When you're born in summer, it's probably not uncommon to have your birthdays coincide with hurricanes, and if you're born at the beginning of the hurricane season, it's not uncommon to have your birthday hurricane have the same letter. Case in point, twelve year old was born when Hurricane Bertha was raining on New Hampshire, and we're blaming Sunday's rain on Bertha. Twelve year old wasn't able to go to the local amusement park, but she did get to bring Porsche-girl to my parents house and they had a fun time in spite of weather. Later this summer we'll go to the amusement park. maybe even twice.

Getting a cell phone for twelve year old was a lot less painful than I expected. I was planning on dropping $150 on a phone and plan, and anticipating resistance on getting a reasonably priced (err, lowest priced) phone.

Thanks to my corporation, which has a deal with the cell carrier, the phone (moto W755) was free instead of $90 with a $70 rebate, activation was waived ($35), accessories were 25% off, and the monthly plan was 20% off. Getting me a similar phone and line added would only be about $10 more a month compared to my current bareboned Nokia 1100 through Tracfone, maybe next year. On the other hand, the battery life is short, with the constant pictures and videos, she wears it out in a day. Maybe it will last longer when the novelty wears off.

It's also CDMA, so I can't take her phone and replace the SIM from my Nokia 1100 if we needed to.

Of course, it's not the end of the birthday celebrations, one tiny party isn't enough, we're hosting a slightly larger (6 other friends) party at the park on Friday. We may even order a pizza without cheese, for allergy reasons and pain in the ass reasons (twelve year old does not like cheese).

This weekend's movie was Twisted, a mediocre thriller with Ashley Judd as the too gaminish hard drinking cop suspected of murdering lecherous guys, Andy Garcia as the cynical cop suspected of murdering lecherous guys who is also interested in Ashley Judd, and Samuel Jackson as the sage older cop acting as Judd's mentor. There were nice shots of the San Francisco waterfront.

I got to the local to my job library branch last week and decided to read another Discworld, Going Postal. I tried to read it over a week, but I had trouble sleeping last night, so I finished it. It was in the vein of The Truth, Carrot makes a cameo, there's quite a bit if Vetinari, but it's mostly Moist Von Lipwig and Adora Belle Dearhart. There's also a lot of hackerish elements, including the Smoking Gnu. It's not a Watch novel, but better than most.

A new Asian restaurant has opened around the corner, where the old one used to be, it's now New Ming Restaurant, and we ordered from them on Friday. The masuman was good, the salad not as good, and I didn't care too much for the steamed dumplings, though I'm not a dumpling kind of guy. Regardless, the leftovers are lunch.

Mrs. Ha got a Friday afternoon off, we're planning on heading down to NoVa at the end of July.

Last night we went to preschool_mom's for a birthday party for their one year old, and got a variety of pizza. Pineapple on a pizza is tasty.