...he's calling David Bowie. AGAIN.
30.4.11
29.4.11
Repopulating The Peoplemover
 |
| Rare photo of Disney giants operating behind-the-scenes. They now work for the Pentagon. |
Sure, at Disneyland we called this, "The People Remover," for reasons Da-da won't go into here, but it would be nice to get this ride back in the West Coast park; the track is still there, unused. Like the steam train, The Peoplemover was always a nice change of pace, with a perky soundtrack, and the lines were much shorter. Good people watching, too. Anyway, please sign the petition to bring back this vintage ride, if only to see if Disney will actually do something that people WANT them to do for a change.
While we're at it, why not bring back, "Adventure Through Inner Space," where they shrink you to the size of an atom. Imagine how weird the ride would be now that the quantum realm is opening some of its multi-dimensional doors. Good luck understanding any of it. In fact, turn Space Mountain into Adventure Through Innerspace and spin people around and blare nonsensical phrases and physics jargon and it'll be about the same. Fun! (However, if Monsanto's involved, forget it; Monsanto is currently sponsoring their own 500-year People Remover plan.)
 |
| More Disney giants. These guys were everywhere, greasing the park's machinery with their own blood. |
28.4.11
Here Comes... Well, SOMETHING
 |
| Da-da wonders... would insurance cover that? |
 |
| Kasa/kasane-gasane no kami-danomi. Or something like that. |
27.4.11
Practical Da-da: When The Bread Was Baked
This handy graphic (the source is unknown, alas) might give you a better understanding of how old bread is -- but deepens the mystery surrounding no-bread Wednesdays. Spoooooky.
26.4.11
Adventures in Creepy Cooking
Are the Johnson's setting a trend? It's hard to tell. They're all dead.
Susan, the teen cook, has since been arrested as a culinary terrorist and cereal killer (sorry). It's a wonder any of our ancestors survived. Of course, there's no way Bronko and Nagurski would eat any of the above... wait, there might be a way...
 |
| This is so wrong... encouraging kids to drink domestic. |
25.4.11
Your 15 Minutes Are SO-OO 15 Minutes Ago
Da-da doesn't like TV, anymore, or screens in general -- esp. for kids. TV is Da-da's sibling from way back (Da-da's an only child), but we've been estranged of late. However, Da-da does lets Bronko, his youngest, watch 15 minutes of either Hat in the Cat or BongeSpob in the mornings (M-W-F), on school days, while Da-da gets dressed (otherwise Bronko tries to develop cold fusion with a toaster, a vacuum cleaner and the cat). Having returned to the family room, ready to go, Da-da turned off the TV and watched, nonplussed, as Bronko hugged the static-y idiot box, sighed and said: "I love you, TV." That TV's 15 mins might be up.
24.4.11
Making an Easter Memory
Today Da-da was forced to go to the store to buy hot dogs and tampons. Happy Merry.
22.4.11
Schrödinger's Cat Has Been Drinking
 |
| Quantum parenting is here. Hope you took your meds. Keep making strange, charmed lefts. |
So. Just like in Schrödinger's famous feline thought experiment of the '30s, Da-da was today placed in a sealed box with a poison dispenser and an atomic squirrel. A Geiger counter was included in Da-da's windbreaker (why he needs one in a wind-less box is a puzzle) to measure radiation if at some point a squirrely atom leaped off the squirrel. Should that happen, the Geiger counter would trigger the release of cyanide gas within the box, killing Da-da AND the squirrel. Jeez, who's idea was this?
The idea behind Schrodinger's thought experiment is that it's impossible to know whether or not Da-da is alive or dead without opening the box and observing his lifeless bulk, or that of the poor radioactive squirrel, and that until that happens, BOTH realities exist. Indeed, Da-da feels both alive and dead simultaneously, which explains parenthood nicely. This is known as Parental Superposition. (Complicating matters, it's kinda tough to determine if Da-da is alive or dead most days, anyway, so whatever.) Why is Da-da telling you this? Because it will be impacting (or perhaps composting) your lives, shortly. ('Impacting' isn't a word, anyway.)
Regardless, Quantum parenting is almost here. No. Wait. It IS here. Parenting is already so fast, it makes Da-da look like... well, Da-da. Quantum parenting relies heavily on superposition, that "alive or dead," "off or on," omniversal anything-can-happen state transposed onto YOU, the parent, simultaneously, raising parallel parenting speeds several orders of magnitude. This itself is very confusing, especially for Da-da, whose confusion was raised several orders of magnitude when his own children were born. Are you getting all this?
Ahem. Any time a macro-bizarro parental condition exists in a micro-bizarro parental condition, it's called a Schrödinger's Da-da. (It is, too.) Why anyone needs to know this is yet another puzzling scientific thingie that no one could possibly ever understand, even with Heisenberg sitting next to you as you go through the drive-thru. French toast, please.
 |
| Quantum parenting can be very confusing. |
21.4.11
20.4.11
Da-da's Recalibrated Aging Classification System 3000
Da-da's Recalibrated Aging Classification System 3000
- Onceler Ones
- Terrible Twos
- Throw-uppy Threes
- Floppy Fours
- Friendly Fives
- Sedate Sixes
- Silly Sevens
- Eager Eights
- Nougie Nines
- Taller Tens
- Evolving Elevens
- Touchy Twelves
- Threatening Thirteens
- Fickle Fourteens
- Freakish Fifteens
- Squirrely Sixteens
- Suggestive Seventeens
- Enticing/Egomaniacal Eighteens
- Nowheresville Nineteens
- Tornado twenties
- Thoughtful Thirties
- Futile Forties
- Forgetful Fifties
- Seeming Sixties
- Slower Seventies
- Enduring Eighties
- Neverland Nineties
- Humble Hundreds
- Methusaleh Thousands (you wish).
 |
| Da-da wil be lucky to emerge from the Futile Forties. |
19.4.11
18.4.11
We Now Interrupt the Apoca-Bunniness for a Long Moment of Abject Parental Horror
 |
| Two words: Crib Tent. |
There *is* a bright side to the above pic: at least he's asleep.
Happy Tax Day...
...is one of the many few of the world's leading oxymorons. Anyway, at least it's soon to be over... OR IS IT?
 |
| Well, that's just obscene. |
17.4.11
There Are Two Kinds of Parents...
...those who bifurcate people into two separate camps, and those who do not. Those with a dualistic bent will often split the universe into a pair of great ontological extremes: those parents who deploy macrame to great effect... and those who do not. (Hey, where is Da-da's macrame poncho, anyway?) Oh yeah, go state.
15.4.11
Da-da's "Missing Time"
 |
| All naked children look pretty much alike fresh off the mothership. |
Yes, Da-da can finally tell you the truth: he has Missing Time. Or is that Time Missing?
Ever since those two small beings visited him in the mid-2000s -- each visititation 19 months apart -- Da-da has been dead-tired, dizzy, irritable, loopy, kinda stinky at times due to a lack of time for personal hygeine, and delirious from lack of sleep and being forced to make and occasionally eat the small beings' alien food, not to mention watch their mind-numbing TV shows. (He has since developed a serious SpongeBob fixation.) And while Da-da has repeatedly tried to send the small beings away, the "schools" they attend force Da-da to retrieve them at regular intervals, not to mention make Da-da help them with their homework.
To date, Da-da's missing all time from 2005 to the present -- SIX YEARS -- such that he's become a rather large, insensate (though gorgeous and creamy) blancmange that's unable to beat anyone at Scrabble, but is delectable in every way.
 |
| Da-da: newly alien, but now delectable in every way. |
11.4.11
Spring-y Cat Brain Realization
Yes, SPRING is here. Well, kinda. This means you’re all wondering what present you can buy for your CAT, right? That’s what your cat wants to know. Well, you’re in luck. Renegade animal, "thought researchers," from The University of Morvalia, in cooperation with Morvalia Polytechnic University, have unveiled the world’s first device capable of reading and transmitting thoughts originating in the feline mind, yay.
Called, "The Concatenator," (hey, Da-da didn’t name it) the contraption is strapped to the animal's head, catapulting cat thoughts out of a small speaker. Da-da tried this himself on several stunt cats. Test subjects included: Tiger, Tasha, Max, DEATH MUFFIN, Critter, Bosco, Josephine, Myron (Myron?), Owen, The Big Unit, and Mr. Stevenson. Here are the results:
10 Most Common Cat Thoughts:
- "Don't just stand there you simpering oaf – PET ME."
- "Why did you stop? Can't you pet me FOREVER?"
- "Are you talkin' to me? You talkin' to me?"
- "Man, if you were only 4 inches tall…."
- "You’re not going to EAT that are you?"
- "Mine."
- "Here, let me sleep in the middle of what you're reading. Ahh, isn’t that better?"
- "Mmmm, fresh laundry."
- "Hold still while I smear my wondrous cat scent all over you... ah. YOU ARE NOW MINE."
- "Hey. Dummy. What about the CAT?"
The tests also involved a good deal of feline eye rolling, errant tail flipping and downright power napping. Interestingly enough, the cat brain device was found to work well with other species (with a group of randomly picked Rotarians used as a control group). Researchers reported the following results:
- Dogs’ thoughts are remarkably similar to those of human teenage males, registering things like:
- "Duuuude!"
- "S'UP!"
- "Cool!"
- "Sha!"
- "Yo!"
- "Smell my BUTT!"
- "Righteous BUTT!" and
- "Whohooo!"
- Squirrels are apparently having the most fun. Their thoughts basically reflect the fact that they are light, strong and have sure-footed claws that yield a hyper-rodential 4-wheel-drive. Thoughts recorded thus far have either been on the order of, "WHEEEEE," and, "AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
- Aligators and crocodiles only think one word: "Closer."
- It turns out that all lizards, iguanas and sloths maintain a level of brain activity amazingly identical to those of elected officials, rental car agents and... well, Da-da. (He didn't use to be this way.)
- Snakes turned out to have surprisingly litigious thoughts. Alas, the snakes’ attorneys placed a gag order on all snake-thought reporting.
- Overall, most other animals seemed to share the same thoughts as most celebrities, with one of the most common responses being, "Get that camera out of my face, you bipedal FREAK."
 |
| Is this thing on? Can we tawk? |
10.4.11
Too Far
Changing seasons always make Da-da think of hippies. Some of you may recall those heady days at the latter half of the '60s (Da-da was just a microtot), when those hippie folk painted that famous bus and went on that archetypal road trip, documented by Tom Wolfe. Those folks of course inspired a lot of other folks.
Before they left on their own grand adventure, c. 1970, the hippies in Young Master Da-da's neighborhood, like any proper hippies, painted their Volkswagon bus with flowers and peace symbols and unicorn psychedelia. It was not only de rigeur for the time, it was perhaps a noble, unifying gesture. Perhaps. And Young Master Da-da, then about five, watched them do this, in fascination of the abomination.
While painting their teutonic vehicle with unteutonic colors, the hippies noticed this five-year-old tow-headed boy watching them. They smiled, probably thinking, "What sweet, innocent youth," but what little Da-da was really thinking was, "MY GOD, they're ruining the car's paint job."
9.4.11
8.4.11
Da-da's Back o' the Bus/Gettysburg Redress
 |
| Secret service agents really know how to, "get down." |
Da-da doesn't know about you, but he could really use some music cranked to... oh, howbout FOUR (c'mon, Da-da's at least 197 years old; besides, four is the new 11). Anyway, he's had quite the week. No sleep and kid sicknesses and no sleep and vampire cat disappearances and reappearances and no sleep and being compelled to watch all of Ken Burn's, "The Civil War" again on PBS... krikey. But it's over. It's so over. It's basically been over since Da-da became back o' the bus back at Gettysburg, but he's starting to enjoy the back of the bus: there's more room for auto-trepanation.
So. Time to relax. Not just for Da-da, but for all those folks who do thankless jobs everywhere. At least Da-da will get a hug out of it; you secret service/Ghostbuster guys... it's hard to hug anyone wearing an Egonomicon 3090 Linear Accelerator/Proton Pack.
 |
| Hey. You boys be careful crossing those streams. |
7.4.11
Da-da's Internal Parenting Callus Test
A bass player, or really any musician or tradesperson or skilled robot parent, develops special calluses due to repetitive action/pain (and like hitting yourself in the head with a ball peen hammer, it feels so good when it stops). In some cases, you can't really do the job properly without these calluses. (Bass players develop what's called, "mummy fingers," and can't play without them.) But what separates skilled robot parents and Emergency Room RNs from the others? Our calluses are on the inside.
Do YOU have the proper internal parent calluses necessary to parent effectively? Let's try a short quiz. Answer NO to any of the below and you've got an XL Pain and Suffering Pizza soon-to-be-delivered in 20 minutes or less.
Da-da's Internal Callus Parenthood Test
- Can you hear Force Five crying and screaming for hours and remain calm and effective?
- Can you hear other children's Force Five crying and screaming for hours and remain calm and effective? On a plane? Flying to Asia? (That's a 15-hour flight, Maurice.)
- Can you catch barf with your bare hands without batting an eye? Howbout fielding projectile vomit?
- Can you remain calm and effective when you're changing a diaper and poop suddenly SHOOTS from the baby's business end fifteen feet across the room? (Yup, it happens.) And catches you in the eye? The mouth?
- Can you be dispassionate when said poop shoots a ten foot brown line across your $25/sq. ft. wool berber carpetting? Howbout your walls? Ceiling? The cat?
- Can you remain calm and effective when you discover a small child permanently tattooing a 40-foot scratch across your $50,000 white oak floor with a heavy toy he's dragging?
- Jeez, six is enough.
- "Oooo, PRETTY!"
- "RUN RUN RUN!"
- "OMIGOD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!"
- "Mm, wave."
 |
| Feels so good when it stops hurting. |
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
