http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQC3jRqH2eo

Among the things that set Dyson off, possibly the biggest is when the cat takes his spot. When that happens, it’s time to pull out the big guns. And by guns, I mean cookies. Because no matter what he’s upset about, cookies will distract him from it. Unless it doesn’t. In which case, it’s time to pull out the ear plugs.

On the one hand, I know that giving him a cookie might make him think that he’s rewarded for getting upset. On the other, I do it infrequently and … sometimes you just need to get through the day.

Dyson recently turned two and as if on cue, has started having meltdowns over such transgressions as: Papa eating discarded food from his tray, walking down the steps in front of him, and flushing the toilet.

Other times, the transgressions are unknown to me as he has not developed the verbal communications skills required to articulate his grievances and I have failed to acquire telepathy.

These are indeed trying times, but I take solace in the fact that a human can only scream continuously for so long. He has to take a breath at some point, right? Right?!

Remember the electronic game Simon? My friend made an all-new game for the iPad based on it called Dancing Touch.

It features beautifully rendered graphics and a couple new twists on the memory game genre. The first level starts simply with just one color at a time and then the game moves on to pairs of colors. Eventually, the board starts to rotate and it gets even more challenging.

If you’ve got an iPad, check it out! If you don’t, he’s working on an iPhone and Android versions so look for those soon.

It took a couple months, but it’s finally here! You can now use your very own backgrounds for Mach Dice.

Start up the latest version of the app, hit the icon button in the upper right corner, and select “Custom Backgrounds”.

Now you can roll dice on any surface you want: your table, a screenshot of your iPhone, your bathrobe, your baby…

Oh, also, I updated all the backgrounds for this update so that they’re in higher resolution for all you people with Retina Displays or iPads. Enjoy!

Last night, I had the opportunity to attend a great talk with producer Gale Ann Hurd. She produced such movies as Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss. She is currently producing several projects including the TV series The Walking Dead.

During the Q&A, one woman asked how she balances work and raising a child. It’s a good question because it’s an incredibly hard thing to do. But it occurred to me that I bet no one’s ever asked that of James Cameron, director of such movies as Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss. Hurd gave Cameron his first real break in the industry and he also happens to be her former husband.

But if you’re a mom, the assumption is that no matter how awesome you are at your day job, being a mom is still your major role in life. If you’re a dad, especially 20 years ago, that was just an aspect of your life. It didn’t have to have consequences to your career. I think that’s slowly starting to change because the expectations of fathers is starting to evolve. For example, people ask me how I balance work, having a kid, and doing iPhone stuff. (I like Hurd’s response, “I don’t sleep a lot so … I guess it works out.”)

Still, if I ever get the opportunity to ask James Cameron a question, I’ll ask him how he balances being a director and a dad.

Are you into food? Do you have an iPhone? Then you need to download my friend’s free app, Shared Table.

You can use it to keep track of your favorite restaurants but if you log into your Facebook account, you can also use it to share your favorites with your friends.

This is super handy if you, say, go out to eat lunch with the same group of friends a lot. You can also use it to find new places to try out.

And it’s free, so check it out!

I’ve just submitted an update to Mach Dice that includes Custom Backgrounds. I also took the opportunity to resize all the artwork for iPad and Retina displays. And while I was at it, I made a brand new, hi-res icon as well.

The new icon takes advantage of the increased resolution and I finally did something beyond the temp screenshot icon that I had before. It only took three years!

Oh, another thing I noted is that full-screen images can get pretty freaking huge. If the rumors are true and we do get a Retina Display iPad, then a single full screen image is 1536 x 2048, which is around 5 Megabytes. Mach Dice has five full-screen backgrounds so the images alone for an iPad Retina version would be bigger than the original app was. It would also easily put it over the 20 Meg limit for over-the-air downloads, so I’m not sure I’ll support the higher image resolution.