zen.org Communal Weblog

We have our MythTV box set up to record a bunch of things, but I just realized there’s a distinct set in there of things that are all within a day of their original airing in the US:

• NBC Nightly News on CNBC each night at 11:30pm (live feed for what’s on in the US on the East Coast)
• ABC World News Tonight on BBC News 24 at 1:30am
• CBS News on Sky News each night at 1:30am and 3:30am (we record the latter)
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart at a variety of times on More4
• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on CNBC at 10:00pm
• Late Night with Conan O’Brien on CNBC at 10:45pm

If we’re in need for a US-centric news fix, we’re all set. 🙂

Our accountant called this morning to let me know they received an official letter from the Revenue Commissioners. Our 2004 audit was complete and we passed with flying colors.

All hail to the grand old system of tucking away every sheet of paper you ever touch.

In the last few weeks, we’ve had a startling number of things fail in our house:

• our 8 year-old Sony television rapidly developed a bad case of dry joint (the solder at connections on the boards were flaking away), with pin-cushion indentation happening on both sides increasingly worse til it was finally unusable;
• our 8 year-old Whirlpool washing machine’s pump failed;
• the 2 year-old Baxi back boiler failed over the holiday weekend;
• our 6 year-old hand blender fell apart;
• my 5 year-old desktop PC is seizing up on me, only a few weeks after I already had to replace its motherboard once because its USB on-board ports were faulty;
• our 4 month-old NTL Pace digital cable box is failing, again, with what we now call the White Screen of Death(tm) and periodic claims that we don’t subscribe to any of the channels at all;
• and now our 8 year-old Whirlpool dryer made nasty thumping sounds and is finally not spinning at all.  Back to call the Whirlpool repairman.

Was it in the 1980s or 1990s that production quality was flushed down the toilet?

Last night we went to The Gate Theatre in Dublin for a production of Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Doing a bit of searching, I see that others also liked it. The misty voice of Fiona O’Shaughnessy was enchanting in the role of Salomé, and Barbara Brennan’s more-like-us form of speech as Herodias was a great counterbalance to the very thus, thee, lest thine language of the rest of the cast. The acoustics in The Gate is also amazing (much better than the Dublin National Concert Hall); with the talent of the cast in projecting their voices, the sound was wonderfully complete. The music of Roger Doyle was so good, I want to go back to The Gate to buy the CD.

All that said, we have to be honest: that was the most fucked up play we’ve ever seen. People walking in slow motion; the prophet Iokanaan with his sudden exclamations—Wikipedia explains this is John the Baptist; and not understanding the plot for most of the show. (You are always looking at her. You look at her too much.) Maybe if we’ll have seen it a few more times we’d have a different opinion. Maybe if we actually read the original play we’ll find that good ol’ Oscar was enjoying some old-fashioned recreational drugs at the time. (It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen.)

But, we don’t regret going to the show. I’d go see it again, actually. (You must not look at her. You look too much at her.) It was definitely a new experience.

My obsessive archiving of documents related to my contract software engineering work has paid off. Yesterday a representative of the Revenue Commissioners (Ireland’s IRS) arrived to perform the audit of our 2004 tax return. Also arriving was our accountant from Browne & Murphy, the firm in Dublin which we started using a long time ago. (I find the Irish tax system quite intimidating.)

Despite my ongoing worries, it was all pretty survivable. Since I’d made sure to keep all of my invoices, bank statements, etc, the agent of the Revenue Commissioners was able to do everything pretty quickly. She had a bunch of questions to run through, then our accountant, Elana, and myself sat in the livingroom enjoying idle chatter while the books were being reviewed. The accountant had put together an awesome color-tabbed booklet of all of our accounts, and even had a great spreadsheet of our various bank transactions throughout the year. We got to find out how much we spent at Mitchell & Son on wine that year. Mmmmmmm, Pinot… 😉

Fingers crossed we don’t enjoy this experience again for a while.

Patrick did a couple of amazing examples of what makes him a pretty amazing big brother to two-month old Eoin.

We were getting ourselves together for a journey up to Blackrock to go shopping at the supermarket (SuperQuinn, better in so many ways than the Tesco alternative in Dun Laoghaire). I was adjusting Eoin’s car seat with its owner sitting in the pram doing a bit of fuss. Without saying a word, Patrick went over to him and started pushing the pram in circles helping calm down Eoin while I was finishing. I came out of the car and Patrick pushed the pram over to me, delivering the focus of his care.

Later, while driving home, Eoin started doing a good old cry. Patrick announced, “Tears!” Elana and I started offering reassuring comments to try to calm Eoin down a bit, and Patrick reassured us, “Don’t worry about him.  Don’t worry about him—when we get home I’ll wipe his cheeks.”

Oh my GOD, how can I put words to how much I adore him in moments like these.

Elana was going out for a while. I was in the kitchen and told her I’d be getting Patrick’s breakfast together and then feed Eoin with the recently-expressed bottle that was in the fridge. Patrick overheard the conversation from the livingroom.

“Dad, how can you feed him? We don’t have (some garbled words).”

“We don’t have what?” I asked, almost knowing the answer—almost.

“But we don’t have any lungs, so we can’t feed him; only moms can! They have lungs.”

“Lungs?”

He responded with his very declarative, “Yes!”

Ok, today we’re explaining breasts. What’s next?

P had a classmate over for the afternoon to play. During a bit of lunch, they had wide and varied conversation topics. At one point, the focus turned to an interesting debate.

“There was a spider in our bathroom, but now it’s gone,” P informed his friend.

“I don’t like spiders,” the friend responded.

“But your mom likes to eat spiders!” Patrick declared.

“No, I think it was your mom,” his friend replied.

“I’m serious. Your mom ate them, you told me.”

“Oh yeah,” his friend admitted. For only a moment. “No, actually, I think it was yours. But watch what this spoon can do!”

And they composed music with their bowls of chicken salad.

Today in the post we received a letter from the Revenue Commissioners letting us know that we’ve been selected for a Revenue audit for 2004. Gulp. Luckily we’ve got great accountants in Dublin who’re about to get the three file folders’ worth of stuff I kept, and they can go back over everything to make sure it all adds up. I guess this is an event that has to happen in your life—but I could sure do without it.

About a year ago we got a copy of Ten Little Dinosaurs by Pattie Schnetzler (and cool illustrations by Jim Harris). It flows really well, and gives some fun words to pronounce:

Ten little dinosaurs bouncing on the bed,
Pachycephalosaurus fell off and broke his head.
Mama called the doctor and the doctor said,
“No more boneheads bouncing on the bed.”

It’s been used as a bed-time story (or any-other-time story) quite a few times since we got it.

This morning as a way to pass time before leaving for school, he opened up a coloring book and his case of crayons, pencils, and markers. Looking for a page not yet completed, he stopped on one page and asked me, “Dad, why does the pterodactyl have tiny feet?”
Wow, he remembered it! I wonder if he’ll get his PhD and live in New York City with other 20–30 year-olds? 🙂