Belated Hannah update: 18 months

I've been meaning to write this entry for months now. I was going to give physical stats and such, but I don't have them. In the interest of getting this out, she's still 5% in height and head circumference and still below the chart on weight. However, she's on a steady curve and finally hit 20 pounds so we could turn her seat forward! Oh, and she has 12 teeth: eight incisors (four top & four on bottom) and four molars (at the four corners, after a gap next to each end of the incisors where her canines will grow).

I'm teaching her to turn out the lights around the house, as I obviously went wrong somewhere with my sons. They couldn't turn a light out as they leave a room to save their life. Typically the first thing I do when I get home from work is go around and turn out the lights in the back, because everyone's in the living room or kitchen. Naturally, I have to hold her up so she can reach the switches, but maybe she'll keep it up on her own once she's tall enough. She's got enough fine motor skill to do it, but sometimes gets confused as to which way the switch should go to turn the light off or on.

Developmentally, the doctor said she should speak 7-27 words, if I recall correctly what my wife recalls the doctor saying correctly. That's the main thing I want to document now: her vocabulary. Unfortunately, that's rather hard as it has rapidly increased since she turned 18 months, so there may be words I've left out. Note that she's not speaking these absolutely clearly, but her family can understand them when she says them. And she there may be a few that she used in the past that she's not using as often now.

Andrew

Apparently her favorite brother, because she's refusing to say "Walter", even these months since she hit 18. We wonder if she's doing it on purpose to taunt him.

baby

One of her earliest words. It applies to just about anything people shaped. She first started using it for baby dolls at the store, but she's since used it for action figures and young kids bigger than her.

ball

bubble

For her, this actually means apple.

bye-bye

Daddy

dog

This means almost any animal with four legs. (In the months since, she can disinguish between dog and kitty.)

duck

Mainly for rubber ducks, but sometimes real ones too.

ear

eye

juice

Any drink to her is juice.

Mama

meemees

Means she wants to nurse.

no

You might notice that "yes" isn't on the list. At 18 months, as best I remember, she wasn't yet saying "yeah" or "yes", just "no", which made it hard to ask her a simple question.

shoes

This was possibly her first word; it was certainly one of the earliest. The girl loves her shoes (and sometimes other people's).

thank you

tissue

This is sometimes hard to distinguish from "juice", just from the sound. Luckily, she has other ways of letting us know what she wants.

toes

uh-oh

Used most often when she or someone else drops something.

Wow, a genuine 2600 game thirft store find

I was let off work a little early on Friday because of the holiday weekend. I thought I'd hit the comic book shop before going home as Fantastic Four #589 was out and it might have more Dire Wraiths in it. (I ultimately discovered it doesn't, but Rom is mentioned by a letter writer in the letter column.) To avoid an intersection that gets nasty at rush hour, I decided to take the old way to the store. Unfortunately, I was having a senior moment and started to take the way to a store that's been out of business for years now.

After getting back on track, I realized I was passing a thrift store I'd seen a few times, but hadn't yet stopped at, so I did. I'd been in the store maybe a minute when I spotted a Master Merlin. I'd never actually held one of these sequels to the classic Parker Brothers electronic game, so I quickly grabbed it. When I finally got the battery compartment open, it looked okay. Some minor battery acid on one contact, but nothing that looked like it would prevent it from working. Worth a $2 gamble, I thought. I also found a Michael Bolton CD with several of his hits on it. He probably hit his peak back when I was in college and my iPod is currently Bolton-less, so this is a great buy at $1.

I finally stumbled upon a box of 2600 games. And VIC-20 games? Huh. Anyway, looking through them, I see one title that I don't think I have. Unfortunately, my PDA with my lists of games owned died a while back, so I'm shopping blind. After being quoted a $3.50 price with only $5 on me (cash only store) and $3 already committed, I decide to take the gamble that it won't go anywhere before tomorrow after I check to see if I have it.

I get home. The Master Merlin works fine, I'm happy to report. And it turns out I indeed do not have Solar Storm by Imagic in my 2600 collection. Let the worry begin that it'll disappear before I can return.

Finally, late Saturday afternoon I get back to the store. The box is still there, but someone's moved some of the games around. Looking, looking, whew, it's still here. When I get to the register, it's only $2.50 plus tax. Either I heard him wrong yesterday or their prices are inconsistent. Finally tested it late Saturday night, just before posting this, and it works just fine.

I honestly cannot remember the last time I found an Atari 2600 game I didn't have at a thrift store. Yes, I found one at a video game store last year, but that's not quite the same. Most of my finds of games I didn't already have of late have been Intellivision games, which is not my primary system of interest. The 2600 is. I'll be savoring this for a few days.

Postscript: My timing couldn't have been better, apparently. On Monday, this thrift store posted an ad to Craigslist specifically mentioning "Atari Video Game systems" [sic]. So if this thrift store wasn't on my competition's radar before, it is now.

1995 classic video games quartet

I've just added four back-dated blog posts about classic video games from 1995.

• 28 Feb 1995: Joypads found in Australia!
• 28 Feb 1995: Interesting find in Oz
• 4 Mar 1995: This week's finds
• 5 Nov 1995: Good find spoiled by being PAL

Comments for the individual posts are disabled, but you can talk about them here if you want.

1-1/4 years down, 3 years to go on Rom trademark

Despite Hasbro's Rom trademark applications having seemingly been banished to bureaucratic limbo, there has actually been a small bit of news to report since the last update.

First, Hasbo did not respond within their deadline regarding their four "Rom the Spaceknight" filings, so the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has officially marked them as dead. Second, two of the "Rom" applications are still on hold, as reported last time.

Finally, the "Rom" applications, one for paper and office goods and the other for just about every game and toy you can think of, were published in the USPTO's Official Gazette on October 20, 2009 and no parties responded within the five-week deadline to object. If you'd like a personal copy of this four-pound, seven-ounce tome, the U.S. Government Printing Office will be happy to sell you one . . . for just $81! So Hasbro now has six months to submit proof of using the mark in commerce in order to secure it. Sounds good, right? We'll see ads for new Rom toys within six months, right? Well, no.

If Hasbro doesn't submit proof of use within six months, they can instead file for a six-month extension. So we'll know something in a year, right? Uh, no. They can file five of these extensions, meaning it could be three years before the Hasbro trademark saga finally comes to an end.

At this point, I hesitate to speculate any more on Hasbro's motives. In the blog comments, I'd previously argued that Hasbro's spending thousands of dollars on this surely meant they actually had some sort of plan. I'm no longer so optimistic. Perhaps this is simply a negotiating tool because Marvel or some other party (or even multiple parties) have approached them asking to license Rom. And they realized that to do so, they might need some better legal standing than, "we created this character in 1979 and the copyright is still ours." In any case, check back in six months or so for an update and prepare for a long wait for any resolution.

[Next trademark update]

The North Pole Creed

I believe in Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, granter of children's wishes, who is seen at malls, yet unseen Christmas Eve.

I believe in Saint Nick, Sinterklaas, who sees you when you're sleeping and knows when you're awake. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist.

For us and for our children he comes down from the north, carrying a bag full of toys made by elves.

For our sake he was persecuted under Burgermeister Meisterburger; he was captured and jailed.
He escaped with flying reindeer; he ascended to the North Pole and built his workshop.

He will come each Christmas to judge the naughty and the nice, and his legend will have no end.

I believe in the spirit of Christmas, which doesn't come from a store, but means a little bit more.

I believe that Christmas comes but once a year.

I write one letter per year for the gift of toys.

I look for peace on earth and goodwill toward men.

Merry Christmas!


(CC) BY-NC-SA 2009 LKS


The North Pole Creed by Lee K. Seitz is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.