So the most important story I have?  BRIANNA IS GRADUATING TO SOLID FOODS!!!  YAY HER!!!

Yessireebob … the Doc has cleared the munchkin to start trying solids … AND … we’ve also got the green light to try and let her sleep until she wakes INSTEAD of waking her every three hours.  It’s gonna be a little rough having all of us adjust to all these changes … but in the long run this is fantastic!  Just one more sign of how well our little squirt is progressing!

There’s some fresh photos up in the gallery of the munchkin at her cutest …

Next story?  My 35th birthday …

My wonderful wife arranged a surprise party for me last weekend to celebrate my 35th … although she would tell you that I ruined the surprise by constantly trying to guess what she was up to.  Apparently I’m never going to have another surpise party … ever …

So … the party itself … Shari managed to arrange for the gang to get together at Playdium out in Mississauga for some electronic fun.  She even managed to convince Sean and Tina Hart to some in from Windsor!  Which they passed off as being in town for something else and spent the previous night at our place.  With me being none the wiser!  You can click on the pic above for some of the shots or click on this link …

So to my wonderful wife and fantastic friends, I say thank you for coming out and having some fun with yours truly!  I had a great time!

(Except of course I’m soooo old now that I felt Playdium was too damned loud.  I blamed the damned kids of course.  Shook my cane at them and everything …)

Alright … so clearly some things have been happening and I just haven’t been talking about them … so I’ll tackle these in order of importance … least important to most … first up?  My brand new Wii …

So there was a charity event at work, raising money for the United Way.  Someone came up with the brilliant idea of having a three pronged Wii competition.  Three games, three winners.  The games were selected as Wii Golf, The Price is Right … and Guitar Hero.  Well the volunteer committee went out looking for helpers to run this thing … and someone told them I liked games … imagine that!

So I helped out with the running of the events … but I also got to keep an eye on people trying to win the Guitar Hero comp.  What ended up happening was a big ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ kind of attitude where several of us kept one upping one another.  We were playing the same song at the same diffculty so there was some measure of control.  I ended up pulling off a 100% just to put a punctuation on the contest.  Epic win … Me …

On a slightly related note Microsoft released their new XBox experience for the 360 … part of which includes a new avatar system.  Which is what you’re seeing smiling down upon my site in the title bar.  That’s dynamic so as I change outfits that avatar will change as well.  Have I mentioned lately that I’m really enjoying PHP?

It’s not like I’ve been busy or anything!  No … I live an incredibly BORING life … I mean, it’s not like a won a Wii in a charity Guitar Hero contest … or celebrated my 35th birthday … or found out that Brianna is now ready to make the switch to solid foods and doesn’t need to be woken up to feed anymore …

Clearly if ANY of those things had happened I would have written something very witty and insightful in this very space …

Clearly …

Alright … those of you who know me are aware that I don’t really like to talk politics … I don’t care for it … I’m disheartened by a system where we are told that we have the power and yet it seems to get all muddled up in bureaucracy … suppresed by old men with skewed agendas … this may sound cynical but it’s how I feel …

So if I’m going to talk about politics you know that it must mean that something has truly moved me …

Barack Obama winning the presidential election is truly a historical landmark.  Not because of his race.  Rather because he truly does symbolize the hope for our neighbours to the south … He represents a radical departure from the circus sideshow which has been the Bush administration.  I for one hope he succeeds in turning around the fortunes of his country, because as much as some are loathe to admit it the fate of the US does affect us all.  Especially their closest neighbours.

However he does have a huge task in front of him.  He’s kind of like the poor homeowner who comes home to discover their teenager has thrown a wild party.  You have to clean up because it’s the only option you have.  It’s just not going to be a very entertaining job.  There’s a good chance that he will ‘fail’ on a number of initiatives.  That’s inevitable given the current hole that the US is in.  I for one still hope to see him succeed … if only a few small victories …

I have this hope because of Brianna.  I want her to grow up and to see a wonderful world reveal itself to her.  Not one driven by hate or fear-mongering.  I want her to be able to throw open her arms and eyes and welcome in the beauty of this gorgeous little rock we call Earth.  That didn’t seem possible as long as chumps like Bush were in charge.

I’m still a cynical SOB when it comes to politics.  I have a hard time believing most politicians and as such tend to not throw my support behind them.  I want Obama to change my mind.

Caught my first bit of PRIMETIME programming in HD last night … Heroes wasn’t on because of pre-election coverage … so instead our first show was CSI: Miami …

Looked beautiful … didn’t help the acting much thou …

Why was it big you may ask?  Well first and foremost … Baby B managed to roll herself onto her belly not once, not twice but THREE TIMES!!!  Which is a really big step for her, because in theory the next step is starting to crawl … which means we’re going to have to start looking at baby level for possible dangers …

She also had a great weekend where she seemed to forget that she’s been suffering from stranger anxiety as of late … Shari was running a stamping class, and Brie didn’t seem to mind all the people … she even let a number of those people hold her!

Did she dress up for Halloween?  Yes.  She was a Pea in a Pod … for about all of five minutes before she decided that she did NOT like that costume.

And in other big news … and I mean BIG … was Daddy picked the family up a new TV … wow, let me tell you … living at 1080p is going to be a beautiful thing … I think the best thing I saw on that TV was when I loaded up all the photos of B … and they came up in glorious colour and just HUGE … it was great!

Plus the 360 looks fantastic too …

Just posted a bunch of new pictures into the gallery of the Baby B … most of them are from our first family trip out apple picking … you can send me a message letting me know just how cute my baby is BTW …

So I’m sorry I haven’t written … I guess I’ll have to make up for that with a couple of really quick hits here …

Last weekend I went out to Ohio for the Semi-Annual Cedar Point-athon … attendance wasn’t quite what I was hoping for from our crew … although those of us who DID go ended up having a spectacular time!  Even if one of us was being a big fraidy cat and wouldn’t sit on the front of the Raptor and ended up snoring throughout the night in the motel room …

Last night was the season premiere of CSI … where they had to tie up the situation involving Warrick being gunned down … although the crime fighting aspects of the show weren’t the best I’ve seen, they did handle the other aspects, namely losing Warrick, EXTERMELY well … Shari made a comment saying that usually they don’t do funerals very well on TV … well last night’s was pretty damned good …

Brianna is still being a handful … she’s going to celebrate Turkey Day this weekend … maybe some of that triptophyn (?) will work it’s way through mommy and into her little mouth … so she can nap out and catch up on all the sleep she seems to be missing …

Uhhhh … Dolphins won this weekend … Leafs won last night in Detroit … sooooo … I think everything in the world is right!  Except of course for the financials markets … but hey, I’ve got at least a little bit to go before that hits me, Joe Consumer, right?  Right? … sigh …

OK … so I didn’t quite manage to watch the WHOLE episode of the Heroes Premiere last night … MAYBE my brother in law let me know he had tickets … to a Leafs game … and MAYBE I had to go and wtch some hockey and drink some beer with him … and MAYBE his wife got selected to go out onto the ice and shoot from end to end for the chance to win season’s tickets … and MAYBE Wendell Clark was handing out prizes in my section and I got to shake his hand …

Maybe … juuuuuust maybe …

I shook Wendell Clark’s hand … heh heh … awesome …