why, yes

At the pediatrician's office, one of the questions on the form asks if my child can shoot urine more than a foot in distance.

Yes.

not quite right

I don't remember when, but at some point I must have signed up to receive emails from Buy.com. The messages show up a couple times a week and are full of offers for all sorts of tech stuff -- hard drives, SD cards, wireless base stations, printers, and the like. But the message I got the other day is, well, a little odd. Here are the top offers:

• Sonic Impact HF1 High Fidelity Earphones
• Gateway M-6308 Notebook
• Kingston 2GB DataTraveler USB 2.0 Flash Drive
• Sonic Impact i-P23 Portable Speakers
• Logitech Cordless Desktop S510
• Trojan Elexa Ultra Sensitive Lubricated Latex Condoms - 24 Pack

first father's day

Yesterday was my first Father's Day, what with the little guy having been born about two weeks ago (and having kept us very, very busy for the past two weeks.)

His present to me: Falling asleep on my chest early in the morning and giving me and his mom an extra two hours of blissful sleep. Then, he was the perfect kid throughout the day: alert, cute as ever, calm on the changing table, hanging on between feedings, napping at the right times, letting others hold him, and generally not fussing.

And then, at midnight, the present expired -- and he succeeded in keeping us up all night. His parents are very, very tired today, but still very, very happy.

it's time

We are waiting for the hospital to call. So we can go in and induce labor and finally bring this kid out into the world. Except things are busy at the hospital. And so we are waiting for a phone call.

It's a bit like planning a great vacation, waiting nine months for it to start, and then finding out at the last minute that your flight has been delayed.

We are consoling ourselves with rootbeer floats. We're on vacation after all.

bottom of the to-do list

We continue to wait for the kid to arrive, which means we continue to prepare by crossing things off the to-do list. Item #439: Find some way to keep the trellis from falling over completely.

boring, but necessary

So there's no sign of the kid yet. In the meantime, we continue to prepare. And that means taking care of all the things you just don't want to have to be dealing with later when you're at the beck and call of a two-week-old child. But I'll tell ya, we're getting down to the bottom of the to-do list, the real dull stuff.

Take, for instance, task #436: Finally setting up a way to regularly back up the files on my laptop. Honestly, I've never gotten around to doing this until now, ever, on any computer -- despite recommending it to every unfortunate friend, relative, and client who has ever called me in panic with complaints of a crashed hard drive.

I get why they -- and I -- don't do what we all know we should: Backing up your hard drive is about as exciting as applying for life insurance. But since we crossed life insurance off the list last week.....

So to all my friends, relatives, and clients, here's the deal: I'm now backing up my computer with Carbonite. It's a subscription-based service that automatically and regularly copies your important files to a remote server (run by Carbonite.) If you accidentally delete a file, or your whole hard drive, you can get back the important stuff.

After you install the Carbonite utility, the software automatically does an initial backup of your My Documents folder. This part takes a few days, but it happens in the background while you're computer's on so you don't really notice. After that, the software only sends copies of new or changed files to the server. (You can set which files get backed up and how often.)

The only problem I had with Carbonite is that I noticed my hard drive seemed to be running all the time, even after the initial backup was done. I think that's because Carbonite was fighting to back up my email files every time I got a new message. My email is already backed up elsewhere, so I ended up removing the "AppData" folder from my backup schedule and that seems to have fixed things.

The whole thing costs $49.95 per year. But here's a secret: Search for "Carbonite coupon" and you'll likely find a $10 discount floating around out there.

So there you go -- no more reason to panic and call me when you lose all those MP3s you ripped from the CDs you "borrowed" from me. And speaking of ripping MP3s, if the kid doesn't show up within a few more days, I'll tell you about boring task #437.

improbable game sequels

Monopoly: Stagflation Edition

Chutes & Ladders & Glass Ceilings

Risk: Actuaries & Underwriters

Taser Tag

Grand Theft Auto: First Night in San Quentin

the genius of bureaucracy

Happy Tax Day, U.S. readers. Today's utterly-dumb-Web-site anecdote is brought to you by none other than the U.S. Treasury.

If, like many business owners, you have to make quarterly tax payments, you might at some point decide that filling out paper vouchers and mailing them in along with your checks might not be all that convenient. And so you might go looking for a Web site where maybe you can just make your payments online. If so, you would likely find the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System.

Sounds handy, right? Wait 'til you try to set up an account. Here are the steps:

1. Register online for your account.
2. Wait roughly two weeks for a letter via the postal service, supposedly containing further instructions and a PIN number for setting up your account.
3. Receive the letter containing said PIN and attempt to use it to log on to the Web site -- and then realize that, in addition to the PIN, you need an "Internet password".
4. Re-read the letter and realize that you must call a customer service center to receive your Internet password.
5. Call the center and provide the PIN... and a separate 16-digit "enrollment trace number" noted on the PIN letter.
6. Return to the Web site yet again and provide your PIN, and Internet password... and Social Security Number.
7. Make yourself a stiff drink.

It takes fewer steps to launch Russian warheads. Banks, online brokerages, credit card services, and pretty much all other types of financial institution long ago figured out a security model that takes less than 5 minutes to complete -- and doesn't require the triangulation of your Internet, postal, and telephony services. Why can't the IRS follow suit?

Oh, and keep in mind that if you wait until April 14 before logging on and trying to schedule a payment for the next business day, you'll get a peculiar error telling you that you have entered an invalid date. That's right, April 15 -- Tax Day -- is an invalid date, according to the EFTPS. Why? This "24 hours a day" service doesn't accept payments after 8PM Eastern on the day before taxes are due. Silly you.

The best part? For sure, it's the first line of the EFTPS enrollment letter, which states: We have received your enrollment information for EFTPS, the easiest way to pay your federal taxes.

maybe they think you won't notice

Brita, the Clorox Company's line of water filtering products, has teamed up with Nalgene to help America reduce its plastic waste. The FilterForGood campaign encourages consumers to "take the pledge" to stop using bottled water and offers discounts on a Brita water filter and reusable Nalgene water bottle.

But if you've ever used a Brita water filter, you know that they rely on expensive, disposable plastic filter cartridges. And Brita doesn't offer a North American recycling program for these cartridges. (Sounds a bit like selling energy-efficient light bulbs but wrapping them in a giant plastic package....)

Granted, you only replace Brita cartridges ever couple months or so, which is a lot less plastic in the dump or recycling bin than a daily stream of water bottles. But let's be real: The U.S. has some of the best, safest water in the world -- and it comes straight out of the tap. Stick your Nalgene under that and cut out the middle man.

already? really?

For those of us here in the U.S., Daylight Savings Time begins next week. Did not see that one coming.