I’ve been in the midst of the herculean effort of attempting to actually catch up on all my work this week. I’m impressing myself mightily with my work ethic, if I do say so myself.

And I do.

In fact, I just did. Right up there in the first paragraph.

So… I guess it’s really a moot point.

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Where was I?… [Scrolls up to beginning of post] “Herculean”… “mightily”… “moot”… oh yeah — I’ve been busy.

Hence the silence on the Space Monkey front.

Sadly, it’s always the wee folk that suffer when people get off their bums and actually — you know — work.

(And by “wee folk”, I mean you, my sofa-cushion-fort-making readers.)

So, I apologise for my lack of textual output.

For your troubles, may I present you with… a baby warthog?

In honour of my Dad, who is currently sleeping in our guest bedroom:

My father knows how to get his way.

Growing up, when he and my Uncle Dave were asked to do the dishes, the fight would be over who got to dry the dishes — the actual washing of the dishes being seen as the suckier of the two jobs. Well, my father, never one to allow a situation to go unhacked, started to offer to wash the dishes. His strategy was two-fold: 1) By always asking to wash the dishes, he would subconsciously train himself to prefer the job, training himself to believe it really was the job he wanted to do, and 2) By always asking to wash the dishes, he eventually made it seem the more desirable job, thus making my Uncle Dave feel cheated out of the really great job of washing the dishes.

But the better story is the tale of the custard.

Everyone in his house growing up loved to have some Bird’s Eye Custard. Mmmmm… custard. However… my father — when making custard for himself — felt that if he was making the custard, he should get to enjoy the all the spoils, free of moochers and johnny-come-latelies. But how to get them to keep their grubby paws off his custard? Thus came the addition of one special ingredient into his unique custard recipe: green food colouring.

All the custard was his for the taking.

And my sister and I were not exempt from his little reindeer games. Oh no. Here is but one example:

Throughout our childhoods, every time either of us had an ice cream cone — EVERY SINGLE TIME — my father would oh-so-helpfully offer to “clean it up” for us. He bloody well trained us to see the melting ice cream on an ice cream cone as undesirable and somehow beyond our abilities to remedy. So, when presented with his purely self-serving offer to “clean it up”, we would willing — nay, eagerly — hand over our cones to his gloating embrace.

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He’s asleep right now.

I think I’m going to go dip his hand in a bowl of warm water.

If I do it enough, maybe eventually I train him to like peeing in bed.

From SassyK (who’s been missed):

“Whatever - let me just thow some words at you — flumoxed, exasperated, bamboozled, kerfuffled, unsettled, in a conundrum — you know what, if I could make up a word that describes the process of trying to establish oneself in a new city, make new friends and settle into a new job - I would say kebamberated. You know, kind of like a repetitive slamming in the head with a rubber hammer that doesn’t quite seem to stop.”

“Kebamberated”. Juuuust [clickity clickity click] added to my dictionary.

Next up in “Just Freaking BRILLIANT” news, it seems that the local powers-that-be have decided that our street name just ain’t cutting the moutarde any more and NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Starting next June, we will no longer be living on the homey and deliciously cookie-scented “Oakwood Avenue”.

Oh no — starting next June, we will be living on the sterile and tastebud-paralysing “Ottawa Avenue”.

It seems that there are issues with 9-1-1 service and the fact that there is a cul-de-sac off of our street that is Oakwood Crescent and blahblahblahblahblahblah…

Well… I say “UP YOURS!” to their decision-making process!

UP YOURS! Our street is older!

UP YOURS! Our street is classier!

UP YOURS! Our street has more than one escape route!

And I save my weightiest “UP YOURS!” to the fact that WE are now responsible for changing all of our mail to the new address.

PUNCH. IT. IN. THE. HEAD.

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Thank you for letting me vent.

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Baaaaaaaaaarg.

Those moments when the stars of geekdom all seem to align in harmonious conjunction, when the elements add up to a pure geek gestalt that makes your skin tingle, your smile stretch to the back of your head, and you find yourself helplessly jumping up and down in your seat?

I call that a geek bomb.

Personal examples?

• In Pulp Fiction, when Butch picks up the baseball bat, then picks up the chainsaw, and then sees the purest of pure geek weapons — HOLY HELL, IT’S A FREAKING SAMURAI SWORD — hanging on the wall? Geek bomb.
• In Raiders of the Lost Ark, when the Nazis drive off with the Ark of the Covenant, and then Indy appears [insert Raiders theme here] chasing after them ON A FREAKING HORSE? Geek bomb. (Echoed later on by an equally powerful geek bomb when he appears on the deck of the submarine. Hoo-whee.)
• In Superman Returns, when Superman lifts THE ENTIRE FREAKING KRYPTO-CONTINENT into space, finally showing on screen the incredibly massive moving-planets-if-he-so-chooses strength that comic book fans know Superman has but have never gotten to see? Geek bomb.

I could go on in this vein FOR DAYS… but I do have a point.

Last night’s episode of Heroes.

Seen it?

If not, I will keep this spoiler-free.

Suffice it to say… I got ONE MOTHER OF A GEEK BOMB last night.

If you saw it, you probably know what I’m taking about.

My glee reservoirs? They are full.

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Got your own personal geek bombs? Then delurk, my pollen-dusted readers… delurk!