The song writing contest continues despite my absence. I am frankly relieved not to be competing because I think everybody’s doing some high quality stuff. I choose not to run!

www.quickstopentertainment.com/2008/09/26/masters-of-song-fu-2-round-3-challenge-voting-begins/

If you are in the Washington DC area, I hope you are planning on heading out to see Paul and Storm this Friday at Jammin Java. I will not be with them, alas, but if you have seen them play with me you’ll know that they put on a funtastic show of their own. Also, the chili is good there.

Apparently they have newspapers, radio and podcasts over there as well – I’ve been doing a bunch of interviews with people who talk funny, as if they were British characters on a television show. It’s hilarious!

Today there will be a little chat with Matt Dillon (no, I’m pretty sure it’s a different Matt Dillon) from The Sci-Fi Guys on Geek Planet. You can catch the live broadcast stream at 8 PM GMT which is 3 PM here in New York – click on one of those streamy icons on the right to listen – and the interview should be available for download sometime later.

I know the internet wants names and photos. Here’s the thing: being a semi-famous person, I know a teeny-tiny bit about fame, and I can tell you that while it’s awesome most of the time, it’s also a little weird every now and then. My kids aren’t really old enough to make a decision about whether or not they’d like to be part of this particular circus, and while on some level I’m dying to share all the personal details with you, this is one place where I’d like to draw the line. I’m not so naive as to think that I’m going to keep this information totally secret forever, and it’s not so much about not wanting anyone to know what they are called and what they look like. Nor do I think I’m so famous that their pictures are going to end up in tabloids and that they’re going to start getting recognized on the street or anything. I just want this part of my life to be as separate as possible from the rest of it – non-public, all rights reserved. The kids are not licensed with Creative Commons, they should not have their heads photoshopped onto robot bodies, they should not have their baby pictures blasted out to thousands of people without having the opportunity to choose privacy. And they may yet end up in my Flickr photostream, just not here in this place of business (which is also kind of a weird gray area that contains a good bit of my personal life – see next paragraph).

Thanks everyone for your congratulations. Having an excellent time – the wife is honing her Zuma skills, the elder child is very excited to be a big sister, and I need more coffee most of the time. But in short: whee!

The rumors and the gossip: all true. On Friday I became a father for a second time, and since then have been living in a haze of fragmented sleep, visits from extended family, and teeny tiny diapers. It’s a boy – he’s very small, put together like a wrinkly old man, and looks extremely concerned about something most of the time. Everybody’s happy and healthy. He’s really good at Rockband.

I’m not exactly sure what kind of paternity leave is going to happen, it’s always hard to really create time off when you don’t go anywhere for work. But for the next few weeks at least I’m going to do my best to take it easy and spend time with the family. No shows are scheduled till the end of October and it’s likely to stay that way. I will probably still twitter and blog because neither of those things really feels like work anymore, but if I’m a little slow getting back to you about stuff I hope you’ll understand.

The exception to all this is the Obama benefit comedy night I’m playing this very evening, The Audacity of Jokes, which was scheduled before this baby was supposed to arrive. This either makes me a dedicated professional or an irresponsible father. But hey, three days was good enough for Sarah Palin, right?