I’m tired of the music on your blog. What makes you think you can play your music on my computer?

I found a nerdy solution to the problem. Since most of those annoying “playlists” found on blogspot blogs all come from playlist.com, you can eliminate most of the problem with this command (for fellow mac users):

ipfw add deny tcp from any to 66.97.180.235

That’s it. They seemingly have dozens of domains, all pointing to that single IP. Block outbound traffic to the IP, and you’ll be free of that awful music people think you want to hear.

Windows users, try adding these lines to your c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file:

# stop stupid blog music insanity

127.0.0.2 www.greatprofilemusic.com

127.0.0.2 www.myplaylist.org www.profileplaylist.net

127.0.0.2 www.playlistproject.net

127.0.0.2 www.mp3asset.com

There are more domains than that, but I got tired of looking for them. Blocking the IP above is the best way to go.

This Saturday was the big Nerf war. The epic battle was to celebrate Alex’s birthday. I dominated - if not tactically, then in style.

Yes, that’s a heart-mom tattoo in red Sharpie. The other arm read NERF. Back of the uniform: DEFCON ONE. Thankfully the shoe polish face paint came off. As of this writing, the tattoos are still visible. Not fully pictured: the jean cut-offs that I made for the battle.

Noah liked shooting, but not getting shot. And his main concern was his missing bullet.

Weston got a few kills.

And it was a birthday party, so of course we had cake. Gina made a (self-described) lame Nerf cake.

(Photo credit to Leigh on the first 3 pictures. I’ll let her post the really cute ones of her kids on her blog.)

Noah dives!

Julia jumps!

Weston… poses?

I went to DC this weekend. Really, I should say I spent a few waking hours in DC this weekend.

I left Las Vegas around midnight Friday on a direct flight to Dulles. It was my first time taking JetBlue, and one of the few times I’ve taken an overnight flight. JetBlue was cool. They handed everyone an eye mask and ear plugs as we boarded.

I had arrived at the gate just a few minutes before boarding started. I walked around looking for a seat, but at the same time was sizing people up. One nervous looking guy was packing up his laptop. He took the time to precisely wrap up his power cables. That’s not a guy who doesn’t plan on getting to his destination, I thought. And then I saw this rather gross looking couple. They looked homeless.

I got to my window seat and found no one else next to me - yet. And of course, who else should sit next to me? It’s the couple I had eyed in the terminal. The man sat next to me, in the middle, and he was nice enough. He did work up a fit, swearing at something he dropped at one point. I’m sure they’re good people……. but what on earth was that smell? My guess was urine… and lack of showering.

So I sat for the whole flight, hugging the wall, unable to sleep. Two hours into the flight I realized I wasn’t going to be sleeping, so I plugged my headphones into the XM radio. I thought that was a pretty cool feature, until JetBlue and the universe played a cruel joke on me:

That’s right. JetBlue RickRoll’d me. 2AM. No sleep. Urine smell. Rickroll.

Getting no sleep the night before my arrival made the remainder of my visit a struggle. Altogether it was a really quick trip, but it was fun. I’m looking forward to getting back to DC, now just 12 days away.

Tonight, Mom and I made these all-inclusive cookies: