Honest, Eminent, Keen Rants
Just an update to all you bleary-eyed troopers who likely didn’t get an ounce of sleep last night, worrying over the state of my son’s ear.
Sleep well, tonight!! He went to see the specialist (one of three on the Island) in Summerside, who inspected him aurally, and then told him orally that it’d most likely heal itself, hourly, and in about 4 weeks. In the meantime, no water is to enter the ear, so earplugs were purchased.
Yes, friends, earplugs were purchased.
Hey, all you cool and hip person who reads this site – I’m curious as to whether you actually visit this Typepad site (with its red and black and white and picture of me to the left etc) to read all the wonderfully funny and interesting, and, yes, poignant, things I write, or do you merely read the words from some sort of rss feed service and not get to experience the beauty and wonder of my online home?
If you could let me know by posting your answer in the comments to this post, I’d, like, really appreciate it.
Home sick, today. With what, you ask. Let’s just say that if my bowel movements were a baseball player, they’d be Pete Rose, because whenever he gets a walk, he always runs to first base.
So, I’m home, just about to heat up a can of chicken noodle soup (the only food I’d have eaten in the past 30 hours), when the phone rings:
Hello?
Dad, is there anyone there to come pick me up?
Why? What’s wrong.
I can’t hear anything out of my left ear.
What?!? How come?
I don’t know.
Whattya mean you don’t know? How do you not know?
I might have hit it.
How do you not know? What happened?
I don’t know. I may have back into a tree.
After a few minutes of unsuccessfully Columboing the events of the incident, I said I’d pick him up. Driving to his school, I was wondering how hard it is to learn sign language for the deaf. On the way home, I managed to get these details: his ear feels like it’s full of water or something. He turned around as he walked into a bush, and a twig may have hit his ear. He’s not in any real pain, but every five seconds or so a sharp pain happens. I suspected it could be a damaged ear drum.
As I was incapacitated and establishing a very close diplomatic relationship with our home’s plumbing, my wife took him to the QEH. Four hours later, they come home with the news that he has a perforated ear drum and that he has an appointment with a specialist in Summerside tomorrow.
I’m suspecting that the ear drum will heal itself in time and that he’ll be good as new.
This weekend, my son asked me if he could borrow the Canon A-510 digital camera and make a video. He said that he and his friend, Keaton, had an idea to make a movie along the lines of “The Straight Story”, by David Lynch. (If you’ve never seen that film, you owe it to yourself to see it. It’s a wonderfully gently movie, starring Richard Farnsworth as an old guy who travels across country to visit his estranged brother, who is dying.
Since this sounded like a step up from their usual “two guys with swords chase each other and one dies at the end” plot-line, I gave them the camera for the afternoon. They asked me to play a small (but pivotal, I think) role. After the shoot was over, Cameron did a rough edit. Then I helped out by tightening it up, deleting a couple of unnecessary scenes, adding music and titles, and finding an ending out of the non-ending footage they finished with.
Overall, I think they did a pretty good job, and even threw in a bit of an homage to the strangeness of David Lynch.
Technorati Tags: video, parody, David Lynch, The Straight Story
The first month of The Annekenstein Monster Daily Trivia is over. Here are the results:
18 players played during the month.
Top Ten:
1. annekenstein (168 points, 6 wins)
2. Wessie (157 points, 3 wins)
3. TracyJ (146 points, 3 wins)
4. reverseflash (139 points, 5 wins)
5. paella (138 points, 1 wins)
6. misskris (104 points, 0 wins)
7. Cool Girl (83 points, 0 wins)
8. Frankie (78 points, 0 wins)
9. Grover (77 points, 3 wins)
10. desperation (65 points, 0 wins)
Thanks for playing, those who play. I guess the challenge is officially on, now, to try and knock annekenstein off the podium. Good luck, losers!
If you’d like to join in on all the trivial-ness (it only takes about a minute a day), bookmark this link and come back to it once every day:
The link to The Annekenstein Monster’s Daily Trivia Page
My son and two of his friends have been playing what I would classify as a role-playing game, for about two years. It’s a game they made up themselves (although I believe it’s mostly from the brain of my imaginative son), involving a town they built and the people who inhabit it. It’s pretty intricate in its mechanisms and history and rules and procedures.
Originally, it was called Lepodink, which was short for the three main elements of the game: Legos, Pokemon figures and dinkies. Sometime in the past few months, the Pokemon figures and dinkies have been abandoned in favour of 100% Lego-only. Hence: Lego Town
From what I can tell, each of the three have several characters (who each have families) they’re responsible for. Each character has his or her own profession and associations with other characters. It’s all played on a couple of those play mats that have streets on them, etc., with Lego buildings and Lego people populating it.
Here’s a picture:
Lately, they’ve felt the need to implement some rules, to make the town run more smoothly, and to protect themselves from the criminal element. They’ve also made me Judge, and whenever there are grievances between citizens, or laws that are allegedly broken, they come to me, explain themselves, and I judge what I think is a fair punishment or fine (if the case doesn’t get thrown out of court for any number of protocol breaches).
Here is the list of rules that they made up. This is the list that they need to make their Lego Town run more smoothly. I wonder if Charlottetown would do well to implement some of these:
I like how number 6, “No mafias” is just sort of stuck in there, in the middle, like it’s akin to jaywalking or something. And I also like how number 13 isn’t really a law at all, like an unfinished thought. But I think I understand its meaning. And as for mafias, they were a big problem in this town a month or so ago, and I believe that was the impetus for establishing a system of law and order. The town was out of control, much like the town Deadwood in the HBO show, and, like that town, is only now taking the necessary early steps to make it a more livable, enjoyable place to live. One difference, though, between LegoTown and Deadwood, is that there is far less swearing in LegoTown. Now that law and order has been established, the mafias are quickly dying out as respectable businesses and owners take back the town.
I’m very thankful that they spend a lot of time each day playing this game, rather than spend it playing computer games. Now that the weather is nicer, though, the challenge will be to get them outside. Which isn’t really a challenge at all. We spent about an hour playing football in the backyard tonight, after they spent about an hour playing LegoTown.
Busy lives. Busy lives.
Technorati Tags: Lego, imagination, children, games
A picture of Cameron’s Lego Town. 
On a blog that chooses to remain somewhat undisclosed, comes a post asking some interesting questions. I thought that I’d answer them here:
1. In one sentence, describe to me the last nightmare you had. Don’t go
on and on though, because I don’t really care all that much.
I have a thematically recurring nightmare in which I find myself suddenly about to go on stage in a play that I’m not familiar with, with only a hazy idea of what the lines are that I’m supposed to say. These plays are always different, always dramas, and I feel incredibly uncomfortable, in my dreams, worrying whether I can possibly pull off the trick of trying to get through the show without knowing my lines. Sometimes, my dreams even go so far as having me go onstage and horribly stumble through a scene. Sorry, that’s three sentences.
2. Did you ever shoplift before?
I was never much into shoplifting or any deviant behaviour growing up. I remember a couple of times stealing racquetballs from Towers when I was a teenager, so I could play handball. My biggest, and final, shoplift, was stealing fake leather pants from Towers in 1985, so I could go to the UPEI Barn’s Halloween party. I ended up winning Best Costume. The vest, coincidentally, was a black garbage bag. A picture here:
3. Ever fantasize about killing somebody? Would you do it if you were guaranteed never to get caught?
I’ve fantasized about killing. Not really anybody in particular, but I think I have the predisposition to murder. I have a very cold-blooded side to my personality. I wouldn’t do it on a whim, though, even if I was guaranteed never to get caught. Not the first one, at least.
4. Do you have any sexual fetishes? (Don’t tell me them! Just say yes or no please)
Not really.
5. If you had the opportunity to blackmail someone, would you do it?
No. I’d rather kill them, I think.
6. One night stand time! Name the celebrity that is worthy of your evening.
I don’t really have the ‘one night stand’ personality. I’m more of a lifetime stand kind of guy. But, I’ve had a few celebrities with whom I’ve had infatuations. Back in the day, I really wanted to put it to Leeza Gibbons. Not because I found her that attractive, really, but because I thought she’d be someone who it’d be great to get wild on/with. Hmm, maybe that question 4 needs more thought.
7. If an old nosy relative was coming to stay over, what is the one thing you would hide so he/she wouldn’t find it?
I have nothing to hide. I suppose I would be most uncomfortable with them seeing the general messiness of the house, though.
8. What political affiliation (if any) do you have?
I have liberal tendencies, but am personally very conservative with money. I usually vote in favour of the more socially conscious of the candidates.
9. What religious affiliation (if any) do you have?
I am an atheist.
And the last question, as posed by my son, (because I couldn’t think of any more) is:
10. Would you like to come over for a visit?
I would like to, but I never will because I am too shy. I have serious fears of being in social situations.
A picture of my office workspace. Unusually neat, at this moment.
I’m pretty sure they’re telemarketers. And I’m 100% positive that they are annoying the hell out of me.
It started yesterday evening. A phone call, from an unknown name, and the number is a Toronto-based long-distance number. That’s always meant “telemarketer”. I answer it and say “Hello.” All I hear on the other end is beep beep beep, with the beeps about a second or so apart. I figure it’s their automated “an actual human answered the random phone number, so connect it with a human voice” machine not recognising that I exist. Not too hurt that a machine doesn’t recognise my being-ness, I hang up.
About five minutes later, another call, the same number. Again with the beeps. I hang up.
Five more minutes later, the same thing again. Shortly thereafter, a phone call to my son. After his call is over, there is a message. It’s from the same phone number, and the message is this: “beep… beep… beep…etc.” I am angry. There is something unholy and wrong about going through the too-long automated procedure to retrieve a phone message which turns out to be a beeping automated machine.
I begin to search through Eastlink’s website to see what I can do, and I discover their “call screen” option, which basically blocks the number from ringing through. But before I trouble myself with setting that up, I get sidetracked by something else and forget about it. There were no more calls last night to remind me.
This morning another call comes through. A different long-distance number. This one from Halifax. I answer and get the beep beep beep. It instantly, and only momentarily, infuriates me. I begin to go through the trouble of screening this new number.
The wireless phone we have in our office is infuriating as well. You really have to depress some of the numbers really hard before they register. You have to press so hard that usually when it does register, the number is registered twice. So often you have to hang up and start again. Well, not only do I have that to contend with, but the Eastlink Call Screen thing doesn’t seem to work from a wireless phone. At least, not from this wireless phone.
So, to teach it all a lesson, I refuse to go into the kitchen, to the wired phone and enter the call screen number from there. Besides, it doesn’t seem right that one would have to block a number after the fact. I think to myself I should call Eastlink to see if there is another, easier, solution. I do not call Eastlink.
This afternoon, a different long-distance Halifax number, but the same result: beep beep beep. That’s it! Lesson over. I go to the kitchen wired phone and instruct the Call Screen to screen that phone number.
My wife calls Eastlink to see what can be done. The Eastlink Rep surmises to her that perhaps it’s a fax machine trying to call through to our number. She also recommends that we do the Call Screen thing. She asks if there’s anything else she can help us with, and then hangs up.
Not satisfied that it could be a fax, and a little bit angry that such a solution would be suggested, I call Eastlink back and get another Rep. I tell him the problem, explain that I assume it’s an automated telemarketer machine not recognising, blah blah blah. He agrees, and offers to block the numbers for me, and tells me about the Call Screen service. I ask, plead, that there must be another option that doesn’t involve “after the bothersome interruption” reactive solutions. He says “not really” but that he’d put a call into a long-distance repair specialist, and would email his supervisor on the matter. I hang up, dejected, imagining three or four different autoated long-distance telemarketing machines calling me each day, forcing me to block all those numbers.
A few minutes after that, another long-distance call comes in. Thinking it was another beep beep beep, I was delighted that it was an actual human: the eastlink repairman. I explain to him the problem and he gruffly says that it’s telemarketing and that the only option is to do the Call Screen thing. He then goes on to explain what Call Screen is. I interrupt him to say that I know what it is, and in fact, I already entered the most recent culprit-number to be screened. He informs me that there is no screened number on my account. I assure him that is, or there should be, as I just set up the screen not five minutes ago. He insists it is not and rather patronizingly instructs me on what I may have done wrong. I accept the patronizing tone because I probably deserve it. We hang up.
I dial into the Call Screen program, and realise that I did, in fact, enter the number, but failed to initiate the service.
So, I initiated the service, entered the phone numbers of the culprit-numbers, and hope that not many more try to contact us. In the meantime, I’ve entered my info into the Do Not Contact service provided by the Canadian Marketing Association. I doubt it’ll do much good (it takes about six weeks to come into effect, apparently), but perhaps it’ll help a bit.
Bleepin, Telemarketers!
The Annekenstein Monster 