Random posting

So, haven't posted in a while. It's a pity to disappoint my vast readership, so here's some blather, some tiny sparks of pointless conversation to fill the yawning silent void that is the blogosphere.

Trois Freres is still awesome.

If you're 6, Ben 10 is awesome.

If you're 2, Hi 5 is awesome. Personally, I think it's a lot less interesting now that Kathleen is gone. She was a hottie. Not much point watching the show now. And I've just discovered (while extracting the above web link) that The Princess Bride is one of her favourite movies. And her husband has the same name as me. And her favourite number is 1. That's one of my favourite numbers! up there with Graham's Number and n. It's her birthday tomorrow too, and another of her favourite movies is on TV right now, so it's a good time to be Kathleen, I reckon.

If you're six months old, pretty much anything you can grab and chew on is pretty awesome.

D is going through a Favourite Music phase. On the way home this evening he controlled the iPod (with the little radio dongle to make it play through the stereo). He couldn't quite figure out the controls, but he was very excited by the power, and was trying to find his favourites (he was disappointed by the lack of Doo Wah Diddy Diddy). On a regular basis he'll come up with a new favourite band. We listen to a lot of music - at home, as well as to and from school/work in the car each day. So I'll frequently get drilled on my favourite songs (and mine vary depending on mood as well, but I can generally fall back on Golden Brown and most of Faithless' Reverence album). He'll frequently claim the Cat Empire and the White Stripes as his favourites, but today it was The Police (mainly because of Guitar Hero and Singstar). Regina Spektor gets listed frequently, as does Jackson Jackson (though I'm not sure why - he doesn't really know their songs). I've gotta say, for a six-year-old he's got pretty good taste in music :)

Governed by thugs and degenerates

From what I can gather (via listening to Hack and a bit of web searching), proposed new legislation (see also) will mean that the ACCC can sue unions and community groups for organizing boycotts of companies, if the company makes a complaint. The companies will have nothing to lose in doing this, since the ACCC foots the cost of the lawsuit. So things like boycotting oil companies that are producing shale oil, or are cruel to animals, or engage in any other unethical practice, would become illegal. So personally boycotting a company isn't illegal, just encouraging others to do so is.

Wankers.

Argh! ADSL woes!

Stupid new ADSL modem doesn't like stupid long ethernet stupid cables, so we're back to using the slow old ADSL modem (which has served us faithfully for years). The new one worked for a bit last night, and for a bit this evening when I jiggled the cable, but then it died. Probably some requires-cat5e-cable-not-dodgy-homemade-cable malarkey. Anyways, it seems to work if I have a short ethernet cable and a long phone cable, but I don't have a phone cable quite long enough to run without turning the house into some sort of Shelob's Lair of Networking, which Mrs B seems to have some weird objection to. Chicks, eh? Whatcha gonna do?

The upshot is that tomorrow is Go Visit The Nice Cable Selling People Day, and until then I'm living like some kind of Saxon serf in the dark ages with only a 1.5Mb connections to the interwebs.

Opportunities lost...

So there I was (I've long thought that's the best way to start an anecdote), in the men's bathrooms (not the best way to continue said anecdote, but bear with me here), washing my hands. An Important Academic is in there too, washing his hands (not a euphemism here - we were actually washing our hands). He points at the windows, and says something to the effect of "You know it's a dodgy neighbourhood when they've even got bars on the windows of the toilets". And I'm hit by the "there's a joke here" demon.

In this case, as you know, you generally have about 2 seconds to come up with your response. And I know it's there, and it's pretty funny. The words are all in there, tumbling across the landscape of my consciousness like great big tumbly consciousy things, toying with me, but I can't get them to perform the right acrobatic maneuvers to turn into That Joke I Know Is There. A second passes, and I say "yeah" to kind of stall for time, and That Joke is still there, not ready to come out right (it could come out, but it'd be a bit of a mess).

Then the academic starts talking about the project we're working on, and the joke hits me. Bam! And it's pretty funny for an off the cuff remark, but it's precisely one second to late. He's all like "blah", and I'm all "blah blah" and if I backtracked the conversation I'd look a bit tragic, like some guy that can't get his witty rejoinders out quickly enough, so I let it go, just a little sad that such a good joke was gone forever (unless someone else ever comments on bars on the windows of a bathroom, in which case Bam! they're gonna get a good one).

It's just one of the sad tales of my life. I'm surrounded by some very witty people (as well as some people who tell a lot of jokes), and it's rare that I come out with a good one really quickly. There was That One Joke I Made At Mardi Gras which pretty much everyone I know knows, because I've told them, just in case they weren't aware of how witty I can be. I remember one radio comic (Ross Noble) cunningly coming up with a way of repeating a joke he'd come up with at a live performance (he apologized on air to a lady from the live audience after accusing her of having sex with wizards). But this one is lost to posterity; and on reflection it wasn't that great. And most of you have probably figured out what it was by now, so I'd better not tell it here. After all, I wouldn't want anyone to take the piss.

Bare minimum redux

The other day's Only the bare minimum post reminds me of a D line a few years ago. He was two or three at the time, and liked to be carried, or at least have his copious pile of two-year-old necessities carried, and would be disappointed when we would respond that we couldn't because our hands were full (with shopping and other junk).

So one day, D and I were walking up the stairs, both carrying stuff. He turns around and says:

"Daddy, ask me to carry that" (pointing at whatever I was carrying)
"Why?" I responded (or it might've been a confused "Huh?")
"Daddy, just ask me to carry that!"
"OK, D, could you carry this for me?" I respond cautiously.
"I can't! I'm full of hands!" he beamed.

Only the bare minimum

Small children have a natural tendency towards minimum. A. will only take the bare minimum with him when he goes anywhere. Nothing extraneous or unnecessary. For example, the other day, when he woke up from his nap, all he wanted to bring downstairs was Dog (his dog, who comes everywhere), two books, some cars, a train, and baby Dog. Nothing unnecessary. Same with going to the park the other day. Just Dog, a ball, a book, some pencils, and a pokemon ball thing.

Such wisdom in today's youth!

This evening:

D (constructing something in the bath): Daddy, does this look like something from World of Woodcraft?

At bedtime:
A: Want books! [he likes to take books to bed] [and cars] [and fishing lines, hair ties, spinning tops, and so on]
Me: (sighs) OK, go get some books
A: (wanders over to bookshelf, comes back with arms full)
Me: Goodness Gracious! Look at all those! Did you plunder D's room?
A: Yeah!

Speedy fast quick swift interwebs

Yay - new ADSL plan came through today, tripling my ADSL speed. Ordered ADSL2 modem, so I can multiply by another 16 times (well less, since most people don't get the full 24Mbps as far as I can tell).

So I guess I can expect to blow my quota a bit more often :)

Bastard cables are bastards

It's looking like it's time to restructure the TV cables. I'm watching more and more stuff on the computer, and it plugs into the same slot as the video and the playstation. And they're getting used more often these days (and A frequently randomly decides to plug in the playstation, just in case. So when someone has watched a video, my computer doesn't play on the TV, and I have to get up. When someone watches a video, and I want to watch computer stuff, I have to get up. And the Divine Light What Created The Universe gave us remote controls so I don't have to get up.

So, I think the plan is: AV1 is computer, and AV2 is everything else, on the little switch thingy. Coz we have to get up to put physical media in DVD, Video, and Playstation, so the switch can be flicked then.

Controlled Crying == Awesome!!!

Well, firstly, controlled crying is somewhat of a misnomer - you actually kind of do the opposite. Rather than jumping up every time the little gal squawks, we let her cry a bit, and make sure we don't rock her to sleep.

But it works so well. Baby E now sleeps in her bed - actually goes to sleep by herself! Suddenly, rather than having to spend hours trying to get the little girl to sleep, we've got hours of time to our grown-up selves - like, from 9pm until "crap better go to bed or I'll be real tired tomorrow" o'clock (which has been my standard bedtime for the last 20 years or so). Can't claim to be using the time wisely (see, for example, the post regarding Flight of the Conchords, or the one about playing with Blogger templates).

On a completely different note, Joan Chen is awesome. How many other actors have been in MacGyver, Tales from the Crypt, and The Outer Limits, among other classics?

Kids and cars

When D was smaller (around 3) he went through a phase of being fascinated by the controls of the car - I think they all do (A is starting to get into it). He wasn't too accurate with all the names of all the bits of the car, but we still use his phrase for describing the hazard lights: "havoc lights". Much better than my previous term, the "Screw you, I'm parking here" lights.

Good show

If you haven't seen it, Flight of the Conchords is bloody good fun. I enjoy a good silly comedy now and then. Need to see if I can get some of the music.

Freecycling

Joined the Sydney South Freecycle group today. Not sure whether it's to get more stuff, or to give stuff away. Hopefully the latter. Subscribing to Unclutterer has helped me to tame my stuff acquisition drive (or at least temper it somewhat with an ability to purge junk I don't need).

Thunder and Chaos

We had 20 people in our house for lunch today - the 5 of us, plus a wide assortment of siblings and cousins. It was noisy and chaotic. Much geekery was had - Settlers of Catan, 6 laptops or so on the kitchen table after lunch. Plans and plots for a shared Stuff Server to hold photos and music and all sorts of stuff to be shared between all of us. Lots of noise and shrieking little people.

The lads were extra cranky this evening - required constant supervision to prevent them disemboweling and/or strangling one another. D on a major Favouriting binge - he basically wanted me to rank all the characters of the first Harry Potter book in order of favouriteness, via pairwise comparison. A gave E a nasty scratch across her face. Not sure why.

Have to say though, I'm pretty pleased with the boys' eating habits. Morning tea was chunks of cucumber, and when dinner wasn't coming quickly enough, they devoured bowls of cucumber, carrot, and lettuce. And came to blows over who got which pieces (on the other hand, they were coming to blows over pretty much anything - merely being within belting distance was sufficient provocation).

Tooling with templates II

Not too sure about this template. It's got a nifty photo, but it's fixed width, and I'm not sure if that width is width enough. This looks like it'll be workable with CSS3. Might revert, but I'll think on it.

The picture is one I took at the park this morning, while chasing A around while D played soccer (and scored a goal!).

Tooling with templates

It seems I can't use a tool without customizing and tweaking, so naturally I've fiddled with the templating tools here. And I probably will again. The image above is from late last year, when we went to see the Sculptures By The Sea.

A memory

I've told this one plenty of times, but it's one of my favourite "Kids Are Stark Raving Bonkers" tales.

D was going through a phase of fascination with Favourites. Our days were filled with
"Daddy, who is your favourite Star Wars Character?"
"Mama, what is your favourite movie?"
"Daddy, what is your favourite fruit?"
"Daddy, who is your favourite Star Wars Character?" (grumbles: "Same thing as five minutes ago, D")

So anyway, D and I were driving along a major road, going to the shops or something.

D: "Daddy, what's your favourite Insect Orchestra?"
Me: stunned silence

Maybe, maybe...

Well, things are looking up personnel-wise.

Also, this Cthulhu Mythos apocalypse blog looks awesome, though I've only read the first entry. (via Ectoplasmosis, which everyone ought to read).

Had a nice dinner out with the family last night, but it resulted in three very tired and cranky little people. I'm gonna go get some free lego now, courtesy of the excellent Al, who is moving house and sensibly lightening his load of miscellaneous property.

Personnel stuff sucks

One of the most painful parts of this job is handling recruitment. you spend ages trying to find someone who could do the job, and when you find 'em, they don't want it. Blarg.

Day Off

Had a day off yesterday. Not much excitement. Dropped kids off, shopped, had lunch, sat around, picked up kids, took D to Piano then soccer. E had her nurse visit, and it's Controlled Crying time. Yowser, there was a lot of shouting.

A is still in the Terrible Twos, and D is in the Terrible Having A Terrible Two And A Baby In The House phase. D Almost pushed A down the stairs this morning.

Terrible Two example: the other week, A was climbing on something perilous at childcare, and one of the carers asked him to get down. He turns around, and shouts "NO! GO TO YOUR ROOM!" at her. Perhaps D has been sent to his room a few times too many lately :(

Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski

Peanuts, by Charles Bukowski (via)

I haven't read much peanuts, and I ought to read more Bukowski, but this was awesome.

Why am I blogging?

Well, it's partly because so many of my friends and family are, and partly as an experiment for work. We'll be working on reflective journals for students as a part of an e-portfolio, and I want to get my head around this blogging thing a bit. I don't know if I'll keep it up, I don't know if I'll tell anyone, and I'm not sure what my "blog voice" will end up being - the short barrage of quickies that I'm doing today, or the fuller, more edited posts a lot of blogs seem to run with. I'll see how it goes.

Late night stuff

So, I had a decent day today. Possibly hired two new people (if they say yes, which they probably will). Hopefully this means I don't have to do any hiring for a few months.

The nurse from Tresillian is coming tomorrow to help us teach E. to get herself to sleep. Little ratbag currently won't sleep without being rocked and held for ages. A. is being adorable with E., and absolutely adores her. At dinner this evening, E. was in sitting in her high chair (for the first time ever!), but got bored of it, so I picked her up. A. was wandering about the room, having finished his dinner, and strolled over to the high chair and was very concerned when he couldn't find her there.

Anyways, day off work for me tomorrow. Hopefully I'll end up a little more chilled out than now.

I hate skywriting

It's a blasphemy against all that is good in the world. On the other hand, someone has come up with some decent skywriting. Found on one of the blogs I read (can't remember which one, and Google Reader doesn't seem to have a search function).

First Post

Well, it seems the time has finally come. Welcome to my blog.