Seriously, how awesome is it to randomly find this in your girl’s notebook?

First off, a huge happy new year to you all!

Today at lunch, Jen, Cooper, Graham, Zoe and I sat around our kitchen table, writing down all of our favorite things from 2009. It was fun reading them out loud, hearing what we had in common, and telling stories from throughout the year. Being a huge geek, I naturally thought a word/tag cloud might be the perfect way to visualize the year’s goodness, so I went to Wordle.net – because  they rock.

Here’s the 2009 Norman Family Favorites Cloud:

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I certainly collected my fair share of hilarious baseball card photos. All those mustaches, blue uniforms, weird hats, and funky locks are half the reason I’ve kept them around all these years.

The other day I found some of my old football cards, and they all seem to have less-than-ideal photos as well. Like the baseball cards, the photos all seem to be casual snapshots from games and practices.

Today’s cards all have perfect photos, and I imagine designers have quite a library to choose from. But not back in the day. Nope, they were just looking for a semi-decent photo that showed the player’s face and number. Whatever was found first, worked.

That’s how I imagine poor Arthur Whittington ended up huffing and puffing for his 1981 Topps Football Card. Instead of busting through the seam on a 3rd and 3, the Raider’s running back was featured sucking oxygen on a hot Oakland afternoon.

Do you think he cared? I mean, today’s players flip out if their Madden player rating dips below 90…can you imagine what would happen if their card hit the shelves with something like this? Publicists would get eaten for breakfast!

I just got back from the fireworks store where I found this “Twitter Glitter” fountain by TNT fireworks. I couldn’t pass up this explosive which shares a name with the popular microblogging service. What are the odds it goes Fail Whale on me tonight and ends up a dud?

While searching for a particular Dr. Seuss book the other day, I noticed there was a wide range of colors on the bindings. Inspired by chotda’s rainbow bookshelves, I quickly threw the Seussian volumes into their proper ROYGBV order (I left all the white ones on the right). Not a mind-blowing display, but Coop liked it!

You gotta wonder if this is progressive design or incompetent urban planning…or maybe you don’t. Either way, I bet this speedbump has a chronic case of braking envy. I mean, a speedbump next to a stop sign is like a Taser being followed by a bullet, right? Mount Pleasant location.

Driving north on I-75, the tundra of Western Ohio is pretty bleak. Rows of harvested corn fight off sticky snow, and the sky already has that gray winter glaze. This is why so many Ohioans move to SC…can you blame them?

Somewhere south of Dayton, a giant red logo caught my eye. LORD. Not just any lord, but LORD in big red uppercase techno typography. I drove on, slightly tickled and more than curious. Turns out to be innocuous, but you always have to keep an eye out…

BTW – how cool is it that they own LORD.COM? Swank.

I gave a division-wide presentation on blogging a couple weeks ago, and my coworkers kept a running tally of how many times I used the word “blog”. 114! Not bad for 35 minutes. I’m speaking to a group of librarians tomorrow on blogging, and it’s a full hour! I put the over/under at 210.

Had I not been taking the stairs, I would have missed this hilarious opportunity to ingest some irony.

So, my wife has been rocking a “Cheney/Voldemort ’08″ bumber sticker for a while now, and it’s recieved mixed reviews. She thought everyone would get it, but clearly not that many people actually know who Voldemort is. I’m not sure how this is possible.

A lot of people sheepishly ask her who Voldemort is, instead of asking what is really on their mind – “Do you actually support Dick Cheney?” The fact that people would need to ask this kind of scares me. Clearly he isn’t running, and who doesn’t know this?

But the craziest comment came a couple weeks ago. Jen was at a stop sign waiting to exit out of our neighborhood. A huge pickup pulls up to the left, blocking her view. She’s not shy, so she sarcastically says, “Thanks man!” The driver leans over, and yells, “Shutup you stupid republican bitch!” Wow, just wow.

This message was left on my voicemail about a year ago, but I’ve never posted it here. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t who she was looking for. It’s short…enjoy!

Here’s the .mp3

Ha! I just rediscovered this shot while going through my Relay for Life stock. This couple was great. The shot might seem mundane, but there was definitely some flirting and occasional patting going on.

I was going through my browser history trying to find something, when I ran across a Google entry with my son’s name on it. When I opened the page, it became clear what had happened. Apparently he’s taken up egosurfing, and was googling his own name!

OK, so he entered a little more than just his name, but still – what a clown.