Category: life

Are you a Handytard?

  • Do you struggle to hammer nails into a wall without chipping out massive chunks of masonry and plaster?
  • Do all the picture frames you hang on walls stay there for less time than it took for you to put the picture up in the first place?
  • Does the grass you mow never grow back?
  • Do the plants in the garden attempt to prune you?
  • Does changing a light-bulb generally result in an electrical discharge?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may be a Handytard.
But don’t worry. It’s more common than you think.

Thousands of men suffer from Handytardism, and don’t even know it. Most men who are handytards only discover this fact once they buy a house and try to start a family. Due to this, some handytards could go undiagnosed for their whole lives.

Many handytards are affected by the social stigma attached to handytardism. Handytardism is, in fact, a direct affront on their masculinity. Men who cannot fix the broken things in their homes, or successfully hang decorations on the walls for their women, may as well be impotent.

Handytards of the world, do not fret!
Fortunately there is an easy solution that even the most inept would-be handy-man can use to his benefit. This solution is guaranteed to please your woman, and has been widely utilised by men with erectile dysfunction.

Get a professional to do the job for you.

The new house

We moved house, and the people have wanted photos.

I have not provided photos. I’ve been busy. Also, it rained a lot, and wasn’t going to be standing outside in the precipitation for your benefit.

But now, there are photos! Hooray.

The New House
The New Place — up close and personal

Tell me whether you like the look of it.

A prediction

At a point in the relatively near future, software will no longer be delivered to you in a box.

Baby in a box

Everything that runs on your computer will be downloaded. This is obvious. This is already mostly the case.

Soon after that, people will forget that software ever came in a box in the first place.

Software marketing people will continue to delight in describing software features available “Out-of-the-Box!” No-one will know why, but they’ll think it has something to do with lateral thinking. Or possibly suffocating babies.

Birthday Observations

Angie turned 28 yesterday.

As part of the celebratory activities, we went for dinner at The Observatory Restaurant.

The restaurant is part of the Aloe Ridge Hotel which is situated in a game reserve. I didn’t properly register this fact before arriving there. The reality of a restaurant inside a game reserve was driven home to both of us as we drove there.
The tarred roads ended and we drove upon the dirt roads. Depending on where we were along the road, the quality of the road surface sometimes left much to be desired. As we drew closer we were warned to drive slowly as there might be hedgehogs crossing.
Didn’t see any though. Perhaps this was because of the next warning sign which mentioned the crossing of rhino and hippos at 40km/h. I felt a little more nervous at this point, but I figured they wouldn’t want to stampede over my car.

Once we finally reached the restaurant (for some reason I was surprised that it was placed near the top of a ridge) we got out of the car and were met by zebra.  Up close and personal. They wandered over to us and seemed to expect us to provide them with something to eat. When we didn’t oblige, they ambled off amicably.
We started to follow them since they were headed in the direction of the restaurant, but another restaurant patron stopped us.

“You can’t go there. There’s a rhino in the path.”

Ha ha. These jokers.
And yet there was a rhino in the path. I took some photos, but they came out blurry since I wasn’t brave enough to use the flash and risk enraging the rhino (who seemed a little restless in any case, especially when it started herding the zebra).
Eventually the hotel staff herded us to the restaurant and the security of brick and mortar.

Food at this restaurant is excellent, and I highly recommend it.
In addition, during the night one is called from their table to take a look at the night-sky. I vividly saw a cluster of stars on the edge of the milky-way that appeared as a fuzzy, barely discernible blob by the naked eye. I saw another galaxy, beyond our own.
My understanding was that we would also be shown a comet, and possibly other sights during the evening. Unfortunately we had to leave a little early because the Neil-and-Angie-Spawn was making Angie tired and nauseous. Even so, we both had a wonderful time and are probably going to be forced to return in the future.

Tale of Three Cities — Part 3

Edinburgh

We caught the train from London, King’s Cross, to Edinburgh. We did not take a plane.
Planes travel faster than trains, but everyone plays silly-buggers for a few hours before getting on a plane. Metal-detector scans. Discarding fluid. Putting things in transparent baggies. Taking off shoes. Taking off belts. Taking off pants and bending over. X-rays. Suspicious looks. Cattle-herding. What fun it all is.
Then, once on the plane you get to simulate Houdini confinement chamber experiences.

Trains are not like this. Trains are pleasant. There is space on a train. There are no queues getting on the train, and best of all, no-one looks at you as if you are carrying concealed weapons while you travel on a train.
That said, trains do have drawbacks. Drunken people get on trains and get a little rowdy, but mostly they stay near the bar.

We went to Edinburgh to help Jen and Kyle move house.
Jen paid good money to get us up north to help her move her belongings from one flat to another. Angie and I were lazy workers, and she could probably regretted not hiring more dedicated manual labourers who lived nearby (but possibly spoke in funny accents).

When not conducting heavy lifting, we watched Scottish people spit on the floor. Then Angie and Jen stood in the spittle. Apparently this spitting is good luck, but I wasn’t having any of it.


Spittle of the Scots!

In general, Edinburgh is a really beautiful and magnificent place. Not surprisingly, they have Indian people and Indian Restaurants (the whole of the UK is like that). Jen and Kyle took us to one (a restaurant, not a person) as pre-payment for helping them move house the following day.

Kushi’s (apparently world famous Indian cuisine. First I’d heard of it)

Edinburgh also has a castle, and if one cares to, they can visit it. We didn’t. They wanted £11 each.
Instead, we wandered about in the former moaty/lochy area that once, Jen tells us, was the dumping ground of all of Edinburgh’s sewage. The flora in the area was certainly thriving.
Then, Jen asked me the time. It was almost 1pm.
Excellent, they fire the canon every day at 1pm. Despite expecting a loud banging noise, I still jumped a metre or so into the air on hearing the canon go off, much to the amusement of the locals sitting behind me on a bench.

Edinburgh also has the “Baked Potato Shop.” I should have taken a photo of this shop. If you ever go to Edinburgh you have to go the this shop. Jen and Kyle raved about it. I was not convinced — until I received, and tasted my order.

Paternity Ward

In a comment, I previously mentioned the creation of another blog to document the trials and tribulations of of my experiences with respect to procreation. I didn’t link to it, and this caused some vexation.

I am now a Creator! My father, the Original Creator. Woman don’t appear to have much to do with creation in terms of this world-view. Really just incubation devices.

I digress by expounding on controversial views to which I do not subscribe. The point is, I have decided to link to Paternity Ward. I didn’t do this straight away because I started the blog to voice my frustrations. My views were not necessarily positive, but I needed to get them out.
My initial jitters are gone now. Positive things will be discussed, and so I no longer have fears about revealing its location to my loyal readership.
Still, there is a disclaimer. The commentary I post there will be very honest. I don’t intend to perform any self-censorship as I do here (that’s right, Waffle Master is restrained, but Neil the Creator is not). Sex with a pregnant woman, and how it differs to a non-pregnant woman is likely to be discussed along the way. Depending on your relationship with me and Angie, you may not want to know too much about that, because even if I discuss it in general terms, you’ll know who I’m referring to specifically. I’ll try to give readers decent warning on the posts themselves, but I won’t be held liable should I forget to provide such public-service announcements. Consider yourselves forewarned.
Don’t let that scare you off. Pregnant sex is far from the focus of the publication. The focus is me, and how I feel about the changes happening to my wife and, indirectly, me.

Things got worse, but then got better

More internet silence from my side. More good excuses.

After posting the last post on the woes of my dogs, I received a call from my mother telling me that my dad has prostate cancer.
Last week really wasn’t the greatest week in my life. I estimate that it pretty much rates in the bottom 3.

Serious depression set in by Friday, and so Angie and I decided to skip work and go through to Welkom to visit the parents. This was an excellent decision.

On seeing my dad for the weekend it became clear that he was doing fairly well and the prognosis in general was good (and that they weren’t just saying that over the phone to make me feel better).
He’s going to undergo brachytherapy, which I believe involves inserting radioactive pellets into his prostate, thus transforming my father into Strontium Dad! I wonder whether it’ll give him X-ray eyes?
We know for sure that he won’t be able to sit next to pregnant women or small children for extended periods.
My dad goes radioactive  on 16 November. Please keep him in your thoughts.

Then, on our return from Welkom we went to visit Kelty and he stood up for us. He wasn’t totally cured, but he was now standing! Unfortunately, vomiting and diarrhoea, reminiscent of the Bean dog had set in.
Even so, we were greatly relieved. And today I brought that Kelty home from the hospital. Walking, barking, mildly bouncy. A very happy, healthy fluffy beast.

I’ve reported the issue to the Pedigree petfood people. They seem to be handling things quite well so far. Once the issue is resolved, I’m sure to provide a full report. Today a courier came to collect the suspicious food to be tested for toxins. I’ve been promised feedback on the issue, and possibly even reimbursement of costs.

Hospitalised hound

The promises of a picture of me in Jedi knight mode and extra instalments of that non-linear holiday tale are looking a little empty at the moment. For a change I have a valid excuse.

We took Kelty-dog in to the vet yesterday because he suddenly lost all strength in his hind legs. First he was walking funny, and then he just stopped walking altogether.
We rushed him to the vet whose diagnosis was grim. The vet suspected that one of Kelty’s discs in his back had ruptured, creating a build-up of pressure on his spine. He still had all of his reflexes, they were just quite depressed. His superficial and serious pain receptors were all working. These were good signs, but things could deteriorate fast.
X-rays and an MRI scan were needed and potential spinal surgery could follow. Depending on recovery times, the bill could reach up to R20,000.
Kelty is now competing with Bean for the title of most expensive dog.

Bizarrely the X-rays and MRI scans haven’t indicated what the vet was expecting. This is good because spinal surgery is bad, and spinal surgery will now be avoided.
This is bad because the vet doesn’t know what’s wrong. We are currently waiting for news.

Of course it doesn’t stop there. On top of Kelty developing an undiagnosed nervous/muscular condition, we appear to have inadvertently poisoned both of the dogs.
Bean had been refusing to eat the new batch of Pedigree chunks we bought for her and Kelty. This wasn’t necessarily weird. She’s a fussy little princess and sometimes holds out for chicken breasts or some other tastier faire.
Kelty had been eating them, but hadn’t been finishing the food (which is unusual). He also had developed mild diarrhoea (which has stopped since his admission to the hospital).
Last night we added tasting gravy to Bean’s food and she finally gave in and ate the whole bowl-full.
This morning, at 4:30 we discovered darkly coloured vomit.  She proceeded to vomit another three times between 5:30 and 6:15, at which point we rushed her to the vet.
While at the vet, extreme diarrhoea ensued. It was unpleasant for all people involved.

Bean is back home at the moment, and hopefully doing okay. Needless to say I’ve bought another brand of dog food. Looks like I’ll be phoning the Pedigree customer-care line in due course. I’ll do my best not to take out my fragile emotional state on the call centre person who has had nothing to do with the manufacture of the dog food. I’ll try, but it might be hard.