Miscellany
- Sometime within the next week, this site will reach the 100,000 hit milestone. I've been known to celebrate a milestone or two in my day, but they're usually comment milestones, not hits. Leaving a comment requires intent. Hits? You don't even have to actually visit my site in order to register a hit (see Google's page on results prefetching). And with my luck, hit #100,000 will be from some dude searching for "Exposed Wiggles." So instead of celebrating with the usual offer of prizes and having to come up with rules which assure that you're ineligible to receive any of them, the 100,000th hit party will be relatively low-key. Though I am planning a "top 100,000 moments at omarphillips.net" post, which should be quite the read.
- I saw one of the most amazing things I think I've ever seen this past weekend. We went to visit some friends who live a couple of hours away. They have an 18 month old boy. He has these three placemats, one with all of the US Presidents, one is a map of the United States, the third is a map of the world. The presidents placemat, if you name any president, he'll point to the right person. James Polk? Got it. John Quincy Adams? Done. James Buchanan? No prob. Not even any hesitation. It was insane. He'll also say the names if you point to one and ask him who it is, but because he's so young, it's not always clear what he's saying. You can tell that he's saying the right thing though, in most cases. On the 50 states map, he does the same thing. Name a state, he'll point to it. Even the tiny New England states! He's still working on the world map, but he can still identify more than 10 nations. It was amazing. I know several adults (myself included, with the presidents) who couldn't do what he was doing.
Comments
Lia said:
That kid is being brought up right. No mobiles playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star while his brain melts into mush.
I could probably do the world map and I could definitely do the 50 states map. The Presidents, not so much. Unless there are captions. I read good.
Jonathan said:
So you wouldn't be upset if one of us just hit refresh about 488 times to get you to 100,000?
I hope the 100,000 isn't someone looking for Harry Potter info. :)
cadiz12 said:
2-year-olds don't have scads of other useless information cluttering their brains, like complex seinfeld storylines and mathematical formulas you don't remember the uses for. ask him to point to James Polk again when he's 22 and hungover from all the keg stands the night before.
jazzy said:
i'm so sick and tired of 1 year olds being smarter than me! it happens all the time!
Jon said:
Are his parents writing a book on how they taught him to do this? Or, at the very least, are they writing a book on how their kid taught them all the presidents?
Also, after he points to the requested president, does he then give any kind of verbal or non-verbal signal as to how he thought that president's administration performed while in office?
Becky said:
okay, i have been jokingly telling my sister that my nephew is stupid ("i don't think he even understands what i'm saying to him. stupid baby!"), but if he isn't at this level in another 16 months, my tone might be more serious...
No Cool Story said:
Betcha that kid was reading the names. Yeah, that's called "cheating" in my book.
Actually I'm with Jazzy, I can't even tell left from right without having to concentrate.
Hey, check out the Google results for ducks +omar. Woo hoo.
Rhonda said:
Well my 2 year old can point out me, my husband, herself, Elmo and our dogs in a photo. And while she doesn't know the 50 states yet, she does know "wall," "door," and "window." So take that smart kid.
elasticwaistbandlady said:
I think I'll make a special 'Know Your Blogger' placemat set containing pictures and all the most important stats of my favorite blogs.
Can I put you down for a couple hundred so I can get a bul discount price? I promise you the upper left hand corner.
I said:
My kid can identify a handful of cars by their logo (Toyota, Honda, Acura, Ford, Pontiac, Buick), but this is a recently acquired skill. I don't remember what he was doing at 18 months, but I do know he wasn't pointing out Grover Cleveland.
Syar said:
He's being groomed for gameshows, he is.
Except...is there a gameshow where you point and name things?
glo said:
Didn't I see this kid on Leno a while back? Freaky.
marie/y said:
I saw your post about pre-fetches. That has totally harshed my mellow dude.
I wish I'd never heard of pre-fetching because now I think I've really only had about 6 hits in the last 6 months--you, most of my sisters and sometimes my friend Susan.