Inspired

The other day we were all driving somewhere together and we passed a Pizza Hut. At the sight of it, the boys burst into song.




I had no idea that Pizza Hut could inspire such melodic praise in them.

A Better Ending

At some point during the Christmas festivities, our boys watched Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" at the Silly Grandma's house. They had never seen it before and this is what they said when asked about it on the way home:

Onion Ring: Not that great, but it was okay.

Buttermilk Sky: There was a fight scene that was all right. It would have been better if the beast had been evil.

Brandon: Did you like it when the beast became human?

Onion Ring: Eew, no way.

Buttermilk Sky: That was so dumb. Here's how it should have ended. When the Beast became human, Belle should have said she didn't like him anymore because she only liked him when he was a beast. Then he would have turned back into a beast because she didn't love him and the spell came back on. Then she would have said she loved him again since he was a beast again and then the beast would have thrown her off of a cliff because she said she didn't love him when he was human.



Do you think Disney may want to hire him in the future?

Christmas 2010

Wise man (a little wacky):

Joseph:

Donkey (ready for the paparazzi):

Shepherd (or pirate?):

Baby Jesus:

Sheep:

Angels (one with attitude):

Post production chaos:

Christmas Eve candlelight dinner (complete with crocodile and facial distortions):

Christmas morn (pre-presents--can you sense the suspense?):

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

(And consider this our Christmas card since we didn't send any!)

LeatherWoodBooks

Brandon just finished making a custom book today and it is the first one that he has made this big--12 by 18 inches. The person who ordered it wants it for an album for 11 by 17 inch photographs.

The person who ordered it also wanted these initials engraved on the front.

The wood is mahogany.

Brandon does everything by hand. He hand tears the pages (hemp paper),

sews them all together and binds them,

sews the headband by hand (below),

and wraps it in leather.

Brandon learned how to bind books from a DVD he purchased (this one). Then he figured out how to do the leather and wood combination.

They are exquisite!

He now sells them on eBay and he recently opened an Etsy store. Check them out here.

Fall Sports

This fall Eggs on Toast and Junior tried out some sports that were new to them.


Soccer

Eggs on Toast had fun playing soccer.

He discovered that as well as kicking the ball, you run a lot in soccer, and he developed some stamina.

He also discovered that he really liked being goalie.

As it turned out, he was pretty good at it, too. Not many balls got past him.

Basketball

Eggs on Toast also tried basketball.

He learned all about dribbling, passing, and shooting.

Here are some shots of Eggs' best friend, who was on his team.

Karate

Junior tried out Karate.

He learned punches,

kicks,

and blocks.

Junior's best friend took Karate, too, and is standing to the right of Junior in these videos.





They also learned some "stranger danger" techniques.

A-Fiddling He Did Go

Onion Ring had a fiddle recital and an orchestra concert this past week, so here are his performances.










This band just recently came together and we all really enjoyed their music. I am told they are eager to play and they will play for food. So if anyone wants them to perform at a function, give me a call and I can hook you up!




I wasn't in a very good place to see Onion Ring, but you can see his hands a bit during this piece and his face at the very end.







This is the grand finale with all of the classes together (including his teacher on the far left). Unfortunately, I couldn't see Onion Ring at all.




Keep up the good work, Onion Ring!

Pwnage

Are you confused by my title? Do you think that I misspelled something? If you do, then you are about as hip as I am.

A few weeks ago I heard this exchange (or something like it):

Onion Ring: "I poned you, Buttermilk Sky!"

Buttermilk Sky: "No, I poned you!"

"What?" I said, "What did you guys just say?"

They repeated themselves and I had to ask them to repeat again, because I still was unsure of what I had heard.

I said, "Did you say, pone?"

They nodded.

I asked what it meant and where they had heard it. They said they thought it meant "to defeat" and that everyone at school said it. I said they were nuts and that there was no such word except that meant "bread" as in "corn pone" (corn bread). I googled it to make sure, and could find no other meanings for "pone" other than what I had just told them. Thereafter, if I heard them say things such as, "I poned you!" I responded with, "You breaded him?" and I continued to insist that there was no such word and what were they thinking? And if all their friends said it, then did that make it a real word?

Then a while later, Onion Ring told me that one of his friends said that it was spelled "pwn". So I googled it and there it was. It turns out that it is Internet slang. This word appears to have been developed by online gamers, meaning "own", as in "I owned you!"--meaning to dominate.

I am not a gamer, I don't frequent chat rooms, or tweet, or even have a Facebook account, so I am mostly unaware of this whole Internet culture language, but I found it rather fascinating. It is slang developed from a keyboard--gamers, hackers, programmers, etc. of this international community are continually developing new ways to communicate, mostly cryptic in nature. A lot of it is visual with numbers and symbols being subbed for letters (3=E, 7=T, etc.) and some of it comes from keyboard mistakes ("own" becomes "pwn" from a slight typo). I suppose that the "words" that translate into spoken language are working their way in to become spoken slang.

I'm not as Internet savvy as many of you out there and my social circle is more knowledgeable of '80's slang than anything else. So who of you already knew this word? Or have for ages? Or have never heard of it? Or are fluent in Internet slang?