes, i’ve added new stamps to it. And this is one of three that the postal carrier can’t seem to grasp DOESN’T need to go here. I understand that the post office is mostly automated, but where is the brain that my postal carrier is supposed to have.

I mean SERIOUSLY, can’t s/he read? It says “TO” next to the to address and “FROM” above the from address. Also, why would I put 98cents worth of stamps on a postcard to myself???

I like the post office, most of the time, but sometimes their complete reliance on machines to the point of idiocy makes me mad. If there were a way to send post cards by UPS I would do it!

I have already spent $1.96 to send this card twice! Stupid PO.

I love reading Marc’s Green Living Blog. I do try to be conscious of eco-friendly or green choices, but his blog offers so much more than just that. Yesterday’s post “Finally, My Flying Car is Here” is a great example! I mean, would you really think of flying cars as something green? I mean, heck, they’re totally important, don’t get me wrong. As an avid Sci-Fi reader I’ve been waiting for the promised flying car for years! But to learn that not only is this car legal to fly with only 20 hours of flying time, but it also gets better gas mileage than my truck.

Now if they’d just invent a flying trailer to go with it – or a truck that gets better than 13MPG and can still tow a 2-horse trailer.

In other news:

Jaryth’s site is back up. So if you’ve been jonesing for pictures like this, your wait is over. I’ve built it so that I can add new pictures by just uploading them into a directory. Lazy, yes, but heck, the photos are on the site again, so I’m happy, and hopefully his faraway relatives are too. ☺

I asked him to “smile” as I took the picture. This is the result.

Jaryth Smiling for the Camera