Yesterday I read an article on Digg proclaiming the release date for the new Nintendo handheld had been broken and it was available at Targets and Walmarts across the country. Up until yesterday I had little to no interest in getting a DS Lite. Prior to yesterday the only games that even peaked my interest were the new Mario Bros. game and one called Brain Age (it's supposed to make you smarter). But after hearing that I could procure one 10 days before the official release date sent me into a tizzy.

Court and I went to our local Target to pick up a few necessities for the weekend. I casually RAN to the game isle in hopes of scoring one at my first store. No luck. In fact, it looked like they had stocked them, then pullled them because their shelves were mysteriously very empty. The hunt had begun!

We returned home. I threw on a more comfortable outfit and told Court I was heading out for a Geek Hunt. I needed to find a DS Lite. I invited her along fully expecting her to turn me down. To my surprise she was game. We hopped in the car and started driving.

We ran around to a few more Targets and one Walmart but I wasn't able to find a DS Lite on sale. The best I found was a demo unit at Walmart. Although I never found one I still enjoyed the thrill of trying to. Being the first nerd on the block to have one is always fun. Of course, most of the time I'm the ONLY nerd on the block.

Will I get one when its finally released on June 11th? Maybe. By then, though, I bet I'll be on to the next greatest thing. But until then I'll continue to check the local Target hoping to score one. Today rumors are floating around that Nintendo moved the date to June 1st. My hunt continues... 

"Do you want some ice cream?" I asked Court last night.

"Sure," she responded.

"Okay, I'm going to swing out to Shinders and then by Cold Stone for some ice cream."

"What's at Shinders that you need?" she inquired.

"Um...uh...Comic books"

I had just read an article on Slashdot about the latest issue of Captain America. In a sudden rush this boyful glee came over me as I was completely possessed with the thought of reading this comic book. It's a feeling I haven't had since I was 15, when I first collected.

This all stems from a recent conversation I had with a co-worker. We got to talking one day about comics and such. I try not to let my nerdy side out too much but I couldn't help but reminisce about the good ol' days of my childhood when I'd spend the week trying to convince my mom to take me to Shinders on Saturday so I could pick up the latest X-Force. The co-worker brought in some recent books to wet my appitette a bit. The art and storylines were great and I feared getting hooked again.

I came home with 5 new comics from Shinders. I threw them on the table while Court and I ate our ice cream. After our dessert I picked them up and started thumbing through them. Court asked to see them so I showed her my new pride and glories.

"No," she exclaimed.

"What?" I knew what she was getting at.

"You get crazy with this sort of stuff."

"What do you mean I get crazy?" I figured my best defense was denial.

"Remember the Simpsons toys? We still have a stack of 'Experience' magazines. You have to own EVERYTHING when you collect stuff"

"No..No I don't," I said. The truth is: yes, yes I do.

"Can we throw out the 'Experience' magazines?" She asked. I figured it was a fair trade so I agreed.

"I promise, Court. I won't get crazy. I'll keep them in a box so they're not in the way"

"What good are they going to do in a box?"

:-) 

We went stroller shopping this weekend. With all this new territory we're trekking through, I can't help but feel a little ill-prepared. I am constantly wondering what Drew and Michelle are doing since they are due in about a month. Take for instance strollers.

I've been laboring over our stroller choice for about a month. There are two schools of thought when it comes to strollers these days: 1. Buy a travel system that includes a stroller and a car carrier (which snaps onto the stroller when not in the car) or 2. Buy the car carrier and stroller separately. Option 2 tends to be significantly more expensive than the first option. So I got to wondering what is better about getting separate pieces. Will I need them to be separate? Which option is better in the long run? I got so bad that I couldn't stand to even think about it. I would freak out in the stroller isle at Target and run away.

We ended up at Babies 'R' Us on a whim Friday night. We started shopping for strollers seriously that night. We started poking and prodding them, collapsing them, carrying them, etc...just to make sure we knew what they would feel like. Another couple had shown up and was doing the same thing. Unlike us though, they seemed pretty obsessed with a single kind, the Metrolite by Graco. After I noticed the depthness of their prodding I started to wonder what was so great about the Metrolite. Court started watching their research too. Soon, we were wondering if we should be looking at the Metrolite. Curious, we waited for them to finish with it so we could take a look.

A half hour passed and the couple continued to poke at the Metrolite. We grew tired of waiting and moved on to the furniture department. We walked the rest of the store looking at all the other fun stuff we needed. I kept an eye on them, though. I really wanted to look at the stroller.

Finally fed up waiting for them, Court and I trudged back over. By now the couple had 3 other strollers out and were poking at all of them. They had everything from your run-of-the-mill stroller up to the Rolls Royces out, running around the isles. While they weren't looking Court test-drove the Metrolite. We decided it was exactly what we wanted. It was light, all-in-one, and snappy-lookin' to boot. We grabbed it and ran...well, we grabbed one of the boxes and ran.

I couldn't help but feel like I hadn't done enough research. We had looked at them before, done some price comparison shopping, did our online research, yet we were not spending hours making sure it was perfect. Was I being a good parent? Was I being as good as them? I don't know.

On Saturday we were over at my parents house for Michelle's baby shower. Drew and Michelle had received the same stroller, just in another color, that we had purchased on Friday. I was relieved. If it's good enough for their kid, it's good enough for ours. 

For all you iPod owners out there:

You know how your iPod flashes a big NO sign when it's plugged into the computer? Its supposed to stop you from unplugging the iPod at an inappropriate time. I'm here to tell you that it's not a joke, you are NOT supposed to just unplug it. Especially while it's synchronizing with iTunes. I have my podcasts synching down to my iPod and I accidently unplugged it from the computer while it was doing it's thing. It corrupted the entire iPod disk. iTunes told me to run chkdsk against it. I'm still waiting to see if it saves my little guy. 

UPDATE :  Yep, the hard drivve got toasted. All my music has once again be erased from it. grrrrr.

As you can imagine I've heard a variety of pronunciations for my last name, the most common one being ma-T-lin-ski. Every once in awhile a maat-lin-ski slips in. But as of late there has been a rash of mole-lin-ski's, which I've never heard in my 20-some odd years. Here's the correct pronunciation, or at least this is how I say it:

 moe-T-lin-ski

A little relief came yesterday after the ultrasound found only one baby in the hopper. I'm not saying two wouldn't have been fun and all. One will do just fine.

And now I give you, our first pictures of M2:

A side profile.  

A straight on shot of his face:

As usual, the pictures look like an odd alien life form. What we didn't expect to see during the ultrasound was M2 beboppin' around. You could see his heart pounding, you could push on Court's stomach and see him waddle around. I told Courtney later that I swore I saw him give me the finger. 

Well, it's officical, Courtney and I will be parents. And this time I'm not talking about yet-another-dog. We're gonna have a kid. Courtney had her first appointment this morning. I tagged along because I wanted to get some of my questions answered too (like -- how does one go about procuring the appropriate type of carseat). We've known for about a month but chose to wait until she was 10 weeks along to go in.

Our first surprise was when Courtney first scheduled the appointment. She called the local clinic and was told that she would see a midwife instead of a doctor. All we kept picturing were the painful water-births on A Baby Story. They assured us that if we really wanted to, we could see a doctor, but most people choose to stay with a midwife after meeting them.

We spent about an hour meeting with a midwife, Lois. She went over our family history and did a great job at making us feel comfortable. The first question out of our mouths during the Q&A portion of the visit (just prior to the exam portion of the visit) was "What about epidurals?" Lois calmed our fears and promised no crazy natural water births if that's not what we wanted.

As I was leaving (Court had to stay for the exam and there was no need for me to "help" out with that) we mentioned to Lois that twins sort of run in Courtney's family. They occur every other generation...and Courtney's family is due for a set. Lois told us that they can check for twins around 16 weeks or if they feel the woman is larger than average for her progression. I left and headed to work.

Court called me inbetween exams. "Did you hear the heart beat?!" she exclaimed. She had left me a message on my cell while I was in a meeting. Our baby's first heart beat was at the end of the message. "What? No,  I listened to the beginning of the message but then deleted it." Curses, I'm already missing out on child...grumble.

Courtney also called to tell me she's going in for an ultrasound tomorrow. She told me that they think she's a little "big" for 10 weeks.

Drew and Michelle are pregnant too. Michelle is due in the June timeframe. Over dinner one evening Drew laughed and told me that he had to do at least ONE thing first in our lives since he's the younger brother. I declared that while we are not able to have the first kid, we'd top him by having two. The proclamation might just turn out to be true.