Category: Family

Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.

Posted on by — 5 Comments

Do you dance with the Crazy Frog?

Are you familiar with The Annoying Thing? If not, you should watch the Crazy Frog Axel F video (2m 51s). Noah fell in love with this video a year ago and played it over and over and over. He’d get his boogie on and bounce, smile huge and laugh! Turns out The Annoying Thing has been highly marketed. There are music cds. There are all sizes of stuffed animals and animatronics. There are karoke microphones and radios. There are games and pencils and books. This Crazy Frog is a crazy phenomena.

In 1997, 17-year-old Swede Daniel Malmedahl recorded himself impersonating the sounds produced by internal combustion engines. …
In late-2000, Malmedahl’s fellow Swede Erik Wernquist encountered the sound effect and was inspired to create the 3D animation “The Annoying Thing” to accompany it. …
In 2004, the Germany based Jamba! group (ultimately owned by VeriSign) licensed the animation and sound for distribution as a mobile phone ringtone. …
[Source]

As a parent, toys with noise become evil. Acid leaking batteries abound and are hidden away for years in unsuspecting places. A burning desire for a simple wooden toy or anything that does not have an on/off switch develops and such toys become legend and things of myth. Even puzzles and books squawk, squeak, and talk to you now. Much to my wife’s chagrin, I like to walk through the toy store and simultaneously set off as many as possible of those obnoxious dolls with the tags that plead "try me now!" Nothing brings more pleasure than seeing an whole aisle of bouncing, gibbering furballs. Secretly I know that some parent will thank me when it goes silent just a little sooner than it would have otherwise. What you as a parent may not know, and I only found out a few days ago, is that those toys are (rather could be) operating in "demo" mode and that if you look near the battery compartment under the fur, you may find a switch that really turns the toy on for more fun, longer and varied annoying noises.

I can see my kids producing a video like these guys! There are some tasteless people out there in those comments. Online people should seriously follow the rule of "if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all."

Posted on by — 1 Comment

I hurt my wife

but I got the splinter out.

So, like, she has been glaring at me most of the day and once barked at me, "are you blogging?!" Obviously something was wrong. So I turned on my super mind reading powers and got nothing. I inquired. I got nothing. I reviewed the day. I got nothing. Finally, I found the instant messenger window that was hidden away that had a message from an hour and a half ago, "would you get a splitter out please?" Note to self: Check that more often.

Posted on by — 7 Comments

They walk their own path

Choose your battles. Choose your battles. Why so many battles?! Today I gave in and let my 13 year old girl wear a piece of shrink wrap to school today. If she doesn’t tug at it a good 2.5 centimeters of belly and back show. The sleeves have got to chafe her armpits. The boys will certainly know she has breasts. I hope the school chooses to send her home.

Dad: "Did your mother approve your outfit?"
Sarah: "Uh. Yeah."
Dad: "That shirt does not fit."
Sarah: "Yes it does."
Dad: "[Where the sleeves meet the shirt] should be here on your shoulders."
Sarah:"They make them to fit this way!"

Me thinks my girls needs some debate lessons. Think I’ll write a book: "How to win friends and influence people even though I am a bullheaded, know-it-all teenager." I read someone yesterday that lamented that their teen "child" is a young adult trying to prepare to make it in the real world on their own and that we need to give them space to do so. We must let them make mistakes. She can walk her own path but that path will still have laws to be followed. Today she got off with a warning.

English to metric conversion provided by OnlineConversion.com

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Forced Child Labor

I know they rather be playing video games or watching tv. Today I wrangled Noah into helping me. He won one of those new Playstation2s that are thin and sleek. The old, bulky Playstation2 will become a communal gaming system in the living room. Noah would much rather be playing his new system but I forced him to come downstairs. and showed him how to pull wire through the ceiling. Then we fished it up through the wall to his bedroom where I showed him how to connect the wire to a RJ45 in the same face plate as his cable jack. We talked about wiring then came downstairs to learn how to crimple a plug onto the other end of the wire. Then we learned what a switch is used for and where the Internet connection comes into our house. Although Noah was good company, it didn’t really peak his interest until I showed him how we could plug the a wire from his jack into the back of his new Playstation so that he could play online. See, the old style Playstations did not have a network jack built-in and we never purchased the newwork adapter. Noah lit up! (And can say he wired his own room for the Internet)

Posted on by — 1 Comment

Because I’m a man

There comes a time everyday in a man’s life where he has to stop and ask himself, "Have I done anything to aggrivate my wife today? Should I?" Mine came a few minutes ago as I snickered and revelled at how fun a little demolition would be today. I wised up quickly and decided that I should stay focused on the project at hand which happens to be some cleaning so that I can actually get to the project at hand. However, something had to be done with the stupid energy that was built-up in preparation to do some demolition. As we know, energy must conserved so when stupid energy is generated, stupid energy must be used. So, as I ask outloud, "What’s this switch do?" I quickly remember that most of my home computer network profoundly sits on a single circuit that is connected to a light switch beside the garage door. I guess the tape keeping the switch in the on position should have been a clue. Doh.