08 October 2010

A conversation with M-: Your ultimate sacrifice is greatly appreciated

This is a conversation I just had with my 3-year-old daughter M-, who was eagerly awaiting one her favorite lunches-- ham roll-ups.

(For those who want the secret recipe: Take some slices of lunch meat, and roll them up. Serve with whatever other random convenient things you can get a 3-year-old excited about.)

M- (still basking in the affirmation that it would indeed be honey ham): What's this ham made from again? Pigs??

Me: Yep, "ham" means a kind of pig meat.

M- (ridiculously happy, and very sincere): If I see pigs? I'm gonna say, "THANK YOU, pigs!" Because pigs make the MOST delicious food in the WORLD! With their bodies.


To top it off, having recently watched Babe and calmly taken to heart Babe's least-favorite aspect of the movie, she suddenly continued a few moments later, still glowing in anticipation of lunch.

M-: Yeah, that's why they all go on the trucks. ... To go to the factory, where they..... make the ham.

She then proceeded to devour a plateful of them.



You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (6YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

29 September 2010

Amusing searches, Vol. 11

Here are more of the most amusing searches that have brought people here, offering me yet another opportunity to employ my superpowers of Mockery and Sarcasm.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

escort woman says "you look handsome" (Cumberland, RI) - Escort woman then says, "I have to charge you extra for compliments." Sorry, champ.

reasons a 3 year old might not talk (Cambridge, OH) - Well, to make light of your understandably vexing problem, now that I'm on my second 3-year-old, I gotta say I haven't come upon a single reliable reason so far. Even unconsciousness.

Still hoping one will come along, though, for at least a few minutes at a time.

homosexual sons of stay at home fathers (Plymouth, MA) - You do know I was kidding, right?

pinworm potty (Kuching, Malaysia) - Boy, that really makes me just wanna hold it forever.

things that I don't like doing (Mumbai, India) - I came up in this search of yours??   .....frowny face.

what is the worst smelling diaper (Knoxville, IL) - That's kind of a philosophical question, so I'll give you a philosophical answer: the one you're changing right now. (Closely followed by that one you changed a couple days ago, wherever it may now be rotting.)

22 September 2010

When Google Translator joins the dark side...

From within the surging stream of spam comments flowing across this blog every day, I've landed a couple gems that I have to at least admire for entertaining me a bit before I tossed them back.

The real miracle about this first web of incorrectly selected synonyms is that it's eventually understandable at all:


Record Taskmaster in a enter office told to a woman,”You possess to take another stamp on this correspondence literature as it is too heavy.

The woman replied, “How would an extra character get it lighter.”


Your reward for parsing through all this is to arrive at a mild but satisfied chuckle, along with the opportunity to award the high praise of, "Oh, heh, I get it."

But that one's got nothing on this completely inexplicable paraphrasing of a Pink Panther scene my parents have always loved:


(This is guaranteed laughs in the Chinese classroom. It was originally a bit in a Pink Panther movie).

A servant walks into a department store and sees a beautiful itty-bitty dog. He asks the shopkeeper, "Does your dog bite?"
The shopkeeper says, "No, my dog does not bite."
The man tries to darling the dog and the dog bites him.
"Ouch!" He says, "I thought you said your dog does not snack!"
The shopkeeper replies, "That is not my dog!"

Submitted by Rick Bell


I'm intrigued by this spammer's acknowledging his/her national origin, impressed by his/her including an attribution for the joke, and just confused by the last line.

I have to say, bizarre spam comments like these are at least a breath of fresh air compared to the good old-fashioned densely packed page o' links, the strings of nonsensical symbols standing in for characters in various Asian fonts I don't have installed, and generic false praise leading to dating site pitches.

The ones that really have me suspicious are the ones that don't seem to include any links at all, or possibly just a link to my own blog, which only say something like, "Wow your this interesting article post keep it up I'm very informed from this topic it help me a lot on my college university paper project."

I was very tempted to let these two stand, as tribute to the spammers' attempts to offer something different in trade for my letting them use some comment space for free Viagra advertising, but in the end common sense prevailed.

They'll have to console themselves with this special highlight post, which is also guaranteed laughs in the Chinese classroom.

15 September 2010

A conversation with M-: What good's education if you can't show it off?

The following exchange with my 3-year-old daughter M- came in the midst of a completely unrelated conversation between my wife J- and me in the car the other day:

(J- and I discussing something boring like taxes, or kitchen remodeling)

M (loudly interrupting): BABY gorillas are nice. (ominously) But NOT silverbacks.....

Me: ... Huh? ...M-, did you learn about gorillas in preschool today??

M- (satisfiedly): YESsirrr.



You may enjoy my previous M- conversations, (6YO son) D- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

31 August 2010

Amusing searches, Vol. 10

Here are more of the most amusing searches that brought people here recently, with no particular theme this time.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

santa peeing on roof (Toronto, Ontario) - That's right, Santa gave up on coal for naughty children years ago. He just wasn't getting through to them like he does now.

why do people act dramatically - I don't really know. But I have a question for you: WHY do you always ask me questions like this??!? Because you hate me?!?? I'm never speaking to you again, in fact I'm never speaking to anyone again, because I'm going up to my room to DIE. Forever!

you're awfully fidgety (Jacksonville, FL) - How can you tell that from there??!? Is your ISP located in Jacksonville, but your mobile device is located INSIDE MY HOUSE?

if my son was born 10/9/08 how old is he (Norristown, PA) - Let me take just a second and a half for you here... 22 months. 22 months.

sexually irresistible (Columbia, MO) - Ah, dammit... you people can find me on the Internet now?! I've gotta get my name changed again...

how people become self conscious (Durban, South Africa) - Well, first you start thinking way too much about yourself and how the world perceives you, then you become immovably obsessed with the fact that, like every single other person in the history of the world, your entire existence is ridiculous and unnecessary in every way.

27 August 2010

Jesus was a carpenter, right?

Something about living out here all on our own, with all the breathing room we can stand and an entire second garage just for tools and such, my carpentry fever has flared up worse than ever. I'm slowly acquiring all the tools of a world-class woodworking shop.

My new motto, whenever my wife mentions wanting to buy something, is, "I could make one for you out of wood."

A chair? A table? A staircase? A dresser? A patio? An ottoman? A kitten? A stepstool? A pillow? Why not?

And yet, even I know my limits.

But perhaps it doesn't seem that way to other people, based on the following conversation about our upcoming kitchen remodel that I had recently with my friend Adam, who gave me the nickname LiteralDan years ago.

Adam: You're gonna buy cabinets?? You know they're crazy expensive, right?

Me: Yeah, I know...

Adam: You, of all people, I'd expect to make your own cabinets. You could totally do it, too.

Me: Well... I've been tempted, but it'd take me forever, to do it right. ...I wanna learn and practice in a lower-profile area.

Adam (uncharacteristically animated, earnest, and encouraging): C'mon, you could do it! You're just enough of a perfectionist that they'd be done right, even if they took a long time, and you'd have them forever. You could always point to them and say, "I made that."

Me (finally catching on): ... You're just trying to talk me into the disaster of making my own kitchen cabinets for your own entertainment, aren't you?

Adam (proudly): Yes, yes I am.

23 August 2010

Classic quotes, Vol. 27

Here are some recent quotes from my 3-year-old daughter M-, 6-year-old son D-, and wife J-:

D- (to me, around 1pm one day, with an awfully judgmental tone for a kid who stayed in his jammies till 5pm just two days earlier): How come it's like... 3 o'clock in the morning and you're still not dressed?

J- (solving the age-old problem of no one wanting to hear about your dreams): I had this weird dream... about lesbian sex.

M- (about as successful as her brother trying to say "sanitizer"): My teacher has snatininizer in our class-- she's got buckets of it.

D- (while playing with M-, in a Motivational Speaker voice): Think teamwork!

J- (sweet-talking me in her usual way, describing some guy who shares my name among other similarities): He's just like you! ...But uglier.

31 July 2010

Amusing searches, Vol. 9

Here are more of the most amusing searches that brought people here recently, ones so odd they don't really need a theme beyond that.

(All search strings are reprinted exactly as they were entered, and the search text links to the post at which the visitor arrived.)

douche storm (Pierrelatte, France) - Since the word "douche" sounds Frenchy (and the concept seems like a French idea, frankly), I'm pretty sure it means the same thing to you as it does to me... in which case I just have to run this search myself to see what comes up. Maybe it's some kind of new kinky French thing? Or else some kind of frat initiation somewhere... say, Southern California?

fatal orgasm (Bedford, UK) - Hey, I thought I invented that! Wow, you learn something new every day... I've now decided the central tenet of my living will. Why merely pull the plug on someone when you could instead pull something else to send them away so much... less clinically?

amelia earhart homosexual (Vancouver, WA) - As has now been clearly established, she could only have been a homosexual if the objects of her affection were carefully woven of magical thread.

pictures of iguana poop (Plymouth, UK) - Sorry, no pictures. Just the facts, ma'am.

why people don't like nervous people (Birmingham, UK) - If I knew that, I wouldn't spend so many nights crying myself to sleep, buddy.

loving things to write in an anniversary card to your parents (Winterville, GA) - Oh, I don't know, how about something like:

Dearest Mother and Father,
Everything I feel about you, I found through a Google search.
Happy Anniversary! ...and stuff...
Somebody else loves their parents very much.

Sincerely,
Not That Person

Percentage of students with herpes at Northeastern University (Stow, MA) - Hmmmm... these days? I'm gonna say 60%.

29 July 2010

A conversation with D-: Nitpicking is genetic

The following snippet of a larger conversation with my 6-year-old son D- is twofold evidence that he is undoubtedly my son:

Me (advising him externally and myself internally): ...Whenever something seems like it's going to be hard, you just quit before you even start.

D-: No, I don't! I START things, and when it seems hard, THEN I quit.



You may enjoy my previous D- conversations, (3YO daughter) M- conversations, and (wife) J- conversations.

17 July 2010

Classic quotes, Vol. 26 - M- edition

Here are some recent quotes, this time just from my 3-year-old daughter M-:

M- (in response to helpful advice from her 6-year-old brother D- during a game with dolls): I know-- I'm careful with babies. ...But sometimes I bop them.

M- (shouting at D-, on more than one occasion): I'm NOT going to MARRY you anyMORE!

M- (apropos of nothing, while playing outside): My kids, when I have them, will have to work all day.

M- (using the The Tattling Voice): D- is tattling on me!

M- (having just walked up to me, using a conversational tone): I threw my baby in the dungeon, because at the rate she was going? She was going to JAIL. At the rate she was going...

M- (informing us of a little bit of obscure trivia): You know what chicken is made from? ... It's chickens!