Things I have learnt about parenting - No#1

When changing a baby - make sure that they stay in the MIDDLE of the change table. That way they can't kick you in the stomach / testicles with their surprisingly strong little legs.

Funny thing said of my sister

My sister recently got hold of the PS3 game 'Rock Band'. She heads a band in her flat called 'The Perverts' ( which is a great name for a all-girl punk group ! ).

One of the other band members on their cash-flow

"Yeah - we were doing pretty well ... but then G spent every cent she had on a small hat."

Ain't that true of life ?

I thought so.

Commodore Ryan

Just finished this ( while Angelo was having a sleep ). The proportions aren't great - but I'm still fairly pleased with it.

Ryan and Slake have some kind of history. While being on opposite sides of the recent conflict between Albion and Atlantis they have a respect for each other as able warriors and leaders.

I repeat - there's a story in here somewhere !

Freak Angels ( nothing to do with Angelo ! )

I've been meaning to recommend this for a bit now - just didn't get round to it.

Warren Ellis ( 'Transmetropolitan' ) is writing a free web-comic called "Freak Angels". It's up to issue 8 ( each issue being 6 pages or so ) and I'm really enjoying it so far.

It had me hooked on the very first few lines :

"23 years ago, twelve strange children were born in England at exactly the same moment.

6 years ago, the world ended.

This is the story of what happened next."

You should check it out.

10 Things about the kid

1. His name is Angelo Mario. 'Angelo' is what my sister would have been called if she had ended up my brother. 'Mario' is my dad's name ( so Angelo is not named for the internationally famous, Gorilla-bashing plumber - it's just an added bonus ).

2. Other names that were considered were ; Orlando, Marco, Vito, Tarquin-Durwood-Alan, and Squiglet.

3. His mum nicknamed him 'Snuffles'.

4. He has received 4 toys since he was born ; a blue elephant, a small lion, a dangly spider and a multi-coloured / multi-textured inch-worm. His dad has played with them all much more than he has ( which is 'not at all' ).

5. No matter how tightly his dad swaddles him, he always seems to get at least one arm free through his incessant wriggling.

6. His eyes have a blood-shot ring around them at present - giving him quite a 'Damien' look.

7. He can say 'Lah' - but only when he's really distressed.

8. He managed to kick himself in the bollocks once when he was being changed. He didn't seem too bothered about it. That could work out to be quite a party-piece.

9. His first lullaby was "Still Alive" from the 'Portal' video game ( sung by dad ). He seemed to puzzle him somewhat.

10. Apparently there has been some debate in the Wellington gaming community as to whether he's going to be a :
a) Pirate
b) Robot
c) Ninja
d) Cyborg
- kid. My money's on 'Robot'.

El nino

So I'm a father now. It is a strange and wonderful thing. I have a little boy ! He came into the world VERY quickly - at 8.32, on Wednesday the 2nd of April.

Viva and I were both born on a Wednesday as well. And don't you love the exponential curve of his birthday ?

2 / 4 / 08 ??

Cool or what ?

'Death From Above' is not the venue for much of what I want to say / show about my son ( man - it is weird saying that ... 'my son' ! Sheesh ) - so if you want to see the little guy ( name in process of being decided - we have a short list ! ) - then I urge you to make the long and peril-filled journey to his blog page, where there are some pics waiting for you !

Right - back to the hospital !

Captain Slake

Here's a wee sketch that I managed to salvage over Easter. It was pretty crappy before - but I dialed back the far-slung sci-fi and turned it into more of a steam-punk thing. After the sketch was saved I put it through photo-shop, where I experimented with different levels for highlights and shadows. It could do with a background - but hey, don't look a gift post in the mouth !

So ... Captain Slake. Yup - he is a fish. A fish in a mind-linked battle chassis. He's the head of the security detail protecting the ambassador from the technocracy of Atlantis. I imagine that Captain Slake is the hero of many adventures above and below the waves ... and the suit chassis is legendary piece of ancient technology from before Atlantis sunk beneath the waves.

There's a story that deserves closer investigation here somewhere ...

The New Banner ? Perhaps...

Critical Mass 4 - Litter

Finally ! This took a long time to finish, I'm not sure why - not as many text boxes in this one for a start...

Did you bring enough for everyone ?

You may ( or may not ) know that I work at a special character school. While I hold no especially strong religious views - it's no bad thing to work at a religious school. In a lot of ways it's pretty nice. There are times when it sticks a little in my craw - Christmas is a good example. There are days when I want to run through the school screaming "Christmas was stolen from the pagans ! Nowhere in the bible does it say when Jesus was born ! Don't even get me started on the Council of Nicea !".

Easter is another time.

Our school holds an important Easter assembly / chapel service kind of a deal. The students have to wear there formal uniforms all day - which, considering the bizarre mirco-climate of the school ramping temperatures into the 'please-someone-scoop-out-my-brains-through-my-nose-with-a-soup-spoon-so-I-don't-have-to-endure-this-miserable-HEAT!' range, is far from a pleasant thing.

Also, not only is it a day on 'assembly' times ( where the normal timetable is hacked into a tattered mess, which sucks - because students never remember the NORMAL times ), but the times are extra-mangled because the assembly had to be at the end of the day ( kids have NO freaking idea of what's going on ). So - yay for that.

Anyways - the assembly. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

As I was saying - the Easter chapel service is supposed to be a fairly serious thing. This one was off to a fairly deep start - with reflections on the nature of sacrifice, scenes from "The Passion" ( man - I am NEVER watching that movie ) and various other spiritually uplifting things.

And then one of the student leaders was talking, and pulled out a medium sized easter egg. It's the size of, oh, half a rugby ball. Y'know - not huge.

This student says he going to break up the egg and hand it out to SOME students - because there isn't NEARLY enough for everyone ( which really - should have set off warning bells in this student's mind RIGHT THEN ). Maybe he thought this was a brillo way of demonstrating the nature of sacrifice. If so - this theory was severely flawed.

So - as there school captain comes forward, two seniors start to hand out these bits of chocolate.

What happens next ? Oh - I saw it coming. I think you do too !

Pande-FREAKING-monium !

Students are crying out, some literally screaming, for a miniscule amount of diary milk ! ALL over the auditorium ! And it wouldn't stop ! The Chaplain growled at the school over the microphone, with the principal scowling his disapproval at his side. "This is an important part of the school calendar ! Show respect for your fellow students" and other such platitudes were fired into the assemblage , but with NO change to the chocolate-infused frenzy !

"Give me some chocolate!"
"Hey! Over HERE!"
"Gimmie !"
" I WANT SOME !"
"MEEEEEEE !!! Some for MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

So much for Christian sacrifice !

Seriously - I've never seen anything like it happen in an assembly in my ten years of teaching.

In the end the remaining chocolate had to be removed FROM THE AUDITORIUM for them to settle down again. It was insanity !

I tell you - BEST. Assembly. EVER !

Firmer than expected

Not that I have the weird fetish that so many other people have about touching pregnant women's tummies - I have, no occasion, done so with my wife. Mostly to try and feel the little punk move. It is quite a sly little creature - it will move a whole bunch ( apparently ) and as soon as I get there it will stop straight away.

This can only mean trouble ahead.

Anyway - the real thing I wanted to say it I was surprised how ... hard, for want of a better word ... the pregnant tummy was. For some reason I just had it in my head that babies were kinda squishy ( they're not supposed to have bones for crying out loud - that sounds pretty squishy to me ! ).

So all those times we were in the gym when I was in secondary school, and I would stuff a basketball up my t-shirt and go "Hey look at me - I'm pregnant ! Haw haw haw !" - I was, in a tactile sense at least, more correct than I could possibly know.

Believe me - I'm as surprised as you are.

Return of the Blue Sock

I was overjoyed to see that Viva had found my missing 'blue Monday' sock. It had been gone a week and seriously threatened to disrupt my morning routine.

I got a set of these black socks last year from the Warehouse - black socks with a difference ! On the heel and toe of each pair is a colour - and written on the 'sole' of each are the days of the working week. What is groovier is that the colours follow the progression of rainbow colours ( albiet in reverse ) :

Monday - Blue
Tuesday - Green
Wednesday - Yellow
Thursday - Orange
Friday - Red

Kinda neat huh ?

After one of the Blue Monday socks vanished ... it didn't feel right wearing the others. My whole dressing routine for the week - cast to the four winds ! It was a bleak time my friend. Bleak !

But - joy ! The lone sock turned up - much like a lost tramper in the Tararua ranges, it had simply stayed where it was until it was found. It was in the dryer - stuck to a weird upward area due to static.

Does this make me slightly OCDish ?

Probably.



In an associated idea - am I the ONLY one who thinks 'Trinny and Susannah' are a pair of heinous bitches in need of a slow crushing via a steam-roller ?

This does not bode well...

So I was leaving work. I packed up my computer, and my briefcase - walked out the office door and locked it.

I noticed then that I was still wearing my whistle ( used to get attention in class - 'The Black Whistle of Certain Doom' is what I've playfully christened it ). I like to leave it on my desk when I go. I'm wondering if I can be bothered unlocking the door and going back in when I remember that I left my lunch box in there ( a plastic old-school style design - neon pink in colour ).

Two items push me over the door-unlock threshold. I zap back inside, get items, lock door, set alarm, lock building, go to car.

It's not until I open the boot that I notice that I'm not in fact holding my lunchbox. I have instead, inexplicably, my stapler ( which is about 1/16 smaller, and blue ).

Something is very wrong here.

Just don't ask me again, okay ?

So I was walking past a meeting the HOD music was having with the itinerant music teachers. They were deep in discussion. They were trying to think up a name for a senior singing group. Something which would encourage them and not put them off the idea of singing.

I heard names like "The Lumberjacks" and some other equally painful ones that my mind has blocked out.

They asked me if I could think of something.

Hell yeah - I could think of something !

"The Totally Heterosexual Senior Crooners" !

They didn't seem to like it much.

Jerks.

Seraph's totally awesome solution for the tagging problem

Institiue a bounty.

Taggers captured by a registered bounty-hunter ( along with evidence of the crime, naturally ) are organ harvested - with 25% of the value of the organ going to the bounty hunter.

First conviction - a kidney.

Second conviction - a lung.

Third conviction - full organ harvest. Heart, lung, kidney, liver, retinas, bone marrow, blood, the freaking lot.

Viola ! The criminal has both paid for their crime, and contributed to society by donating their vital organs to someone who deserves them a hell of a lot more. No need to waste hard earned tax dollars in prison sentences or time-consuming community service.

I bet the problem would be significantly lessened. Sure - my answer for a range of crimes tends to boil down to 'organ harvesting' - but dammitt, those Greys had a damn good idea there when they were hovering aroung Roswell.

( sorry for Totalitarian Seraph voicing his vitriol here - I just watched a documentary on tagging and I am very angry indeed ... )

The Future of Gaming ?

Even if you only have the most casual aquaintances with video gaming - you really do need to check this the hell out. Freaking amazing. I can see one day I shall have to get hold of a Nintendo Wii ...

baby class - part 1

Soooo - last night I went with Viva to the first of our antenatal classes. I was kinda dreading it, but I guess it wasn't that bad. There were some nice people there.

However - there was a bit of a weird thing half way through. We split into man and women groups, and the guy who was talking to us in the guy group kept telling us how we could get involved with the child, but he kept adding the phrase "because you wouldn't hurt the baby".

I'm guessing that the was trying to reassure us that we won't 'break' the kid - but it started sounding like a bit of an accusation after a while, like he wanted to add '...would you?" on the end.

"You won't hurt the baby by giving it a bath ... would you? You wouldn't smother him with a rubber duck or garrote them with the activity hanger ? You wouldn't booby-trap the buggy to shoot the child out like a circus cannon into the ionosphere ??? WOULD YOU ??? YOU FREAKING MONSTER !!!"

Or maybe it was just me ...

Another visitor ...

So this is what I've been doing instead of writing on the blog. It's a little piece for my good pal Bubbajay. Those of you who had a C64 computer should recognise the jumpman and robots from Impossible Mission.

It's called "Stay Awhile ... Stay Forever!" which is what the Prof. Atombender says to you right at the beginning of the game, in what was some damn good voice sound fx for the day !

I considered calling it "Destroy Him, My Robots!" which he also says at various points. Bubbajay suggested "AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhh......." and "ZZZZZZzzzzzzZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZzzzzzzz!!!" as well - but I thought they were a bit to hard to paint onto the side of the canvas.

So Bubbajay - there you have it ! Sorry it wasn't done before you left - but art takes time. I'll post it to you or something.

Next art project - Pacman !

Nozing around !

In summation :

- Tibia healing nicely.
- Blood test turned up slightly elevated liver enzyme count. Have to have another blood test. Hopefully nothing to worry about.
- Finished a new video game painting for my main man Bubbajay - will put a pic up soon.
- 'Portal' is a freaking great ( if somewhat short ) video game. Play it if you get the chance.
- Team Fortress 2 is also fun !
- "Knocked Up" wasn't nearly as funny as everyone said. I think I prefer my comedy more surreal / black. So there you go.

And something to make you smile to finish up. A line from one of the junior plays at the end of last years classes :

"The bird fell from the sky like a ball of cake."

Hee hee hee !

Misdiagnosis

“You know, I took your physio’s referral for you from the thirty or so ‘urgent’ cases because it looked like the easiest. From the description I though ‘Oh yes – a standard ACL tear. No problem. I’m going to be using your case for a teaching seminar as an example of things being not always what they appear to be.”

“…Right” I replied. “Is that good ?”

That’s what a specialist sports doctor told me about the state of my knee, after some closer examination.

Last week, my physio told me that what I had most likely done to my knee was torn or snapped my cruciate ligament ( or what I called the cruciatus ligament ) – which was a pretty common sports injury. She then went on to explain what would be done to fix this ( cutting off some other ligament from elsewhere in my body , and then grafting it into my knee ) – and I almost fainted. It rather freaked me out.

So – I got a referral letter sent off to a sports doctor at the Wakefield hospital this week, and warned that it would probably be well into the New Year before I heard back from her.

Two days later I got a call from the hospital asking if I were able to make it into them for an appointment. There had been a miraculous opening. “Hell yes !” I said.

So after a morning of Christmas shopping ( which seemed to be going worryingly painlessly for a change ) and made my way to Newtown and the specialist sports clinic.

After five minutes of jumping around in my underwear, the doctor echoed what my physio had said. “ACL tear most likely, considering the means of injury and the state of your knee. I’ll get you to have some x-rays now, and we’ll get you booked in for a MRI scan as well. That’s really busy – so it won’t be for a couple of weeks. I’ll see you again after that.”

So – downstairs to radiology I went, x-rays were taken ( and am I the only one that thinks hospital x-ray machines are rather sinister things ? ), and I went onto the list for an MRI scan.

Then, home.

No sooner had I sat down to do some painting, then I got a call from the radiology dept.
“Can you have a scan done tomorrow ?”

“Umm – Yeah sure. I thought it was going to be weeks before I was going to get this done?”

“Usually that would be true – but we’re going to be here early tomorrow – and we can fit you in at 7.15 if you can make it. Can you make it at that time?”
“You betcha !”

In I rolled early the next morning, and was inserted into the MRI machine. That was an experience ! Yet again, TV has lied to me. Whenever I’ve seen MRI scans on telly, it’s really quite a futuristic affair. In you glide into the machine – badda-bing, badda-bang – hey presto – results ! “Here’s the probem, you’ve got three gall-bladders !”

It’s not like that at all. It takes AGES – about 28 minutes to get my knee done ( and it started to get difficult to stay still. It’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic too ! ). It’s also REALLY noisy. They give you a pair of those ear-muff things – and it was still really quite loud. The machine makes a lot of disconcerting clicks, and then launches into a full-on power buzz, which makes various changes in pitch and tone. I’m pretty sure there’s been a few people in the world who have freaked right out in one of those things.

Afterwards, they told me to see the receptionist at the sports clinic and see if the good doctor could see me again today. The MRI had confirmed what the x-rays had hinted at – it wasn’t my ACL at all, but instead I had a fracture.

“You had an MRI scan TODAY ?” said the incredulous receptionist “We only saw you YESTERDAY ! That NEVER happens !”

I felt pretty good about the way things were progressing !

So yeah – I have a fracture. Again. This is now my fifth. Still – I feel a lot better about having a fracture. At least I’m on familiar territory here ! And there’s a 99% chance that that it’ll heal fine. I have to go back in for more x-rays early in the new year, to see if things are healing okay ( the doctor was a bit mystified that I was able to walk reasonably normally, as normally someone in my position would be on crutches – and probed me quite thoroughly to make sure that I just wasn’t pretending not to feel pain. “Doc” I said “I’m not the kind of guy to say something doesn’t hurt when it does ! Just ask my wife !” ).

All in all – I feel pretty lucky. If I hadn’t majorly lucked out in so many areas, I would have spent the summer with a fractured bone and not even known – and in all probability made things worse ( the first thing the doctor told me to stop was the rehab stuff the physio had got me to do – like the lunges, which were really starting to hurt ! ).

But it does mean that I won’t be doing anything strenuous of weight-bearing with my leg at all – which puts a major crimp on my exercise programme. Oh well, it’s more important to heal. No dancing on New-Year ( doctors orders ).

I’m most happy about my other ligaments not being harvested in a patch up mission though. Man – that really sounded pretty bad …