These are so cute

Wooden animal track sandals for kids

Just for fun

I saw this over on Geek Art Gallery today.

Sign some equations

I found this in my Google Reader Feeds tonight. Apparently it came from here.

After having a mental confusion moment today and confusing the equations for the area of a circle and the volume of a sphere (at least when the numbers came out I realised they couldn’t be right), this seemed to appear at a perfect time.

 

If you have issues with “Twilight” and/or bad grammar…

If so, then you absolutely need to read Reasoning with Vampires. Go to the last page and work backwards. It really does work best that way.

The author, deciding she couldn’t mock Twilight without reading it, undertook the mission and is commenting not only on content, but on how fundamentally awful the writing actually is. I have read the book and I admit, I didn’t notice most of this at the time. But I sure am now it’s being pointed out to me. Also, any decent editor should have picked it up.

I’m also amazed to see how many times, because she must think it’s a good idea, one author can insert unnecessary details into the middle of a sentence.

Dave sent me the link and I am blaming today’s total lack of productivity on him. I’m sitting at my computer and laughing hysterically instead. (Still, it’s New Year’s Day and a holiday. It is also totally his fault that he’s been doing most of the Marcus-minding today while I read and laugh.)

Pie

From tastefullyoffensive.com:

It’s the scientist in me, but I think that’s totally brilliant.

This is cool too

But go and watch in on You Tube itself as my blog template doesn’t show the full width of the clip and you need to see it all.

Catted on a Sunday afternoon

See Maru Jump

This is such a cool video. See Maru (who has a whole YouTube Channel of his own) jumping out of a huge box in slow motion. It shows just how agile and graceful cats are when they jump.

Lovely little ME/CFS joke

How do you identify the grocery list of someone with ME/CFS?

It's on the table at home.

Where the Wild Things Are

My mother just sent me this. It’s Marcus (in the middle) with my cousin’s two sons. They were playing at Lollipops in Palmerston North at a birthday party for the other boys’ cousin (ie my other cousin’s daughter). The relationships are all a little bit complicated as you can see, so to simplify things we just call all the kids cousins.

Anyway, I thought it was just too cute not to share.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the iPad

Out of the mouths of babes…

Marcus is having a bath.

It didn’t start well. I ran the bath and then he decided he wanted a shower. So he sat in the bath and had a little cry. I could hear these pathetic whinging sounds floating down the hall.

However, he’s playing now, so all is well.

Anyway, he just asked me a question, which went something like this…

In the olden days, were there no taps, and if people lived near a river, did they go there and get water and put it a jug and carry it back to their house on their heads and pour it into something else?

That’s a pretty complex thought for a five year old. I am both amused and impressed.

And speaking of Marcus gems, this one came last week.

I picked up Claire from school one day and dropped her home. On the way, she and Marcus were telling each other “jokes”. They do this quite often and their jokes are really more riddles, with answers that make perfect sense to them but no-one else. This is one of their favourites.

Why did the cow jump over the moon?
Because it had springs in its knees!

This is generally followed by gales of laughter.

This particular day, Claire had a new one.

Why did the cow jump over the moon?
Because the farmer was called Hans.

It took me a moment before I realised she must have overhead some adults and, not understanding the joke, misunderstood what they said.

I tried to explain, even knowing they wouldn’t get the details, that the farmer was supposed to have cold hands, but they weren’t having a bar of it. They had a new joke and they thought it was hilarious.

So that’s the current favourite. And if I laugh each time I hear it, it certainly isn’t for the same reason they both laugh.

That’s ridiculous

I ordered a book for my brother in law from the Whitcoulls NZ website. Cool, I thought, get it locally and then it'll arrive in time for Christmas.

It arrived today.
It shipped from the UK.
The address for returns is Australia.

That's just stupid.

I'm now feeling a bit worried about arrival times for the other two books I ordered later.

So cute

I just think this is really cute. I love the turtle. Marcus has a soft toy turtle (although his is pink) so I may be biased. I am not, however, bored. I just love the picture.

Trip Down Memory Lane

On Friday, Marcus brought this book home from school for weekend reading. I’m pretty sure I remember reading books like this when I was at school and learning to read.

I checked the copyright date and it was 1968. I started school in 1974, so that would be about right.

While I’m not sure that I remember this particular book, I was reading the titles on the back cover and I definitely remember reading The Hungry Lambs and I think The Stars in the Sky. They were big, fat hardcover books with a whole lot of stories in them and I can almost see them in my mind’s eye all these years later. The other titles sound familiar too.

At least they were new when I read them. Not so much now. But the stories were still perfectly fine for reading practise. I did have to explain what “Primers” were (first year at school now has the original title of “Year 1”) and also what a penny was as we don’t even have one cent coins any more (our smallest coin here in NZ is 10 cents), but everything else was fine. Okay, so the pictures were a little dated, but that’s okay.

Does this count as recycling?

How rude do you think we are?

Marcus’ imaginary friend, Super Bear (aka one crooked index finger), came to the supermarket with us today. She was being very annoying, flying around the vegetables and generally being anti-social.

Dave said something rather sharply to Marcus about controlling Super Bear and that “she was being very distracting.”

The woman at the vegetable stand next to us looked over, worried, and said something.

Horrified, I realised that she thought we were talking about her. I was quick to explain, “We’re not talking about you; it’s our son’s imaginary friend.” (Just how rude did she think we are? Even if she had been distracting – and she wasn’t – we never would have said anything.)

I’m not sure if she believed me or not, but I sure hope so. Especially since we kept meeting her all the war around the supermarket aisles.

Fixing the Graffiti

This really tickled my fancy this morning: http://editorialass.blogspot.com/2009/05/editing-your-daily-life.html

Out of the mouths…

Classic Marcus moment.

Since we’re getting ready to pack for our Easter holiday, I told Marcus he needed to think about what toys, books and movies he wants to take with him.

“Okay,” he told me. “I just have to change my normal brain for my toys-books-movies brain.” A moment’s pause. “Super Bear [his imaginary friend] helps me do it.”

“Oh,” I said. “Is Super Bear a brain surgeon?”

“Super Bear’s dog is a brain surgeon,” he told me seriously.

I almost collapsed laughing.

Meh.

Just watched (or partly watched) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull while getting my blog tidied up and a bit closer to up to date.

What can I say? Really Harrison, much as I still admire you and think you’re pretty hot, you just aren’t Indy anymore. You’re too old. You should have left it alone.

Otherwise the words the come to the mind are things like silly and good grief and I predicted all the twists and there’s going to be a spaceship before the end and then I’ll have to scream.

And really, really, don’t get me started on the science, or rather the lack thereof.

I hereby officially announce the the Indiana Jones canon consists of Raiders of the Lost Ark (because cool movie) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (because Ford + Connery = win). But that’s it. Nothing else.

I am so glad I didn’t pay money to go and see this in the cinema as I considered doing.

Go The Very Hungry Caterpillar!