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Posts for the date of Friday, October 11, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:12 AM |
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Why is it that when you want a kid to sleep in, they wake up at five a.m. but when you need them to get up they sleep until 9?
Big things happening. Keep your pants on . . .
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Posts for the date of Thursday, October 10, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 8:59 AM |
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"You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish." -Richard Feynman (1918-1988), Nobel winning physicist.
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 8:18 AM |
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I wasn’t going to write today because, technically, I don’t have time. I have a dental appointment today that is designed to cause me great pain and then Parents as Teachers later this afternoon.
But, as I was driving Gertrude to her sitter this morning I heard something that truly, truly disturbed me in ways that I cannot even begin to describe. It’s kind of walking in on your grandma while she’s wearing a leather teddy and carrying a whip. It was just . . . wrong.
What was it? A milk commercial. A milk commercial starring Aaron Neville. A milk commercial starring Aaron Neville singing a song thanking his mother for giving him milk.
In essence, it isn’t disturbing, really. In fact, I should consider it sweet. But I don’t. Instead, with the way he sings it like a passionate love song, I find my skin crawling. I know he’s talking about cow’s milk, but yet I picture this massive man with the girly voice suckling his Mama in deep Louisiana. And I find it gross.
More so, he discusses how his mom told him that milk would make him grow big and strong. Which it did. Aaron Neville is a huge man with arms like tree trunks. But he sings like a little girl. So, he certainly has strong bones and massive muscles, but his testes never dropped.* Maybe he should have asked his mom to stop force feeding him milk and get him straight to a doctor to find out about this issue.
I would have.
But, I can’t fault him for thanking his mom. Like I said, it’s kind of sweet, in a sick and twisted sort of way. Still, certainly there are more important things that his mother taught him that he could thank her for. I mean a good amount of people are lactose intolerant anyway.
For example, his mom potty trained him. He wouldn’t have had the musical career he’s had if he still wore diapers. That’s pretty important. Odds are she taught him to tie his shoes too. Again, a grown man who can’t tie his shoes won’t get anywhere. Can you respect a forty-year-old man with Velcro shoes? Probably not. Did she teach him how to use a fork and spoon? Probably. And he’s benefited from that.
But to me, a grown man who drinks milk isn’t all that unique. I mean, I’m glad he’s big and strong (despite his testes), but seriously, there’s just something wrong with this song . . .
*Note: I have no information on Aaron Neville’s testes nor do I want them. I just can’t figure out how a 300-pound man sings like Shirley Temple. My comments were not intended to disparage Aaron Neville, The Neville Brothers, their mother, the State of Louisiana, Dairy Farmers or people named Ethelbert.
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Posts for the date of Wednesday, October 09, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 8:21 AM |
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Becoming a parent gives you the opportunity to create memorable moments for your children. The type of memorable moments that Mike Brady would give his entire bunch after they played ball in the house. “See, I've always believed that it doesn't matter where your home is because home is where your heart is. Now we may lose this house, but we'll always have our family because we're Bradys, and this family is our home. That's why we'll always have our home, as long as we have our family, even if we lose our house, we're still Bradys.” And then my kids would always remember that and share it with their kids.
Granted, the only “quotes” I remember from my parents are, “It’ll put hair on your chest” and, “Where am I going? Crazy if I don’t mend my ways.”
Now it’s my turn. I get to provide the children with their own simple quotes that will always be attributed to me.
But, there comes a time in every child’s life where they discover sass. They have to try it on, see how it feels, how it works. It’s like smoking. Even the good kids try it once.
Matilda is a good kid. She’s a great kid. She never gets in trouble; she’s smart, funny, well spoken and polite. But lately, and maybe it’s her age, she’s been spewing out some rudeness to her mother.
Why is it always Mom that the kids pick on? They never dare sass dad. But MOM, well, she’s going to get every bit of smarmy, gross, cruel comments. The worst I’ll get in the future is “You’re not my real dad.” Well, no I’m not.
But dads tend to say, “What did you say to me?” And the kids shy away. Maybe it’s because dads have a better “serious” voice. Who knows?
The other night Matilda was going to the store with her mom. Mom said to put on a jacket. Matilda threw a fit and started talking back to her mom.
Now, I must interject here. Mothers, in my opinion, are the world’s greatest gift. They should be treated like saints and honored for all they do. The love, the caring, the tenderness. Everything. They deserve honor and respect.
So, in my family, talking back to your mother is a sin. However, I don’t want to be a tough, mean bastard whenever the kids sass their mom. If it was me I could say, “Knock it off” and they would. But moms battle sass with sighs, guilt and hurt feelings. It usually works, but it’s a long-term battle that is designed to make children into kind adults. Dads deal in the moment.
So, Mom sighs and just gives Matilda a hurt look. I feel I must do something. So, I give her my version of a Mike Brady speech.
“Honey, listen to your mother. How old is she? And she’s still alive isn’t she? Clearly she understands survival if she’s lived this long. Just listen to her and put on your jacket.”
So she did. And some day she just might use those words herself.
Parents don’t try to make their kids’ lives a living hell. We don’t want to tell them not to do something. But it’s our job. We try our best to be nice and fair. But sometimes, to a kid, life isn’t fair. It’s hard to understand why you can’t play after dinner because your parents want to hang out with you. They don’t realize that it hurts our feelings when they’d rather play with the neighbor kids than watch a movie with us.
But, in the end, it’s okay. Because, when the time comes, we get to spoil their kids.
Payback’s a bitch.
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Posts for the date of Tuesday, October 08, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:46 AM |
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I think I’m settling into this design. It will go across the entire new site, when I get it set up. Which may be never since I found the time to do this design at midnight last night. My first chance. Even now, as I write this, I should be doing something else. Sometimes, in the course of human events, all hell breaks loose and there’s nothing you can do. Hell has broken loose and I have a piece of burning brimstone in my shorts. I hope I don’t get blisters.
I’d like to than everyone who offered their help with website design, at generous prices (Free, actually . . . except one person wanted a goat, why?). However, I think I’m going to stick this out on my own. I need to learn, right? No better way to learn than trial by fire (since I have brimstone in my pants, I’m getting used to the heat).
The rest of the site design will mirror this. However it will have different title bars and the black section will match the title bar. What I’ll put in the black section on other pages I don’t know. Maybe pictures of myself dressed as famous monkeys in history.
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Posts for the date of Monday, October 07, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 11:10 PM |
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Here's a preview of the new look. Hope you like it. If you don't, keep your comments to yourself. I'm not a designer. I do what I can.
The stunning lack of color here is related to my color-blindness, by the way.
Comments are gone. They were pissing me off in the new design so, screw them. If you want to contact me, feel free to do so by clicking on Mr. Geeky there.
Now all I have to do is get set up on the server and my new site is ready to go.
Well, I have a design (even more than just this one). The only thing left is that pesky content.
But I have plans. Oh yes, I have plans. Mwhahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 8:18 AM |
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Oh how I’d love to tell you the story of my weekend. It involves nachos, lawn darts and turkeys. But I’m in a time crunch here for work. In fact, the time crunch probably won’t really end until February, to be honest. (To those in publishing, I have eight books to turn over by then and so many loose ends to tie up in the mean time.)
Plus, I have about 40 pages at Intercot to do, not to mention several things I’ve been promising to John for a while. Plus I want to get my website jumpstarted, which means content development and I have to get a second draft of the film story done ASAP. Then there are the kids and the wife and getting licensed to practice medicine in the South. It’s a busy time.
I’ll try to update this week. However, if I don’t, please understand. And if you don’t understand I understand that you don’t understand so please understand my understanding of your lack of understanding.
Understand?
What a weird word. If you break it out it doesn’t really mean what it is supposed to mean. Stupid English language. Let’s riot.
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