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Things to do today
Quilts - they get that adrenaline pumping
Monday, 25 November 2013
I'm sure Di from Snippets and Scraps would love this one.
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Do you see what is wrong here?
These two must be the most unobservant couple, or perhaps the most easily shocked. I am pretty sure I could guess the result of a pregnancy test if my wife had a belly shaped like that. The tag line should be:
:Predictor - When you need to know beyond what is obvious.
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How to tell if your child is a Smart Alec
Monday, 18 November 2013
Our son recently got his
first ever piece of homework. It was during his four year old check up with the
early childhood nurse, when she was testing and measuring and poking and
prodding him about all sorts of things. His height and weight are fine,
eyesight and hearing all good, but unfortunately the nurse became interested in
/ concerned with the section called ‘motor skills’ – nothing to do with his
knowledge of engines as I initially thought.
Her interest focussed on things like whether he could jump more than 20 centimetres from a standing start, or balance on one leg for more than 5 seconds. She also wanted to know more about
his ‘fine motor skills’, again nothing to do with his passion for Peugeots or
love of Lamborghinis, but more to do with how well he could hold a pencil and
what sort of things he could draw.
As a result of this visit, we
have had to secretly test our four year old on what type of shapes he can copy and what kind of pictures he can draw. We were told to collect
all the shapes and pictures and bring them in next time. He has done
quite well with the squares and circle, and is happy to draw them all over a
page or on numerous pages, but so far we have only one picture.
What is it you ask?
Well as part of the test you
have some specific words to read out to your child with a subtle suggestion to
draw a face, or a person or an animal.
So in accordance with the homework
sheet, I got him out a blank piece of paper, gave him his special green texta
and I duly asked him:
“Eddie, can you draw me a
picture of something”.
He said “I don’t know what to
draw”.
So I suggested, as the sheet
suggested we suggest:
“Maybe you could draw me a
face, or a person or an animal”.
He then took off the texta
lid and began to draw. He started out in the centre at the top of the page, and
drew a line right down the middle of the page. He put the lid back on the texta
and said “Finished Daddy”.
I said “What is it?”
He said “A giraffe”.
I said “What do you mean it’s
a giraffe, it doesn’t look like a giraffe”.
He said “Yes it does. But
it’s just the neck”.
I said “Where is the giraffe’s
head? And where are the giraffe’s legs?”
He pointed above and below
the page and said “Up here, and down here, but I’m not allowed to draw on the
table”.
I tried to persuade him to
draw something more, but to no avail.
So at this stage, unless we
can convince him to add to his masterpiece, or to draw something else entirely,
we are currently having to front up to a early childhood nurse and show her a
blank piece of paper with one line down the middle and announce “Behold, our
child’s artwork entitled “Giraffe’s Neck”.
Perhaps he just doesn’t like
drawing, or perhaps this is how smart alecs begin.
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No more Mr Niceguy
This is actually quite sad, if it is true.
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So I set my deer feeder high off the ground so the raccoons couldn't reach it ...
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
You busy?
Don't forget to check out "The busiest man in the world" post.
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The unexplainable video that everyone is talking about
Tuesday, 12 November 2013
I'm not sure what to make of it, but seems pretty incredible to me. A story that you just want to believe in. What do you think?
Thanks Justin
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The busiest man in the world
Monday, 11 November 2013
The other day I saw the busiest man in the world.
Now before I go on, what are you thinking? An overachieving executive with
no spare time at all? A person whose daily to-do list is roughly the same as
your yearly one? Someone who just can’t delegate enough and has even had to
consult a wantologist?
Well before I tell you about him I need to tell you about my
own little busy classification system and the way in which I like to
label people. For what purpose? So you will come to understand why I found this man so incredible.
Firstly there are the busy looking people. I’m sure you know
the type, such as a colleague of mine, who whenever asked how he is, always
replies in one of three ways – “Busy busy busy”, “Oh, just flat out,
never been busier”, or my personal favourite “Busy as a one-legged man in a
butt kickin’ contest”. This is the same guy who takes an hour for coffee, a twenty
minute smoko (although he doesn't smoke), and long lunches. I honestly believe if for just one week he
stopped telling people how busy he was and hopped in and did his work, he would
probably win that butt kickin contest hands down.
Secondly, there are the busy procrastinators. These people
are actually relatively busy. However they are so busy doing things they don’t need to do, that they actually avoid ever doing the things
they are supposed to be doing. I once had a friend at university, (I have had
other friends since then) who regularly didn’t have toilet paper in the house.
Instead there would often be a box of tissues or if things got really desperate the
1983 A-K phone book*** sitting next to the toilet. When asked why there wasn’t
any toilet paper, they replied “Oh, I just didn’t have time to buy it this
week. I was too busy”. Modern corporate gurus call this a paperwork
prioritisation problem, but I call it idiotic.
Thirdly, there are the people who binge on busyness. These
people are also relatively busy but work so hard on their desired tasks that
they either run out of puff and have a break down, or they work so hard that in order to recover they have to binge on taking time off, in complete contrast to their previous temporary beaver like activity.
But I guess you’re still wondering about the guy I saw and
the guy I labelled as the busiest man in the world. Was he busy looking, or
busy procrastinating or busy binging on busyness? Perhaps, but I am more worried that he is not even on my taxonomy chart of busyness. So who was it?
 |
| This is not the man I saw. While strange, I do not get this close behind people when taking a photograph of them. |
It was a man standing in a public pool, waist deep, board
shorts on, with his son splashing around him. Nothing unusual about that. But he was on his mobile phone. Making
business calls.
Now I don’t care whether you think that is foolish, unwise,
or even dangerous (for the phone or his son), but that guy must be busy. And that is the guy who I have called “the busiest man in the world”.
*** This may or may not have been sitting next to the
toilet. It could have been a 1984 edition.
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Santa saw your Facebook pictures - You're getting clothes and a Bible for Christmas
Saturday, 9 November 2013
Some Friday fun at work
Friday, 8 November 2013
This would have made a great youtube video as well, if they captured the moment the boss saw the boots. Haha.
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Sweet dreams are made of cheese
Thursday, 7 November 2013
who am i to diss a brie
I cheddar the world and the feta cheese
Everybody's looking for stilton
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There are two kinds of people in this world
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
as opposed to the two types of books in this world
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The definition of a pun
Monday, 4 November 2013
A few months ago, I had a very proud moment – my three year
old son made his first pun. We were on our way home from a long day at
pre-school: the traffic was bad, the car was hardly moving, and my son was
getting bored. We tried I-spy, then a guessing game, then even I got bored so I
started telling him about traffic jams and how and why they happen - anything
to pass the time.
So what is the pun I hear you ask?
Well it didn’t happen until the next morning, when I had long
forgotten our captivating chit-chat into the origins of road congestion, but I
asked him, as I usually do, what he wanted on his toast. With a big grin on his
face, he replied, “Daddy, can I have some traffic jam”.
Now, for a guy who runs a pointless blog consisting of funny
pictures, regurgitated quotes and bad puns, at that moment I didn’t know
whether to laugh or cry. I couldn’t believe it. Was this his first pun?
But I wanted to make sure, so I asked him again, leading him
slightly away from the joke, “What do you want on your toast, some jam?”
He said “No, I don’t want jam, can I have some traffic jam?”
His grin even bigger.
The pun confirmed, my heart breaking with unmitigated joy.
Balloons fell from the ceiling, confetti popped out of the toaster, and
Handel’s messiah started playing on the radio***.
So what did I do? Like any proud parent, I started telling
people about my son’s first foray into puns and punnage. But here is the
problem – while some of the people I told were suitably impressed (or at least
made out they were) others were not so impressed, with at least two people
questioning its paronomasian validity (one actually said “Not bad, although
it’s not really a pun is it?”).
Now, although I am not a linguistic scholar, I thought I
knew a pun when I heard one. But it turns out you can categorise puns in a
whole lot of different ways.
First, there is the homophonic pun, which takes two words
that sound the same but have different meanings (Atheism is a non-prophet institution), or the homographic pun, which exploits words that are
spelled the same but have a different meaning (Corduroy pillows are making
headlines). Then there are the compound puns (Where do you find giant snails?
On the ends of giants’ fingers.), and the double sound puns (Gone Chopin, Bach
in a Minuet). And this is even before getting into the chiasmus (Never let a
fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you) the implied chiasmus (Times fun when you’re having flies - Kermit the frog),
or the spoonerisms, daffynitions, or the malapropisms.
So back to my son’s request for some traffic jam on his
toast. Does this fit into one of the categories? Perhaps some type of compound
homographic pun? I’m not so sure, but to be honest I don’t really care. It was
some type of joke - deliberate, intentional, groan-worthy, and as I’ve always
said:
A good pun is its own reword.
*** The
balloons, confetti and music may or may not have happened.
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Emotional baby crying at mummy's beautiful singing voice
Sunday, 3 November 2013
Have you seen this video. It is currently doing the rounds on the internet and is quite extraordinary as it appears the baby is so moved and so touched by her mummy's singing voice that she begins to cry.
Of course perhaps they are peeling onions in the background, pinching her toes, or the baby is just very emotional all the time, but I choose to believe that she is actually crying at the song. If it was the former I am sure it would be much louder crying, not just the tears that can be seen in this video.
Whatever the reason, this is my cute video of the week.
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Pulled over 45 times in one day wearing my Halloween costume
Saturday, 2 November 2013
See more Halloween things here
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Be crazy. Be stupid. Be silly. Be weird
I like this quote, although perhaps I am bias because I run a blog that specialises in wasting time and being silly and stupid. However, even to my sensibilities the ending is a bit cheesy. What do you think?
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