It's the time-honored tradition of avuncular holiday duty! Parents and parental stand-ins everywhere are thrilled to welcome you to the club.
We stayed up 'til 2 am waiting for PK to *fall asleep* so that we could get the goddamn mice up from the basement.
"...so that we could get the goddamn mice up from the basement."
I can safely say I've never heard that euphemism before.
oh, i do love these tricycles: with that big handle on the back end to fuel any parent or (ahem) aunt's sense of omniscience...
oops, "omnipotence"
omniscience taking a beating in that post...
When my son was about 5 I told him that if he went to sleep right now he could get up and open the presents as early as he wanted. So he did, and we opened the presents at 4:00 a.m.
I have never understood washers and on principle just throw away any that won't fool the tollbooths.
Washers are useful -- there is strong friction between the washer's soft metal and the nut's hard metal, the assembly will not work loose nearly as fast as it would without the washer in place.
An Icelandic friend of mine told a story about when Iceland introduced a 5-penny (or the equivalent monetary unit) piece made of aluminum, which was not worth as much as the metal in it -- because an equivalently-sized washer cost more than 5 whatevers. So Icelandic carpenters started drilling holes in the middle of the coins and using them as washers. Bob's tollbooth thing in reverse.
So why exactly is that tricycle aptly named?
Because it did indeed have three wheels?
To interrupt this thread, I have a gift-giving request to make. Jeanne of Body and Soul was threatening to drop her blog when her computer died. She reluctantly put up a tip jar so that she could buy a new computer. It appears that she's gotten a bunch of donations already--enough she said to cover her typepad hosting fees for the next year--but I think it would be awesome if she could afford to splurge on a Mac, since she considers herself computer illiterate. The Mac Mini is pretty cheap, if the computer and keyboard from her old machine are working; but she might really like a laptop.
And it sounds liek she could stand to pay herself a bit for the important work she's doing. I think she's a real treasure. In her own way, she's as important as hilzoy.
So head on over, if you feel inclined.
I put one of those together last month- be glad you didn't get the seatbelt. It seems like it should be an easy thing to attach three straps to a piece of plastic, but it was entirely unclear where you could attach the straps using the pieces you were provided.
The Kettler Kettrike Jumbo with Pushbar is aptly named
Ah -- I see now you were referring to this text. They seem to be saying it's aptly named "Jumbo" because it is indeed large. "With Pushbar" also seems to be an accurate description but I don't think that was the point.
Oh and, "with Pushbar" will only be an accurate description if the tricycle is properly assembled. Presumably it is "Jumbo" even in pieces.
I liked this part of the description:
"and can hold up to 400 pounds"
At some point you have to admit that the catering to obese American kids has gotten out of control.
On the contrary -- this is excellent insurance against drunken uncles taking liberties with their nephews' presents on Xmas Day.
I can't believe "philosopher stumped by assembly of child's toy" has been milked for 16 comments already.
17- You've never seen this toy or the number of pieces it comes in. Or appreciated the fact that the instructions have no words because the toy is from some European socialist state. It's a transcendent experience to open the box.
It's a transcendent experience to open the box.
Words for the ages.
I had such high hopes for a post by Labs entitled "Some assembly, my ass".
#17: Ogged, there is great wisdom in the conventional belief that having kids is a real lesson in humility.
I dunno, in my experience most people have kids and most people are not humble. I don't think I have ever seen a correlation between not having children and being espescially arrogant.
It doesn't follow that b/c children are a humbling experience, that those without are arrogant.
But shouldn't it follow that those who have had this humbling experience in common, would be as a class less arrogant than those who had not? And i don't see that as being the case. I mean unless there is some factor on the other side, a humbling experience the childless have in common that is foreign to parents.
Or it could just be that "a humbling experience" does not tend to actually make one humbler. Also -- is "arrogant" the best antonym for "humble" in this context? It was the second or third word to come to mind but I'm not sure it is quite the one I wanted.
But shouldn't it follow that those who have had this humbling experience in common, would be as a class less arrogant than those who had not?
Maybe they all started out more arrogant. Anyway, if you want to talk about things at that level of generality, your anecdotal experience looks less and less convincing.
And popping up to refute by counter-example my notion that parents are just as arrogant as the childless...
In my experience, anecdotes are sometimes convincing, sometimes not.
I'm here to say that Ben's mother is not arrogant, but neither is she shy.
Back to FL's toy (I mean his nephew's toy...forget it). My family had a Kettler push trike that rusted out in an alarmingly short time. For being fancy Germany engineering, it was underwhelming.
I have never constructed bikes for my own kids, only fixed them.
I have, however constructed them for:
my neice
my nephew
my neighbor's grandneice
my other neighbor's kid
Most of these were before I had kids of my own!
and done troubleshooting/bike tools/consulting for many others in an Xmaspanic!
Many of these beasts had gears and derailleurs too!
Moral: if everybody knows that you have bike tools and can fix bikes, you might get less Xmas Eve sleep than you expect.
For being fancy Germany engineering, it was underwhelming.
Everyone thinks the undercoating is just a scam...
I think that (at least some of) the people who go childless are so scared of screwing up the job and are already terribly aware of their limitations. They don't need the extra humbling experience.
Yes, but we're so jealous of their free time that we'll never give them credit for anything but self-indulgence.