I’m Tired — Dave Pascoe

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m Tired – Dave Pascoe

I’m tired. That should really not be a surprise, as Wee Dave (all names and heights have been changed to protect the not-yet-two-week-old spawnling) is doing as the newborn do, and ensuring his parents are running on the not-quite-ragged edge. Mrs. Dave is doing well, and healing well. Wee Dave put on more’n half a pound (and a whole inch) in the week prior to his last pediatrician appointment, and drinks his meals like a champion quaffer (though more lands in his black hole of a stomach than around him, thank Glod) and belches like same after. We’ll see what he’s up to on the morrow. We’re slowly crafting a routine around our slightly larger family, and it’s quite the experience. I recommend it, if only because – when you do it right – it’ll boil away all of your pretenses and you’ll know what you’re made of. Hopefully it’s not cheese.

But more seriously, I’m tired. Of the foolishness I see in the world. Publishers mobilizing the authors they keep in quasi-slavery in order to attack the one entity that can mean their freedom. The fact that NOBODY is really stepping up to challenge that entity. Sure, there’s competition. Of a sort. But it’s smaller companies doing the same thing in not-quite-as-good a way, and so doomed to squabble over the scraps.

I’m tired of a marketplace geared around gigantic corporations, and a body of legislation geared toward making sure such large (and deep-pocketed) corporations have unnecessary advantages in said marketplace. Where a small group inordinately powerful people, living and working in the same small (yet inordinately powerful) place at the same job, can levy an outsized influence on a readership with whom they have almost nothing in common.

I’m tired of an internet where wastes of flesh can print the most horrible lies about my friends, and influence the weak-willed and weak-minded against people I care about, all from the relative comfort of their distant virtual anonymity. And I’m tired of having friends on different sides of the dispute, and not knowing how to deal with that.

On the larger stage, I’m very, very tired of an oligarchy trying to run my country to their own twisted ends. We’re coming up to an election season. Another election season, and one where one faction seems poised to take away the legislature from the other. Or, as they seem to have done more than once, yank defeat from the jaws of victory. We have a supreme executive who flagrantly flouts the law of the land, and nobody (*cough*the aforementioned legislature*cough*) does nothing to hold him to account. Where he frees enemy combatants on his own recognizance because doing a thing quickly was more important than doing it as the law prescribes. And when he leaves office? In the words of the as-yet-immortal Mr. Slant, Ave! Bossa nova, similis bossa seneca! I fully expect the next Placeholder of the United States to act as disgracefully as the current stuffed shirt.

So, yeah: this is me in a tired place.

Fortunately, that’s *mostly* just what it is.

And despair is a sin.

Look, SpaceX just unveiled its manned space module, the Dragon v2. It’s pretty. And on top of that, Sierra Nevada Corporation Space Systems’ Dream Chaser vehicle has completed the latest round of NASA certifications. Not to be left out, Virgin Galactic announced they’ve begun the process to get FAA certification for commercial space flights out of a New Mexico launch facility. Of course, what I’d like happen is a re-opening of the NERVA project, but then, I’m of the opinion that nuclear power has come a long way in the last several decades, and it’s the best way to move forward. So, we have private industry thumbing its collective nose at the only extant superpower and a wannabe-usetabe global heavyweight, and putting Americans back in space. Closer to where most of us live, we have options, for the first time in decades, of who we do business with.

And everywhere there’s new life, and new minds to mold. And we now have the means to do it, in a way we haven’t for years and years. Maybe we’re doing all right, after all.

122 thoughts on “I’m Tired — Dave Pascoe”

  1. I think the problem . . . except it’s actually a good thing . . . is that we’re building around and under the old framework. Not tearing it down and trying to build on the ruins.

    This is especially noticeable in the media. I get three slants on any occurrence with a few clicks of the mouse button. I can buy almost any book I’ve ever heard of and get it delivered to my house in a few days. Or if it’s available in e form, I’ll be reading in in seconds.

    School? Homeschooling is spreading fast, with any bias in the curriculum you want. You can emphasize or de-emphasize traditional science, teach math that makes sense and works, avoid appalling assigned reading and Green indoctrination.

    Government? Eh, that may _have_ to crash and burn on the national level, in order to rebuild from the local and state level. It’s a slow process, but I’m seeing signs of people paying more attention to state level elections, and strong state governments are going to be crucial in the future, IMO.

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    1. I think the problem . . . except it’s actually a good thing . . . is that we’re building around and under the old framework.

      It is better is we can get a working foundation and framework up and running before destroying what needs to go. To continue with your analogy, there will be times when a no longer functional or rotten section of building will have to come down to make room for the new.

      We are going to see people who are wedded to the old ways try to legislate protections to assure their continued existence.

      Take home education: In at least one state to home school you are required to have a state licensed teacher supervise your program, and a couple of states have begun to dictate content of scope and sequence. The achievement of most home educated children is demonstrably higher than that of similar children who receive their education at either government or private schools. The fact that a few have been abused*, either passively or actively, is being used to condemn to practice overall and justify increasing oversight. (Never mind that children in the schools are similarly abused.)

      * Let the reader understand that I do not approve of the abuse of children under any circumstance, either in the home or in institutional settings..

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    2. School? Homeschooling is spreading fast, with any bias in the curriculum you want. You can emphasize or de-emphasize traditional science, teach math that makes sense and works, avoid appalling assigned reading and Green indoctrination.

      This, ESPECIALLY the math and the indoctrination. And the horrific gaps in learning. And the absolute lack of logic. And….

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  2. We’re slowly crafting a routine around our slightly larger family, and it’s quite the experience.

    While the volume of the family is only slightly larger, the number of personalities has increased from two to three. (I expect that even at a mere two weeks and counting you have noticed that Wee Dave has a personality of his own.)

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    1. We have determined that Wee Dave is not allowed a personality of his own until age 32. Or until he gets a haircut, a job, and his own place, the little slacker.

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      1. I took my son into a temp agency when he was two weeks old an announced that he needed a job!

        Of course, my mother was a staffing specialist there, so we had other reasons to be there.

        Almost 13 years later, the little slacker still hasn’t gotten a job.

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    2. The experienced Cribbage player will instantly recognize that, according to the precepts of [scientific/mathematical discipline the name of which eludes memory but has something to do with combinational math] the range of personality interactions in the house has increased geometrically (factorially? Must drink more coffee) so that where there was once just a single 2-part interaction there now exists four potential combinations: Dave & Mrs Dave, Dave and Wee Dave, Mrs Dave and Wee Dave and all three together.

      Be warned that Wee Dave will soon realize that nothing in his life is of greater consequence than finding methods of manipulating Dave and Mrs Dave, a task to which he will apply the full resources of his wee mind.

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      1. Combinatorix, I believe, if I rightly recall from watching Square One with The Daughter.

        Oh, I have learned so much because of The Daughter. For us ODDs that is one of the perks of having a offspring in the house.

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        1. Combinatorix! I love that spelling! When I studied it I learned it more prosaically as combinatorics. It is the study of counting discrete objects, such as 2-part and 3-part interactions in a family.

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          1. I think the difference between the two spellings is that one involves spoke heels and an abundance of leather — otherwise they’re pretty much the same. Well, the one may involve some indiscreet objects, as welt well.

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          2. Two things, as far as I recall I have only ever heard the term, so I guessed the spelling. I suspect the choice has some to do with Asterix and Obelix.

            Then I have a bit of a problem regarding spelling. I am dyslexic. My Daddy’s father was a printer. I once asked Daddy if I recalled correctly that his father would return my thank you notes red penciled. He said he was not certain, but it sounded like something his father would do.

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      2. Warning the Second: there will come a time when Wee Dave discovers he can express musical preferences. As a general rule — young Amadeus excepted — complexity is not a highly regarded quality. Be prepared for the young’n to play the same two-minute song forty times an hour. Under such a regime it is essential that the songs be tolerable. Not good, not entertaining, just not so mind-numbing as to make mass slaughter seem a reasonable act.

        Resign yourself. Accept the inevitable. Plan accordingly. Deny thoughts of the day the youngster discovers Death Metal Bagpipe Bands.

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          1. Ain’t that the troof. There are reasons why such fare as the Muppet Show, Fractured Fairy Tales, Rabbit Ears (The Fool and the Flying Ship, Peachboy/Momotarō, The Boy Who Drew Cats — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSpY_eVV6sI ) and Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre achieved such popularity — prepared to be digestible by the kids with just enough seasoning complexity to reward adult attention.

            Sadly, much quality children’s entertainment (George Pal’s Puppetoons, especially his “John Henry and the Inky-Poo” have fallen prey to our more enlightened era and are largely unavailable. OTOH, the internationalization of commerce has rendered available strange and enchanting works such as Jirí Trnka’s marvelous puppet animation.

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              1. This is the song that never ends . . . ;-)

                Also, there was a reason both Joe and Steve on Blue’s Clues were played by really cute guys. ;-)

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                2. Oh gawd… I was pregnant with my last while the other kids were watching Blue’s Clues. Hormones are EVIL. My heart would *leap* when Steve came on TV and I’m far far more the cowboy or Navy SEAL type.

                  OTOH, the song to Nintendo Mario Brothers will give me nausea flashbacks 17 years after I last had morning sickness. So I guess that’s the other side of that.

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                  1. Dan and I get friskie whenever we hear the lion king theme. Why? Because the ONLY way to stop Marshall from breaking into our room when he was 2 and 3 and Houdini was to put him in front of the lion king game, on the computer. We knew we had half an hour…
                    The embarrassing part? When the song played and we were somewhere public. We just looked at each other and turned red.

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                    3. ** changes ringtone for Sara’s number to “Sing We Merrily On High” from “Hakuna Matata” **

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              2. Lamb Chop? Honey chile, how could I not?

                I know I watched Kukla, Fran & Ollie as well as Howdy-Doody but cannot claim to recollect them.

                The culture seems to cycle through “Golden Ages” of children’s programming, although that may simply be an effect of the tendency to only check in periodically. At times the available material seems quite horrid (HR Puffenstuff, the Banana Splits) and yet there may be qualities to, f’r’instance, Veggie Tales, that only become apparent with proper immersion. I hear rumours that Spongebob and Teletubbies have their charms but will never invest the time to find out.

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                1. My boys still like Spongebob, though I find it irritating in the extreme, but Teletubbies they rank only slightly above Barney, even though they enjoyed them when VERY little.

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                  1. Teletubbies always confused me. Why is it the one called “Po” is the only one who can afford a set of wheels? Welfare scooter, I guess?

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                2. Backyardigans.

                  They shamelessly steal pay homage to a huge range of music, and my kids adore’m.

                  Beats the new Care Bears.

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                  1. Yes! I was just about to recommend this; Backyardigans saved my sanity while my child was of an appropriate age. And there is this weird, slightly disturbing fascination to Wonder Pets, mostly because I swear the duckling is hooked straight into my id.

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                3. Shari Lewis wasn’t bad. Nor was Captain Kangaroo. though I never quite saw the point. I did see Howdy-Doody, and it inspired in me a strong desire to take a chainsaw to the puppet … and possibly his handlers. I know I’m in the minority, but there you are.

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                4. Oh well– Spongebob was my nephew’s fav. cartoon. Not interesting except for the crab– Lamb chop? a classic as for all the others except Howdy-Doody– what are they that you speak of?

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                  1. Spongebob isn’t bad for watching occasionally, but I was really glad when the kids out-grew watching him for hours on end, and started watching Phineas and Ferb instead. (The dumbest person on Phineas and Ferb is smarter than the smartest person on Spongebob.)

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                  2. I now need something that will make the worming ‘La, la, la. La-la, la, la-la’ GO AWAY. It is just too cheerful for this hour of the morning before the coffee has finished brewing.

                    Kukla, Fran and Olie was developed in the early days of TV, originally airing from 1947 to 1957. Lifting some of its routines from Punch and Judy, it would probably be considered too violent for today’s market. It featured Fran who stood in front of a puppet wall and interacted with the puppets, including Kukla, a balding clown, and Olie, a snagel toothed dragon.

                    Starting in 1969 Sid and Marty Krofft produced a number of children’s shows that featured ‘life sized’ puppets (usually painfully colorful) and people in what might now be taken as cos play costume. There was earnestly upbeat music, bouncy dancing and very silly antics often presented in cranked time. If you looked closely you might notice the semblance or whiff of a plot. This started with H.R Pufnstuf, which stared Jack Wild, who had played the Artful Dodger in the movie musical Oliver.

                    The Daughter was, thankfully, of a later generation. We had discovered Riders in the Sky featuring Ranger Doug (the yodeling cowboy), Woody Paul and Too Slim when they had a radio show, but before they got their TV show. And yes, before his public ‘disgrace’ brought about the canceling of his show, we had watched PeeWee’s Playhouse.

                    I going to go get coffee now.

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              3. I always wondered, where kids put off of eating “lamb chops” because of “Lamb Chop”? [Evil Grin]

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                1. Momma told me that she refused to eat meat for some time after seeing Bambi, and she wasn’t that young at the time.

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        3. Point of order.

          While I, as a parent, appreciate the time-space warping effects of youngsters in the house, it is only possible to play the same tw-minute song a maximum of thirty times per hour. Cling to that spar, fellow parents, as it may very well seem that it has been forty.

          My own contribution to the upcoming Malthusian population bomb is off to Orlando for the week on a choir trip, and I’m curious as to how the wife and I will interact over the next few days as we’re not running our spawn all over creation to meet the rigorous demands of her social calendar.

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          2. We drove across country and back… well, CA to MN… twice… with a Dragontails cassette tape. The. Whole. Way. Twice.

            I don’t spontaneously start singing the songs, but I’m sure if I heard one of them they’d all come back.

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          1. The Daughter, at one point, tired to drive us off by playing German Death Metal at high volumnes. Silly child. Although I have yet to find the charm of listening to someone ruin their vocal cords, we found that we liked some of it.

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              1. Now I want to see the classic Warner Brother’s Chuck Jones cartoon, What’s Opera Doc?

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        6. Be cautious about what “music” playing devices you allow in your home. There is a Fisher Price 6 note piano that has an UNBELIEVABLY bad tune, and it is the one the kids chose ENDLESSLY. (Music in scare quotes because the musical choices are often horrible, and the execution can sound like cats in a blender.)

          One sanity saving tip I got from a fellow dad– anything that makes noise, cover the speaker with clear tape BEFORE the little one gets it. This will reduce the volume DRAMATICALLY and may save a life :-)

          zuk

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            1. Uh … no excuse. This merely needs sharing:

              For a two-word check of who has seen this, simply announce “Mouse Flambeau!” One of many many delights produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

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              1. I really miss the “International Festival of Animation”, which ran on PBS for a meagre three years …

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        1. Drat – I meant exponentially. 5/4ths can be an exponent, right? But I think the proper term is geometrically, when you consider the number of combinations occurring when adding a fourth family member goes up significantly — six possible pairs, four available triads (or singlets) and all four together gets us up to eleven combinations possible. I recommend against a third child if only to avoid the higher level of difficulty when the kids outnumber you.

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          1. There’s also logarithmically. Unfortunately I don’t know what they are exactly. I think that they are in calculus.

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  3. Society is still coming to grips with the Internet. They haven’t learned how to use it properly yet. And well, like attracts like, and people build their own communities of like-minded people, which is boring, so they go out looking for fights.

    Eventually people will learn how stupid they’re being, but it make take a while for society to evolve. Rome wasn’t burned in a day.

    Yes, the Resident of the White House has made Nixon look like a Boy Scout, and Reid and his cronies have circled the wagons, because it’s all or nothing now. I despair that our only hope of salvation comes from the aptly-nicknamed Stupid Party, but it’s all we’ve got, so those seeing to undermine it need a poke in the nethers with a sharp stick. We can quibble over Inter-party squabbles after the intra-party battle is won.

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    1. This reminds me of the scariest thing I saw in recent weeks – scarier than almost walking into a elk, or on a snake, or almost getting hit by an out of control horse trailer. I witnessed a billboard of truly shocking content: a picture of Mount Rushmore with Barack Obama’s face replacing George Washington’s.

      Also, I think you have it backwards. The intra-party squabble can wait until the inter-party squabble is won. Otherwise, the intra-party bickering will cause the election of another Demonrat.

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  4. Private industry doing what NASA used to do is the one thing in the news that truly fills me with joy. Private industry is motivated by profit, while government must swing and sway with the prevailing political winds. That means if something really is worth doing, private industry will gladly do it if there’s a chance for profit.

    Some people I’ve talked to argue that exploration for exploration’s sake won’t happen, but I’m not so sure. When man left the cave and crossed the first mountain to see what was there, the second thing he did was to figure out what was there that he could use. We explore, but then we look at what we can exploit immediately.

    So now SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are going to make space private, in a manner of speaking. We don’t need government to reach the heavens, as it should have been all along. Maybe next we’ll have a resort on the Moon, or mining colonies on Mars. Who knows. What I do know is that the future I always prayed for is happening now. :)

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    1. The thing is, private industry has always done most of the work in our efforts to achieve space flight. The problem is they did it as government contractors with their only customer NASA. That was less so in the Apollo era, but by the late 80s NASA had divested itself of most of its technicians and adopted the DOD methodology of administrating government contracts rather than bending metal themselves. True, NASA design engineers and scientists would specify the parameters for a vehicle, but the actual designs were chosen from submissions by private companies to source boards run under strict FAR constraints.
      While government control did get us over some tremendous difficulties, and achieved boots on the moon, it’s also the primary reason we are now begging a lift from the Russians to the ISS.
      What is desperately needed is a true private space effort. The shining example of such is with the telecommunication satellite business, about as private as possible, though held strictly in check by a raft of government regulations on what when and how launches will be permitted. It’s still a reasonable model for relatively inexpensive and efficient launch of hardware to various orbits.
      SpaceX, bless their hearts, will give us a U.S. manned launch and return capability again, which we most desperately need if we truly want to keep ownership of ISS. Virgin Galactic, as far as I understand their business model, is looking to open up suborbital tourism to a civilian customer base. That’s a noble goal, and I fully support it, but suborbital is a baby step if you’re goal is opening up space for exploration and commercial development.
      Full disclosure, I was NASA CS for 24 years, mostly working mission operations and payload development.

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        1. As a lead DMC on several Spacelab missions half or more of my team were Jacobs employees, at that time IIRC sub to TBE. Still have good friends working for them.

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          1. I miss working for them. Good company to work for, based on my experiences.

            We would, from time to time, have meetings where we were briefed on what else the company was up to. I always paid close attention to what the NASA folks were doing.

            “You work for Jacobs? What all do they do?”

            “Well, among other things? We build spaceships!”

            Yes…I really did say that. :D

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          1. Well, when I left, they had dropped the “Technology” and become just Jacobs, but that’s them.

            I went to work for them when they were still Sverdrup, but after Jacobs bought them. Obviously, you’re familiar with them as well. :)

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            1. You could say that – I’m a software architect at Jacobs, working on systems that support engineering and design. Sadly, its mostly for plant engineering, not the really cool stuff like aerospace or defense.

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              1. Heh. I worked in defense, and my job wasn’t all that cool either, so don’t feel too bad.

                Too bad Jacobs is bleeding jobs here in Albany from what I hear, because I’d go back to working with them in a second. Not many companies I’d say that about.

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                2. Pretty good company to work for. Unfortunately, our office here is doing about the same as Albany. Recovery, what recovery?

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                  2. Part of the issue from what I’m hearing is that Jacobs had been so entrenched, salaries were higher than other contractors, so when it came time to rebid contracts, Jacobs couldn’t go as low as some of them, hence losing the contracts.

                    No clue how accurate that is though.

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    2. Not only is private industry doing what NASA did, private groups are taking over NASA’s abandoned projects.
      A space probe studying the sun and later chasing a comet is returning to Earth neighborhood and could be retrieved into Earth orbit. NASA did not bother to fund the retrieval nor even bother to save the hardware needed to communicate with it.
      http://spacecollege.org/isee3/

      Crowdfunded:

      http://www.rockethub.com/42228

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    3. The big problem is that they are still relying on Government money for much, if not most, of their budget. Once they start actually achieving things that are considerably more than demonstrations, the Government will start putting requirements on that money. And the market for space services outside government entities just isn’t there right now.

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  5. Yep– as Tom said it is private space business that feels me with joy (and a lot of hope). Dave– sounds like you are settling into having a wee one. Don’t worry about the job thing– as a parent you get to give him home jobs (make the bed, take the garbage out, etc. etc.)

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    1. Right now his “job” seems to be running Mommy and Daddy ragged. [Very Big Grin While Flying Away Very Very Fast]

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      1. Oh yea– but don’t think that changes when he starts growing. My nephew is approaching two and he is still running the parentals ragged. ;-)

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        1. It is my (limited) understanding that that’s what grandparents are for. I plan to save by sending him parcel post to Colorado Springs, where he can get to know Havelock Felis Domesticus and the rest of the gang, and provide his Avo with new and interesting motivation. Then I shall sleep for two weeks and a half, and then write all the words. That is The Plan.

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          1. YES. I wouldn’t work at all, but it would be a fun two weeks… You know, when he’s less dependent on the kelda, we might have to arrange something like that in summers.

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            1. Fostering has a long and effective tradition. Done properly the tadpole learns to value the known quirks of parents as opposed to the unanticipatable quirks of others.

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          2. As you (Dave and Mrs. Dave) are entering the strange and sometimes delightful, world of children’s’ songs:

            This starts off a bit slow:

            Mail Myself To You
            Words and Music by Woody Guthrie

            I’m a-gonna wrap myself in paper,
            I’m gonna daub myself with glue,
            Stick some stamps on top of my head;
            I’m gonna mail myself to you.

            I’m a gonna tie me up in a red string,
            I’m gonna tie blue ribbons too,
            I’m a-gonna climb up in my mail box;
            I’m gonna mail myself to you.

            When you see me in your mail box,
            Cut the string and let me out;
            Wash the glue off my fingers,
            Stick some bubble gum in my mouth.

            Take me out of my wrapping paper,
            Wash the stamps off my head;
            Pour me full of ice cream sodies,
            Put me in my nice warm bed.

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            1. I kinda liked the albums “Birds, Bugs, and all the Little Fishes” (Pete Seeger) and “Peter, Paul and Mommy” growing up. Especially the songs about “Boa constrictor” and “The Marvelous Toy” (and “Zoo Tomorrow” because the endless chorus drives parents bats.) Another one is Tom T. Hall’s “Country Songs for Children” (Sneaky Snake, the Mysterious Fox of Fox Hollow, and friends). But fair warning, my mother sang the Childe Ballads as lullabies, so I might be considered a bit Odd as a result.

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              1. When but a wee lass the Daughtorial Unit was quite fond of Steeleye Span’s version of Long Lankin.

                Beloved Spouse and I are known to break into the occasional chorus of Weela Wallia, a song attributed by the Clancy Brothers as once popular amongst Dublin urchins:

                There was an old woman who lived in the wood,
                Weela weela wallia;
                There was an old woman who lived in the wood,
                Down by the river Sallia.

                She had a baby six months old,
                Weela weela wallia;
                She had a baby six months old,
                Down by the river Sallia.

                She had a big knife three foot long,
                Weela weela wallia;
                She had a bigknife three foot long,
                Down by the river Sallia.

                She stuck the knife in the baby’s head,
                Weela weela wallia;
                The more she stabbed it the more it bled.
                Down by the river Sallia.

                Three big knocks come a knockin’ at the door,
                Weela weela wallia;
                Two policemen and a man.
                Down by the river Sallia.

                ‘Are you the woman what killed the child?’
                Weela weela wallia;
                ‘Are you the woman what killed the child
                Down by the river Sallia?’

                ‘I am the woman what killed the child.’
                Weela weela wallia;
                ‘I am the woman what killed the child.
                Down by the river Sallia.’

                The rope got chucked and she got hung,
                Weela weela wallia;
                The rope got chucked and she got hung,
                Down by the river Sallia.

                The moral of this story is,
                Weela weela wallia;
                Don’t stick knives in babies’ heads,
                Down by the river Sallia.

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                1. For those not familiar with the tune, suitable for jumping rope, here is a version by the Dubliners.

                  Sing in public at your own risk.

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                2. Another wholesome children’s song from Ireland is The Ballad of William Bloat, here performed by the Clancy Brothers:

                  In the first version of it I heard, perhaps a compromise between the band and the record company, the razor blade was German made, not English (or British, as sung in Tommy Makem’s version.).

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                3. Just for the fun of it, try this song …

                  … if only for the amusement of hearing an Irishman’s version of a Boone, NC, accent.

                  WARNING: teaching such songs to your littl’ns is likely to cause problems with Daycare, Kindergarten and Child Protective Services authorities.

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              3. John McCutcheon has a nice children’s album called Howjadoo — stories and songs including:

                which The Family saw him perform when he came to our town. Enjoyment was had by people of all ages.

                Micky Dolenz recorded the well reviewed Micky Puts You to Sleep.

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              4. Our favourites as kids were the Wee Sing tapes (and my parents didn’t seem to mind them, either.)

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            2. *twitch*

              Beat it to the punch and get a bunch of Gilbert and Sullivan, Disney songs and whatever musicals you can stand to hear mangled.

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              1. “You can learn a lot from Lydia” and “My name is Captain Spaulding” are right out, then?

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  6. You did, I hope, have the hospital graft a small loop at the back of wee Davie’s neck. Metal is traditional, but I understand that kevlar holds up better. It’s then possible to hang the wee critter from a hook on the wall and with liberal use of ear plugs get a tiny bit of rest for you and the missus. Later, once he gets his sea legs, you can attach a line to that loop, and clip it to your belt. Guaranteed to be the only way to always know where the little devil is. I suggest investing in a small powerful portable electric winch to make recovery easier and more fun for all concerned.
    I live a short drive from Lynchburg Tennessee, the home of the Jack Daniels company. Not only do they make a fine product for parents, but they sell their used whiskey barrels. Local tradition has it that really disruptive children should be sealed in such a barrel, both fed and checked periodically through the bung hole. About at the age of sixteen mom and dad make the determination as to whether to break open the barrel or drive in the bung.
    Sometime in the distant future, 25-35 years or more hopefully, wee Dave will call his pops with a tale of how very very tired he is. It is considered bad form to laugh out loud, at least until after he hangs up.

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    1. Sung by Lily von Schtupp, the teutonic titwillow, as I recall.
      aka Madeline Kahn.
      Entire movie is best enjoyed from disk, as they’ve bleeped some of the best parts out when shown on commercial TV.

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  8. One problem with the Internet is that the network effect tends to lead to very large entities in a particular space. The good news is that barriers to entry are so low that the large entities have to pay attention to the desires of their customers or find themselves discarded by a replacement that does something people want better than they do.

    Of course it may not be completely clear who the customer is. Google’s customer probably isn’t you, it’s the advertiser.

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    1. How does the saying go?

      If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product, not the customer.

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      1. Sometimes even when you are paying.

        After passing the CPA exam I received multiple offers from Newsweak and Time similar magazines, offering a “professional discount” working out to something like $0.23 an issue — almost certainly less that the cost of printing and mailing an issue. Clearly they desired to increase the ration of “professionals” in the rate cards they offered advertisers.

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  9. I’m tired of a marketplace geared around gigantic corporations, and a body of legislation geared toward making sure such large (and deep-pocketed) corporations have unnecessary advantages in said marketplace

    I would mind the gigantic corporations so much less in the absence of the geared legislation. The resources of large corporations make possible some amazing things, things otherwise impossible to see to fruition. That the .gov is complicit in a protection scheme to block challenges to those large corporations is the maggot in the pie.

    Too big to fail was the ultimate kick in the teeth in this pattern.

    .gov idiots. Maybe I should plug an ‘=’ in there and formalize the equation?

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    1. The thing that gripes ME about the huge corporations is the sameness. A lot of that comes down to tax policy; few founders manage to pass their enterprise to the next generation, because “Tax the Rich”. So every corporation, no matter what personality its founder may have had, quickly falls into the hands of the Professional CEOs and CFOs … all of whom are much of a muchness.

      I recall some years back (10? Has it been THAT long?) when a man won an “Instant $1,000,000” prize from McDonalds and gave the winning ticket to his pastor. And it took three days for the McDonald Suits to realize that “Those aren’t transferable, so we aren’t paying” represented a public relations disaster roughly comparable to endorsing child slavery.

      You can’t tell me that Ray Kroc was that dumb.

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      1. No argument. In the absense of the protection schemes a great many of the biz school robots would be out of a job, as people who think and innovate would kick the legs out from under their pedestal.

        And no, I seriously doubt Ray Kroc was that thick. Particularly since he stamped a culture into McD’s that has endured despite the robots

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  10. “…Sarah Hoyt to be our Beautiful but Evil Space Princess whom we all love and obey, and …. Perhaps Sarah Hoyt will carry me around in a handbag, as she walks the grounds of her secret base hidden in a cold volcano cone, commanding innocent and cringing minions to be flogged with electric whips, or sent screaming to the Agony Vat.”

    That’s it. I’m not visiting the Springs ever again.

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    1. There’s also older son’s leech tank. Of course, since there’s only four of them, it would take a while to kill someone…
      Have you seen my handbag? There’s room in there for all the Huns.

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        1. It was supposed to be holding the manuscript…with Sarah’s prolific output she would have to have a very large handbag.

          Yet, if I were to pick up someting abandoned in a train station, I’d go to Paddington, rather than Victoria, and get myself a bear with whom I shall share eat marmalade sandwhiches.

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  11. Dave, I had the pleasure of hanging out with you and your then pregnant wife at Ravencon. Glad to hear that everything is going well with your newly expanded family. Congrats. And sleep when the spawn sleeps.

    As far as the political stuff goes, well, I’m beyond exhausted. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t spend a lot time worrying about what might happen, though. Instead, I try to think about what must be done. It’s the only way to keep my (limited) sanity.

    Again, congrats to you and the wife. I remember my first (and second and third). All I can say is that it’s going to get even better than you can imagine.

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    1. see, this is why I start thinking things like “it’s better to light a flame thrower than to curse the darkness. BUT mostly? I just try to DO and let the long game take care of itself.

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