Cower before the... muffin rage?

As I rushed around the house the other day getting ready for work (semi-late as usual) my wife asked "Where's the muffin that was on the counter?"

"Uh, you mean the one you told me to bring to work?" ...Icy silence... "Yesterday?"

In an exasperated and irritated tone, she explained "I didn't think you actually took it!"

"Oh, uh I can get one from the freezer for you."

"NO."

Uh oh... the base of my brain tingled in a fight-or-flight mode... so I didn't respond... but thought to myself, Hey, I should grab a muffin for my lunch, I'll just head downstairs and --

"STOP!" She yelled, running at me. "I DON'T WANT YOU TO GET ME A MUFFIN!"

"I'm getting one for myself!" I ducked-and-covered my way down the staircase. "Uh... do you want one?"

Hopefully hormonal rage won't become a regular "Weekly Wednesday" feature.

Weekly Wednesday #33

Weekly Link:
http://www.maninthedark.com/ Try clicking to duplicate... then clicking while it's degenerating to create weirdness... or move it to the corner of the screen, click once, then double click fast in the opposite corner for even more weirdness... uh, yeah, I don't know either.

Weekly Video:


Weekly Kiernan:
Some days you can get Kiernan to eat everything on his plate by pretending each forkful is an animal or person. His favourites are giraffes, elephants, and kings.

Weekly Workplace:
Email from Information Services at the hospital, regarding the expansion of the wireless network and how to tell if it has been completed in :
"If you are wondering if expansion in your area has been completed, simply look at the ceiling in the main hallways. If you see a cable hanging out, it is not complete. If you see a white Star Wars like spaceship, it is complete."
You would think the IS team were geeks or something...

Weekly WTF:
The poker site I play on stopped running the turbo tournament cash cow that fit perfectly into my schedule. I could win around $100 in 75 minutes some days. Last night I snagged a first place victory of $100 and it took me TWO. AND A HALF. HOURS.

More True Tales of Pregnancy Rage

We have a narrow cupboard to the right of our stove which would logically hold spices. Now, my sister was a Victorian Epicure consultant for a while, which is sort of a tupperware salesperson for various spices and spice mixtures. So needless to say, our spice cupboard had a lot of stacked jars in it. Lara often complained about how hard it was to find spices, but really, there's not much we can do about it... or so I thought.

One day, probably around month 7 or 8 of the pregnancy, I heard an exasperated yell from the kitchen. I peeked cautiously around the corner to see all of the jars and bags of spices being pulled from the cupboard onto the counter.

A drawer flew open - tea tea towels and wash clothes were pulled frantically out and spice jars went into their place, labeled on the lids with a sharpie marker. The tea towels and oven mitts were shoved randomly into the spice cupboard. I opened my mouth to comment on the ridiculousness of this arrangement, but her unmitigated rage heightened her hearing, and the sound of my tongue leaving the roof of my mouth caused her head to swing in my direction with a glare. I'm happy to say I walked away so the focus or her anger remained on the jars now crammed tightly into the drawer.

Months later at a gathering in our house, a highly organized (read: neat freak) friend of ours asked where she could find a towel to dry a glass. Even over the general buzz of party conversation you could hear the gasp throughout the house as she opened the cupboard.

Eventually I cobbled together a magnetic spice rack on our wall and transferred enough spices over that I was finally able to put things back to normal. This was a year and a half later, of course, after I was sure the rage levels were low.

Weekly Wednesday #32

Weekly Image


Weekly Link:
The 5 reasons Luke Skywalker is a Complete Idiot

Weekly Video:
Kiernan, he of the 20 months of soy protein intolerance, had soy sauce on his rice tonight, and acted as if it were the richest tasting thing ever. "Rice for dessert!" he declared, then we watched this video.

He sang the chorus repeatedly while getting ready for his bath.

Weekly Word I Never Imagined Using Two Years Ago:
Stinkabum.

True Tales of Pregnancy RAAAAAGE!!!!!!!

If you don't read my wife's blog (and if so, why not?) then you don't know that Kiernan is expecting a baby brother or baby sister come June 2009. But really, he is hoping for a baby blue monkey.

Now, when Lara was pregnant with Kiernan, she had "morning" sickness. Morning is in quotation marks because the nausea lasted most of the day, and continued throughout the entire pregnancy. She was on medication which kept her slightly less sick in exchange for a constant state of fatigue, giving me plenty of time to play video games (ask me how many video games I've played since!).

We were told that sometimes pregnancies differ, but not so much this time so far, although the nausea is a little less. One thing I'm hoping will change with this pregnancy is a tiny little bit of hormones that affected Lara occasionally (read: a lot) giving her a major case of Pregnancy Rage.

This was an anger that would simmer below the surface, mostly caused by her dissatisfaction at work, bubbling forward at random moments. I have two stories, the better of which I will save for another post.

I was working from home when a message blipped on my MSN - It was Lara. She was responsible for the content of a web page where she worked, and she began telling me about a photo that the management wanted on the front page. The picture infuriated her. She told them she HATED the photo but her arguments fell on deaf ears. I'm assuming she then slammed her way into her office, knocking pictures askew on the wall as she went.

"Look at how terrible this photo looks!" she typed as she directed me to the altered front page.

I looked, and typed back "It's all blurry... what's up with the weird photoshopped effects? I agree, that's totally a crappy picture." There. Good job. Offer support, keep anger directed away from yourself.

There was a pause, then "That's NOT the photo I'm talking about."

Shit. "Uh... ohhh! You mean the picture across the banner... right, right, totally a stupid photo."

My computer speakers nearly developed a frosty rime from the silence that followed.

mm, buzzy...

This morning I seem to have been too tired to remember to drink my coffee at work, as I have just discovered my thermos is F-U-L-L-Full... Woohoo! It's safe to say I won't be yearning for a nap this afternoon!

Weekly Wednesday #31

Weekly Useful Link
How to keep your fruits and veggies fresh so you don't have to throw spoiled food out all the time

Weekly Fun Link
Click your way around the Oval Office of the future of Palin as president... click some things more than once for different results...

Weekly Image... er... of text...

From foundmagazine.com

Weekly Video
Hey, I totally missed this last night because I was inside watching the election coverage... if you managed to see the giant UFO that the psychic lady predicted was coming could you email me pics? Cool, thanks.


Weekly Kiernan
Sometimes Kiernan will babble out some random syllables and then repeat them as if it's a word.
Today in the car he announced matter-of-factly, "Appadee! Appadee daddy!"
"Appadee?"
"Ya, Appadee."
"Maybe you're thinking of apathy?"
"Appathee!"
"You just don't care about non-imaginary words?"
"Dat's right! My appafee, daddy."

Weekly Video Update
Boy, am I embarrassed - I didn't actually watch the Weekly video all the way through to see that the UFO mothership was appearing for three whole days. I guess I just don't look up into the sky anymore. I'll catch it tomorrow.

Weekly Workplace
Six or eight weeks of asking for web page approval resulted repeatedly in "I'll look at it today, I promise." and then having it fall off the bottom of my manager's to-do list. She's busy, I know, so I sent an email letting her know I could probably set up a workflow which would send an hourly email reminder about the web pages needing approval. I also let her know that I wouldn't be able to help her set up the mail filter which would automatically redirect the reminders to the trash. Five minutes later I got a phone call with approval and a thanks for the reminder. I'm so glad I work in a place whose employees have a sense of humour.

Of course I watch television, I just know it as Treehouse TV

Parents, go dig through your DVD collection and pull out the original episode of Dora the Explorer, episode 101: Legend of the Big Red Chicken.

First off, how's that for a pilot episode title?

Okay, now put it on the TV and... holy crap, did they even pay those poor animators?

I mean, there are scenes where Boots is just standing there and instead of just using the same frame to keep him still they've got his head bobbing slightly, mouth wandering around his face like The Map told it "Right cheek... forehead... chin!"

Now fast forward to the end to see the birth stages of the now-standard "We Did It" dance... they must have told the animators "Draw it like Dora is doing the Hustle, only tone it down on the whole logical-limb-structure."

Okay, so you may not have the episode, so just mute your speakers to avoid this failed attempt at funny audio dubbing using episode footage of opening scenes:



Now I know why they rarely have Dora turn her head away from 3/4 profile. Freaky. Football. Head.

Honestly, I haven't seen such inconsistent character design since episode 308 - "Meet Diego".

We have to ban Daylight Savings

Like he says, it is so logical!

Weekly Wednesday #30

Weekly Link:
Swedish Furniture Name Generator - I am an ERYK chair, which is not so fun. Kiernan is a SKÄIRNANVIK twin bed. But it looks like you can re-enter your name to get different versions.

Weekly Video:
Take on Me (Literally)


Weekly Kiernan:
Standing on his change table, he made a move toward the picture on the wall embroidered by his aunt, which was embroidered when he was born. "Don't touch that!" we said, moving him away from arms-reach of it. "Don't touch!" he agreed. "Dat's DANgerous!"

Weekly Workplace:
When sitting in the audience at a media-covered event, be sure to sit to the right of all the ladies you work with, that way the camera coverage appearing on the news has you completely out of frame.

UPDATE: CBC's cameraman did not follow this rule, and there was a 3 second alternate camera angle with me filling the left 1/5th of the screen, mowing on gum like a cow chews cud.

Dodo in mommy's bed?

Lately Kiernan has been waking up in the middle of the night and requesting "Dodo in mommy's bed?" Technically it's my bed too, but I assume since I'm awake and dealing with him while Lara's still in said bed, possibly (maybe) waking up too, she has current ownership.

"No. Dodo in Kiernan's bed. You don't sleep in mommy's bed." I say this so his replying wailing will actually bring Lara up out of her sleep of the dead (but really, that's not why).

His insistence, of course, lands him between the Lara and I. I wouldn't mind this arrangement at all, except our bed in his mind does not equate itself to a location in which to sleep.

He must knows that if he's quiet we'll let him stay in the bed, so he'll be silent as long as he can, until out of nowhere it is decided a loud exclamation of "The doggie's not barking now!" is in order.

After much threatening of return to his own bed, he quiets down... I start to drift off... but I wonder if he's really asleep or whether I'll be on the verge of falling asleep and he'll start singing the alphabet as if he were a cow (Everybody now - Moomoo moomoo moomoomoo...) or decide to crawl sideways across the pillows and wake me up again. So just to make sure, I open my eyes.

And a second after I see him staring owl-like into my eyes, he decides it would be a good idea to stick a soother in my eye.

Luckily he only wails for a few minutes before falling to sleep in his own bed.

Weekly Wednesday #29

Weekly Link:
Let's stop scaring our kids

Weekly Image:


Weekly Kiernan:
Sometimes when he eats his food turns into animals. The shape of a soggy hole-ridden waffle will remind him of a tiger.
A bite was taken from a chicken burger and suddenly "Oh! A dinosaur!"
I'm all "Really? What does the dinosaur say?"
But instead of the usual "ROAR!!!" he says "No, that's not a dinosaur."
"What is it then?"
"OH! It's mommy at the store!"
"Really."
He points to a little pointy piece that's sticking up out of the meat. "That's mommy dere."
He nods sagely, then takes a huge chomp, devouring the cash area, a couple of clothing racks, and sadly, mommy.

Weekly Music:
Regina Spektor (not the pop song you may hear on the radio)


Weekly Workplace:
Thursday:
IT Dept: "Hi, we're shutting down your backup server on Monday and your main server on Wednesday. Both times at 4am. So go ahead and power those down the night before. Or, for the backup server you can do that Friday and leave it off during the weekend."
Me: "Um, we kinda need those online, but apparently I have no choice. There are images on the servers that will be linked through our September e-bulletin, so I guess we'll have to send delay sending it until Monday."

Monday:
Me, walking in and seeing a group of ladies gathered: "Uh, good morning?"
Them: "Where's the Internet?"
IT Dept web page: "Yeah, uh, we lost the Internet connection. This means all your servers are down too. Bell will get back to us by 10am. You can send emails out, but cannot receive any responses, so that's good news, right?"

Monday 10am:
IT Dept web page: "Bell has escalated our case and will get back to us by 11am"

Monday 4pm:
IT Dept web page: "Bell has escalated our case and will get back to us by 11am"

Tuesday:
Me: Yay Internet! I hope IT took advantage of all that downtime yesterday so they don't have to do the Wednesday shutdown.
IT Dept: Whut?
Me: Also, the backup server you shut down Monday morning isn't responding, could you go check on that and call me back? Kinda need it.
IT Dept: ...

Wednesday:
Me: Yay for Internet despite shutting down our servers again. Now both servers are working, so e-bulletin subscribers can enjoy the September edition. On October 1st. It's like magazine subscriptions but in reverse, you see.