Bill Cosby has shown conclusively that kids say funny things.  But if you’re not convinced, here is further proof...  A few months ago we had some friends over, and they had their kids with them: Julia, going on 3 at the time, and Ethan, about 5 and a half years old.  When the kids got bored (very shortly after they arrived), they began looking for things to do.  Ethan very quickly found our DVD/video game rack.  He started looking through our games, with no regards to alphabetical order.  I suppose the fact that he can barely read at this point makes alphabetizing difficult, and it also makes identifying the game from the binder side nearly impossible.  He was drawn to the robot/cyborg looking character on the cover of the Metroid Prime 2 box, and asked to play that.  I thought the controls for a console first-person-shooter would be a little complicated for a five year old, but we let him try any way (sorry ESRB, I know you rated the game “T for Teen”).  I was surprised when he managed to pull off a screw attack, one of the harder things to do in that game.  He could have just gotten lucky with the timing while mashing the B button repeatedly, but I saw him do it more than once.

He ran around for a while, shooting stuff and turning into the morph ball and back, but he didn’t really know what he was supposed to be doing so he got tired of the game and went back to the rack.  Then I heard him say “Mario Paint Cleaner!”  By which he meant, of course, Super Mario Sunshine, which involves cleaning graffiti off of walls.  This was a game he had played before, but I was nonetheless impressed by this five-year-old’s skillz.  I saw him jump on a tight-rope, then jump off of it and use the hover nozzle in mid-air in order to reach another rope.  Not too shabby for a five-year-old.

Of course, I refuse to play him in Smash Brothers.  I don’t need to risk being humiliated by someone who was still in diapers when I started playing the game.

I started a list last week of completely random facts that I have learned in the last few months, for the express purpose of sharing them with you, my faithful blog readers.  Without further ado...

When a pilot lands a jet on an aircraft carrier, he does not put on the brakes.  In fact, he throttles his engines to full power.  The is because he might not catch one of the four wires which stop the jet, in which case he must be going fast enough to immediately take off again (otherwise he’d roll off the deck into the ocean).  When such an emergency take-off is required, the pilots call it “bolting.”  In the briefing room, the last pilot who bolted has a mark of shame on his seat (I believe this was a red towel or red jacket or something like that).  I saw this on some Discovery Channel program; I think it was an episode of “Really Big Things” about the USS George H. W. Bush.

When a woman goes to a doctor, no matter what the reason, they ask when her last period was.  I learned this when I went with Stephanie to the emergency room after she fell down the stairs and nearly broke her foot.  I believe she was asked the question at three different times (at check in, by a nurse, and by a doctor).  I failed to see what that had to do with her foot.  It was later explained that they need to know if there is any possibility that you are pregnant before they administer any drugs or take an X-ray or basically do anything.

Squirrels make noise.  That’s something I found out after Punky nearly caught one.  She chased it up a tree, where it turned around about ten feet from the ground and started making a noise that’s kind of hard to explain, somewhere between a high-pitched grunt and a low-pitched chirp.  I’m not sure what natural predator of the squirrel might be deterred by this noise.  Maybe some kind of bird?  Or bats maybe?

When a flag is raised to half-mast, according to US Flag Code, it should be raised all the way to the top, and then lowered to half mast.  When it is taken down, it should be raised to the top before lowering it again.  I had always assumed you just raised it halfway and stopped.  Also, probably the least-observed article in the flag code: “The flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.”

Now you can all feel more knowledgeable.

I noticed something interesting on Google Maps today.  I had followed a link giving driving directions between Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil.  I changed the “from” address to Charlotte, NC.  I was expecting either a “no routes found” message or a path taking me along the Pan-American Highway (although that is apparently not complete).  Instead what I got was a joke from the Google Maps developers:

Very clever, guys. :)

Interestingly, I couldn’t reproduce this behavior with any other destinations.  I tried London, Paris, Honolulu, Tokyo, Sydney, Havana, and San Juan.  All said they could not calculate driving directions.  Must be the work of a Brazilian programmer.

Well, a week ago today Stephanie and I closed on a house, which officially makes us homeowners.  I advise anyone reading this to not listen to anyone who tells you that it takes 30-45 minutes to close on a house:  counting driving time to the attorney’s office (on the opposite side of downtown Charlotte), I was gone for nearly three hours.  But anyway, we aren’t fully moved in yet; all the big stuff is going to be moved this Saturday.  The new home is in Concord, but still pretty close to where I work.  We’re also really close to the speedway, which means I’ll have to take a different route home from work during the two race weeks, but I already had to plan my life around avoiding races in my apartment as well so that’s nothing new.

We don’t have many pictures, and if we did they would be of sterile white rooms with no furniture.  Maybe after we’ve done some painting and decorating I’ll put some pictures up for you guys to browse, but for now I’ll put up one that the home inspector took: