It’s weird when universes collide.

As you all know by now, Rock Band came out recently. What followed shortly afterwards was a slew of grumpy neighbors and angry wives and girlfriends, tired of hearing the repetitive clack-clack-clack of the drums. I woke Diana up once, so I, like many other players, have been looking for a way to dampen the sound of the drums.

One of the more popular suggestions is using gum rubber, and cutting it into a circle and using glue or tape to stick it to your pad. Apparently this dampens the sound quite a bit, but also provides a good rebound effect (which apparently is important for good drummers… I’m not there yet). Demand for gum rubber is skyrocketing. Unfortunately, you can’t just go to the local supermarket and buy a sheet of gum rubber. It’s typically only sold at industrial rubber supply companies. So all of a sudden, you’ve got a glut of gamers all of a sudden talking about 40 durometer gum rubber and neoprene.

One enterprising rubber company in San Bernardino actually created a website purely as a result in the demand for gum rubber pads.

It cracks me up that quite suddenly, two completely disparate demographics (video game players and industrial rubber suppliers) are finding themselves in bed together. Who’d have ever guessed?

In more important news, life is going well. Allison is growing every day, and getting more and more control of her body. I’m pretty sure that her eyes are changing color. They’ve been a deep blue for the first months, but now are definitely changing to a steely sea blue/green. I think they’re going to turn green like her moms. I hope so. I’d much prefer that to my boring old brown. Her other big thing is standing up. She’ll tolerate lying on her back for a while if the mood strikes her. Tummy time is still going strong. Sitting (who doesn’t enjoy a good sit?) is apparently for suckers. Standing, though, is the coolest. She’ll arch her back and do whatever she can to get upright. It’s pretty funny. She’s just a little squirmy lump, but I absolutely adore her. She gives me a big smile when I come home from work, which is the best ever.

We went to the Wild Animal Park this Saturday, which was a nice morning out. Saturday night was “Rock Band and Ping Pong” night at Baditude’s, which was a ton of fun. I even managed to beat Little Buhr once at Ping Pong. I brought over my Rock Band drums and did some dueling drums, which was awesome. Sunday morning, I woke up with a migraine blind spot and Diana woke up with mastitis (funny how the word “tit” is in mastitis). Thank goodness for good medicine, though, as we’re both feeling a lot better. We headed over to Baditude’s for the first half the Super Bowl, and watched the send half at home. I don’t have any allegiance to the Giants, but I’m still sorely bitter over our loss to New England LAST year, so I was truly happy to see them lose. I was also happy for Mick, a lifelong Giants fan. Good times.

Today is Super Tuesday. I’m not very political, but I have found myself very moved every time I’ve heard Obama speak, so he’s won my vote. And I never get inspired by politicians. He actually won my vote at the 2004 DNC, before he even decided to run for President, and nothing I’ve seen has made me sway that opinion. I see him as young and fresh and able to unite the country. He may be inexperienced, but that’s not always a bad thing. And really, could he be any worse than our current situation?

I just had my annual review at work. Very vanilla, which is a good thing. I got high marks for working extended overtime these past weeks, and satisfactory on everything else. Then we talked about parenting for the rest of the time. Good times.