Dalekboy

Lex has had a number of little milestones since C5, that have mostly gone unblogged because I've been sick, busy, or haven't remembered when I was posting. In the last few days he's discovered the power of pointing!

It's both awesome and funny. He can communicate that he wants a particular thing by pointing at it, which is great because even though he seems to understand a chunk of the signing he doesn't actually use it himself, so the pointing makes life a little easier.

He also randomly points. He won't even be looking, he'll just raise his hand and point off in a random direction. Sometime he does it with both hands at once - two completely different directions.

And then there's triangulation. You're not sure what he's pointing to, so you pick him up and wave him back and forth, slowly zeroing in on the item in question which, nine times out of ten, is something that he's not actually allowed to have. So he gets the joy of having us take him right to the thing he wants, and the disappointment of not being allowed to have it.

He's also started 'posting' stuff, a term we picked up from Bill Congreve at C5. Posting is when they start going, 'Hey, I bet I can put this thing I'm holding, in that thing over there!' So now we're in a mix of ongoing surprise, and regular hunting. So one can't be sure what will appear in one's drink cup... a block, a rusk, a sock... and neither can one be sure where something has disappeared to... is it in the drawer? The box? Oh! It was hidden in my shoe!

I find both these stages an never ending source of amusement.

The Middleman DVDs have just been released in the US. I know many of you out there are fans of the show, so I thought I'd let you know.

Given that the creator of Middleman is hopeful that with good enough DVD sales the series may come back in some form, if your DVD player can handle NTSC discs, you may wish to buy them ASAP. We just ordered ours through Amazon.com. Wanted to buy from Shout, the company doing the DVD release, but unfortunately they don't sell direct to Australia.

For those that don't know it, The Middleman is one of the shows I will be talking about on The Best TV Shows That Never Were panel at Continuum 5.

You know what's great? Continuum 5 is coming up, August 14th-16th, Melbourne.
If you're not there, you'll be missing out.


What's cool is, this Saturday the 30th, C5 is having a Trivia Quiz.
( Poster with details below the cut )


The awesome thing is that Continuum 6 is already being planned for next year.
That's right, it's on baby!


And the amazing thing?
People are already starting to make plans for Continuum 7!

Bull terriers have an interesting quirk - they can bite down so hard that nothing will make them let go until they want to. Some people mistake this for them 'locking' their jaws, when in fact it's just sheer bloody-mindedness on the part of the animal. No matter how much damage is done to them, they won't let go until they are done, unconscious, or dead.


I once saw our 13 year old, half-blind bull terrier, Pancho, get into a fight with three other younger, bigger dogs that weren't on leads and ran as a pack. Dad tried to intervene, he always did if Pancho was involved in a fight, but after having the owner of the three dogs make no effort to stop them, and make a smiling comment along the lines of 'Sorry mate! Dogs, eh? Whatcha gunna do?' Dad decided to let Pancho do his thing. Dad wasn't trying to protect our dog. Pancho tore them to shreds, much to the dismay of the owner.

Sharon is a bit like a bull terrier At the moment she's pissed off at someone who is wrong on the internet, and is formulating her reply. I was going to reply to them myself, but shazgirl is going to do a much more thorough job than I, who would have been relying on memory and, too be blunt, can't be bothered arguing the point that much. They are making sweeping statements about events they weren't around to witness.

Normally Sharon wouldn't bother to reply either, but this one has annoyed her. She knows the statement made is wrong, and now she's doing the research to prove just how totally wrong it is. Today is the second day of her research. I would have gone into this with a figurative punch on the nose, Sharon will be going in with a chainsaw in each hand.

Love you, sweetheart! And I've never wanted you more!

The last day has been quite a good one for me. ( Lots of stuff wot I have done in the last 24 hours or so... )

Just rewatched Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I still prefer the original. I find the new one a bit variable, and have a hard time understanding the words in most of the songs.

But it's worth owning because I could watch Deep Roy sing and dance for hours!

Last year I couldn't find a Chrissy tree I liked, so I improvised.

This year, I wasn't able to find anyplace selling real trees, and most fake trees just don't appeal. Then today, just when I was ready to go ahead and start arranging my skeletons, I found the perfect tree. It's plastic but that's okay...

Because it's black!

Due to my various computer hassles, mixed in with being stroke boy, and being forgetful, I haven't gotten around to sorting/coverting these until now. Late nights with Lex can be good sometimes :)

This is the first day of travelling, and the pictures are in chronological order, so you get a sense of the journey...

( Many pics below cut... )

I'm freshly showered and shaved, I'm wearing red and white stripey socks and dalek underpants, and my son gurgling away in the bouncy gulag.

Today I'm 41 and all is right with my world :)