Month: December 2012

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...And Little E Makes 3 Funny Stuff

Conversations with my son, part 8931

YeahOn the way home from picking up pizza today, Little E and I discussed why he laughs at a joke on one of his favorite shows, but doesn’t laugh when he says the same thing himself because it’s not inherently funny on its own.

  • ME: Maybe it’s not funny because it’s out of context.
  • E: What is context?
  • ME: It’s what’s going on around what you’re saying. Context is the other stuff around it. Context can tell you a lot. Context is pretty important.
  • E: [giggling]
  • ME: What?
  • E: You keep saying context and it sounds funny.
  • ME: Ah. That’s subtext…

This is why I’m not an English or lit teacher. Or, for that matter, any kind of teacher. 😆… Read more

Categories
Gadgetology Music

That sounds familiar

I CAN'T HEAR YOUInternational Space Station astronaut Chris Hadfield has posted a really interesting sound file or two on Soundcloud. In response to a Twitter question about what it sounds like aboard the ISS, Hadfield posted a recording of the ambient sound of constantly-running life support/air conditioning and a few dozen computer fans. You can hear it here.

Kinda sounds like home to me. I’d be the last person to trivialize spaceflight or anything related to it, but that wall of computer-fan-and-A/C sounds an awful lot like… … Read more

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Critters Should We Talk About The Weather?

Snownado 5001 Deluxe

LET IT BLO SNOChristmas was marred slightly by one minor thing: a blizzard hit. We had planned to spend the afternoon with friends, stuffing our faces and shooting whatever bulls wandered into our view, but there was already ice falling from the sky by the time we got there. It turned into a meet-and-greet-and-eat-and-get-the-hell-outta-Dodge.

Considering how bad the roads have gotten since then (the whole area’s pretty much been shut down, as thousands of schoolchildren bemoan the fact that this hit during a time of the year that they were out of school anyway), the haste was not premature. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

Happy faces, happy places

YayWe had a pretty modest Christmas at home this year; thanks to a few friends showering me with gift cards early enough to do some shopping, I was able to get Little E a small heap o’ goodies, and a little something for the Mrs. too (get your mind out of the gutter). Not a huge amount of stuff, but with Little E, it’s always best not to overwhelm with stuff, but to provide some goodies that are relevant to his interests (to coin a phrase).

Really, if you look real close, what you’ll see is that he got a bunch of goodies that just continue pushing him toward his somewhat unfortunate destiny of becoming v2.0 of me. 😆 I’m still working to ensure that the upgrade includes more hair, less belly, and a big ol’ brain. … Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Funny Stuff

The Christmas card that never was

Silver and gold and dead printersI had the bright idea, a couple of weeks ago, to design our own Christmas card, have Little E color it, and then I’d rescan it, print copies, fold them up and send them out.

Naturally, within 24 hours, our printer suffered a complete mechanical failure and decided it would no longer feed paper, or even so much as power up without a strange wheezing, groaning sound. I had already assembled some “clip art train wrecks” for Little E to color in his own unique way; sadly, I couldn’t get them onto paper in time to execute our grand Christmas card plan. … Read more

Categories
Home Base

Meanwhile, on Christmas Eve, 1968…

…tune in that live shot, would ya?

Our forecast for Christmas is… interesting…

brrrrrrr

…this may or may not scupper just about all of our plans that don’t involve “staying home and ripping wrapping paper off of stuff.” We’ll see.

To update an earlier post, this evening as I was changing litterboxes, Little E was hugely helpful in preventing a multiple cat escape (what is it with the rapid spread of this virulent strain of stupid among the feline population!?), and I rewarded him by letting him have Knuckles just a bit early. He’d been grousing about his Knuckles-less-ness all day, but his efforts in keeping the cats inside (and after dark, no less) was worthy of both praise and plushness. Just you wait, buddy. Just you wait.

Whatever you’re celebrating tomorrow, even if it’s just waking up, drawing breath, and finding that your name still isn’t in the obits, celebrate it with someone you love, whether two-legged or four-legged. Being able to kick back and nap under a pile of warm cats sounds like a blissful Christmas to me – well, that and waking up to watch the new episode of Doctor Who.… Read more

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...And Little E Makes 3 Home Base

Karmic payback delivered hot and fresh to my door

RewindSo, on Sunday when I went to get Little E out of bed, he was bouncing with energy. After all, he had Sonic and Tails and Knuckles with him. Wait, what!? He wasn’t supposed to get Knuckles until Christmas morning.

This is a story of how karma occasionally delivers a pretty stout bitch-slap decades later. Let’s rewind a bit. … Read more