THE SIMPSONS NEWS

No word on when the show will start up yet. I heard the ride was still being worked on by Friday. I also heard that thirty people in the studio called in sick. I got out just in time before the bug that was going around got me.

FAMILY

I am the proud father of a bouncing baby boy. He was born Jan. 31st 2008 at 7:07 pm and he was 6 pounds,12.3 ounces.

My wife had a c-section because he was in breach position and we had scheduled it for 6:00 pm. Strange thing was that as soon as my wife got in the car to go to the hospital, she started going into labor. Very odd. She was in labor that entire time at the hospital and it wasn’t good news when we were told that an emergency had come up and she was going to be bumped to a later hour. By the time it was her turn for the C-section, her water had broken. The nurses had never seen anything like it. Alesha and I had felt a little odd about having picked the day our son would be born instead of leaving it up to the baby to decide when he wanted to be born. Guess he liked that day also. He was going to be born that day whether we liked it or not.

The operation was quick and went as good as it could be expected. My son was pretty calm about the whole thing. He didn’t really cry that much. Very much like his sister only she didn’t cry at all. One of the first things that my son did when he came into this world was pee on the nurse. I would love to say that my first thought when I saw Dante where more pure and joyous. Something like, “He’s beautiful!” or “Oh wow, that’s my son!” but no. My first thought when I saw my son was, “Holy cow, how come his testicles are so big!? Last time I saw testicles that big compared to the body was on a boy hamster!” (sigh) a Saint, I ain’t.

I had eaten dinner with my parents in the hospital cafeteria, a few minutes before. Alesha had told me that, since I was hungry, I should go eat because she needed me to have enough energy to deal with anything that might come up. So I went to eat and stopped by the waiting room to see if my parents where there. They were. I had pizza. It was terrible. Worst pizza ever. I was gone for about thirty minutes or so. On my way back I went to check the waiting room to see if my in-laws had made it. They had. I let them know about the situation and the delay and then went back to see Alesha. When the baby was born, one of the first things I did was take a picture of Dante with my camera phone and send it to my parents. Turns out, they hadn’t been expecting him to be born so soon and freaked out.

I followed the baby to the nursery and then let my parents in to the nursery area so they could see their new grandson. Everyone was very excited. I would have been even more excited myself if I hadn’t been worrying so much about my wife. I didn’t know how she was doing. We watched as the nurse poked and flipped and flopped Dante like a hamburger patty ready to be cooked. He took it pretty well considering. Then he was left there under a heat lamp buck naked in front of the nursery window for all to see. It was as if he was left to wait until a drive through customer came by and ordered a McDante sandwich. My wife has often told me since, that Dante smells like a sausage. While laying there, I guess he thought he should put on a show for the on lookers because when there was no nurse around he shot up a small fountain of pee.

I left my parents at the nursery window and went to see my wife in the recovery room about twenty minutes after the baby was born. She was doing well but she was really doped up and groggy (at one point during the first night, as she was falling asleep, she told me that next time she wanted, “less noisy medicine”. Must have been the morphine talking). A few minutes later they wheeled her to her room. From this point on it became a waiting game to see what would happen and when we could go home. Once in the room, life got really slow and mellow. Alesha got to see, hold and feed Dante there for the first time. The first night there, I slept at the hospital in a cot by my wife. Munchkin was with my brother and his wife. Next morning she would get dropped off at my parent’s house. I took care of my wife as best as I could although the next night I drove home and brought Munchkin home with me. I did the same the third night but by the fourth I slept at the hospital with my wife again because she really needed me to be there. Munchkin slept at my parent’s house that night. The next morning, Alesha, Dante, the Munchkin and I went home together.

The Munchkin didn’t take her introduction to her little brother very well. On the second day, my parents came to visit brought her along. She got to find out where mommy and daddy had been. When she saw Dante, she was freaked out by him. He must look like one of her dolls to her but the fact that he moves around like a person freaked her out. She didn’t cry or anything but she got nervous and strangely hyper. As if, if she played and did thing loud and crazy enough, she could drive the strange things she was feeling out of her system. When it was time to leave and she realized that I was going to stay a little longer she started crying. My parents say she sat in her car seat unusually quite, holding her teddy bear, looking blankly into space all the way home.

The nurses were very nice. Especially the first four nurses that took care of Alesha the first two days and nights. There was one nurse though, that was really annoying. It was this Asian lady that would come into the room like a tornado and spoke so loud you’d think she was yelling. She was always in a rush and it always seemed as if she was only there to look in on Alesha real quick on her way to see a more “important” patient. “HEY! YOU OKAY?! YOU WANT DOPE?! I GIVE YOU DOPE! ANY PAIN?! NO?! GOOD! I GO NOW! I COME YELL AT YOU LATER!” Every time she’d leave and I’d managed to scrape myself off the ceiling, I’d find that my ears where bleeding. Very annoying.

I spent most of my time at the hospital reading or playing a game on my Gameboy DS. I would get up and help Alesha whenever she needed me and then I would go back to reading or playing. I was really enjoying myself. It’s my idea a great day when I could do that. Superbowl Sunday, I spent reading The Flash comic books and my Warhammer 4oK novel. I forgot about the Superbowl. I’m not an American Football fan though, so I didn’t mind that much. Heard it was a good game though. I went to Church at 5:00 pm that day and was wondering why there were so few people there. Didn’t find out until the next day.

Well, now we are home. Munchkin is getting used to the idea of having a moving doll around the house. She actually gave him a kiss on the head one time. Although she has started getting unusually disobedient lately and I don’t know if it’s because of the baby or because she’s getting to the “terrible twos” stage in her life. Alesha, is doped up all the time and it’s all she could do to breastfeed the Dante between her naps. Meanwhile, Dante is perhaps the easiest baby in the world to take care of. All he does is eat, sleep, and poo. The only time he’s awake is when he’s eating. The rest of the time he’s asleep. Meanwhile, I’m doing every chore around the house that a human being can do. I’m finding it very difficult to write on my blog or even draw. I’m more busy now than I was at work, or at least it feels like it. At work, I at least had a designated lunch break. The other thing I do is sit around and worry about money. I thought we’d be doing better but I haven’t gotten my unemployment checks yet and nor my wife’s maternity leave checks. Thing is, the way things are right now at home, I can’t get another job right now. I have to take care of everyone.

ANSWERING COMMENTS

Holy cow! I got a lot of comments this week. Lets begin.

Bill Ho wrote:

Holy crap, congratulations, Luis! A son and a daughter! Dante Gabriel…very cool that you named your boy after the 19th century poet/illustrator/painter. I’ve heard that people grow into their names, so it looks like Dante will aim high in life and restart the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the 21st century.

Thanks Bill. The idea for the name Dante came from my wife who is a bit obsessed with Dante Alighieri and she’s been insisting that if we had a boy we had to name him Dante for years now. The middle name Gabriel was after the Archangel Gabriel who appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her she would bare Jesus. We needed to give Dante a Patron Saint as we did with Elizabeth. So far my son and daughter have “Marian” names. Turns out that Dante Gabriel Rossetti is another famous poet/painter, so it seems like Dante is named after two famous poets.

Chris wrote:

Hey Luis!

I’m a long time SQPN listener. And on a completely unrelated note, my wife is the designer of Qwirkle. Well, they were unrelated until I found Qwirkle on your blog! Glad you like it and thanks for the mention!

Chris

PS – Qwirkle retails for $24.95 so I don’t know what is up with that high Amazon price. The publisher sells it directly: www.qwirkle.com

Hi Chris,

So awesome when a designer, or in this case, game designer’s husband gets leaves a comment. I love it. Small world that you listen to SQPN. Get a hold of Greg and Jennifer Willits at the Rosary Army. They’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble lately and I think Qwirkle might be right up there alley since they share a few common mechanics.

Here’s what Board Game Geek has to say about the game:

From the back of the box:

While Qwirkle is as simple as matching colors and shapes, it is a game that also requires tactical maneuvers and well-planned strategy. The game consists of 108 wooden blocks with six different shapes in six colors. Using the blocks, players attempt to score the most points by building lines that share a common attribute – either color or shape. Qwirkle is a quick game to learn, but you’ll soon discover that you’ll need to think strategically in order to score the most points.

Ages 6 and up.

2007 Mensa Select
2007 Parents’ Choice Gold Award
2007 Major Fun Award
2008 Games Magazine Best Family Game Runner-Up

 

You’re right, the game is waaaaay overpriced on Amazon.com. Thing is, it’s not being sold by Amazon.com but it’s being sold by a “New and Used” seller through Amazon.com. They’re to blame. Maybe if you guys somehow have Amazon.com officially sell the game, they will sell it for the right price.

Carmella writes:

I read your blog in a regular manner and just love it
hope there will be more postings from you, keep on going
greetz, carmella

Thank you for the comment Carmella. I’m gonna try to “keep on going”. It’s getting tricky now that I’m at home. I’m gonna have to come up with a schedule that will allow me to draw and write on the blog during the week. Not only that but I don’t have a working scanner at the moment so either I draw directly on the computer with my Wacom tablet (which is what I did with week’s drawing, which came out so-so) or I draw it on paper and go to my parents house to scan it. It’s a pain.

I went to your site. I recommend you down load WordPress and upload it to your server like I did. Trust me, it’s not cheating. Your knowledge of html will come in reeeaaaal handy. I learned a bit of it myself before I put my blog up and it helps a lot. Meanwhile WordPress itself simplifies a lot of unnecessary work for you. Best of luck.

RANDOM THING

And the winner of The Oh God, how could you let something like this happen?! Quick, someone find me a gun so I could shoot myself in the face and end my misery! award goes to this video:

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