At long last, I have set up my blog on a new domain and server and The Latest and Loudest has moved to simply www.thelatestandloudest.com .

I’ve just set the site up, but I’ll post there from now on.  It will give me much more flexibility than I have here. Plus, all of my Twitter tweets will be there.  Please change your bookmark and come on over.

Now that my little one is one month old, I will be posting regularly again.

This is some of the best animation that I have ever seen.

Hey! We didn’t get any of THIS at the baby shower!

But I know we’ve got a Target gift card around here somewhere…

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—After decades of coddling young children, Johnson & Johnson unveiled
its new “Nothing But Tears” shampoo this week, an aggressive bath-time product the company says will help to prepare meek and fragile newborns for the real world.

A radical departure for the health goods manufacturer, the new shampoo features an all-alcohol-based formula, has never once been approved by leading dermatologists, and is as gentle on a baby’s skin as “having to grow up and fend for your goddamn self.”

My nine months pregnant wife is one semester away from earning her master’s in “integrated marketing communications” from Roosevelt University. The boy is due on the 19th of August and classes start on the 5th of September.

She says it’s not a problem.

Okaaaay.

But while we’re waiting, yesterday she received in the mail her author’s copy of the academic journal, IMC Review. Within, she has a scholarly article entitled, “Home Sweet Home, Loan, Lost Home” about the impact of unethical marketing practices of subprime mortgages in urban communities.

I am both very happy for her and jealous.

Wait. Can I be both or do I have to pick one…?

Good job, baby!

So it’s August 12th and my little one isn’t here yet. He isn’t due until the 19th, but the way my wife is acting, you would think he was two weeks late. According to the doc, my wife is healthy and my baby is healthy. That sounds pretty good to me. It’s just that my wife convinced herself that since the “due date” could be off by two weeks either way, that the baby would come early.

But he hasn’t. Yet.

We were hoping for 08/08/08.

My wife would like her body back now.

And I’d like my calm, cool, and collected wife back now.

It isn’t helping that he is getting bigger everyday and is already well over 8 pounds. This is our first and she’s had time to start wondering how he’s getting out of there…

She’s getting a little nervous.

But we’re ready for him.

Room carpeted, decorated, and stocked? Check.
Breastfeeding class? Check.
First-Time Parents class? Check.
Baby CPR class? Check
Car seat safely installed? Checked and Re-checked.

I think we’re ready.

C’mon, boy.

I first saw the 30 Day Challenge about 2 years ago. It is aimed at helping you make your first dollar online within 30 days through finding a niche and setting up a website(s) with content for that niche. After a lot of checking, I decided that it was legit. Problem was that I had missed the challenge and there was SO much material, that I was overwhelmed.

I decided to wait until this year and have been following them through “pre-season”. The challenge started August 1 and is now 12 days old.

Thank heaven that I was here since the beginning or else I would be overwhelmed AGAIN.

Anyway, so far the idea is that you will make that dollar through affiliate links, like Amazon or a Clickbank product or through sales of your own products. There is no attempt to use Adsense to make money and the rule is that the 30DC is supposed to be done for FREE.

You are not required to spend any money at all.

And I, for one, have learned a TON.

You can check it out here. (And no, it isn’t an affiliate link–though that would be a good way to make that dollar!)

After resisting all manner of instant messaging-type products for nearly a decade, I have finally succumbed to Twitter. I have been just generally amazed at how patient and committed its users are–right through a thousand losses of service and fail whales and the like, they just keep coming back. I

I find the opportunity to “follow” people without their being able to sell my email to Viagra spammers refreshing. And I love when people “follow” me because of some off the wall thing we have in common–like a love of Cinnamon Creme Cake from Corner Bakery or because we both have the same initials. It’s weird, but it works.

And if we get on each other’s nerves, we “unfollow” and there’s no hard feelings.

I also like how easy it is to take advantage of the “group mind” or “wisdom of the mob” or whatever the hell they call it.

Restaurant recs, tech advice, secret invites, coupons and discount codes, music reviews, etc., can all be had on Twitter.

Hope I don’t become addicted.

On PZ Myers’ science blog, they are discussing a small town’s attempt to overturn a 30 year-old ban on Monty Python movie, The Life of Brian. One of the funniest movie’s ever made EVER. It’s on my (unfinished) top ten movie list and you have got to see it, if you haven’t. If you have, you should watch it again.

They say the movie is sacrilegious, but it just isn’t. It’s about a guy that get’s mistaken for the Messiah around the time of Jesus Christ. The opening scene has the Three Wise Men accidentally follow the Eastern Star to baby Brian’s manger rather than the manger of baby Jesus, next door. His mother orders them out until she learns they bear gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrhh, for the baby they seek.

Although she isn’t quite sure what “myrhh” is.

My uncle was born in Alabama, but lived a lot of his adult life in New Orleans.  He came to visit us several times in Chicago when I was very young, and he would always forget something–crazy-ass paperback novels, cassette tapes… pictures…  Anyway, I’ve decided that my eclectic musical tastes were heavily influenced by his leavings.  This is taken from a song on one of those tapes.

Black Water Hattie lived back in the swamp
Where the strange green reptiles crawl
Snakes hang thick from the cypress trees
Like sausage on a smokehouse wall

“Swamp Witch” by Jim Stafford

So with the baby coming, my wife and I knew that we (meaning she) wouldn’t be able to expend too much energy on our garden this year.

I came up with the idea that we would put out a mixed bag of wildflower seeds. They would give us variety and would attract butterflies and hummingbirds (and yes, I was surprised last year when a hummingbird showed up in my backyard in South Shore).

I put the seeds in pots and plots all over the yard, except in one are where my wife, Tamika, had planted gladiolus last year. They would come back.

It became quickly apparent that the wildflowers and the weeds were in a race to see which could grow the fastest. The problem was that I’d never seen them before, so I couldn’t tell what to…well, weed.

In the end, I kind of took a wait-and-see approach.

And what I see is a large yard full of ugly weeds, punctuated by the occasional beautiful purple, yellow, red, pink, or blue flower.

The seeds in the large pots did particularly well. My wife says that’s because she put fertilizer and high-grade potting soil in those pots last year. I say,”What does she know”?

But the gladiolus will save us. There are more than last year, and while only a white one has bloomed so far, there are at least 4 colors and they will transform our yard, probably just in time for our son’s arrival.