.jpg)
I stopped at Woolies on the way home from work this evening, buying what I needed for dinner (forgetting that there was a blindingly brilliant beef stew in the fridge). As I left the cashier and made my way out I had to pass a young mother and her two younger (under 5, but old enough to legally walk) children.
(Gingers, I have to add.)
There was a boy and a girl and, by at least 50 decibels, the girl was by far the loudest, well into the throes of a full on dummy-spit.
It was nice to be able to walk away and leave that horrible caterwauling on the other side of the elevator doors.
And it occurred to me that I have absolutely NO recollection of MY kids acting that way. I know they must have. There's no way in hell, knowing their mother, that they DIDN'T act like this. At least once. More likely full time for at least six months. Each.
Isn't it wonderful how the mind filters out the crap it doesn't think you can handle? The extreeeeemely long sleepless night of the fist months of the first born. By the second born you give less of a fuck and let them cry a bit longer. Horrible? Maybe, but he's turned out okay. I only had two, so I can only assume that by the sixth, assuming you both manage to convince each other to go at it that long, by the sixth you stuff it in a bottom drawer with a bag of food and check in on it/him/her once and awhile.
But, as usually, I digress.
The mind. Blocking things. Oh yeah.
The terrible two haven't stuck in my head at all. Anecdotal evidence suggests it really occurred, twice, but I'm taking my word for it. I have no recollection.
I remember jabbing an electric drill bit, 1/4" I think, into the first knuckle of my right index finger in 1979, but I have no recollection of how much it hurt. Thank God.
I remember breaking my ankle in a very clumsy (by any standards) game of football (soccer to the heathens among you). I even remember the sound. And while I KNOW it hurt, I can't remember how much it hurt.
And this isn't something that needs a long stretch of time to work.
Three weeks ago, while being a helpful dad at the football club's barbecue for the Saturday morning game, a smallish piece of fried onion, and a slurp of the fat it was sitting it, slapped up against the tender part of my poor left index finger, just back of the fingernail.
Holy mother of a goat loving whore that hurt. I distinctly recall swallowing words that were very inappropriate given the ten year old boy standing in front of me and the offending griddle, waiting for his bacon and egg on a roll.
Although he was amused, the prick.
While I know that the index finger hurt more than any other finger on my body has EVER hurt, I couldn't honestly say what that hurt felt like. It's a wonderful, protective trait that the mind has. How horrible it would be to remember the level of pain you've experienced throughout your life.
Physical pain, that is.
I'll always remember the pain of having to sit through Transformers 2.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Saturday, May 30, 2009
10 things people STILL believe, and it blows my freaking mind.
Ten things people still believe, and it blows my mind:
1) Creationism. That the Earth, no, the Universe, was created in six days, the seventh used for a game of golf. (What was the foursome? The holy Trinity and who else?). Apparently Creationists believe the world/universe was built a mere 10,000 years ago, or so. Especially curious this because there are fossil-y things that are a fuck of a lot older. Apparently there's an argument that the "Creator" made them look that old.
Why?
Really, why? What earthly purpose would there be to create shit that looked eons older than the lump of dirt that that thing was buried in? There is absolutely no explanation that satisfies that one.
2) In a similar vein, the "afterlife". Come on, really. Who are you kidding? This is the ultimate boogie man, a creature we should have grown out of before our 10th birthday. If you're good, heaven awaits (descriptions vary). Naughties go to hell (for a full description see Dante -- apparently he's been there. It's pretty well mapped out. Better than the other place. Makes you wonder). Personally, I believe that when I die, my organs will be harvested, per my instructions, I'll be cremated, per my instructions, and my ashes sprinkled over the local nude beach. That's MY afterlife.
2a) The ability to talk to those IN the afterlife. John Edwards has made a good living off his ability to guess regular folks stuff in a really vague and wishy-washy manner. "I'm getting the letter N". Really? One of the more common letters in the alphabet? I'd be impressed if he said "Does the letter 'X' mean anything to you?" And the person said "Yes! Xavier was my great uncles third cousins half sister." But no, it's always N or M or T.
3) In a similar, similar vein, ghosts. Demi Moore is cute (sorry, Mrs Kutcher is cute) but that movie was totally unbelievable. Vacuous, vaporous spirits wandering the earth because they can't get to the 'other side'. I thought we established there was no other side. Dead is dead. Not dead is not dead. There is no dead but not dead.
4) Starbucks is good value for money. This is a biggie. In the United States there's a Starbucks for every 14.3 residents (includes illegals). A Venti half-caf skim Cap is not only a shitty tasting brew, it costs in the neighbourhood of $8.00. For that amount of green I can buy a bag of ALREADY GROUND coffee that will provide for me, with very little effort, twenty venti cups. By the way. Venti? That's Italian for 20. What's that supposed to mean?
5) Dane Cook is funny. He isn't
6) Good blended malt scotch can be as good as single malt scotch. It can't.
7) There is a group of really special people that can see the future. Ha! They would put the lottery business under in a week. I had a 'psychic' tell me, in 1992, that I would be running my own business making cabinets by the year 2000. Slight miss. But I was wearing work boots, jeans and a denim jacket. Maybe I looked the part.
8) Jack Bauer is real. If only.
9) (and this MAY allow me to check out Dante's architectural plans) the supreme being. Deity. Creator. (kinda ties in with point 1. Good callback, eh?) I thought we were descendants of aliens (sorry, getting ahead of myself). I have a difficult time believing that there's a grand architect that a) knows what we're doing and b) judges us accordingly. Wait. That's Santa!
10) Aliens. Hmmmm. Green men, crashing space craft in Nevada...and why do ALL of the aliens seem to land in the States? I haven't heard of a single one landing in Bhutan. Well, that's a bad choice. Very hilly. No really good landing spots. Okay. You never hear of green-skinned googly-eyed visitors from a star way far away landing in the Congo. Wouldn't THAT fuck them up?
Bottom line, we are small, insignificant lumps of flesh, on a tiny planet, orbiting a mediocre star in one of a multitude of galaxies, capable of creating beautiful art, soaring symphonies, mind blowing technology, all in the real world. Accept THAT.
1) Creationism. That the Earth, no, the Universe, was created in six days, the seventh used for a game of golf. (What was the foursome? The holy Trinity and who else?). Apparently Creationists believe the world/universe was built a mere 10,000 years ago, or so. Especially curious this because there are fossil-y things that are a fuck of a lot older. Apparently there's an argument that the "Creator" made them look that old.
Why?
Really, why? What earthly purpose would there be to create shit that looked eons older than the lump of dirt that that thing was buried in? There is absolutely no explanation that satisfies that one.
2) In a similar vein, the "afterlife". Come on, really. Who are you kidding? This is the ultimate boogie man, a creature we should have grown out of before our 10th birthday. If you're good, heaven awaits (descriptions vary). Naughties go to hell (for a full description see Dante -- apparently he's been there. It's pretty well mapped out. Better than the other place. Makes you wonder). Personally, I believe that when I die, my organs will be harvested, per my instructions, I'll be cremated, per my instructions, and my ashes sprinkled over the local nude beach. That's MY afterlife.
2a) The ability to talk to those IN the afterlife. John Edwards has made a good living off his ability to guess regular folks stuff in a really vague and wishy-washy manner. "I'm getting the letter N". Really? One of the more common letters in the alphabet? I'd be impressed if he said "Does the letter 'X' mean anything to you?" And the person said "Yes! Xavier was my great uncles third cousins half sister." But no, it's always N or M or T.
3) In a similar, similar vein, ghosts. Demi Moore is cute (sorry, Mrs Kutcher is cute) but that movie was totally unbelievable. Vacuous, vaporous spirits wandering the earth because they can't get to the 'other side'. I thought we established there was no other side. Dead is dead. Not dead is not dead. There is no dead but not dead.
4) Starbucks is good value for money. This is a biggie. In the United States there's a Starbucks for every 14.3 residents (includes illegals). A Venti half-caf skim Cap is not only a shitty tasting brew, it costs in the neighbourhood of $8.00. For that amount of green I can buy a bag of ALREADY GROUND coffee that will provide for me, with very little effort, twenty venti cups. By the way. Venti? That's Italian for 20. What's that supposed to mean?
5) Dane Cook is funny. He isn't
6) Good blended malt scotch can be as good as single malt scotch. It can't.
7) There is a group of really special people that can see the future. Ha! They would put the lottery business under in a week. I had a 'psychic' tell me, in 1992, that I would be running my own business making cabinets by the year 2000. Slight miss. But I was wearing work boots, jeans and a denim jacket. Maybe I looked the part.
8) Jack Bauer is real. If only.
9) (and this MAY allow me to check out Dante's architectural plans) the supreme being. Deity. Creator. (kinda ties in with point 1. Good callback, eh?) I thought we were descendants of aliens (sorry, getting ahead of myself). I have a difficult time believing that there's a grand architect that a) knows what we're doing and b) judges us accordingly. Wait. That's Santa!
10) Aliens. Hmmmm. Green men, crashing space craft in Nevada...and why do ALL of the aliens seem to land in the States? I haven't heard of a single one landing in Bhutan. Well, that's a bad choice. Very hilly. No really good landing spots. Okay. You never hear of green-skinned googly-eyed visitors from a star way far away landing in the Congo. Wouldn't THAT fuck them up?
Bottom line, we are small, insignificant lumps of flesh, on a tiny planet, orbiting a mediocre star in one of a multitude of galaxies, capable of creating beautiful art, soaring symphonies, mind blowing technology, all in the real world. Accept THAT.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
PANIC! FUD! HYSTERIA!
A couple of days ago there were 24 documented cases of swine flu (No, I'm NOT changing what I call it to keep the pig farmers happy!) in Australia. Yesterday there were 60. Today, around lunch time-ish we were looking at a bit over 100.
The newspapers have rolled out their barrels of hysterical ink.
"10,000" deaths in Australia has been mooted.
Some idiot spoke of the number cases doubling every day.
DO THE MATH MORON!
If we doubled every day, by June 15th, check the calendar people, that's less than three weeks from now, every single breathing human being in Australia would be infected with the pig that flu. And half of us would have it TWICE!
Ten days after that, assuming we keep this ridiculous "double every day" assumption alive and well, everybody on the planet will have the swine flu five times over.
Sheesh.
Perspective, like the kind I learned in first year Engineering, is needed.
Relax.
Don't let anybody sneeze on you (sneeze right back on them if they do!).
Do the handshake like Howie Mandel (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about) and chill the fuck out people
The newspapers have rolled out their barrels of hysterical ink.
"10,000" deaths in Australia has been mooted.
Some idiot spoke of the number cases doubling every day.
DO THE MATH MORON!
If we doubled every day, by June 15th, check the calendar people, that's less than three weeks from now, every single breathing human being in Australia would be infected with the pig that flu. And half of us would have it TWICE!
Ten days after that, assuming we keep this ridiculous "double every day" assumption alive and well, everybody on the planet will have the swine flu five times over.
Sheesh.
Perspective, like the kind I learned in first year Engineering, is needed.
Relax.
Don't let anybody sneeze on you (sneeze right back on them if they do!).
Do the handshake like Howie Mandel (look it up if you don't know what I'm talking about) and chill the fuck out people
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)