Simian Farmer

Housekeeping

You may have noticed that I changed the masthead for the month of September. 
As usual, all the archived banners may be seen HERE.

I've deleted and added some sites to my The Simian Regularly Reads section of the sidebar.  There are a number that have been in my RSS feed for some time that I thought merited some polite linkage.

I've also made a link at the bottom to the Insanity Test.  I take this regularly.  If I find I'm not insane, then I worry.

And lastly, I'm going on some sort of Team Building thing for work starting this afternoon and going thru Thursday evening.  Posting may be a little light. 

Simian Farmer Light: now with less circumlocution!

Sweet Lord Jesus, keep him AWAY from the power tools!

Having a rapidly growing boxer dog puppy requires the addition of a larger doggie-door than the one that currently accommodates our ten pound runt of a jack russell.  At four months of age, the puppy can now just barely squeeze through the smaller door flap.

Ergo, Sunday afternoon called for Simon to don his oft-dusty mantle of Domestic Handy-man Extraordinaire!!

Foetus 2.0, First Trimester Report

Moments after I step in the door from the office, my wife, recumbent on the sofa, welcomes me with, "Hi Sweetie, what's for supper?"  Her eyes are still affixed to CSI on tv.  The original Las Vegas series.  None of that knock-off crap.

"I just got home from work.  Shouldn't I be asking you this question as you bring me a beer from the fridge?"  Dangerous, but sometimes my mouth is a pace ahead of my brain.  Though I know better than to make a 'barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen' comment.  Barely.

Terrible, horrible bubbles

Imagine my consternation coming in the front door from work yesterday to find the living room awash in a nearly weightless mass of bubbles: two dogs jumping around and snapping at the insubstantial spheroids; one boy plodding around the carpet picking up as many as he could, and with many already nestled in his hair; and my wife sitting in the armchair, the orchestrator of this sticky affair, heedlessly blowing countless scores more into the fray.

Whoever thought to add silicone to bubble mixtures so they WON'T POP (they merely slowly decompress and infiltrate themselves into your carpet and upholstery) should be dragged out into the street and drawn and quartered.

Flying Spaghetti Monster

I have been watching from the sidelines and observing much of the Intelligent Design mudslinging taking place in the blogosphere for the past several months.  And when the ID push invariably fails under its own weight, hopefully without doing too much damage in the process, I'll be very glad to see the tripe gone.

In the meantime, I'll just state officially, for the record, that I am a fervent supporter of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and yearn for nothing more than to be touched by His Noodly Appendage.  The Pastafarianism Movement is strong and growing! 

I give you here several signs of my devotion to this supernatural entity and links to read more about His mysterious origins and greatness.

The Origins of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

I want to be touched by His Noodly Appendage

Proof that the FSM is way cooler than ID supporters

Plenty of support on Boing Boing

FSM has a posse at zefrank

and finally...

FSM Wikipedia entry

Empathetic boy

The phone rang in my office Wednesday afternoon and I knew it was my wife.  I knew it was my wife since I have call display.  I also have a good friend who works at the local phone company and he can fiddle with the widgets over there so that anyone who has call display will see 'Aim Sigh & Dex' when receiving a call from our house.

This appeals to me at my most fundamental level of geekiness.

"Hellooooo," I say.  The extended 'o' reserved just for my darling wife.

"Hey, Si.  Declan just did something so cute that I had to call and tell you about it!"  This wasn't terribly out of the ordinary since Amy will often share the more exciting bits of her adventures at home with me while at work.  And I don't at all mind the distraction.

"And what was that?"

"Well," she says, the excitement already mounting in her voice, "we were just sitting in the living room and watching Toy Story.  And you know that part where Buzz and Woody are next door at Sid's house?"

"Yeah."

"And Woody wants to escape but Buzz still thinks he's really Buzz Lightyear and he shouts out, 'To infinity... and beyond!', and then he jumps off the second floor railing to try to fly out the window?"

"Yeah."

"And then Buzz falls in slow motion while the sad music plays and he crashes on the floor and loses his arm?"

"Uh huh."

And Woody eventually finds him in the sister's room dressed up as Mrs. Nesbitt and having tea with the dolls?"

"Yup."

"WELL!!" she says with finality.  "Well, as soon as Buzz started to fall from the railing, Declan stuck his lip out and started to pout.  And by the time Buzz crashed to the floor, he was crying!  Just bawling his eyes out!  I had to go and snuggle him and tell him it was OK and show him that, see, there he is dressed up as Mrs. Nesbitt and he's fine.  And then he finally calmed down.  Isn't that adorable?"

"It sure is," I agreed.  "We certainly seem to have an empathetic young son on our hands.  Those folks at Pixar must really know what they're doing."

"Yeah.  Well, I just wanted to tell you about that.  See you when you get home."

I don't know that I really had a point here other than perhaps to demonstrate with an example that now, with a very young family, I won't ever be able to take myself terribly seriously at work.  When a cartoon character can move my son to tears, and I am held rapt by my wife's description of the event, my perspective gets a little skewed and I don't think there's any going back.

Hopelessly outgunned in the battle against cute

Operation: Covert Comestibles

My wife and I have established a bit of a routine when I come home from work these days.  ('These days' being the time between getting her knocked up and, basically, now.):

She will sit and watch CSI on SpikeTV while I drop everything to make dinner for our son and, time permitting, ourselves.

I remember doing the underduck

So Jack's funeral service was today.  He succumbed to cancer a few days ago and the 13 month ordeal since he lost his arms is at an end.  Though for him it never was as much of an ordeal as most others would have made it.  The priest today mentioned how it was Jack who cheered him up when he went to visit in the hospital.  He was an incredible man.  The church today was packed.

He took up painting just shortly after his first accident, blowing acrylic paint onto a canvas through a straw.  We have one piece of his hanging in the boardroom here at work.  And just this past February, he and his wife celebrated 20 years together by flying to the Dominican Republic for a holiday.  He only lasted three weeks from the time of diagnosis to his passing.

And most of what I could think about during the Catholic service this afternoon was swinging on the swings.

No doot aboot it

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.

~Wilson Mizner