Thursday Thirteen – Men’s Washroom Edition

Urinal (Photo credit: Ron Knox 2001)

Today’s Thursday Thirteen is an instant classic that you will want to re-post and share with your friends and family as it covers 13 types of men found in a men’s washroom which I have observed over my 20 plus years of office life.

So gather your friends and family members, lock away the children and be prepared to laugh so hard you’ll pee you pants.

Here we go!

13. The Talker – The talker is the kind of guy you come across in a men’s washroom who has started a conversation on his way to the washroom and continues it while walking into the washroom, even if he goes into a stall – which ladies, is big issue for men.  The talker will continue the conversation while he does his business and actually expects you to stick around and partake and not be wierded out by what is happening.  Ladies, let me tell you, in a men’s washroom if the stall is occupied, men get the hell out as quick as possible before they hear or smell anything.  Talking from beyond the stall… So not cool.

12. The Peeker - Gentlemen, you know these types of guys.  They’re a little odd, or a little curious and you know if there is an opportunity to sneak a peek, they’ll be the ones that do it.  Sometimes even though they know it’s wrong, they’ll throw a look while you’re talking to them or looking at them.  They can’t help themselves.  It’s competition to see what they’ve got and what you’ve got.  The peeker will never comment but it is very awkward and from that point on, the peeker pees alone!

11. The Grunter - Ahhh, the grunter… This is the guy who holds in his stuff for so long that by the time he gets to a stall he REALLY has to go and you know it.  There is grunting, moaning and the odd, “Oh yeah” with pauses for appropriate sound effects.  The grunter gets so caught up into his own bathroom experience that he forgets there are dudes on the other side of the stall cringing.

10.  The Clean Freak – These are the guys who immediately wash their hands upon approval to the washroom, but before they take a seat inside a stall, they takes soap and water and wash it down first.  Heaven forbid that some other guy’s stuff touched the toilet.  Putting toilet paper down, or a thin toilet seat cover, these guys need the bowl to sparkle and be “germ” free.  These are the driven folks who succeed in organizations so they can have a washroom all to themselves.

9.  The Flusher - Someone told me once that if you flush your poo right away you flush the smell too.  Well studies have since shown that to not be true, yet there are some guys who still think it’s legit so they get into a stall and within the length of time it takes another guy to pee, the flusher has flushed the toilet 4 times.  On the bright side, the splashing from the toilet water must be really cleaning their bottom… UGH.

8.  The Blaster – This is the guy who holds his pee so long that the second he gets up to the stall his stream is so powerful like he’s trying to shoot a whole through the ceramic bowl.  Sadly this guy also likes to hit the pine smelling soap at the bottom of the urinal resulting in him getting sprayed in the mid-section from his pee.  He leaves the washroom covered in pee residue… Yucky.  You can recognize him because as soon as he leaves the washroom, his mid-section glows from the urine.  The back of his hand is also usually soaked but when he washes his hands, he’ll wash the inside and rarely the back.

7.  The Misser - This is the guy who gets into the washroom and doesn’t want to make any noise when peeing, or is playing with his stream trying to make the least splash and in process usually hits the porcelain edge and winds up peeing on the floor, hence the giant puddles guys have come known to look out for when approaching a urinal.  Then the next guy comes in, sees the puddle and does his stuff from a foot back from the urinal which means he too adds to the pool of pee on the floor and so it goes until guys give up on that urinal and go to the next one.

6.  The Unbuckler – This guy makes me laugh.  I worked with a guy who used to unbuckle his pants to pee, and he would drop his drawers to his mid-thigh, pull down his underwear exposing his ass cheeks and stand at the urinal with his arm leaning on the wall, legs spread to the max, and he would pee like that while looking around and trying to talk to other guys.  It’s a urinal, not a social club and who the hell wants to see his ass anyways.  It got to the point that when he was going to the washroom, no one else would go near it for 5 minutes for fear of meeting ass-man face to butt cheeks..

5.  The No Handser  – These are the guys – and we all have seen them, who think they can accurately pee in the urinal, not on the floor, not on themselves without touching their stuff at all.  They also think – like my 7-year-old son does, that if they don’t touch it they don’t need to wash their hands.  Well no hands is not cool, and you still have to wash your hands so grab a hold and get it over with.

4.  The Wiggler - The wiggler guy is the guy who finishes peeing and before he steps away he takes his stuff and frantically wiggles it all around, smacking it on the side of the urinal in efforts to get all the pee out.  The problem with the frantic wiggle is that there is no way to control where that left over pee goes so while some may drop into the urinal, the rest sprays all over the place.

3.  The Newspaper Bringer – Ahhh, the newspaper bringer.  This describes the guy who is heading for the washroom and intends on being there a while so he picks up a newspaper from someone’s desk along the way, tucks it under his arm, and proceeds to set up camp inside a stall.  What makes this guy so clueless is when he returns from his 20 minutes of quiet time and proceeds to drop that newspaper back on the desk of the person he borrowed it from with a cheerful “thank you”.  He doesn’t understand that the person he borrowed the paper from does not wish to have back the paper after he’s read it who doing his business and before he washed his hands…  Just the thought makes me shudder.

2.  The I’m Aloner - The I’m alone guy is the guy who is clearly uncomfortable in a public washroom with other men around.  Someone must have commented on the size of his stuff when he was younger because he stresses out in the washroom resulting in him walking in, ignoring everyone, doing his stuff, washing up efficiently and getting the hell out as quickly as possible.  This type of guy possibly holds his breath the entire time in case there is a foul odor in the bathroom.  It’s best to just get out of their way and let them go.

1.  The Held it Too Longer – This guy makes me laugh because he holds his stuff for as long as he possibly can and you know as he’s racing to the bathroom he’s already imaging the relief of doing his business that he is already unzipping or unbuckling even before he gets inside the washroom.

This kind of guy is in his own world because he doesn’t want to be the guy who filled his drawers so if he enters the washroom and there is no toilet or urinal available he actually looks at the sink as a viable option while trying to determine if he waits or heads to another floor.

Don’t try talking to this guy, he’ll bite your head off and he’s probably now having a conversation with himself as his kidneys begin to ache.  He won’t even buckle up as he flees the washroom in search of another and when he finally does get in there could be a dead body on the floor he won’t notice, he’s too busy saying “ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh” as he goes on with his business.

Unfortunately he is traumatized and needs some considerable time to replay the encounter in his head and I’m positive he thanking his lucky stars that as he came into the washroom, already undone and ready to go that he did not run into Mr. Ass Cheeks.

Honorable mention to the take no prisoners guy who comes in, does his stuff and leaves a disaster in his wake – toilet paper everywhere, paper towels and soap everywhere else and body fluids in places it should not be in an office environment.

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You want feedback? Let me tell you what I think about you and your blogging…

I for one, like feedback.  I’m a big boy.  I’m tough.  I can take it. 

I can take ”feedback” or criticism, whatever you want to call it and not let it bother me… Too much.

In learning how to take feedback I have also learned how and when to give feedback.  It’s an art, I tell you and let me state the obvious when I tell you that there are not too many people who can take feedback, and even fewer who can deliver it without the intent on offending or making the receiver feel inferior.

I actually started this post quite a while ago as a personal reflection post but I didn’t like the feel of the post, so I shelved it in my draft folder and have re-visited it several times to re-write it and alter its focus dramatically.  It’s not a post about me so much as it is a reflection about my management style and they way I like to interact with others – staff and children. 

But let’s be clear here folks, this is in no way a “how to manage your spouse” post because we all know our wives are always right!  Happy wife = happy life.

So how does one learn to give effective and timely feedback?  By asking for and hearing lots of it over one’s life.  good and bad, true and untrue,,, I’ve heard it all.  In that time I learned the hard way that being a wise-ass or inappropriate in pretty much every situation makes it hard to make / keep friends and after a while people start talking about you in that light, they tend to start avoiding you.  That feedback is the untold kind, and you have to pick up on that too, or you’re in big trouble. (ahem, Linus!)

For me, the defining moment when I was in high-school, and I said something really stupid to my friends which resulted in them all looking at me like I just hurt a kitten.  It was at that moment when it became perfectly clear to me that I had to be accountable for what comes out of my mouth at all times and that I had offended or worse, hurt, the ones I care for and to that, my success would be in my ability to filter the crap that comes out of my mouth, and to learn to not take myself too seriously. 

I taught myself to cover up in situations where I was a complete ass by pretending I had said that comment on purpose, as a joke, when in fact I was learning boundaries, and in learning from my missteps, I made sure to never do it again.  Not repeating the same embarrassing situation to the same person was critical to me being taken seriously.  I wanted to be taken seriously and that motivated me to watch my mouth.

So back on to feedback.  I never wanted to hear feedback from anyone growing up because it was always bad.  I was immature, goofy, inappropriate, juvenile… I heard it all.  But as I figured out how to act around people, I wanted to know how I was doing.  Kind of like, “how is my driving”. 

The more I asked, the more I was able to improve and right now, I’m pretty damn strategic and I know what to say, when to say and how to address it.  It was hard but I’ve done it.  I should write a book, eh?  I have some great stories I cannot post online!

So now, I crave feedback.  All kinds of it.  I want the bad stuff more than I want the good stuff.  I want to be told I’m an asshole, or that I’ve pissed someone off because I’ve spent a lot of time being so good that every now and then my inner-bitch comes out and I let it all hang out.  I’m sorry.  I need to know.  If I’ve annoyed you, or pissed you off, it’s either a gigantic misunderstanding or it was done on purpose.  If you want to know, just ask me,  I’ll tell you.

When I started blogging, my wife had been doing it for a year and she is such a fantastic writer.  When I read her posts, I could replay the situation in my head as if it were happening then and there.  I’m not so blessed with that skill and when people found out we were married they were shocked at how well she wrote and how poorly I did.  I knew it.  It was true and quite funny actually.  So I started re-reading my posts, spell-checking it and taking general care for my posts.  All it took was some feedback. 

So when I get comments to my blog (or about my blog or blogging in general), like this one coming up, I tend to smile and want to keep it.  I’m proud of getting stuff like this.  Not only is it creative, but it’s downright funny.  True too…

Comment 1: “This is pointless, why am I even reading it and not enjoying ? I should learn to spend my time better.”

Comment 2:  “I realize you were young and inexperienced at the time, but in hindsight you should have chosen your parents more wisely.”

I also remember a “friend” of mine hoping to tell me what he truly thought about me by posting a comment in a much older post – figuring I would never see it – which went something like this;

“You are the most arrogant piece of shit that I have ever met.”

Yes.  Yes, I was… to you.  If you had only asked me, I would have told you myself.

Or the friend who told me he hates my blog – never reads it and things bloggers – and myself – are narcacisstic.  I thought about it, blogged about it and dismissed it.  Do we all not take pride in what we do?  .

If you want to post a comment about how you really feel, do it.  Please don’t make yourself anonymous, however, it’s better to identify yourself so I know what I’m facing.  You will feel better and I will know who I don’t have to worry about being nice to.  It’s okay.  I’m always civil. 

What is useless to be is the guy who comments on a pro-Rob Ford post with, “You’re a fucking idiot”.

Why thank you, was my thought.  Some left-wing primate made his way through my article and took the time to comment.  I replied back thanking him for the comment, that I was not an idiot – at least I didn’t think I was – and I merely presented the facts as they seemed to me and if he didn’t agree with my view he could have explained why and educated me instead of calling me names.  Good thing he didn’t know I was overweight like the Ford’s (although no where near the same size as them) because he would have said, “You’re a fucking idiot… and you’re fat”.

So if you take anything from this article it should be that when you’re giving feedback use some diplomacy.  give some positive feedback, and some negative.  If you blast the negative, you’re getting negative back right at you.  If you have something to say, just say it but keep in mind how it will be perceived by others, mainly the author of the post, but also take into consideration that it’s possible that many other have thought and felt the way you have about an article but by having the character to post that comment you may attract more readers, and you may be voicing the opinions of other as well. 

Good comments beget good comments.  When people take the time to comment on posts knowing their thoughts and opinions are going to stay in the comment section and not be deleted (except in cases of malicious attacks) then they will take the time to comment more and more.  If you delete them or jam garbage down their throats then you can rest assure they will not be coming back.

So please… comment what you feel.  Not only on my posts but on others   What is the worst things someone can do?  send you an email or post a reply to your comment calling you names?  Been there, done that.  It’s going to take a lot more than being called names to get me to back off my opinions.

Have any of you received really harsh comments or feedback?  Feel free to share here.

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Happy Pi Day everyone!

Image via Wikipedia

Today is March 14th, so that makes it Pi Day!

For those of you who do not know what Pi is, an explanation follows.  If you do know, however, then you don’t have to read on, you can just go back to solving your quadratic equations with an abacus.

Pi or π – which looks a lot like a Hebrew letter, a table or Prince’s name when he wanted to be a symbol –  is actually the Latin name of this Greek letter and is pronounced “pie”.

Here is a little more information; some of it comes to me via Wikipedia – of course; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pi

So how does that Greek letter become part of modern day mathematics (the keeners always ask me this question), well it might be because “π” is the first letter of the Greek word περίμετρος which translated to English means perimeter.  The ratio of the perimeter to the diameter, is constant for all circles, so if it never changes old world scholars thought it must have a Greek or Latin name, hence Pi.

Some fun facts about Pi:

Pi Day is celebrated on March 14th at 1:59am if you are on a 24 hour clock, or 1:59pm if not.

π is an irrational number, its decimal representation does not repeat, and therefore does not terminate.  This has fascinated mathematicians and regular people like you and I for year, as we try to recite Pi to as many decimal places that we can remember.

The decimal representation of π = 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510…

The Guinness Book of World Records record for remembered digits of π is 67,890 digits, held by Lu Chao, a 24-year-old graduate student from China. It only took him 24 hours and 4 minutes to recite π to the 67,890th decimal place without an error.

Crazy, eh?

Kids these days have too much time on their hands.

Anyways.

Happy Pi Day!!!

For those of you not celebrating the math-kind of Pi day today, you might be looking to celebrate a different kind of pie day today since today is also one month after Valentine’s Day so today is also Steak and a BJ Day.

Unfortunately, I saw this too late to celebrate… We have no steak in the house.

 

Thursday Thirteen – You know you have lost touch with the adult world when…

Hello to my happy readers. As my 2-year-old daughter Berry would say with much excitement in her voice, “You came back!!!”.  For those of you who are first time readers, welcome, feel free to come back at any time, and if you’ve come here accidentially, thanks for the hit and please come back unless you are looking for Santa Claus porn. 

Because I’m a giant loser, I find myself not needing to dip into the almost 80 blog posts sitting in my draft folder for this weeks Thursday Thirteen, but instead I felt compelled to reach out to my readers with kids and form a bond.

Below you will find the 13 ways in which I realized I have lost touch with the adult world.

Sit tight and here we go.

13. I saw what appeared to be 2 hookers walking through the side streets near Eglinton and Allen Road last night in mid-town Toronto, on my way home from the office – probably heading to one of the many massage places with neon lights that light up on the very quiet Eglinton strip (pun intended) after dark.

For some reason even I cannot explain, I began singing this following song – out loud – in my car, to the tune of the Dora the Explorer theme;

Do do do DO do DO do… Hookers.
Do do do DO do DO do… Hookers.
Hookers, hookers, HOOKERS on Eglinton.
Hookers…

If you know the theme, you know what I mean.

12. I sit down in front of the television infrequently and instead of checking out the regular stations, Ch22 - Sportsnet, Ch30 TSN, Ch53 Headline sports and Ch 418 the NHL network, my fingers immediately press ch65 which is Treehouse TV.  A bad habit indeed because once the kids catch a glimpse of one of their shows the begging begins.

11. Like my kids, I have found myself not caring about the colour of my socks when I head into the office. It used to be black socks for everything unless I’m wearing blue pants, then it would be blue socks and brown socks for brown pants but because my kids regularly wear, for example, an orange shirt, with green pants and red socks, I’m feeling their vibe. I’m not sure those without kids would understand other than to think I’m  losing my mind.

10. I heard a song by Anthrax called “I’m Alive” which I really love right now but instead of singing that I find myself singing a children song that has words in it like, Syria, Oman, Pakistan… and what’s worse about this is that Stewie played it for me on my birthday saying “It’s daddy’s favourite song”. He knows it and I don’t. DOH!

9. I needed to move an icon from my iPad into a folder and ended up giving it to Linus to close off once I finally figured out how to move it – UrbanMummy showed me how to move them but not how to turn it off.  He knew without hesitation.

8. I needed to get through a level of Plants Vs. Zombies but couldn’t figure out how, so I gave it to Linus and Stewie and they had it done in 2 games. That used to be me…

7. I need to make more guy’s nights out to talk about real world topics not having to do with, or involving diapers, trips, programs or any more to deal with a vasectomy.

6. I have read over 1000 children’s books in the past year, and precisely 1 pleasure book for my interest and it was a Dan Brown book which I polished off in just under 2 weeks.

5. Before my ball-hockey game on Monday night, instead of my normal pre-game ritual of pasta, Advil, tums/rolaids, stretching and very loud aggressive rock to get my mind focussed, I took tips from Linus (who hates hockey and has seen me play twice) and his tips WORKED!   In honour of Ron Simmons who is going into the WWE Hall of Fame, I say this; “DAMN”.

4. See the previous discussion about my kids clothing “style” and wonder why it is that I ask them if my clothes match in the morning before I leave for the office.  That’s like me asking Urban Mummy who tells me I look fine when the room is pitch black and she cannot see me, and is the first to comment when I arrive home at the ned of the day with; “You wore THAT to work today?!?”

3.  As Daddy carpool, I take my kids to karate, swimming, parties, Beavers and any other kid only or family outing (like trips to sleepyville) and I am unable to yell or swear at other cars, bikes or people.  I also am banned from singing in the car or listening to my music. 

2.  I spend so much time in the children’s rooms at night – bedtime routine is happily my task – that my daughter has said to me repeatedly, “You have no bed.  Stewie in Stewie’s bed, Linus in Linus’ bed, Mummy in mummy’s bed and Berry in Berry’s big girl bed.  you have no bed.”  No matter how many times I have tried to convince her than mummy and daddy sleep in the same bed she won’t buy it because she never sees me there.  She’s 2.  Yet, I try to convince her over and over again.  Why is that?  It’s a giant waste of time with a 7-year-old, let alone a 2-year-old.

1.  I spend my days waking up at 6am when the kids get up.  I wipe butts, I smell hands, I smell stinky breath, I deal in diapers (thankfully no more poo).  I cook on demand, entertain on demand, feed on demand.  I’m their bitch.  I keep the TV low at night when watching sports.  I have not watched a movie which has suggestive content, the potential for nudity or swearing or inappropriate TV in 7 years.  What’s up with that?

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Thursday Thirteen – TV Time!

Thirteen TV shows that my wife will absolutely not watch;

Image via Wikipedia

1. The Weather Network – “If you want to see the weather, go outside”.

2. Reality TV – “It’s stupid because it’s not real, it’s scripted”.

3. Soap Opera’s - ”They’re stupid too”.  

4. Sports

5. News – “Why watch it when you can live it”.

6. Scary TV – like those shows where there are dead people eating other dead people and it looks like a poorly dressed zombie eating a very rare piece of meat.

7. Music videos – no Much Music, no MTV, no music TV stations.

8. Food network – “I’d rather cook than watch someone else cook”.

9. Parades – She wouldn’t get caught dead watching those…

10. Wrestling – “No comment, but wrestling is stupid”.

11. Award Shows – No Grammies, no Oscars, no Golden Globes… No red carpets, nothing.   

12. Anything we have to pay for (aside from actual cable) like PPV - “We pay enough for TV without having to pay more for shows”.

13. The SyFy channel – Not surprising since this girl has only seen one Star Wars movie – GASP.  I know!

So if I want to watch any of these I’m watching them alone.

What stations are you addicted to and which would you remove from your TV if you could?

 

It’s been a while… How are you?

Hey!  How are you?  Are you still there? 

Did you miss me?  It’s been a while.  Since I auto-post some of my Thursday Thirteen’s, it’s been a while since I have actually had time to write a fresh post.  I did one last week and that one drew incredible response on Facebook, Twitter and through my blog.  The message was clear to me that it was time to get down to writing again, so here I go. 

As I had previously posted, I made a great career move just over a week ago and with that I have been making effort to rid myself of some bad habits that I have dragged with me along the way, specifically, going to bed late, sleeping in and neglecting my duties around the house.  There, I said it.  But since last week, I’ve been getting to bed at a very reasonable time (before midnight almost every night) and as a result, I have no time for dilly-dallying after I get home from the office.  Stuff has to get done around here AND I still want to check in with the UrbanMummy (who has been quite ill the past, oh, 6 weeks), to make sure she’s coping with work, kids, household and buying stuff online.  Yes, we have a nanny, but even she’s busy in the evenings taking English courses and hanging around with her friends and family.  After a long day she needs to recharge herself to prepare for the next day too.

So here is what we’ve been up to and forgive me if I have posted about this before;

Linus has been coming of age recently, spending more time focussing on his activities and I think really starting to understand that doing things half-assed is so not cool.  I can vouch for that have grown up in the same pattern he is currently living!  But in the past couple weeks, he has impressed his piano teacher (although he refuses to practice – he just gets it), he has moved up a level in swimming classes, and in karate he’s grading for his green belt – and red guey - on the weekend because he’s totally mastered his kata.  He’s excelling in his Beaver troop and his math skills are still lights out!  He’s amazing with numbers, adding, subtracting, multiplication and some division.  He even knows about negative numbers and he can do math problems like they are child’s play.  Me, on the other hand, refused to touch math problems from his grade through University.  I knew I didn’t get them, so why make the effort.  But he gets them (thank goodness).  I’m in awe and SO proud.  He has also recently shown an interest in soccer and reading.  YAY.

Stewie – poor tired Stewie – came with to Beavers the last couple weeks and although he does not have a “costume” yet (read: Beaver uniform) he seems to really enjoy the learning and craft segments of the meetings but these meetings end at 7:30pm and that is his bedtime, so by the time we’re in the car after the meeting, he is a mess and ready for meltdown.  As a result, I do not think he’s going to be able to stick with it, at least right now.  In other activities, Stewie is also progressing at swimming – briefly being at the same level as Linus – and in piano, which he practices daily, he can play by ear!  He loves to read and has been coming up with the most cleverist of comments pretty much hourly, lately, which kills us.  He of course also likes to fight with Linus and just yesterday was waving a kitchen knife near his sister’s head while he was trying to cut an apple and verbally abuse his brother with comments like, “You’re an A.S.S., Linus”, or the ever popular, “You’re a poo poo, Linus”.  Even poor Berry can now be heard yelling to either boy, “My name is not poo poo, it’s Berry”, or “I am NOT a poo poo!  you’re a poo poo”.  Oh yes.  They have corrupted Berry so much, just last night she was heard singing “Mary had a little poo…”

Berry, meanwhile, is potty trained – except night obviously, she just turned 2-years-old – and has been sleeping in her “big girl bed” which is a toddler bed for about the same time.  During her first week in that bed she fell out of bed 5 times, four times towards the door, and the last time she fell behind the bed, so between the bed and the wall.  This usually occurs between 2am and 5am and we are awaken by a “thump”, then a cry for “mummy!!!”.  Her vocabulary is lights out and she’s quite funny, the perfect mix of Stewie’s seriousness and smarts and Linus’ goofiness and incredible sense of humour.

UrbanMummy… What can I say.  She’s been sick for ages and still manages to work, organize and plan the household, coordinate meals, prepare fantastic meals and basically be mummy to three children.  Being a mother is the most difficult profession in the world… I truly believe that.

Me, well, I drank a Tim Horton’s new XL double double last week, which is the American-sized 24oz drink and I almost fell asleep halfway through it.  It’s so much coffee that I was scared picking it up… Seriously, and nothing scares me anymore.  I’m also very close to registering for the Canadian Investment Funds Course (CIFC) so I can learn things like;

• Financial objectives
• Mutual fund basics
• Mutual fund investment
• Types of mutual funds
• Economic environment
• Managing mutual funds
• Taxation
• Pensions and retirement
• Responsibilities

I think that’s the start I need for continuing education – it’s been 5 years since I completed my MBA, and I think I want to get my CMA after this course is done.  That or I’ll take some smaller courses like on Segregated funds, Mutual funds, or a taxation-specific course to add to my knowledge.

Other than that, I appreciate the support and the comments and I’m sorry that I have not had a chance to return the favour and read your blogs too… I promise, once I get my schedule set I will pop by more often.  I have not even had the time to Tweet or do justice to Cityville, or LinkedIn.  If you are a blogger and are not on my blogroll, please drop me a note or a comment because right now that is what I use as my guide when I have time to read.

I also noticed in the writing of this post that I apparently only have the ability to work for organizations which begin with the exact same letter!  I also cannot type the word “the”, I type “teh”, nor “myself”, I can only do “myslef”.  Can I not program WordPress or any of the Microsoft Office programs to automatically correct those?  They do not!

That’s what I’ve got right now.  This post only sat for 4 days in my draft folder.  I’m already working on the next part.

 

Canadian Weblog Awards – I’m shortlisted!

Today, while surfing the net, I went to visit Ninjamatics and check on the progress for the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards.  The URL is here;

http://www.ninjamatics.com/canadian-weblog-awards

Having a blog that kind of covers… Stuff, doesn’t normally fare well on year-end awards because I’m more than a parenting blog, I’m a little bit Daddy, I’m a little bit political, I cover sports, and coffee, current events… A bit of everything. 

But blogging as long as I have, there is one category that is totally me, and that one applies to any bloggers who have been kicking around for a long time, which, well I have.

So back to Ninjamatics.  Here was what I saw when I went by;

“The Ninjamatics’ 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards’ forty-six jurors have completed their first of two rounds of judging!

Over the last two weeks, they poured over the 461 nominated weblogs, measuring the nominees against our ten criteria. They have selected the top five weblogs in each category that will move forward into the final round of the Ninjamatics’ 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards. The winners will be picked from this shortlist over the next two weeks.

Without further ado, we are proud to announce the Ninjamatics’ 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards Nominees Shortlist!

Lifetime Achievement Award (for weblogs created before January 1, 2005)
Prix d’excellence pour l’ensemble de son œuvre (blogues créés avant le 1er janvier 2005)

Cheaty Monkey
Coin-Operated Boy
HelloMelissa.net
Urban Daddy
Weighty Matters”

Well.

Look at that.  I’ve been shortlisted.  Sweet.  The other 4 blogs are incredible, no doubt about that.

I’ll be honest, I was a little (okay, a lot) nervous about making the final 5 since last year there were 6 blogs that fit this category and I didn’t make the shortlist – I was the odd one out – which is okay since I’m a little odd. 

This year it’s a different story and I’ve made the cut.  Maybe I should see if there were only 5 blogs in the category this year (he he) before I go any further, but being nominated was a huge achievement and making it through to the bonus round is also very cool.

So please, continue to support your Canadian bloggers!

 

Some Urban Daddy Reminders – By the Numbers

Every now and then I like to perform a pulse check on my blogging. I guess this is it.

Housekeeping:

Please remember that on the right side of my blog I have my twitter feed.  You can follow my tweets here or follow me directly @urbandaddyblog on Twitter.

Below my Twitter feed you will find my Blogroll which includes Daddy bloggers, local Toronto bloggers, and some wonderful political blogs.  Go, click through and read them.  Some very talented writers are waiting for you to come by and read their stuff. In addition, if there are some blogs you know about that you think are fantastic too, please post about them and I will always check them out and if they are fantastic I will add them to my blogroll.

Stats:

I just posted my 752nd blog post on this blog last night.

I’m approaching my 100th post on my professional tax / management blog; www.intaxicating.wordpress.com.

I’m finally past my 900th follower on Twitter and I’m heading for 1000.

I am also nearing my 3500th tweet.

On Facebook, I am heading towards my 200th “like”.  You can find the link to that on the right side of my blog too.

My October destroyed any other month in the way of traffic to my site.  Actually, October had more hits than August and September combined and those months were my best months ever. Thank you.  

I am also approaching my 1500th comment.

Lots of milestones coming in the next few days, weeks and months and I thank you for being a huge part.

I also just passed my 30,000th unique hit on this blog which has been in existance for about 4 years as a public blog, and spend the previous 4 years hidden. When I made it public I moved it from Blogger onto WordPress and in doing so, all the posts moved over, however the hits did not. I’m okay with 30,000. Actually, to be honest, I think 30,000 is incredible considering a lot of the crap I have written over the years.

 

Here is another example why it’s great to blog if you’re a parent…

Not sure what I mean from the title of this post?  Well let me explain.  There are times I have wished that I could have a camera crew following around my children..  More so my 2nd and 3rd kids due to their uniqueness but since that is never going to happen, blogging about them seems to be the perfect fit.   The only problem I have, is remembering all the crazy / zany / witty stuff they say to each other, to us and to others.   I make a mental note, or start a draft post, then something better comes along and I forget the previous thought…   Kids are hilarious.  Admit it. 

Take this evening, for example.  Child #2, Stewie was showing a childhood friend of his grampa a new toy that he has called Bey Blades.  In explaining what they are, the question was asked of him, “are they like dreidels?” to which Stewie replied, “they are like dreidels but they are not.  These are made with very sharp steel and if you spin them on your tummy they will slice you in half.”  Oh yes… Very serious boy.

Then there was the day after fathers’ day when Stewie made his 5th consecutive appearance into our bedroom in the middle of the night.  Sometimes he arrives because he’s scared of lightning, other times because he had a bad dream.  This night it was because he was “bored”. 

So I walked him back to his room – without talking to him – and tucked him back in the bed.

He started wailing and came back to our room, I swear, the second I closed my eyes.  So I got up and walked him back.  He was starting to complain so I asked him to tip toe.  He was clearly pissed because tip toe to him meant stomp as loud as you can. 

So I got mad and told him if he was going to make any more noise, that I would shut his bedroom door. 

He started to wail.

I took a deep breath (probably a very deep breath as it was past 2 in the morning and I made sure I was clear  in the way Alyson Schaffer taught us and I said to him, “This is your choice.  Do you choose to be quiet and go to sleep, or do you choose to make noise, wake up your brother, sister and mother, and sleep with the door shut”.

He chose to be quiet.

So I left.

Laid my head down on the pillow… closed my eyes… then heard wailing.

So I walked into his room and calmly said to him, “I believe you have chosen to sleep with the door shut” and with that I quietly shut his door and walked away.

He wailed louder than before.

I went into our bedroom and my wife was now clearly awake.  We huddled in for a strategy session.  She suggested I bring him into our bed to sleep before he wakes up the rest of the house.  Not wanting to be a sardine in my own bed, I went to sleep in his bed.

He must have still been upset in the morning because while I was brushing my teeth, he confronted me in my bathroom (he’s 4-year-old).  “Are you going to be nice to me today, Daddy?” he asked.

“Are you going to sleep in your bed tonight?” I countered with.

“If you are not going to be nice to me, I am not going to give you back your fathers’ day presents”.

“You took back my fathers’ day presents???”

At which point I heard giggling from our bed.  My wife had heard this exchange and apparently knew he took back my presents.

I got down to his level, gave him a huge hug and kiss, told him I love him and with that, he disappeared into his room, only to return with a bad full of presents he had given me a week prior.  He unloaded the presents as I stood there wondering how we gave birth to the repo man…

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Another interesting parenting moment came one morning last week as we were all struggling though this stomach virus.  Linus was sitting on the toilet in his bathroom, Stewie was on the toilet on the main floor of the house and our bathroom was occupied.  Only 30 minutes later did we find that Linus’ toilet was never flushed.  We called him in but he denied it was him.  He said it was Stewie.

“Stewie was on the main floor,” I responded.  “It was totally you!”

“Not it wasn’t” defended Linus.

Believe it or not, this conversation went on for 5 minutes, with myself and my wife defending our position and there was Linus with his one line of defense, “It wasn’t me, it was Stewie”.

He kept this up until we dropped it.

Some battles are just not worth fighting, eh?

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Tonight, Stewie has made his way into our bedroom at only 10pm.  He was watching my wife work on her laptop, happy to see her looking at ordering angry birds stuffed animals.  I decided in front of Stewie to suggest she not order them until Stewie was able to sleep in his bed for 5 nights in a row.   She agreed and together we explained to him why we thought this was a good idea.  Well let me tell you, for those of you who have not met Stewie before, that this bright idea of mine did not go over well at all!  He broke into a fit and through part exhaustion, part stress, he said to my wife that she was the “meanest mummy in the universe”.  All we heard about for the next 45 minutes through tears, anger and an unwillingness to forget, was that he wanted / needed / was going to get an angry bird or he was going to “break down our house”.  He was so over-tired we tried to listen without giggling.   Maybe it was us that were so over-tired…

 

Thursday Thirteen

Today’s Thursday Thirteen focusses on 13 plain dumb ass band names – mainly gathered from listening to Octane on my XM Radio.

I would have had an easier time pulling this list from the XM Lithium station, however I find there are way too many alternative bands with just plain stupid names. Listening to Octane made it that much more challenging but I’m pretty sure I got a great list!

So sit back and check out this list.  Be prepared to tell me if you agree or disagree and surely, you must know one too…

13. Skillet – oh yes. This was the band name that gave me this idea., Someone thought to name their band after a fucking frying pan. Dumb asses

12. Brother – Huh? Brother?!? Really. Not only is that dumb but lame too. Then again, it could have been…

11. Viva Brother - Ohhhh. Really? WTF is that name?!?

10. Death Cab for Cutie – Seriously, right? Someone signed this band to a label / helped them produce some music. Probably giggling the whole time.

9.   Dum Dum Girls – Enough said!

8.   Passion Pit – Was this not the diner that the kids from Beverly Hills 90125 used to hang out at drinking sodas and talking about being such wholesome rich kids?!?  Oh, that was the Peach Pit… Same crap.

7.   Art of Dying – Is there an art of dying?!?  Sure… Listen to this band.  I might make you want to die.

6.   Duck Sauce – Any band that releases a song – which has become a bit of a hit I must say… On the kids stations – which consists of just music and a voice saying “Barbra Streisand” over and over and over again, must be same Soya sauce.  Or was it Sweet and Sour sauce?!?  Ah, no, it was Duck Sauce…

5.  Madam Adam – Is this band related to Penny with a Penis???  I’m sorry I asked that… I don’t want to know!

4.   Arctic Monkeys – Errr, okay.  Nothing better came to mind here than arctic monekys…Yikes.

3.   10 Years – 10 Years to what?  10 years from what?  I don’t understand.  10 years to make it big, 10 years in jail. or it took 10 years to come up with this dumb ass band name.  Maybe you needed 10 more years than you could call yourselves the Arctic Monkeys… 

2.   Breaking Benjamin – Really?  Breaking Benjamin… In half?  WTF is all I have to say.

1.   Hoobastank - Yeah.  Hoobastank.  Might as well be Hooba-skank for all we know.  I’m sorry here, but a pitiful name is a pitiful name.

So what do you have?!?