JeremyBear.com Blog: Double Double Cheese Cheese Uncle Uncle Please

Word of warning: be careful what you blog. Most posts are largely ignored, others become viral. And some, as I recently discovered, wind up on the front page of the Beacon Journal.

But forget that. More importantly (since the Beacon beat me to the punch anyhow), I'm excited to report that I'm an uncle X2! Lauren announced that, hopah, she's got a bun of her own in the oven. Boy? Girl? Mutant? Model? Savior of the Midwest? Who knows! It's a baby, baby!

And this ain't just blowin' smoke: Lauren and Steve will be terrific parents. They were born to do this stuff.

Due date's in April.

Good luck, Lauren. Let the puking begin.

More baby news? All right, if you're going to get snotty about it... it looks as if Erin's having a boy. Not only that, but apparently this kid is, er, really a boy. An inevitable hit with the ladies. As I understand it, they haven't made the final naming decision yet... but if these reports are accurate, "John Holmes Burtoft" has a certain panache.

And friends with soon-to-be babies are in abundance as well. Hooray Underwoods, way to go Honuses, and a sincere "you folks are tops" to Team Gitgan for taking the high road and pursuing adoption. The world needs more Joshes and Kirstens, I think we can all agree.

Listen, a Homeowner's Association is a great thing, but ours is peopled by friggin' Nazis.

Granted, it's only a few Gestapo that ruin it for the rest of us. Whats-her-head down the hall got it into her noggin that we all need to paint our doors uniform colors with new brass numbers and doorknobs and boom! we're told that we're in for a fine if we don't comply by August 15th. Never mind the fact that the colors they picked are putrid and Carey and I hate brass and our entrances are all inside the building, so NO ONE other than us will ever have the opportunity to see all that gorgeous uniformity.

"Saturday's the official Elm Plaza Door-Painting Party!" read an obnoxious sign in the elevator for the past several days. "Everyone get out your paints, new brass numbers and doorknobs, and your smiles! Meet your neighbors!" Yuck. Is it just me, or is there something slightly chilling about the fact that we're being invited to celebrate a completely moronic mandate? (Isn't this fun? You have no choice! Whee!) It's like a book burning.

Nevertheless, Carey and I are nothing if not round pegs ("All a part of living in a community," our neighbor, Phil, reminded us), so we trudged over to Home Depot to take back the cool, trendy silver doorknob we'd bought several months ago in exchange for a gaudy brass one. So, we spent most of the day doing front door work.

But it's also the end of a minor legacy in the Bear household. The day we moved in, the place was empty, with two exceptions: a disgusting hunk of preserved beef in the freezer and a sign taped to the inside of the door reading "PlEAse Lock Dead BolT only, Thank you". For some ridiculous reason, we never did get around to removing the ugly little sign, until today. A new, ugly doorknob meant Matthew Schwerdt's ominous warning was no longer needed. Bubye sign.

(By the way, the hunk of beef was thrown out immediately, despite my protests.)

Hot creepers, has it really been that long since I've last posted? Sorry. I think I might've forgotten to mention that we went to Ohio a couple of weeks ago to surprise Mom on her (am I allowed to say this? Screw it, she's a public figure now, her life's details are no longer her own) 50th birthday. The trip was, frankly, too short and a mite too stressful, but it was great to reconnect with the people I love most in the wide world.

Oh, and I never did get to see Beck play in LA. Sadly, that tidbit from my previous post was a red herring for the sake of Mom's surprise. Blog subversion! Boo-yah!

What do you mean, "what have you been listening to lately?" Ttt!

Fan_3, bitches, what else?!

Spent the majority of the past few weeks working on a short animation for a company called Medsphere. I'm more or less finished with it and it should be going live sometime next week.

So far, people seem to like it. Go look.

So friggin' much going on lately and so much to talk about, but for now I'll leave it there. After all, I owe lots of folks an email right now and they ain't gonna write themselves.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with several examples from the worst Christian gag comic ever created, After Eden. Josh Smith recently pointed out on his blog that church marketing sucks. Apparently, so do the comics.