Friday
12/12/03
Wrapping Up The Week
Although there are plenty of things that I find mystifying about my boys, one of my favorites is their reactions of complete shock and surprise when confronted by the most prosaic of everyday events. When reminded to start their homework each afternoon, you would suppose from all the tears and squealing I had just told them they were being sold for medical experiments. (Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good…) Likewise, the arrival of bedtime warrants looks of shock and awe worthy of Don Knotts at the height of his powers.
Anyway, the point of all this is that it’s now Friday, and, rather like my boys, I have my own look of shock at the fact that I seem to have frittered away yet another week without giving the following items the treatment they so richly deserve. So, quick and dirty, but mostly quick:
ABC news has some advice to help keep us from getting the flu this winter that seems to involve a lot of soap and hand washing. I, however, have a better plan. A plan which pretty much involves me locking myself in the basement with a flashlight and a case of scotch until around April. You can’t be too careful.
Next, monumentally self-absorbed boor that I am, I found that I had a bit of trouble empathizing with John Travolta, who is so busy making movies that he doesn’t have the time to fly his planes as much as he’d like. Now that’s just a damned shame.
And, ever on the cutting edge of family fashion trends, the Indystar reports this shocking bit of fast-breaking news: kids don’t like laces. They like shoes with zippers. What craziness will be next? Peanut butter and jelly, on the same sandwich? Thanks for the heads up, Indystar!
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Wrapping Up The Week
Although there are plenty of things that I find mystifying about my boys, one of my favorites is their reactions of complete shock and surprise when confronted by the most prosaic of everyday events. When reminded to start their homework each afternoon, you would suppose from all the tears and squealing I had just told them they were being sold for medical experiments. (Every sperm is sacred, every sperm is good…) Likewise, the arrival of bedtime warrants looks of shock and awe worthy of Don Knotts at the height of his powers.
Anyway, the point of all this is that it’s now Friday, and, rather like my boys, I have my own look of shock at the fact that I seem to have frittered away yet another week without giving the following items the treatment they so richly deserve. So, quick and dirty, but mostly quick:
ABC news has some advice to help keep us from getting the flu this winter that seems to involve a lot of soap and hand washing. I, however, have a better plan. A plan which pretty much involves me locking myself in the basement with a flashlight and a case of scotch until around April. You can’t be too careful.
Next, monumentally self-absorbed boor that I am, I found that I had a bit of trouble empathizing with John Travolta, who is so busy making movies that he doesn’t have the time to fly his planes as much as he’d like. Now that’s just a damned shame.
And, ever on the cutting edge of family fashion trends, the Indystar reports this shocking bit of fast-breaking news: kids don’t like laces. They like shoes with zippers. What craziness will be next? Peanut butter and jelly, on the same sandwich? Thanks for the heads up, Indystar!
12/08/03
Christmas Trees and Primate Brains
Human beings, flawed as they often are, exhibit a surprisingly varied range of ridiculous behaviors. One I particularly enjoy is when folks make the same ludicrously foolish choices time after time. Look at the hapless Liz Taylor and her inability to choose a husband correctly. You’d think practice would make perfect, but Larry Fortensky, better known as Number Seven, found out otherwise. In fact, she’d have been rather less an embarrassment to herself if she had heeded this little chestnut from W.C. Fields: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again. Then give up. There's no use being a damned fool about it."
But anyway, human being that I am, I occasionally fall in to the same trap. In this case, I must admit that in past years I’ve always been a complete retard about Christmas trees. Namely, I, (no, actually we, as the whole family is involved in the annual finding and cutting of the live tree thing) always choose a tree that’s too big by an order of magnitude simply because we’re outdoors and immediately lose all sense of scale.
And year after year, having lugged the tree up our front steps only to realize that it’s at least five feet too high, I have no choice but to lug it back down the steps to the waiting chain saw, cursing all the way. Finally, having relieved the tree of it’s bottom three feet and it’s top two, I end up with what can only be described as a big, fat, Christmas bush-ball in the living room.
Well, not this year. Not only are we a family of tool-using primates, but we posses the ability to learn from the past. This year we picked what seemed to be the tiniest, most Charlie Brown Christmas tree that there was in the entire field. We then got it home, and in one smooth motion it went up the steps, through the door and into the stand, all without a single snip
So, in the end, it turned out to be just about the most tree-like and entirely stress-free tree we’ve ever gotten. And why? Because unlike poor Liz, we were able to use our big monkey forebrains to learn from the past.
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Christmas Trees and Primate Brains
Human beings, flawed as they often are, exhibit a surprisingly varied range of ridiculous behaviors. One I particularly enjoy is when folks make the same ludicrously foolish choices time after time. Look at the hapless Liz Taylor and her inability to choose a husband correctly. You’d think practice would make perfect, but Larry Fortensky, better known as Number Seven, found out otherwise. In fact, she’d have been rather less an embarrassment to herself if she had heeded this little chestnut from W.C. Fields: "If at first you don't succeed, try, try, and try again. Then give up. There's no use being a damned fool about it."
But anyway, human being that I am, I occasionally fall in to the same trap. In this case, I must admit that in past years I’ve always been a complete retard about Christmas trees. Namely, I, (no, actually we, as the whole family is involved in the annual finding and cutting of the live tree thing) always choose a tree that’s too big by an order of magnitude simply because we’re outdoors and immediately lose all sense of scale.
And year after year, having lugged the tree up our front steps only to realize that it’s at least five feet too high, I have no choice but to lug it back down the steps to the waiting chain saw, cursing all the way. Finally, having relieved the tree of it’s bottom three feet and it’s top two, I end up with what can only be described as a big, fat, Christmas bush-ball in the living room.
Well, not this year. Not only are we a family of tool-using primates, but we posses the ability to learn from the past. This year we picked what seemed to be the tiniest, most Charlie Brown Christmas tree that there was in the entire field. We then got it home, and in one smooth motion it went up the steps, through the door and into the stand, all without a single snip
So, in the end, it turned out to be just about the most tree-like and entirely stress-free tree we’ve ever gotten. And why? Because unlike poor Liz, we were able to use our big monkey forebrains to learn from the past.
12/06/03
" Ice is NICE! "
( Go on, name the movie. Ok, just one more hint: "…we had ONE entry for the Madame Curie lookalike contest, and he was disqualified later -- why do I bother?" )
Hey! It’s snowing! Winter has now officially started, and I’m not ashamed to say that not only am I all grown up, but I’m one of those grown ups who isn’t a crab about the weather. In fact, there are few things that annoy me as much as people who go all sour puss-like when a little bit of wintry fun falls from the sky.
What’s not to love? Let’s see, winter without snow: dark, gray and dreary. Winter with snow: magical landscapes of crystalline beauty. No snow: sitting inside in front of the TV, wondering if it’s really worth the trouble to get up for another beer. With snow: sledding with the kids, snow forts in the back yard and snowmen in the front. Then, when the cold, wet toes finally get to you, there’s hot chocolate, steamy showers and an excuse to build a fire. And is there anything better than dozing off in front of a roaring fire with a tummy full of hot chocolate? I think not.
All right, yes, there are some things like this that I’m a sappy loon about. And yes, now there is some shoveling to be done, and I can’t drive like a maniac until spring, but still… I feel sorry for all those grumpy people I came across yesterday who are missing all the fun. Let it snow!
Oh yeah, and the movie is Real Genius, which everyone else who isn’t a grump already knew. So there.
( Addendum: It's Saturday afternoon now, and it's been a freakin' blizzard all day! Yippee! )
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" Ice is NICE! "
( Go on, name the movie. Ok, just one more hint: "…we had ONE entry for the Madame Curie lookalike contest, and he was disqualified later -- why do I bother?" )
Hey! It’s snowing! Winter has now officially started, and I’m not ashamed to say that not only am I all grown up, but I’m one of those grown ups who isn’t a crab about the weather. In fact, there are few things that annoy me as much as people who go all sour puss-like when a little bit of wintry fun falls from the sky.
What’s not to love? Let’s see, winter without snow: dark, gray and dreary. Winter with snow: magical landscapes of crystalline beauty. No snow: sitting inside in front of the TV, wondering if it’s really worth the trouble to get up for another beer. With snow: sledding with the kids, snow forts in the back yard and snowmen in the front. Then, when the cold, wet toes finally get to you, there’s hot chocolate, steamy showers and an excuse to build a fire. And is there anything better than dozing off in front of a roaring fire with a tummy full of hot chocolate? I think not.
All right, yes, there are some things like this that I’m a sappy loon about. And yes, now there is some shoveling to be done, and I can’t drive like a maniac until spring, but still… I feel sorry for all those grumpy people I came across yesterday who are missing all the fun. Let it snow!
Oh yeah, and the movie is Real Genius, which everyone else who isn’t a grump already knew. So there.
( Addendum: It's Saturday afternoon now, and it's been a freakin' blizzard all day! Yippee! )
Monday
12/03/03
Fibs And Fessing Up
Not a day goes by that it doesn’t occur to me how skilled little kids are at certain things. Things like absorbing all the dialog from a whole season of Jimmy Neutron without even trying, or like being squishily adorable; again without even trying.
Of course there are things that kids are notoriously bad at: lawn maintenance, string theory, and remembering "socks first, then the shoes". Another one is lying. Thank goodness my boys are too young yet to do anything really worthy of a well crafted lie, but of course if they turn out to be anything like me, they’ll be terrible liars anyway. From when I was a little kid right up to the ostensible adult that I’ve become, I’ve never been good at lying, mostly because I’m not quick enough to manufacture plausible alternate versions of reality on demand. And worse, premeditated lies just make me feel vaguely nauseous.
So anyway, the point of all this is that I’ve always of been kind of fascinated by those who are not only unafraid to lie, but seem compelled to do so. Like whom? Well, say, for instance, how about everyone in the White House. To wit: my favorite Misleader entry in a while is about an embellishment of Bush’s secret Iraq trip that’s amusing because it’s a lie as easily exposed as it was unnecessary in the first place. (The Misleader archives are, by the way, just chock-full of fibbing goodness.)
This little episode still doesn’t eclipse the ridiculous affair of the "Mission Accomplished" banner, but it sure does say something about the petty nature of an administration that can’t bring itself to be truthful about things that don’t even matter in the first place. And how about all the issues that do actually matter? That's a blog for another day.
Well, at least I’m still comforted by what goes on here at home. My six-year-old doesn’t even bother with a story when he races out of the bathroom and makes eye contact with me. He simply fesses up and goes back to wash his hands. Hell, I bet Bush doesn’t even flush.
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Fibs And Fessing Up
Not a day goes by that it doesn’t occur to me how skilled little kids are at certain things. Things like absorbing all the dialog from a whole season of Jimmy Neutron without even trying, or like being squishily adorable; again without even trying.
Of course there are things that kids are notoriously bad at: lawn maintenance, string theory, and remembering "socks first, then the shoes". Another one is lying. Thank goodness my boys are too young yet to do anything really worthy of a well crafted lie, but of course if they turn out to be anything like me, they’ll be terrible liars anyway. From when I was a little kid right up to the ostensible adult that I’ve become, I’ve never been good at lying, mostly because I’m not quick enough to manufacture plausible alternate versions of reality on demand. And worse, premeditated lies just make me feel vaguely nauseous.
So anyway, the point of all this is that I’ve always of been kind of fascinated by those who are not only unafraid to lie, but seem compelled to do so. Like whom? Well, say, for instance, how about everyone in the White House. To wit: my favorite Misleader entry in a while is about an embellishment of Bush’s secret Iraq trip that’s amusing because it’s a lie as easily exposed as it was unnecessary in the first place. (The Misleader archives are, by the way, just chock-full of fibbing goodness.)
This little episode still doesn’t eclipse the ridiculous affair of the "Mission Accomplished" banner, but it sure does say something about the petty nature of an administration that can’t bring itself to be truthful about things that don’t even matter in the first place. And how about all the issues that do actually matter? That's a blog for another day.
Well, at least I’m still comforted by what goes on here at home. My six-year-old doesn’t even bother with a story when he races out of the bathroom and makes eye contact with me. He simply fesses up and goes back to wash his hands. Hell, I bet Bush doesn’t even flush.
12/01/03
Windex, Underwear, And Homework
As my boys grow, the one thing I can count on is being confronted daily by new challenges. These challenges, as with pretty much everything else in life, run the gamut from the Mundane to the Epic. Mundane is pretty much covered by the boy’s daily search for missing Yugioh underwear. We keep buying them, and they keep being wherever the boys aren’t looking. Epic is witnessing my six-year-old explosively projectile vomit over two thirds of the kitchen floor. Boy, that sure was something I’ve never experienced before, but in the end no one was more surprised than the six-year-old.
Anyway, three full rolls of paper towels and half a bottle of Windex later, it occurred to me that another challenge for which I was completely unprepared is the eight-year-old’s math homework. Now I’m certainly no math whiz; in fact it’s fair to say that I’m the exact opposite of a math whiz, but I really expected to get a couple more years in before being confounded by the stuff he brings home.
There are, for instance, these math-line-puzzle-thingies where you have to put a given set of numbers into various lines in a box so you get the same sum regardless of which direction you go. I did finally work out the trick to getting it started, but jeez, then my eight year old caught on to the whole thing right away and whipped through the rest of them in a flash. Dad sure did feel like a knucklehead… wait, no, just challenged.
There are, of course, countless more challenges on the way, and lot more homework that will be completely beyond me in the coming years, but I know I have one skill that will always separate me from the boys: At least I can find my own damn underwear.
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Windex, Underwear, And Homework
As my boys grow, the one thing I can count on is being confronted daily by new challenges. These challenges, as with pretty much everything else in life, run the gamut from the Mundane to the Epic. Mundane is pretty much covered by the boy’s daily search for missing Yugioh underwear. We keep buying them, and they keep being wherever the boys aren’t looking. Epic is witnessing my six-year-old explosively projectile vomit over two thirds of the kitchen floor. Boy, that sure was something I’ve never experienced before, but in the end no one was more surprised than the six-year-old.
Anyway, three full rolls of paper towels and half a bottle of Windex later, it occurred to me that another challenge for which I was completely unprepared is the eight-year-old’s math homework. Now I’m certainly no math whiz; in fact it’s fair to say that I’m the exact opposite of a math whiz, but I really expected to get a couple more years in before being confounded by the stuff he brings home.
There are, for instance, these math-line-puzzle-thingies where you have to put a given set of numbers into various lines in a box so you get the same sum regardless of which direction you go. I did finally work out the trick to getting it started, but jeez, then my eight year old caught on to the whole thing right away and whipped through the rest of them in a flash. Dad sure did feel like a knucklehead… wait, no, just challenged.
There are, of course, countless more challenges on the way, and lot more homework that will be completely beyond me in the coming years, but I know I have one skill that will always separate me from the boys: At least I can find my own damn underwear.
Tuesday
11/28/03
The Holidays Arrive. Quietly.
Ah, and so begin the holidays. A little turkey here, a little cranberry there, and before you know it, Santa’s wriggling down your chimney with a bag full of retail goodness.
Our holidays began here at home with a Thanksgiving dinner that went surprisingly smoothly. I had secretly hoped for some blog-worthy wacky misadventures, but unfortunately we just had a nice time. I cooked, guests showed up on time, we ate, and the whole day went by without a single kooky mix-up. Can you believe?
Not a single goofy neighbor showed up at the door to cause domestic mayhem, not a single beloved family pet did anything embarrassing to the turkey, and nary a long lost relative appeared to mortify us with embarrassing, long forgotten family secrets. Well, one of the boys did drop an olive on the new carpet, but the whole affair was resolved in a matter of seconds. Hardly very Barbara Walters.
I suppose I could hold out for Christmas in the hope that some wacky domestic shenanigans will cause me to slap my forehead and say "Oh those darn kids!"... but for the moment I’ll just have to hold on to this vision for sheer, mind numbingly embarrassing, stunt-driven foolishness.
So anyway, I wish a happy beginning of the season to all of you and yours, whether you you enjoy decorated trees or dreidels or Kwanzaa Kikombe Cha Umojas or whatever. Chill.
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The Holidays Arrive. Quietly.
Ah, and so begin the holidays. A little turkey here, a little cranberry there, and before you know it, Santa’s wriggling down your chimney with a bag full of retail goodness.
Our holidays began here at home with a Thanksgiving dinner that went surprisingly smoothly. I had secretly hoped for some blog-worthy wacky misadventures, but unfortunately we just had a nice time. I cooked, guests showed up on time, we ate, and the whole day went by without a single kooky mix-up. Can you believe?
Not a single goofy neighbor showed up at the door to cause domestic mayhem, not a single beloved family pet did anything embarrassing to the turkey, and nary a long lost relative appeared to mortify us with embarrassing, long forgotten family secrets. Well, one of the boys did drop an olive on the new carpet, but the whole affair was resolved in a matter of seconds. Hardly very Barbara Walters.
I suppose I could hold out for Christmas in the hope that some wacky domestic shenanigans will cause me to slap my forehead and say "Oh those darn kids!"... but for the moment I’ll just have to hold on to this vision for sheer, mind numbingly embarrassing, stunt-driven foolishness.
So anyway, I wish a happy beginning of the season to all of you and yours, whether you you enjoy decorated trees or dreidels or Kwanzaa Kikombe Cha Umojas or whatever. Chill.
11/27/03
The Curmudgeon Surfs
This entry was actually quite a bit longer, but I figured I’d save everyone from another dose of overblown hyperbole for a change. Lucky you.
So anyway, the thing is that everyone oversimplifies the internet into good and bad, with the bad specifically being Porn and Hate. Well, I submit that there is a third, equally pernicious evil of the internet: That of the tediously awful. The sort of awful that means well and is thrilled to be able to share, though all the while sublimely unaware of it’s own agonizingly embarrassing self. More, the sort of awful that is sublimely unaware of its own monumentally inappropriate, uninteresting, and unappealing self.
So, I present an unequalled example of such a site as this, put up by a couple from Frankfurt. I’m sure they are very nice, well meaning people, but the internet was not meant for them. Here it is… Enjoy.
Alright, maybe I am a cold-hearted, mean-spirited curmudgeon, but you probably didn’t see the page of hand-knitted socks, did you? No, I didn’t think so. Go back and look. You’ll see.
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The Curmudgeon Surfs
This entry was actually quite a bit longer, but I figured I’d save everyone from another dose of overblown hyperbole for a change. Lucky you.
So anyway, the thing is that everyone oversimplifies the internet into good and bad, with the bad specifically being Porn and Hate. Well, I submit that there is a third, equally pernicious evil of the internet: That of the tediously awful. The sort of awful that means well and is thrilled to be able to share, though all the while sublimely unaware of it’s own agonizingly embarrassing self. More, the sort of awful that is sublimely unaware of its own monumentally inappropriate, uninteresting, and unappealing self.
So, I present an unequalled example of such a site as this, put up by a couple from Frankfurt. I’m sure they are very nice, well meaning people, but the internet was not meant for them. Here it is… Enjoy.
Alright, maybe I am a cold-hearted, mean-spirited curmudgeon, but you probably didn’t see the page of hand-knitted socks, did you? No, I didn’t think so. Go back and look. You’ll see.
Friday
11/25/03
Back From The Dead
Well, I just spent the last couple of days with the Martian Death Flu, and I must say it’s great to be back. (There’s truly no worse company to spend a few days with, after all. Then again, I'm guessing it's better than a surprise visit from the positively surreal Liza and David. Yikes.)
Anyway, since it’s been years now since I’ve been sick, there were a few things I had forgotten about it, both good and bad. Namely: Simply lying in bed, usually a fine thing indeed, can really suck if you feel as though you’ve just been hit by a truck and even your skin hurts. The up-side to having my body hurt like hell though, is that I took four or five really hot showers a day, and each and every one, I kid you not, was an exquisitely awesome toe-curling fifteen minutes of sheer pleasure.
Another down side of being sick: You think TV was your friend for the last fourteen hours, but later on, when you just want to be alone and go to sleep, you discover that the Learning Channel is in you head. All of it. And the Food Network. And Nickelodeon. So basically while you’re trying to sleep, Emeril and Spongebob are trying to be the first to redecorate the neighbor’s Monster Garage, all the while fighting off Christopher Lowell who’s filming sharks while eating his way across Europe on two bucks a day. Brain too full? You bet.
And Jeez, I don’t think there is an up side to that. Unless if you count the fact that on CNN I got to see Michael Jackson in handcuffs. Yes, that was a priceless moment of oddly satisfying law enforcement goodness. Still, It’s nice to be back.
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Back From The Dead
Well, I just spent the last couple of days with the Martian Death Flu, and I must say it’s great to be back. (There’s truly no worse company to spend a few days with, after all. Then again, I'm guessing it's better than a surprise visit from the positively surreal Liza and David. Yikes.)
Anyway, since it’s been years now since I’ve been sick, there were a few things I had forgotten about it, both good and bad. Namely: Simply lying in bed, usually a fine thing indeed, can really suck if you feel as though you’ve just been hit by a truck and even your skin hurts. The up-side to having my body hurt like hell though, is that I took four or five really hot showers a day, and each and every one, I kid you not, was an exquisitely awesome toe-curling fifteen minutes of sheer pleasure.
Another down side of being sick: You think TV was your friend for the last fourteen hours, but later on, when you just want to be alone and go to sleep, you discover that the Learning Channel is in you head. All of it. And the Food Network. And Nickelodeon. So basically while you’re trying to sleep, Emeril and Spongebob are trying to be the first to redecorate the neighbor’s Monster Garage, all the while fighting off Christopher Lowell who’s filming sharks while eating his way across Europe on two bucks a day. Brain too full? You bet.
And Jeez, I don’t think there is an up side to that. Unless if you count the fact that on CNN I got to see Michael Jackson in handcuffs. Yes, that was a priceless moment of oddly satisfying law enforcement goodness. Still, It’s nice to be back.
