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Today is the Color Princess' 5th birthday.  I can't believe she's 5 years old already! (Of course, from her demeanor, you'd sometimes think she was 11 or 12, but that's the subject for a whole different post.)

For her birthday today, CP gets an afternoon of Mom and Dad all to herself – Dee's sister is coming to babysit the Tenacious Bean so we can take CP to her first movie-theater movie (How to Train Your Dragon), followed by a trip to Chick-Fil-A for a special treat of chicken nuggets, waffle-fries, and a milkshake.  She's going to be so excited!

This wasn't all of the birthday celebration the CP got this year, though.  We had a surprise party for her earlier this week when all the family could get together – it was an absolute blast:

When the Color Princess walked in the door, she was blown away by the streamers and decorations my wife had put up while she was over at her cousin's house.  Here's the CP and her cousin posing in front of the fireplace decorations:

Posing in front of the decorations

She loved her birthday cards (this one lit up when you pushed a button) and her summer-themed presents (two swimsuits, a play sprinkler, and a giant wading-pool).

Showing off her sparkly, light-up card

Showing off her presents

She adored her cake (princess-themed, of course), and even her sister got into the festivities a bit.  Everyone had a great time, and the CP can't stop talking about how much she loved her birthday.  I think it was a hit, don't you?

The cake (princess-themed, of course)

The Bean gets into the decorations

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Not only are the spammers coming after you in blog comments as well as through your email, but now they're telling jokes!

I was cleaning out the spam comments on my blog when I came across one that I actually enjoyed – unlike the linkfarm/gobbledygook/viagra ads of most blog comment spam, this one contained a joke that was not half bad:

Moishe had been single for a long time. One day, he excitedly tells his mother that he’s fallen in love at last and he is going to get married. She is obviously overjoyed.

Moishe then tells his mother, “Just for fun, Mum, I’m going to bring over 3 women and you try and guess which one I’m going to marry.”

His mother agrees.

The next day, Moishe brings 3 beautiful women into the house and sits them down on the couch and they all chat for a while. Then Moishe turns to his mother and says, “Okay, Mum. Guess which one I’m going to marry?”

She immediately replies, “The redhead in the middle.”

“That’s amazing, Mum. You’re right. How did you know?”

“I don’t like her.”

Obviously these kind of comments still aren't going to make it onto my blog, but if the spammers can keep me laughing while I delete their comments, so much the better!

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Plethora of Netflix

This past Sunday, I bit the bullet and joined Netflix.  I'd been considering it for a while now, but between Mariser's recent post about Netflix coming to the Nintendo Wii and my own restlessness about being laid up on the couch with nothing but crappy movies available on the television, I decided now was the time to join up.  So I subscribed, set up an initial queue of about 50 movies I've been looking forward to seeing, and got There Will Be Blood in the mail on Tuesday.  Dee and I finished it last night and I packaged it up and mailed it back today.  Can't wait for the next movie to wing its way into my DVD player!

There Will Be a Damned Good Film

However, the part that really sold me on Netflix (over Redbox, which works out to just about the same price with no subscription commitment) is the Instant Viewing capability.  Any computer with a broadband connection can be set up to stream a subset of the Netflix movies for viewing with absolutely no wait.  This is where the service really shines – there are more than enough movies, miniseries, and television shows available for instant viewing that I've always wanted to see but never got around to watching when they came out.  Currently, I'm watching a half-hour episode of the British miniseries of Gaiman's Neverwhere at lunch every day.

Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere

My wife isn't quite as excited about the service as I am, but I think once I have the capability to play Netflix movies from a Wii across to our TV, she'll become a convert – if for no other reason than it'll allow her to find novel new shows/movies for the kids to watch when she needs a break, and she won't be subjected to the same episode of Imagination Movers or Phineas and Ferb that's she's already seen about a billion-and-two times before.

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