This guy turned up at our bird table this afternoon. I was disproportionally excited.
Archive for February, 2007
This time three weeks from now Kerry and I will be making last minute preparations for our holiday in Chicago. We are going to spend four days in the Windy City, then head on up to Wisconsin to stay with Greg and Deb for the weekend.
We are leaving Amy and Evan with Kerry’s parents and the dog with my Dad, and are currently taking bets as to which of our parents will regret their generosity first. My money is on my Dad - there is nothing in this world quite as unpleasant as coming barefooted down the stairs in the morning and feeling the freshly squeezed dog crap squidge between your toes. Not that Holly does that very often I must add, only when her usual routine is disturbed - like when her owners go on holiday for example.
Still, Kerry’s parents will have their own particular brand of pooey adventures with Evan and his Incredibly Smelly Nappies(TM). None of this will bother Kerry or I however, we’ll be too busy running around the streets of Chicago pretending to be the Blues Brothers (I bagsy Elwood). We don’t really have much of an itinerary when we get there. We want to ride the L, check out the Art Institute, and perhaps have a nosey round Lincon zoo, but that’s about as far as we’ve got. We intend just to hang about, drink in the city, and enjoy each other’s company.
We’re pretty excited about the Wisconsin leg of the trip too, not only do we get to meet Greg, Deb, and hopefully Bon Bon; but Greg has also promised us an interpretive dance to welcome us into his home, I’ve heard his unitard is something to behold. Up until now the only face to face contact we’ve had with the Lee family has been via our webcams. When we meet in real life we may have to implement some sort of prosthetic time delay and periodically tap imaginary microphones saying “Hello? Hello? Can you hear me? What about now?” in order for the conversation to flow naturally. Plus I won’t be able to be naked from the waist down anymore, which will be a real shame.
Whenever you visit strange cultures in third world countries it is traditional to bring beads and baubles in order to appease the natives. We’re bringing some Last of the summer wine tat for Dwayne and some English condiments for Greg. have you any requests Deb and Bon Bon?
Before we come though we’d like you to sort a few things out. I’ve already mentioned the national scandal of your so-called badgers, but there is something else that has been bothering me for some time: Dennis the Menace. I accept that both the British version and the American were created completely independently of each other. I will also admit that the US version appeared two whole days before the UK one (12th March, 1951 as opposed to 15th March, 1951). But really, your Dennis is hardly a Menace. An irritant granted, I will even accept a pest; but menace - I’m afraid not. Where is his peashooter? His Abyssinian wire-haired tripehound? His gang of ruffians? I’m afraid your miserable excuse for a menace just does not cut the mustard. Even his arch nemesis Mr Wilson is no match for our mighty Walter the Softy.
Once you resolve this issue and renounce your Dennis as the impostor that he is we will be willing to visit your country with no compunctions.
Evan is pretty much converted to baby formula now in preperation for Kerry and I going away for a week at the end of March . This means I’m getting to do my fair share of the feeding these days, which has been very good for our bonding.
I have a theory however that the baby milk manufactures must include a powerful sedative in their formula. This narcoleptic somehow floats in a thin layer at exact centre of the bottle, and as soon as Evan hits it he falls suddenly unconscious.
Once he has reached this state he will cheerfully sleep through dogs barking, workmen drilling, and the loudest sound known to man - his sister in a good mood. You can sit him up, turn him over, and even swing him around your head by his leg and he will still keep on peacefully dozing.
There is only one thing guaranteed to raise him. If, for any reason, you attempt to put him down (perhaps needing to go to the toilet or even have the notion that you’d like to recover the feeling in your left arm) he will instantly and irrevocably wake up. He will then demand to be kept constantly entertained for the next three hours.
It’s all part of life’s rich pageant.
Who’s the new leader of China?. An up to date riff on the old Abbott and Costello routine. You never saw stuff like this on the West Wing
I’m off work with a cold today. Amy’s been at nursery and Kerry and Evan have been over at her parents new house helping redecorate. This means, for the first time in months, I’ve been home alone. I have used my time productively, despite the streams of mucus poring out of my nostrils. For a start I have been messing around with the falbum plugin for wordpress. The result? About three hours of weeping, wailing, and mashing my forehead against the keyboard. It all turned out ok in the end however and now I have a rather spiffing new gallery here on the blog.
The other thing I’ve been toying with today is online gambling; internet poker to be precise. Recollecting stories told me by Dave and Jon about how they go online and reap petty cash from inexperienced rubes, I thought I’d dive in and get me a bit of the action. What I should have remembered is that Dave and Jon have a tendancy to reap cash from me too.
I enjoy poker, but I am seriously useless at it. I just don’t have the patience or the analytical mind to be a half decent player. At the end of about an hour’s play I found myself slightly poorer and pretty much bored of the whole thing. When I play cards in real life I am surrounded by good friends and a jovial atmosphere, whereas when I did it online I was siting on my own staring at a screen and watching c0ckn0bb3r237 take all my money. Still, I only lost five dollars - that’s about twelve pence in real money.
After I had enough of the nickel and dime games I headed over to the big stakes rooms to have a look what was going on. There were people in there that were betting hundreds of dollars at a time. Some of the pots were tipping over one thousand on a regular basis. It was heady and scary stuff.
I’m sure most of the players could afford to lose what they were betting, hell most of them were probably professional poker players anyway. But I imagine there have been a few pass through the doors who in a fit of bravado and over-confidence lost everything they had.
Gambling - Everything I ever needed to know I learnt from the Muppets.
L.A.S.E.R. Tag. I must admit I have quite a bit of admiration for graffiti artists. Not the mindless vandals obviously, but there are some very creative people out there.
Beatboxing inspector gadget. Play that funky flute white boy. You wouldn’t get James Galway doing this kind of stuff.
There is a burning debate raging across the blogosphere (well, on Deb and Bon Bon’s blogs anyway) over a philosophical question that is older than Socrates himself. A question which has divided nations, pitted brother against brother, parent against child. It is one of the great polarizing questions of our time, and needs to be handled in a sensitive and diplomatic manner. The question is: which is better dogs or cats?
Never being one to shy away from the cut and thrust of such controversies I thought I’d better intervene and sort the whole thing out once and for all. For the purposes of this exercise I shall be using examples of both Canis lupus familiaris and Felis catus domesticus from my own personal experience.
Holly
Holly is our dog (or rather my dog according to Kerry). She’s about five years old, of mixed heritage, and as mad as a bag of spanners. And that’s not just mad as in jumping up all over people and being overly boisterous (although she sometimes is that too); no, she has some deep rooted psychological problems. She will wander around the house for hours on end with a stolen sock in her mouth, whining like she has had an entire litter of puppies stolen from her. If given the opportunity she will leap on the bed and suck, not chew, the duvet until she has created a wet patch of dog saliva as big as a dinner plate. We have a theory that these behaviors are due to her being taken from her mother too young, but have no way of confirming this as she was a rescue dog. Whatever the reason, she is completely neurotic.
Tobi
Tobi is my mothers cat. She’s about six months old, jet black, and completely crazy in the coconut. She will hide in the dark shadows of the room, silently biding her time, until, at the moment that you are least expecting it, she will launch a completely unprovoked attack - leaping onto your arm, leg, or head - a biting, clawing and scratching whirlwind of black furred fury. We had her at our house once when my mother was on holiday and every time that Amy walked past she emitted a thunderous growl that was only two decibels off being classified as a roar. Don’t let the cute facade fool you, she is quite clearly a psychopath.
So there you have it, do you want a pet that is neurotic or one that is psychopathic? While the two specific examples I have used are perhaps to the extremes of the spectrum, I think the theory holds up to generalization too. Dogs are eager to please emotional doormats, while cats are aloof self obsessed manipulators. So the real choice is between a pet that will keep you up all night repeatedly asking if you really really love them, or one that will simply murder you in your sleep.
I wonder how much goldfish cost?
Evan attended his first ever roleplaying game over at Paul’s house last night. He did OK, but we couldn’t get him to understand the difference between a goblin and a hobgoblin. Stupid babies.
There are two distinct categories of morning for the parents of a young child. The first is the “Please, please, for the love of all that is good, just let me have just five more minutes in bed†morning, and the other the “It’s half past eight and we haven’t heard anything yet - do you think she’s still alive?†morning. Neither one is pleasant.
My latest post for Dadbloggers is up. Head on over and take a look.
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