There were these two chickens.....

Earlier this year my son astonished everyone by exploring the nature of evil and the effect it has upon the innocent. He was four. He used the medium of "found objects' to create his existential masterpiece.

It is called, "The really, really freaked out chicken and the evil chicken."


THIS IS THE REALLY, REALLY FREAKED OUT CHICKEN











THIS IS THE SCARY EVIL CHICKEN

Sex Workers and Reticulation Can't Be Friends

AS YOU CAN SEE THE GARDEN OUT THE FRONT IS WAY TOO BIG

I am working on an entry that is driving me to distraction - it just aint gonna get finished and meanwhile there are no new entries and the Rogue Traders (who can collectively fall in a well at this point) are the image anyone who hits the site first sees. UNACCEPTABLE. And now I'm stir crazy. It's the children who are suffering as I write this. Zac keeps asking how to draw Jabba the Hutt. "It's a blob"
"Can you draw it?"
"No. Draw a blob..."
There is drawing.
"How do I draw the Gamorean guard?" (and NO-ONE correct the spelling on that)
"I.... DON'T KNOW."
My daughter comes in. The bath is full of water because I rushed out last night without letting it out after their bath. She wants to play with the water and so asks me.
"No, you could drown."
"Huh?"
"You could drown."
She thinks about this and it occurs to her that this is ridiculous.
"How could I drown?"
"I'll explain later - but just stay out of there.... you could drown..."
She leaves. Whispers in her brother's ear and off they go. To play with the bath water I suppose.

I shouldn't be writing this. I should be out teh front of the house fixing the reticulation. I put a hoe through the pipes yesterday. Ripping out shrubs that proved to be ill suited to the front of out house I am now fulfilling the most most pathetic of all man's fated existence, fixing the garden where I never wanted one in the first instance. It's like Outcome statements. Never NEVER should have gone that way - EVERYONE - said we should not go that way except the little beurocrat that thought they could. HOLY COW. And now - now they're ripping them all out. Shutting it down. And the place we are in is worse than before. Now English staff are being told to mark "going off your gut feelings". That my friends has actually been advised. I despair. History repeats itself because it's full of bossy lying idiots. It's the mitigating factor in all of these stuff ups. We had the reticulation guy advise us to put native plants in. Save water. Cept he rigged up the reticulation to water the garden and the lawn simultaneously. No water saved. Native plants over watered. Native plants overgrown and unmanageable. Have to take them out. Managed to take out not just reticulation, but the connection to the neighbor's property. Managed to drive the hoe right through the t-junction of the whole thing.
Sat down for a moment after I did it and thought... of course.

Me, and suburbia can't be friends.

CAN'T BE FRIENDS.

I've said yes to doing a gig at the end of the week. Crap. WHY? WHY did I say yes?
Not just that - it's to a Christian group. I must write about why on all occasions that has never worked. You can't enjoy comedy if you are sitting there wondering "Should he say that? Should I laugh. It's funny sure.... but if I laugh... I'm just not sure. I won't laugh. None of the others are laughing. Why am I the only one wanting to laugh. What's wrong with me.... what's wrong with me?" She/he stares into the floor. The comedy dies. Horribly.

Well, I'd better get that hooker back out of the pipes.

People don't kill pipes. People with hookers kill pipes.

I'm loving this sketch. Sent to me by Linc.

Someone stop the insanity

"ROGUE TRADERS TAKE TOO LONG TO EXIT STAGE"
SALLY aged 10

Got to share a couple of things with you.

Tan and I were sitting at the dining table when she suddenly reads the following out of the school newsletter where my kids attend. This is penned by a ten year old, I have changed nothing...

ROGUE TRADERS!
ON THE WEEKEND WE WENT TO THE ROGUE TRADERS. THERE WERE A LOT OF DIFFERENT SONGS. WE ALL SAT ON THE GROUND. THE BAND WAS SO LOUD. WE YELLED AT ROGUE TRADERS BECAUSE WE SAID,"HURRY UP! HURRY UP!" J____ AND I WERE VERY EXCITED. WE GOT AN EAR PLUG. THE END.
BY C______


Tan could not fathom how this piece of tripe was published. Hello? Ten Year Old at a concert hurling abuse at the band and getting one, ONE ear plug for their trouble. Gold. As a teacher I can see this as a savvy editorial decision. Can't punish a child, publish them.








Check this link out and then ask the question:
Sure it's cute, but what happens when one of them wants to be more than friends?
BTW check out the "pigs in a blanket" - these guys will end their mortal struggle as hors dourves

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

THIS is what happens when you bottle up that anger

It seems that it's the done thing that whenever anyone gets a Mac they write a post gushing about the moments of arrival. Their joy, the tears that well up, the gibbering about the sensual feel of the scrabble like keys. For me it's slightly different.

We tend to attribute human characteristics to anything we use on a frequent basis. Whether that 'thing' works well or fails abysmally we refer to it by a name or (not so p.c.)a gender. Take for example something that doesn't work, we imbue it with a malevolent force bent on making our lives just a little bit worse.

I still remember my brother (who interestingly enough developed schizophrenia later in life) yelling at soldering irons and hi fi components that didn't work, threatening merry hell if they didn't comply with his simply wish of building working nuclear fusion. (We all put it down to autism) At the time I would pause in whatever I was doing to listen in on the escalating scenario. A mini Bay of Pigs, if you will, peppered with floating consonants and incomplete words.
"You just s'."
The word would vanish as if the sound suddenly had just been cut.
"...... just, just stay."
The instructions he gave were always reasonable enough.

Cept it was to inanimate objects.

You were always at risk of being fooled into thinking for the briefest of moments he was talking to something that could consciously comply with his requests.

"Staaaaaaaay.... good... now... good."
There was always a period of silence in which you would then hear the barely audible sound of something small and metal hitting the work bench.
Right there the the escalation would begin. Actually escalation is too gradual. It was an accelerated incline with a g-force that would smear your eyelids across your forehead.
"OH MY G'...OH....MY..... You!....YOU!"
Then there was the sound of teeth grinding their way back to bloody gums.
"RIGHT RIIIIIGHT....Stay...."
Then there was the quiet and focussed imploring.
"Staaaaaaaaaaaayyyyaaa. STAY. Good. That's a good boy."
A sigh.
"Now stay."
(endless silence)
The sound of happy work.
"Good."
I would remain listening because it was with wearying predictibility that things would go horribly and irreconcilably wrong, largely because the task he had set himself was impossible.
And so the inevitable would happen.
The second barely audible sound of something small and metal hitting the work bench.
And then...
"OH MYYYYYY GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I.... YOU... NO!! NOOO! NO! YOU.....! (SMASH)

And so I would resume my work. Actually there are any number of entertaining stories I could regale people with about my brother, and this would seem like just the spot as there is little opportunity to bring him up in conversation without killing the very conversation you were attempting to have.

To my point. I got my MacBook on Monday and it was not with the giddy joy of a teenager at port meeting her sailor boy. It was deep seated apprehension. I had grown attached to my HP Pavillion. After three years of working closely together we had formed an almost organic bond. Nothing was ever too much of a problem for the two of us, and when we weren't working together we would catch up on Sopranos, one of the few who would join me in that past time. And so I have moved over to the MacBook. It's cute and white and smells new and has widgets and makes cute noises and can do video chat with colleagues (holy crap just give me an Ugly Betty make over. I am assured that it is a brilliant machine, and I deeply believe that with time and practice it will allow for greater productivity and creativity. But right now it is quietly trying to slash my wrists. The edges where I rest my wrist (now there's some art right there people - 'where''rest''wrist') are quite sharp. Damn thing is too white to be emo. But it just ain't comfy.

It's ok though. I've just picked up the latest season of Deadwood. Happiness is an angry man with a gun on something other than the news.

Ah, to be white and middle class.