Hey, stop calling me Lucan! Call yourself Lucan!
— Lucy’s rebuttal upon being compared to a 70s TV character

Occasionally the kid lets her freak flag fly and expresses her general disagreement with the concept of clothing by running around in her underwear shouting, “I’m half-naked! Can’t catch me!”

Picture a 3′ 3″ blur of hair, undies, and attitude. She basically looks like a miniature caveman with a Pampers sponsorship running amuck. Invariably, I’ll start calling her Lucan, no doubt because the most accessible (and least cluttered) filing cabinet in my brain is labeled:

“Old TV Show/Comic Book/Movie/Music (60s-80s) Trivia—VERY IMPORTANT!”

Lucan was a short-lived TV show in the ’70s that my little sister and I watched semi-regularly. It told the story of a dude who spends his childhood out in the forest and is raised by a bunch of wolves. He eventually gets reclaimed by society as a dirty, snarling, crazy-haired wild-child (the Bundle connection). He then grows up as a guinea pig in some government-sponsored research lab until his inevitable escape. Action and stuff ensue (at least for the season it was on). I’m actually startled by how much of this I’m remembering.

  Lucan Attacks!

Anyway, like a lot of useless info, the tale of Lucan is permanently embedded in my brain, probably hunkered down in my hippocampus, shooing away frivolous thoughts regarding the placement of car keys, wallets, and PIN codes.

So this is why I call the kid Lucan. And the funny thing is: this kid, all of 42 months old, takes much umbrage with this label. “Stop calling me Lucan. YOU’RE LUCAN!” she’ll yell as she dashes away from the 30+ year TV show aspersion. I get a kick out of that.

“The trains are not racing. They’re crumbling—and it’s very frustrating!”
— Lucy, when her toy trains were being uncooperative yesterday morning

When the Amazon Kindle E-Reader was first released in late 2007, I thought it looked interesting. However, at $400 it was never a serious consideration for me. Over the next few years, its price dropped substantilly, but at a price just north of $200 I still wasn’t sufficiently enticed enough to pry open my wallet.

Earlier this year, the Apple iPad was released. This was another gadget with promise, though again at a prohibitive pricepoint. However, the release of the iPad was great in that it coaxed products like the Kindle (and the Barnes & Noble Nook) to reduce their prices. So on June 21, the Kindle dropped to $189—less than half its 2007 price. And it was still too rich for my blood.

Well, last week Amazon bought Woot, an online retailer that has gained notoriety by basically selling one item each day. Woot’s a site I try to visit every day, usually at 10 PM PST, the time their one product for the day goes on sale. And wouldn’t you know it, the day Amazon buys Woot, Woot offers a Kindle 2 for $149.

Well, though it wasn’t a “no-brainer” purchase (I guess $99 would have met this criterion) this was enough to get me to spend about an hour researching the product. And after completing my research I pulled the trigger and finally bought a Kindle. It arrived this past Wednesday, and so far it has been pretty cool. A few pics, observations:

Product box seemed sturdy enough.

The Kindle itself looked compact, sleek and stylish. At a little over 10 ounces, it’s a very appealing package for what’s basically a mobile library.

Selling points for me:

• Holds over 1500 books
• Battery lasts up to two weeks (with wireless off).
• In addition to the Kindle format, supports unprotected epub, pdf, and html via conversion with free Calibre software (this was a big selling point for me)
• Adjustable text-size (my deteriorating eyesight very much appreciates this)
• Built-in dictionary

When I finally decided to get the Kindle, I tried to justify the purchase by thinking, “Now I have a convenient way to access all those free public domain classics I’ve either forgotten about or never read in the first place.”

And I followed through with that pledge by dutifully downloading a bunch of classics at places like Google Books and Project Gutenberg. Yep—and those classics are currently sitting on my Kindle, unread.

Oh, I’m using my Kindle alright. And I am more than pleased with it. However, though I had aspirations of reading more substantial fare, the books I’ve read thus far are truer gauges of my maturity level:

• Sh*t My Dad Says by Justin Halpern (really funny stuff, especially the younger years)
• The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee by Sarah Silverman (more serious than I thought it’d be)

I suppose one of these days I’ll get to those neglected classics. Who knows, maybe the kid will end up reading them to me. But for now—at least I’m reading, right?

I’ve been wasting a lot of time playing around with different apps, looks, etc.. A fews of the apps I’ve been playing with:

• Misc Google Apps (Voice, Listen, Gmail, Goggles, Shopper, Earth, Places, etc.)
• Where (Location-based app for discovering new places)
• Layar (Augment your reality, dude!)
• Gmote (Remote Control)
• Ringdroid (Make your own ringtones)

I’m constantly on the lookout for cool apps. Any apps you consider essential for your phone?

BTW, here are a few other looks I’ve been using on my phone:

One of our local stores has little shopping carts for the kids…Lucy loves it! She pushes her cart around and puts random things in it. If the bunch of bananas needs room, out goes the lettuce. No mommy, you may not put that in my cart!

I try to steer her clear of the other shoppers as she gleefully strolls down the aisles singing. The checkers are always very nice to her too…and point her to the treat box by the door. It’s a great way to shop!

Well, all good things come to an end. The last episode of Lost airs tonight. The series started way back in 2004, amazing considering it’s survived on a major network TV station all this time. In six years it’s had its share of klunker episodes, but in that time it also reached stages of flat-out genius. In fact, I can’t recall any TV show that’s left me stunned or marveling at the storytelling on such a continual basis. Just a few great things that stick out:

1) ‘Through the Looking Glass‘ – Season 3

I remember playing Pac-Man all the time with two friends, Kevin and John, way back when. I still even recall the day Kevin visited me flush with excitement because he’d actually witnessed a player who knew the correct patterns needed to advance far beyond the Pac-Man levels that had continually stumped us.

Kevin had actually drawn “maps” with the correct patterns for each stage while watching the Pac-Man guru (is that dedication or what?) We were stoked when we tried using the maps during our next Pac-Man session and realized they actually worked (though it was still quite challenging—any small miscue or hesitation during gameplay and the whole pattern was useless.)

The game’s supposed to remain on Google through the weekend. However, even when it’s gone you’ll still be able to play it by just grabbing the game from Google Gadgets. If that’s too much of a hassle, you can play Pac-Man right here!:

Pretty cool, eh? I just wish I could remember Kevin’s maps. But hey, at least there’s no need to scrounge up any quarters!

We go out to our garden, and check for snails on various plants, esp. the lemon tree. We pick our contenders. After watering the racetrack, we place the snails in a line with a goal in mind, usually the top of a nearby pot. And they’re off!

Racing snails is similar to cats…they take naps, go the wrong way, turn around a lot. So it can be quite exciting…you never can tell who will win.

Jill and Lucy came back from a visit with Auntie Laura the other day raving about a radio show Auntie had playing, Little Steven’s Underground Garage. The music is really cool, much of it neat pop/rock stuff from the 60s. (I didn’t even know Soupy Sales had a catchy tune called Your Brains Will Fall Out.) Note: though the music is great, the web site is pretty terrible.

We usually listen to music while we play, so the kid is already developing her own taste about what she likes. (note: the kid just dropped by again. I’m running late!) She’s even got to the point where she’s curious about making music. Jill and I will do our best to encourage this curiosity. Who knows, maybe she’ll turn out to be another Soupy Sales! Probably not.

Other examples of Lucy and music:

• Dancing (and Falling Down) to Green Day
• Just Making Noise

Oh well, I’m off to play blocks. Bye.

Lucy put on a cat show last night. She made a podium out of some boxes, and the three of us judged the cats. Since there was a tie, madame had the deciding vote on the winners.

Here is the winners circle…little grey checked kitten won first prize, followed by yellow kitten and Jiji. Notably absent was…

Here’s one located on an island, reached by a bridge. (Note the mice floating on cake islands.)

The other day we built a house for the mouse family which reminded me of the Guggenheim museum, hence the title of this post:

The mouse family inside their new house, they also got some furniture this build:

An overview shot, and a clue to how long it lasted: