Another Post Like the Last One

May 25,

As I write this, I wonder about the father-son dynamic these days. Things have changed since I was a young pup like you. Take DVDs for instance. They're so skinny. They don't have heft and substance like a good VHS tape. A boy like you stumbling upon his father's stash of secret porn videos just won't get the same reaction coming across those almost not there DVD cases. They don't have that visual impact that a big box of VHS porn would have upon a young mind. But to each their own poison. Mine is of the paper variety. Now there's a stash for a young boy to come upon! With a video, a boy has to try to figure out if he has the balls to take the video out of the case, go to the player, turn the player on, hope the volume isn't so loud that someone notices...too many steps where things could go wrong. Hardly a child out there would even attempt it! Now, coming across your father's stack of porn magazines...easy access. Just open up, and enjoy the confusing feelings you get from looking at them. What boy wants to talk about the birds and bees with his father without thinking about his father's porn in the back of his head? Not any boy in this family.

Flathead Maury stopped by the other day. He and I have been friends since we were your age. The trouble we used to get into! Flathead was there the day you were born! I'll never forget that day, in that taxi, on our way to the casino, hoping to win enough money to cover the medical costs for a baby delivery at the hospital. We waited until the 9 month, you know, because we didn't want to jinx it. Flathead was with us, he called the cab actually, because we were all a little tipsy. Luckily Flathead keeps a backpack full of clean towels on him at all times so that the taxi didn't get too messy. I think we tipped the driver well. It's hard to remember, I was pretty drunk...and angry at your mother for having bad luck that day on the slots. The Pirates Treasure machine never pays off big! Even an amateur knows that. Son, if I ever teach you anything, it should be that you should never waste your time on the slots. Video poker, that's a game of skill, and men in our family live by our wits, not pure fortune.

So Flathead was at the lighthouse. He was looking for a wrench. I don't know why the hell I would have a wrench at a lighthouse. Flathead is like that. You know the old saying, "The man who looks for wrenches in all the wrong places". Well, that's Flathead. He's that guy. You probably know by the time you read this. I'd say he's a character, but I've never quite figured out what people mean when they say that. It usually seems to mean that they're too lazy to point out exactly what it is about a eccentric person that annoys them, so they say they're a "character". Well, I have all the time in the world to tell people exactly what annoys me, so I guess that's why I don't use that expression.

From Me to Them

Here's my latest post. It's done in the style of a lighthouse keeper, in a small rocky outpost (that has a Starbucks next door), that is writing letters for his young son (whom is completely fictional, but writing to a pretend son passes the time) to read when he's grown up and wants to learn what his father was like as a young man. Also, the lighthouse functions completely by computer, he's just there in case tourists come by to take pictures and buy miniature wooden lighthouses (made in China) that he sells at small desk in the corner. Tourists rarely visit. There are better lighthouses available to take pictures of.

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May 19: Son, one day you'll no longer be the young sprite on your mother's knee, whom with a twinkle in his eyes, tells me, "Dad, one day I'll grow up to be bird". One day, you'll actually be a bird, because anything you put your mind to, you can do, son. I jest, of course. You can't be a bird when you grow up. But you're a kid, and kids are stupid, and say stupid shit all the time. But those days are behind you now. Now, most likely, I've past away, and you're reading this notes that I've left for you, to come to grips with the giant, gaping hole in your life that my passing has left.

Speaking of giant, gaping holes, I hope you're taking care of your mother. Of course I jest: I assume she's dead too, because I'd have to outlive that chain smoking, bingo playing, rum drinking slut. God rest her soul. She didn't know any better, because she was so stupid. But people will be people, so no matter how many nice pairs of earrings you give them on your anniversary every year, you can't make them change their deep down marrow. It's just a shame she had to pawn those earrings for money for bingo. I could really have used that money for something else, like thinsulate gloves. It gets cold in a lighthouse come the winter months.

Right now, though, Spring has thawed out our old familiar rocky outcrop. The green stuff on the rocks seems somehow less sickly yellow-green, and more...green. It's lovely in the morning. Trust me. If you had spent more nights out here with me during the early Spring, you'd know. But you didn't. Many were the hours I had no one to watch the sun rise with. I'll be honest, it's made me bitter time and time again. You should really be ashamed of yourself. I'm a good man. I deserve better.

Really, I would have spent more time with you if you were a lighthouse keeper, and I wasn't. It's called courtesy. I hope you've learned a bit of it since I've died. If you haven't, well, you'll probably die lonely too. That's just the way the world works.

This morning, as most mornings, I walked down those lonely stairs down to the base of the lighthouse, walked out and basked in the Sun's early glow, and then, while the Starbucks next door was at it's busiest, I grabbed an edition of yesterday's newspaper off one of the tables that nobody was reading. I like the comics. Well, mostly. Some people call them the "Funny Pages". Thing is, I can't remember the last time a single comic made me laugh out loud. The world is a sad place when the best the Funny Pages can do is a mild, wry smile. And what is with that "Cathy" cartoon? To pass the time, I white out the words in that comic, and insert my own, funnier dialog in it.

I think if I wasn't a lighthouse keeper, I would have been a cartoonist. No wait, really, I think I would be the President. If you're going to dream, son, dream big. Don't waste it on the small shit. Do that, and you'll end up in some crappy lighthouse in the middle of nowhere next to a Starbucks.

I hope the following entries in this diary continue to inspire you, son, and let you know what your father was really like, under his tough, leathery skin, with his soft, soft hands. Then, you can finally move on with your life, unfrozen from the crippling inertia that I can only assume your life is currently enduring, because of my death, and fluctuations in the local economy.

I'm in pain

Holly has been sick...and we all know how much fun it is dealing with a sick child...okay, you losers without kids (btw, have a baby! and get married while you're at it! And umm...buy a house!) may not, but it SUCKS. So, she's sick, and we're trying anything to make her not miserable for a few moments, and besides filling her full of sweet potato flavoured puffs (mmm!), she likes music.

So all at work on Monday, I can't get Bananaphone out of my head. At all. Not for a fucking moment. Oh, please, click on that link and hear "Bananaphone" if you haven't yet. It's not even the worst child song by a long shot, and I usually don't mind childrens' music, but that song is frigging sticky.

Ringringringringring, bananaphone! Kill me now. If only my job used my brain, then it wouldn't have so much room for bananaphone.

I've often said that one day I would kill Raffi, but now I finally have a reason.

You got a real purty mouth

One of the wonderful things about having a baby is basking in people admiring your baby, especially when you're reasonably sure your baby doesn't have any major "what the hell is that?" features...well, reasonably, because it's hard to see your kid outside your parental love eyes. But sometimes...it gets a little much.

There's the usual problems of people who are too enthusiastic. You get your people who are all "Oh my! What a pretty baby! I love babies! Can I hold her?"...and you're thinking "okay, crazy person who I just met for the first time 2 seconds ago in K-Mart, I would love you to hold my baby, which I just finally got to sleep by walking her around K-Mart for an hour because she wouldn't sleep at home...I would feel very safe, because what stranger could possibly be a danger, at the Big K?"

I also have a 10 second comfort rule. If someone I come across (while not standing in a check out line where you're stuck next to someone for long periods of time) someone who has long, awkwardly paused out, compliments...I run out of "oh thanks!" responses. I don't know what to do or say if they're still going on about the baby for more then 10 seconds and I have somewhere else to be in the meantime. I don't want to be like "gee, thanks, gotta run!", because they're being nice, and their day is probably boring enough that a baby face is breaking it up...but still...awkward.

Then there's the unusual compliments. Usually, Holly gets noticed for her crazy, curled up bed-head hair, which is in crazy abundance for a child her age. Most people want to wax nostalgic about how much/how little hair their child had in comparison. That, by the way, is the first question asked after height/weight/health after you have the baby: "How much hair?". Poor, poor bald babies. Sometimes people notice her big blue eyes, or the fact that Holly loves to smile at everyone. Then there's the woman at Target who my wife is still mystified with. She turns away from her own little girl, looks at Holly very critically, then looks at us and says, very caustically for some reason, "My, she has a very beautiful mouth"....her mouth? Seriously?

Then there's gender confusion. Which is acceptable. She has short hair, babies are generally androgynous, and we have a gender neutral (read: mostly boy coloured) car seat/stroller. My favourite though, is one day I had her in a pink dress, with a pink fluffy bow in her hair, with pink and white with ladybugs belt protectors on her carseat, and this woman comes up, cooing at her. Holly smiles back, because she's an attention whore, and the woman says, "Oh, I think he's flirting with me! Oh, he's such a little flirt"....alright.

There's no huge complaints. I have more of a problem with people not noticing babies and how cute babies are in general, because I'm a new parent in my early 30s and with us and all our friends, babies are the most important topic, so it should be with everyone else, damn it, right? Right. It's just...her mouth? Really?

Do Dolphins Eat Chickens?

So, of course, I looked up "Do dolphins eat chicken" on Google, and here's what I found out:

"Dolphins eat a variety of different foods. Some of them eat fish, such as mackerel, herring and cod, while others eat squid. Large dolphins, such as Orcas may eat other marine mammals, such as sea lions or sea turtles. How much a dolphin eats depends alot on what type of fish or ssquid they eat. Some fish, such as mackerel or herring, have alot of fat in them. This means that a Dolphin will get alot of energy from eating these fish. However, squid does not have much fat, so a Dolphin has to eat more squid to get the same kind of energy it would get from fish. On average, however, a 250 kg dolphin will typically eat between 10 kg and 22.5 kg of fish every day.

Dolphins hunt using a couple of different methods. Some types of Dolphins will work together to surround a school of fish, and then take turns swimming through, while eating all the fish they can. This is called herding.

Other types of dolphins strike fish with their tails, in order to stun the fish, so they can eat it. This is called whacking.

Sometimes, a dolphin will send a very loud CLICK! throught the water at the fish. The loud noise will shock the fish, and leave it in a stupor. This is called stunning.

Dolphins will sometimes herd a school of fish into shallow water, to make it hard for the fish to escape. This is called coralling.

Lastly, some dolphins will pick up a sponge, and use it to push through the mud on the bottom of shallow parts of the ocean, looking for food. This is called foraging. "


Thanks, allaboutdolphins.net, but I already knew what whacking is. Sheesh. That article sure was interesting. This is called sarcasm.

I also got hits for links called "what do herpes look like?", "dolphin slaughter", "how do dolphins get their drinking water?" (from the Coca-Cola bottling bottlenose dolphin company), Evolutionary Proof That (eating) The Chicken Came Before The Egg, and a link that's text preview said: "kukukuku, i do help in 'chopping' cows, chicken, goat and rabbits. So I don't mind if they wanna eat dolphin. Y not? dolphin also deserved to be eaten"

So, there you go. Wait...I still don't know if they enjoy chicken.

Worst post ever

I'm writing a self-help book for dolphins.

Yeah, you think I'm going to say, "A Porpoise Driven Life".

Nope, it's:

"Fish Soup for the Dolphin Soul"

The joke is...dolphins like to eat fish instead of chicken.

Ha ha!

*is worried that dolphins actually would prefer chicken to fish if they had more opportunities to eat chicken, thus undermining his entire post*

This Post: The Sequel to the Previous Post

Things I still would like to accomplish in my lifetime:

1 - Write vulgar lyrics to be set to the tune of "Greensleeves", and have it be accepted by everyone as genius, and would make people spit on the ground when they hear "What Child Is This". From Wikipedia: A genius is a person of great intelligence. Awesome...that could be me!

2 - Eat cereal out of a baseball cap in public, have someone turn to me, make eye contact, and then nod in a "yeah...you're doing it right" sort of way. This could happen!

3 - Invent a sweatband that actually stops you from sweating, instead of just being a very sweat soaked band of cloth across your forehead. Then I wouldn't share it with anyone.

4 - Finally figure out what makes Cinnamon Toast Crunch so popular. I seem to have forgotten this when I became an adult, and have been stupidly confused about the subject ever since, and children tease me about it before they eat the cereal. Is it the square shape? No? Bastards! Everyone Loves Links to Click On!

5 - Find a way to make people stop dressing up like Captain Jack Sparrow at Halloween.

6 - Invent a musical baby toy that plays music that only babies can hear, and leaves the parents with blissful silence.

7 - Go to Delaware...and most of Europe. Those two places.

...only seven things. My life must be pretty fulfilled!

Things to do when you're a parent at 5 am

...and if you're one of those people who get up at 5 am every day anyway, for work, or because you're "a morning person" (aka stupid), just go do something chipper involving drinking coffee at a quaint little shop that sells knicknacks, dried soup mixes, and things that smell like lavender, where they all know your name when you come in, and you while away the hours leading up to a glorious afternoon of....what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, so the baby woke up at 5 am today, just because. Well, not just because. Because she was hungry...and because she went to bed early. Luckily she loves Baby Einstein SO much that I can already park her in front of a TV and pass an hour through lazy parenting when my brain hasn't quite woke up yet.

The problem is there is nothing for ME to do at such an hour. After enough middle of the nights, I've simply run out of things to do. The internet hasn't updated since last night. Sports scores are the same as midnight when I fell asleep. The same hats are in fashion as the last day. There is literally nothing new under the Sun (or Moon) to update myself on since I've fell asleep. Plus, it wears my eyes out before the hours and hours of looking at a computer screen at work to come. Books? I can't keep the room too lighted, incase I can get Holly back to sleep again...so it's too dark. Plus I read at midnight, it'll make me want to sleep again. TV? The video is on and I don't have picture-in-picture.

Picture-in-picture sucks, btw. Most un-needed television enhancement of the last 100 years.

So, to pass the time, I posted this. Unfortunately, putting no thought into something when you can type as fast as I can, doesn't pass much time.

*pathetic sigh*

The Garlic...of Tomorrow

My gigantic bottle of pre-chopped garlic (thank you Costco, for realizing I need a several year supply of that stuff) says to use it before 2289. That's some pretty undemanding garlic.

Here are some other random food things going on in my house that aren't interesting:

There was one flake in my Raisin Bran box that was a slightly different colour than then rest of the flakes...I ate it anyway. I think it tasted funny...but one can never tell for sure these days, what with our modern products.

I thought there was broken glass in the frozen peas I had. Turns out, after throwing them out, that it was more likely broken glass from the broken glass container I had put them in. But it's easier to blame Big Vegetable.

I have these cookies that LOOKED hard, but there were ACTUALLY soft and good. I have nothing more to add other than they were yummy, and I think I'm going to go have a cookie. It's not like I had any real thoughts I had to share today. I should just talk about the baby, that would be easier. But that bran flake was pretty weird. I wish I had taken a picture of it before I ate it. Life is full of regrets.

Nature Abhors the Pathetic Fallacy

...and then the stars shone angrily on the fallen Earth.

This is only a bit to do with my not very clever blog title, but today I realized I've thought the number '5' is a jerk for years. Just casually, I've assumed that the number 5 is a bit of a dick. Doing data entry all day at work, I always look at that number with mild distaste. Just mild. I can't be bothered to have strong emotions at work, I'm not paid enough anything more than mild.

I think I first thought this when I was in the 3rd grade, when I started assigning personalities to letters and numbers while being bored in class (the number '8' and the letter 'S' are dating). I looked at '5', and thought it was just shaped like some beer bellied guy with a crick in his neck that is making him cranky. I was relieved when 1985 became 1986, which was a much more mellow looking year. The same with 1996. 2005...I don't remember very much of. I guess when you get old enough, the years start running together. I didn't buy a house that year, get married that year, or had a baby that year...it just sort of happened.

I was throwing away some paperwork at work this week that I had stored away from 2005, and I was all "I was working here then? I don't remember that. I wrote '2005' on all sort of shit and have no memory of it"...sad...except that I assume 2005 sucked.

2006...now there's a year for you. I bet I did all kinds of great stuff then. Like the time I saw Rob and Rob's girlfriend from "Survivor" and "The Amazing Race" at the Mall of America sitting on a Sleep Number bed...was that 2006? If it wasn't, it should have been.

...and just because: scooters, vacation, fall. I get it, even if you don't.