17 Wednesday Apr 2013
Tags
comments, facebook, negativity, positivity, quotes, snark, trolling
But I think I should get bonus points for managing to resist hitting “enter” on this comment I felt greatly tempted to make on Facebook the other day…
28 Thursday Mar 2013
Posted in Life and Love, Pointless Posts
21 Thursday Feb 2013
Posted in Life and Love, Pointless Posts
Tags
children, children and media, children's programming, jim henson, old school sesame street, preschoolers, sesame street, toddlers, tv
Now that Owl is two we occasionally allow ourselves the luxury of putting Owl in front of the TV for some quality programming.
Over Christmas we had fun showing him The Grinch (which he loved) and Muppet Family Christmas (which he liked) and Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer (which he had no interest in).
Sometimes we let him watch some Sesame Street.
I really notice a difference between letting him watch Sesame Street on Netflix versus the Old School Sesame Street DVD that we picked up years and years ago.
Sesame Street has really changed over the years, and it’s more than just the loss of Jim Henson.
08 Sunday Jul 2012
Tags
Remember cereal boxes when we were kids? They usually had cartoons, occasionally puzzles, and promises of prizes inside, like this:
Cereal boxes seem to have changed rather dramatically since the 1980s.
I was looking at the back of my cereal the other day and saw that it consisted of a single cartoon.
Let me take you through it…
Aw, he’s playing hide and seek, and there’s a kitty!
Aw, his friend was hiding behind the kitty.
That’s right, he just got incinerated and his ashes are ALL OVER HIS FRIEND’S FACE
Mmm!
Eat Cinnamon Corn Pops, kids! They long for the sweetness of death because they’ve witnessed too many atrocities perpetrated by murderous sphynx-like tabby cats.
DELICIOUS!
29 Tuesday May 2012
Posted in Life and Love, Pointless Posts
Does anyone else watch Iron Chef just for those opening minutes with The Chairman?
I don’t know what I love more – the backflip onto the podium, the ridiculous questions he asks the challenger, or the foley that they place on his darting glares.
It almost makes me forgive their constant dubbing of Morimoto’s perfectly intelligible speech.
“And now, we must jettison our well-crafted japery…”
28 Wednesday Mar 2012
Tags
Hi folks!
Thanks for waiting. I know you’ve spent the last week wondering “Was it the dog or the baby??”
The answers you have been longing for are finally here.
Exhibit A - stain on the carpet: Dog, or Baby?
Survey says: BABY!
The Truth: BABY!
Man, I thought I’d get you guys for sure with this one. Surely brown stain on carpet = dog? But you were too clever for me! Yes, Owl did this. He managed to get his hands on a bottle of liquid Claritin and dump it all over the carpet. We THOUGHT we cleaned it up well, but I guess there must be some residual stickiness, because it has become increasingly more brown as time has gone on as it slowly gathers dirt from the detritus of our lives…
Exhibit B - chewed-up Baby Bels - Dog, or Baby?
Survey Says: DOG!
The Truth: BABY!
That’s right. Owl chewed through the plastic mesh, through the wrappers, through the wax, and destroyed half of our Babybels before we even arrived home from the grocery store.
Exhibit C - Decapitated cup - Dog, or Baby?
Survey Says: Baby, but by a nose – the split was pretty close to 50/50.
The Truth: DOG!
Apparently it was left on the floor, with milk still in it… Beloved Dog must have thought this was a new puzzle… It’s a shame, too, because Owl picked this cup out himself at the store. Ah well…
Exhibit D - Damaged sofa - Dog, or Baby?
Survey Says: DOG!
The Truth: BABY!
Owl not only took a small hole in the cushion fibres and picked it into several large and gaping holes, but he now pulls the fluff out of them whenever he gets a chance. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.
Exhibit E - Shredded L.M. Montgomery - Dog, or Baby?
Survey Says: BABY!
The Truth: DOG!
Beloved Dog wrecked this book in his youth, when he was two years old or so. Before we got the cat, leaving him with enough to do when I went to work every day was a challenge. This was the victim of a day when he did not have enough to do. So I got him a cat. He hasn’t chewed a book since…
Exhibit F - dented cheddar - Dog, or Baby?
Survey Says: BABY!
The Truth: BABY!
The dentition pattern gives this one away, I know, but I had to include it, because it happened in the SAME grocery run as the Babybel fiasco (notice the Babybels in the background). In fact, it happened WHILE I was putting the Babybels out of reach…
Exhibit G - shredded Kleenex - Dog, or Baby?
Survey Says: BABY!
The Truth: BOTH!
This one was a bit of a cheat, because it was really a toss-up. The Kleenex in this particular photograph was shredded by Owl, but actually Beloved Dog is just as frequently guilty of this exact same crime, even with the addition of the cat to the household. There’s just something fun to rip about Kleenex, I guess.
21 Wednesday Mar 2012
I’m going to present you with a series of photos of things that have been damaged or destroyed. Some were perpetrated by the dog. Others were perpetrated by the baby. Which is which?
14 Wednesday Mar 2012
Someone on my Facebook recently posted that they had overheard this spoken in a comic book store:
Asking us why we don’t watch The Big Bang Theory is like asking a self-respecting gay person why they don’t watch Will and Grace.
THANK YOU.
I’ve tried to like The Big Bang Theory. I really, really have. Perfect Husband and I keep tuning in and trying to make it through an episode. So far our record is three in a row during a marathon before we tapped out.
I love the character of Sheldon, who clearly has Asperger’s syndrome but is coping beautifully with it. He’s the only character who actually seems comfortable with who he is, and I find him the most believable personality, even when he’s being completely outrageous. Pretty much all of the show’s best lines come from him, too.
Even better, they actually do hire scientists to write certain parts of the script, so the philosophical nerd banter, the equations scribbled on the blackboards, and most of the references are completely accurate, putting shows like CSI to shame with their actual correct use of SCIENCE.
The show is filled with little Easter Eggs that only real nerds/scientists/geeks would pick up on, and jokes that laymen wouldn’t get.
And PH and I do guffaw at all of those little moments that are clearly aimed at amusing the geeks out there:
Why did the chicken cross the Möbius strip? To get to the same side.
Hahahahaha!
A neutron walks into a bar and asks how much for a drink. The bartender replies, ‘For you, no charge.’
Hee hee hee!
Oh, he mentioned Occam’s Razor!
Oh, he dressed as The Doppler Effect for a costume party!
I know what those things are and so I shall giggle in glee because I feel so clever for getting their oh-so-nerdy jokes!
All geeks in this family.
But that’s what it comes down to – even those delightfully nerdy jokes just leave us feeling dirty and used, because we know that those jokes are the result of Chuck Lorre and company trying to butter us up.
Posted by IfByYes | Filed under Life and Love, Oh The Inanity, Pointless Posts
22 Wednesday Feb 2012
Tags
For the last year, I have been on a quest for a decent night light for Owl.
You’d think it’d be easy.
But no.
It doesn’t help that I’m being as picky as hell.
You don’t find nightlights in the grocery store or pharmacies. Even places like Walmart have an abysmally small selection.
I eventually picked up a cheapy one with a little shade on it, and that worked for quite a while, until Owl broke the shade off.
My mother gave Owl a cute little giraffe night light, which worked great until last week, when Owl managed to break that as well. I’m not even sure what he did, but the switch doesn’t work any more.
What I really want to find is a cozy little lamp – one I can keep up on the windowsill out of reach. One that is relaxing, and dim enough to keep Owl’s room feeling like night time, but bright enough that I can read by it – I spend a lot of time in that gliding rocker trying to sing Owl down to sleep without booba.
Oh, and it needs to be cheap, too, because we have no money.
Daycare Lady has a lamp she uses for the kids during naptime, which she says they really like. I borrowed it for a couple of days and I loved it – it gives a warm glow that isn’t too bright but does illuminate the room. It has an inner bit which spins, casting dancing shadows which I find very relaxing.
I totally want one.
Two problems:
1. It has Dora the Explorer on it, and it’s bright pink.
Not only is it corporate branding, but it's wrong-gender corporate branding!
2. It is discontinued.
But that’s ok. I didn’t need this exact item.
I’ve been avoiding buying Owl anything with branding on it until he is old enough to request it himself. Besides, I was sure I had seen similar things in stores before, so I started trawling the lamp aisles at places like Zellers and Walmart.
No luck! In fact, I couldn’t find ANY children’s lamps, even though I am sure that I used to see cute ones all the time when I was out training service dogs years back.
So I went online.
I found the kind of thing I was looking for, all right.
08 Thursday Dec 2011
Posted in Life and Love, My Blag is on the Interwebs, Pointless Posts
When I was a girl I wrote you a lot
with wish lists that I would compile great thought
believing and trusting that you would come through
with some of the stuff I requested from you.
I don’t think that readers will be shocked to hear
that some gifts were notably absent each year.
The ponies and power-wheels for which I would nag
clearly could not be tucked into your bag!
And no one could blame you, not even me
for failing to leave me a horse by the tree.
But now I am older and feeling more wise
So I will consider the issue of size!
My requests should cause you no trouble at all
for all of them are quite reasonably small:
I’m sure, as you know, I am only a tech,
so maybe you could please consider a check?
For the mortgage, assessment, vacations and such
a million or so would be fine: not too much.
And then, because, as you know, I do blog
but working and sleeping and the baby can hog
a lot of my time so more time would be great.
Or maybe just take some things off of my plate,
like some of the time that I spend on my whelp:
A baby who slept through the night would sure help.
If you can’t manage that, and you wish to atone,
I’d take wifi, a new hard drive, and a data plan for my phone.
Just one more thing I would ask for myself:
Perhaps you could spare me a single good elf?
He needn’t be burly, or much of a hunk
To tidy my house and to purge it of junk
That should be enough for Christmas this year
to fill my poor soul with the old Christmas cheer!
