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Today Lila had her first taste of ribs, which I dubbed baby back ribs for comedy despite the fact they were actually rib tips. It mostly involved licking the salt off them with very little actual consumption, but it still technically counts. After the ribs, she was treated to a full 2 hours of Sesame Street Live which was not on ice as every person I mentioned it to assumed. It was on wood at the Fox Theatre stage. I was just starting to settle into the idea that this was who I am now, a parent bringing his kid to a kid show when Elmo appeared and the entire place erupted to the point I was looking around to see if some famous celebrity had arrived. An hour into the event, Lila simply could not take any more excitement and we left, but she learned to get excited about Elmo and that's an important social skill.

After Lisa complained about my lack of spontaneous flower deliveries (yes, spontaneous is defined as frequently for her) I decided to get a ridiculously large bear and chocolates, which TomTom promptly violated (the bear, not the chocolate). Post-violation, the bear was of course inherited by Lila, who is 1/3 the size and uses it primarily as a pillow. Hopefully this will cover my flower requirement for at least a week before I'm required to spontaneously deliver more.

Some actual detailed rumors on the next Xbox today, here's hoping the official specs are announced at this year’s E3. While I'm obviously throwing money at whatever Microsoft decides to release, here's hoping for at least 8GB of RAM. I think the lowly 512MB this generation has severely hampered any kind of visual improvements. Also hoping they don't eliminate the used game market, or at least drive down the price of new games or Lila will have to start using food stamps.

This years NAIAS was extra special since the legendary Myrn was able to join the Senator and I, but also because the Focus ST was finally presented in an accessible way that allowed me to thoroughly violate it several times during the course of my visits. I was also fortunate enough to get free tickets from work which covered Myrn and I. Knowing Lisa would be upset if she didn't go at a later time, I also got this deal for the second visit. The show was only slightly more exciting than the money I saved thanks to the company in attendance. Aside from the Focus ST, nothing was very titillating. I guess once you see your destiny everything else is just noise.

The great Enorym finally came back for another visit after 5 long years of absence. He was picked up in style and greeted as the great North Korean Delegate that he is, prompting several concerned stares by elderly people at the airport. Our first order of business was a trip to White Castle followed by the kind of baby kissing befitting a political delegate. Events included Battlefield 3 (of course), a phone charger assembly project, a tour of Detroit including a stop at my work and a visit to some church with a creepy homeless guy. Microcenter, Kart2Kart, NAIAS and a visit to Destiny Games fit in there somewhere as well, creating a visit tightly packed with adventure. I'm happy to say I won the Kart2Kart challenge rewarding me with the extra Myrn day which I took full advantage of (insinuation intended)

With my media center BIOS refusing to boot without freshly reset CMOS values it was time for an upgrade. Since I hardly ever use it, I decided to cannibalize my primary system and use the motherboard/CPU/RAM as my new media center. The 6 core processor means my InfiniTV card gets a core for each tuner with 2 extra for the OS. The performance index got a healthy upgrade and there is a noticeable difference in speed when flipping between screens in media center now. While I professed my elimination of a primary PC to Senator Kelley as a religious awakening, and accepted that I no longer needed one, I secretly secured a deal on new hardware which was actually slightly slower than my old system. Of note in the new system is a graphical UEFI BIOS which attempts to bring user friendliness to BIOS setup, a domain so far exclusive to nerds. We'll see how this progresses, but I prefer the old text-based setup and shake my fist at this development.

With the arrival of Lila, Lisa is slowly transforming into a domestic housewife. She cleans so much now I'm convinced she's either a robot or alien doppelganger. While the cooking side has yet to kick in, her need to host parties has reached a new high. Inviting every random person on Facebook she could, a new years eve party was planned that was attended only by people I would have invited personally, proving Facebook event coordination still sucks balls. Those that did show were treated to her inability to provide food for less than 20 people and were prompted to stuff their face by the Lisa doppleganger repeatedly. Several got drunk and hilarious, several puppies urinated and shat on my floor, and Dick Clark was again thawed and reanimated for some zombie new year commentary. Also Senator Kelleys baby was allowed to stay up till midnight while my baby was not. I'm still upset about that.

While watching "Super 8" I decided to crank the volume on my sound system past the recommended max and promptly blew my center speaker. It happened during the train wreck scene, so my first thought was everyone had a muted voice as an effect from the explosion. Once I realized it was a busted speaker cone I admitted defeat and finished the movie upstairs. Best Buy was my only option for a quick replacement, but the SP-C21 I found for $70 wasn't a bad price and looks like it can take quite a bit more power. It tolerated the same train wreck volume that killed the previous one so I pretend it's just an upgrade I was planning on anyways.

Lila helped me upgrade my media center with a Ceton InfiniTV tuner that supports a CableCARD. My previous arrangement of free satellite from my neighbor is coming to an end, so it's time to get back to native tuner support and ditch the standard definition IR blaster/satellite box mess. Surprisingly skilled at computer upgrades, I see a bright nerd future for my daughter, assuming I can get her to stop trying to eat the memory chips.

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