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Rob is in the process of wearing out Thai, so I thought I’d give an update on how things are going. We brought Thai to his first obedience class this past week and it was so fun! The trainer was a bit concerned at first b/c he was showing super-submissive and scared behaviors (i.e., he was hiding behind our chairs and wouldn’t play with other dogs) but he turned around *really* quickly and got to make some new friends! He particularly liked an American Eskimo named Stoli. They were playing like best buds. It’s so fun to watch dogs interact with one another and even more fun to watch your dog interact with other dogs when they are “being good.” We also learned that the food we’d been giving him (Science Diet) is “rocket fuel - it’s the equivalent of feeding your kids Twinkies for dinner” from the trainer so we are in the process of switching to Solid Gold “WolfKing” and so far he loves the new chow.

We took him on his first walk yesterday and then again today. He was pulling the whole time yesterday and it got a bit frustrating but today he did much better. We almost went a whole ten steps in a perfect “zone” heel with no pulling. He was really feeling my energy. (We’ve been watching a lot of Dog Whisperer Lately).

It’s Rob’s birthday today so we are going to leave Thai to spend some quality time with his crate and go to the movies - first night away from puppy so we get to go see Ratatoullie. The timing works well with his regular “cool it and get ready to sleep” time.

It’s time to get ready to go. Rob will post has posted some updated pictures of us and Thai out in the yard and training in the house.

Jen

Just thought I’d pass along today’s words of wisdom from Over the Hedge:

I am, above all else, a sucker for all things new, shiny and preferably with buttons (Yay! Buttons!). This inexplicable obsession has kept my attention for far longer than should be possible. Lately, all roads have lead to the Apple iPhone.

The iPhone has been excessively hyped in all types of media. It has been blasted by bloggers as a ridiculous exercise in stupidity and a yearned for by those who know better.

The most common dissent goes something like: “My <insert device> has this feature already and only cost me <insert cell carrier subsidized price> .” What those who don’t pay attention didn’t understand (what Microsoft refuses to understand) is not ‘what’ you put in a device, but ‘how’ it works.

2 weeks ago, Apple sent prominent tech journalists final, production versions of the iPhone to play with. Yesterday, their reviews were published and the consensus is sure there are flaws, AT&T still sucks, but the iPhone delivers an unmatched user experiance and that is what makes it special. 2 closing thoughts: a) I hope you bought Apple stock before yesterday, and b) these things will be selling like hot-cakes on e-bay for well over a grand come Sunday.

Here is a link to a list of early iPhone reviews.

Thai has kept Rob and I *very* busy for the past week, but he has come very far from the frightened puppy that he was when we took him home last Saturday.  He now responds to his name (as long as he’s not engaged in some stimulating activity like rolling around in the grass) and knows “sit” and “down.”  We tried to teach him “leave it” today but that’s gonna take some time. (It basically teaches him to “leave” some desirable distraction, like a treat, so that he doesn’t pick up something he shouldn’t.)  Housebreaking is going well too.  Not perfectly, but well.  He’s had several accidents (I lost count) but they are getting fewer and further between.  We also know what to look for and how to react (i.e., I don’t freak out anymore) when an accident does happen.  We’re at a little bit of a disadvantage with the potty training b/c he lived in the kennel for about 2 months before we adopted him…and living in a kennell means going to the bathroom where you sleep and not on the grass.  So, our vet told us that eventually he will learn to prefer grass, we just have to give him time.  The vet also told us that he is healthy - we just have to get his mange (skin condition) taken care of.  He has some bald spots on his legs and on his face.  She gave us a collar that we can just keep on all the time to treat it.  She also suggested that we get enrolled in obedience classes so we are seriously looking into that.  It will be good training for us but I think the biggest benefit will be to socialize Thai.  We want to get him use to being around other dogs and humans.

Hilarious pet anecdote:  This may be a “you had to be there thing” but Thai was running around the kitchen and ran straight toward the sink and jumped up and lifted his paws in the air like he wanted to land in the sink  He missed it by like 2 feet.  Flying dog!  Puppy Spider Man to the rescue!  He really was misbehaving and he should have gotten yelled at for it - but Rob and I were just cracking up.  He loves the sink though.  I think it’s the water.  We really need to get him a kiddie pool.

The biggest challenges now are dealing with the constant chewing (I think we have like 10 chew toys for him now so the ratio of stuff he’s not supposed to chew and is supposed to chew is much more in our favor) and the jumping up (solution recommended by our vet:  stepping on his back toes just hard enough to hurt a little).  All in all though, he’s a great puppy that is very affectionate when he wants to be.  He loves giving puppy kisses (and for some reason has a fascination with Rob’s ears).

Here is a link to a brief pictorial introduction to Thai, our new puppy. He’s a 4 month old lab mix with a short attention span and an oral fixation, but then, that describes me too.

<Deep Breath>… Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. Puppy. PUPPY!

Film at eleven.

There was an article today in the NYTimes about a revolutionary new format which the Democrats running for president will use in their next debate: YouTube video questions.

The concept is that us regular folks will submit our questions to the candidates to YouTube. CNN will select from the submissions, show them to the candidates on the stage and get their reactions, answers to questions, etc.

While this does provide (on the surface) an unprecedented level of access to the prospective candidates, I think the true fireworks will happen after the debate. My prediction is that the aftermath of the YouTube debate will rival the Digg Revolt and scare the bejeebus out of people in power. What’s the Digg Revlot? Glad you asked…

The Digg Revolt
- Google results for “Digg Revolt”
- Wikipedia article on it
- Forbes Online Article

Digg.com is a socially networked news aggregator: visitors provide links and descriptions to blog posts, videos, and online articles. Other visitors then give the submission either a thumbs -up (dugg) or down (bury). Each submission gets a score, with the most ‘dugg’ articles ending up on the main page for all to see.

A couple of months ago, an article was dugg up to the main page included the decryption code for pre-recorded HD-DVD movies. This is a string of numbers, letters and hyphens which an HD-DVD player needs in order to unlock the movie on the disc. This code is readily visible using non-subversive techniques and in-fact had been discovered well before the Digg Revolt. The consortium of companies which own the HD-DVD format sent Digg a cease and desist order citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and demanded that the offending articles be removed.

Digg moderators then removed the article only to see another submission with the same code appear shortly thereafter on the main page. Moderators moved quickly to remove that article as well, but by then the damage had been done.

The Digg community began submitting articles and blog posts about the code by the thousands. Moderators were quickly overwhelmed and soon the entire front page of Digg included nothing but links to the code. The site was then shut-down for several hours. During the shutdown, Digg founder Kevin Rose wrote in his blog:

“…after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be.”

The YouTube Revolt (date TBD) :

So what does that have to do with Democratic Presidential debate?

Invariably, videos will be made which the candidates object to. Either it shows them in an unfavorable light, talks about a subject they don’t want to discuss, or otherwise gets rejected.

These videos will still be seen, one way or another, and the reaction to THAT is what will help sway my vote in the weeks after the televised YouTube debate.

YouTube is governed by the same principles as Digg: users create YouTube’s content and without the users YouTube is just an online video player with nothing to show. If the censoring of user-created videos for the candidates is mishandled, the offended parties will be posting their gripes on YouTube. And if that is mishandled, YouTube will face the same tug of war with their beloved users as Digg.

I think this is a Good Thing™ in that, the candidate that survives the onslaught will (hopefully) be well and truly fit to lead.

Thus is the word of our Rob… amen.

My birthday is coming up on June 30th and I thought I’d post my birthday wish list for those who are interested or for those only interested in a laugh at my materialistic expense.

Okay. Here we go:

• iPod… 30 or 80 gig, of course, more is better
• iTunes gift card – those high quality tracks add up at $1.50 each
• Ratchet/Socket Wrench set – Can you believe they let you buy a house or car without owning a set of these? The open-ended ratcheting wrenches from Craftsmen look like they’d handle most jobs I’ll come across.
• Bluetooth hands-free headset for my cell phone
• Uniden 5.8 GHz linkable cordless phones – we have 1 phone for over 2,000 square feet of living space. Now where did I leave it?
• 2005 Subaru Legacy GT, or a Volvo s60 R… I could go either way at this point but since the Volvo is roughly 10k more expensive, I tend to lean towards the Subie. Is 50 horsepower really worth $10,000?
• Computer parts: Socket AM2 Athlon 64 x2 6000+, 4 gigs of DDR2 RAM, an nForce 6 series motherboard, 550 watt SLI ready power supply, and a slick Lian Li case they can call home.
• Speaking of computers… a core 2 duo MacBook Pro would be hot – but after OS X 10.5 gets released…
• World Peace
• A non-sucky selection of qualified candidates for the 2008 election
• And a puppy… wait, we’re getting a puppy? Rock on! Then we’ll need a SpotBot.

I have recently been disheartened to learn that I have a mental disorder. Some of you may not be so shocked, but there it is. I have a degenerative form of Newcar Envy, or NCE. There are treatments for NCE, but they are expensive (on the order of $350-$550 a month) and offer little more than relief from symptoms. It is also quite common to see those symptoms begin to resist the treatment after only a couple of years, in some cases sooner.

Symptoms include a lack of concentration on anything not having to do with power-to-weight ratios, the vehicular opinions of your spouse, co-workers, friends and the guy next to you at the bank. Some may experience blackouts: entire afternoons disappear and when you awake your only clues as to where you have been is a stack of brochures and an Excel sheet attempting to calculate loan amortizations.

I am going to buck the treatment and attempt to live with this. I may need your support from time to time. Living vicariously through those who have recently purchased a vehicle, or redirecting the intense data collection to someone else who legitimately needs a new car are considered natural remedies. I offer my support to the others who are suffering silently. Together we can get through this.

Rob

This is a web-based survey that asks as series of questions and attaches dollar amounts to each response. The next time someone tells you that you look like a million bucks, you can correct them. “Actually, it’s $2.4 million, but who’s counting?”

I am worth $2,443,866 on HumanForSale.com
How much are you worth?