She’s a little shy on camera, but here are a few of Evie’s latest animal sounds, names and other words.

I almost had to bleep her attempt at “GrandDad”.

Non-accidental words to date: Mama, Dada, Lenny (her stuffed cat), up, down, ball, bubble, pop, cup, hi, bye-bye, night-night, boo!

Possibly accidental words (or words said in context only once, never again to be repeated): Book, powder, light, and high-five (”hine dive”).

Okay, more stuff to come soon—I swear—but in the meantime, here’s what I’ve been up to. (Well, not this week, since Emma and Evie are out of town, but in general.) Evie’s nana—here for a quick visit—can be heard laughing in the background.

There was a not-so-little bat surveying our renovation project tonight. The electrician and I had to duck a few times as he circled past our heads.

I can’t believe our little Evie’s a year old. It just doesn’t seem possible that this day was a year ago.

Plenty’s changed since then.

I made a quick little video of Evie going about her daily routine. I’m still trying to get it to embed in this site, but in the meantime, you can check it out by clicking the image below.

Needless to say, we’re more smitten with Evie each day. I hear that children go crazy for a spell around the two year mark. Maybe next year’s video will end in a cracked video camera lens and lots of tears (from me, that is), but at the moment it’s all pretty smooth sailing.

Happy Birthday, little love.

I’m back from an absurdly long hiatus, though with the potential excuses of a broken laptop, a misplaced camera, and lots of traveling and visitors before, during and after the holidays. Anyway, to get rolling again and to kick off 2009, I thought I’d start with one of my all-time favorite things in life: videos of martial arts jackasses. Here’s my Top 5 list:

5. Karate Master vs. Wok Full of Burning Embers

4. Karate Guy vs. Coconuts & Metal Railing

3. Delusional Air-Punching Master vs. Actual Kickboxer

2. Jersey Guy vs. Wood Boards, a.k.a. “Ya Gotta Hold It”

1. Afro Ninja

Of course, all of these videos owe a massive debt to the platonic ideal of the martial arts fail video, “Afro Ninja.” Nothing else will ever come close. Without Afro Ninja, the Internet itself would be at least 50% less hilarious.

With over 80 million views worldwide (at least 1,000 of them by me), Afro Ninja has now come forward to talk about his experiences and is hoping to turn his embarrassing video fame into a feature film. I wish him luck!

No, it’s not another election post. It’s just a baby panda sneezing. And it’s well worth your 16 seconds.

When I first heard the term, I thought it was “tripping the colors.” It all sounded very hippie to me, very un-royal. In fact, it’s trooping, and whatever you call it, it’s about the least hippie, most royal thing I could possibly imagine.

So here’s the deal: Centuries ago, when many of the troops were illiterate and needed to know what their regiment’s flag looked like so they’d be able to rally to it on the battlefield, soldiers would line up to have their “colours” paraded before them.

These days the colors are trooped to celebrate the Queen’s birthday (which is actually on April 21st, though due to crappy English April weather, the official celebration of her birthday is the 3rd Sunday in June). It’s an incredible display of the Queen’s Guard marching in huge formations in their red coats and massive bearskin hats, royals rolling by in Victorian era open-top horse-drawn carriages, and tight, diamond formations of fighter jets flying low overhead.

All of this runs the half-mile or so from Buckingham Palace to the Horse Guard’s Parade, where King Henry VIII jousted in his younger, leaner days. Anyway, below is a quick video I shot of the proceedings. Watch for the guards’ feet. They’re put into position by the regiment leader, who you’ll see measuring out precise distances with his walking compass. The guards then do hilarious James Brown-like shuffles and sidesteps to get into place.

So here she is, the Queen, who passed not thirty feet before us. I didn’t think I’d be that impressed, but the pageantry of the thing was overwhelming. As my friend Michael said, “No country in the world does this sort of thing as well as England does.”



Amazingly, up until the 80’s, the Queen would ride down the Mall on a horse. Sidesaddle. I sure wish I’d seen that.