On Quality Photography

I have a 3.5 megapixel camera sitting in a donation pile because my phone has a pinhole that makes its predecessor look like a disposable click-wheel. An iPhone has an 8MP built in, with autofocus, austoexposure,autoflash, face detection, and self-stabilization.

So how the fuck are you still taking blurry-ass, low-light mirror shots for your profile picture?

Did you just select Instagram's "whore" filter? Or maybe it was the "aging barfly sepia tone" that caught your fancy, polishing over your dimpled adult acne and pale, sweaty club rat complexion.

Listen, it's 2012. Hoverboards are only three years away, Optimus Prime first died eight years ago, and has come back like four times, and we've passed John Connor's Judgement Day trice already. We live in the future, and you no longer have an excuse for not having quality headshots on your LinkedIn profile.

The least you could do is Windex your bedroom mirror, god damn.

So you turned off the flash, stood in a shadow, deadjusted the RGB levels,
and–I'm guessing–stood about 15 feet away from the mirror and used digital zoom.
Before cropping the photo to hide your filthy living room and the dog's second bowl?

On Having Daughters

I have to be honest, I'm not to psyched for the idea of having sons.

At some point, fairly quickly, they would surpass me in physicality. I'm not exactly going to be the supportive, sport-ive dad. Yeah, I could show you how to throw a football or swing a bat, but–and I have to be honest–I have no interest in doing this.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not aching to watch My Little Pony or have to buy make-up on my weekly grocery trips either. But what it comes down to is eventually, Freudianly, my sons would come to compete with me. And they would win.

Daughters don't do that. They get to be princesses or at least not usually call out their dads for being too Beta.

Yeah, about like that.
Dorarararararara.

Conversely, it's fun to screw with boys. I really, really am looking forward to messing with my daughter's dates. Firsts, proms, the idle Tuesdays. It's just fun to be imposing, even when you wouldn't normally be. It's amazing.  But I can't do that with girls. Frankly, I've seen my dad tease my brother's girlfriends and girl friends. It's just … unsettling. At best he comes off like a cliched "lecherous old man" character who may or may not just be doing it for a laugh.

So here are my ground rules for being a dad of a daughter:

• Cell phones are not allowed into bathrooms. Likewise, nowhere in the house will there be any full-length mirrors, or mirrors which can otherwise display a person below their collarbone.
• After age twelve, everyone empties their own personal garbage, no exceptions.
• Dad gets to embarrass you, and he will. You will not laugh at this, but I assure you, it will always be funny.

Addendum rule: never point out if that last stipulation falls through.