PhoneBoy Says

A shot at the underside.

I took Jaden and a couple of his friends over to the local Laser Tag place. It ended up being the four of us playing. I took a quick snapshot before I started shooting children with harmless beams of light.

A bit earlier in the ady, I also got sucked into a game of Dodgeball at the gym today with the kids. Oh man, I haven't played that game in ages. Such fun. But, of course, after both these activities, I am nice and sore.

Who was your first celebrity crush?
Submitted by Glory.

While I remember my grandmother telling me that I always smiled when I saw a pretty girl on the TV, probably the ones that stuck with me the most were the models on The Price is Right, otherwise known as Barker's Beauties. Whether or not that was the reason I still like game shows to this day, well that's a different question.

Meanwhile, the three I remember as being "the original ones I saw" were:

• Holly Hallstrom
• Janice Pennington
• Dian Parkinson

Not sure if they are "celebrities" in the sense everyone else is thinking about, but hey.

This old Simon and Garfunkel song popped into my mind. Maybe it hassomething to do with the fact I've spent the past few hours working on a sitethat represents something I used to spend a lot more time with. Evenwrote a couple of books about the product. And, ironically, as much asI try and move on from it, I'm still dealing with it on some level. Ohwell, at least the pay is good.

Old friends, old friends, Sat on their parkbench like bookends A newspaper blown through the grass Falls on the round toes of the high shoes of the old friends Old friends, winter companions, the old men Lost in their overcoats, waiting for the sunset The sounds of the city sifting through trees Settle like dust on the shoulders of the old friends. Can you imagine us years from today, Sharing a parkbench quietly How terribly strange to be seventy Old friends, memory brushes the same years, Silently sharing the same fears Time it was and what a time it wasit wasA time of innocencea time of confidences.Long ago it must beI have a photographpreserve your memoriesthey're all that's left you.

Something happens. I get emotional in a negative way. My ability to try and think through it rationally leads down ratholes that simply reinforce my negative thinking more and more, making the negative feelings worse and worse. It's like swimming upstream against a raging river. I eventually find my way back, but it can sometimes take a while. Sometimes, afterwards, I can see clearly what happened and attempt to resolve the issue in my right mind. Other times, I have no idea. It's frustrating. But don't ask me to think about it while I'm that state.

Of course, if this emotional state occurs when I'm supposed to be being dad, well you can guess that my decision making abilities pretty much suck. Same goes for any other time where I can't simply disappear for a half hour to find my right mind.

Now I'm sure everyone goes through this kind of thing from time to time, but this is different. This happens several times a week, depending on what's going on. A number of things can set me off. Not sure why the hair trigger, but I do know that if I ever get emotional, do yourself a favor. Don't ask me to think.

I am playing with a new "Tumblelog" run by the folks at tumblr, which I am running under phoneboy.info, as opposed to phoneboy.com, where I also run a blog. While blogging on Vox is pretty easy, blogging on Tumblr is almost easier. Why? Because there isn't much expectation there. The blog posts are designed to be short, sweet, and dirt-simple to do. It's also fast, mostly because all of the bloat is gone.

I still wonder what the monetization strategy for this company is, but it's not like I am posting my life story there, so I'm not too worried about the long-term viability.

I wrote a few posts on my other blog in the past 24 hours or so that I'd like to draw your attention to and get some feedback on, especially those of you on the Vox Mobile group. Feel free to comment either on the specific post or here. Either way, I'd love to get your thoughts.

• Nokia: Take it Direct to the USA is my opinion about what Nokia can do to improve their market share in the US mobile phone market.
• What are Carrier Customizations? explains the kinds of things carriers ask mobile phone manufacturers to change on the handsets for use on their network.
• Update your Time Zone Files if you have a Nokia Series 60 Third Edition handset.

I go through phases where I ignore music and spent way too much time in my music collection. I am currently going through such a phase. In theory, I have a reason for it--I am rating my music and doing some general cleanup of stuff I have imported into iTunes. Doing stuff like "joining" CD tracks (why do I have to re-rip tracks in order to do this in the most acceptable way?), fixing album art, even adding a few CDs that I didn't rip earlier because I lacked sufficient disk space.

Talk of a Police tour has got me to dig out the one Police CD I have and import it into iTunes. I also found my Supertramp Paris double-CD as well and got that imported. I've also got some other "live" Supertramp album that contains recordings of indeterminate origin, otherwise known as a ROIO. I also started remembering a certain Yello song that appeared in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and out that came.

I wonder if I will get out of my music phase before I finish this project…

When Jaden came home from the surgery this morning, he was desperately trying not to fall asleep, though the drugs were definitely doing their thing. Now the drugs have mostly warn off and he's more or less back to normal. He's eaten, already asked mommy how much the tooth fairy will give him for three teeth (they surgically removed two of them and they removed one of his loose ones) and whether or not he can get more Yi-Gi-Oh cards. As far as I know, he hasn't asked for his pain meds either.

Other than the fact he is currently plopped in front of the TV vegging out with a bunch of movies his mommy got him, I'd say he's doing just fine.