I wouldn't have thought I would need to explain this to people, but recently I had to deploy a fourth mobile phone to an individual; his fourth replacement in the space of a year.
In each case, he felt that it was only just a little liquid he'd spilled on his phone. By little, I'm assuming it was a large coffee.
I wish these incidents with electronics vs. the large coffee were more isolated, but it occurs with alarming frequency with far too many people I've worked with over the years. Given the amount I've witnessed in my tour of duty in IT, I can only imagine how many valuable electronic devices have been sacrificed to the java gods on an annual basis worldwide.
Now, normally I give a five minute spiel on why liquid is bad for electronics... but clearly this hasn't been taking much traction. I imagine what they hear is: "Blah, blah, blah coffee. Blah, blah, blah phone." So in an attempt to be more concise and hopefully drive the point home, I've recently adopted a new approach which is very brief and made up of two sentences: "Electronics are like gremlins. Don't get them wet... ever."
Swing and a miss.
"What's a gremlin?"
In each case, he felt that it was only just a little liquid he'd spilled on his phone. By little, I'm assuming it was a large coffee.
I wish these incidents with electronics vs. the large coffee were more isolated, but it occurs with alarming frequency with far too many people I've worked with over the years. Given the amount I've witnessed in my tour of duty in IT, I can only imagine how many valuable electronic devices have been sacrificed to the java gods on an annual basis worldwide.
Now, normally I give a five minute spiel on why liquid is bad for electronics... but clearly this hasn't been taking much traction. I imagine what they hear is: "Blah, blah, blah coffee. Blah, blah, blah phone." So in an attempt to be more concise and hopefully drive the point home, I've recently adopted a new approach which is very brief and made up of two sentences: "Electronics are like gremlins. Don't get them wet... ever."
Swing and a miss.
"What's a gremlin?"
***
I've recently begun my 8 month tour of duty parental leave.
To inaugurate the occasion, Iona has invented a new sound which we call: "Angry Dolphin". It is by far, the shrillest, loudest vocalization (and incidentally the most annoying) she's yet discovered. It can shatter glass within a radius of 50 yards, sets off all the neighbourhood dogs within two miles and vanquishes all hope to those unfortunate enough to hear it.
She's a smart kid and immediately determined that it is 80% more effective than her previous angry vocalization (Screeching Monkey) at getting us to do pretty much whatever she demands. Of course she uses it frequently.
Parenthood is of course a journey into the unknown and is a voyage of constant new discoveries. One of my recent revelations: babies are a lot like hand grenades. How you might ask?
To inaugurate the occasion, Iona has invented a new sound which we call: "Angry Dolphin". It is by far, the shrillest, loudest vocalization (and incidentally the most annoying) she's yet discovered. It can shatter glass within a radius of 50 yards, sets off all the neighbourhood dogs within two miles and vanquishes all hope to those unfortunate enough to hear it.
She's a smart kid and immediately determined that it is 80% more effective than her previous angry vocalization (Screeching Monkey) at getting us to do pretty much whatever she demands. Of course she uses it frequently.
Parenthood is of course a journey into the unknown and is a voyage of constant new discoveries. One of my recent revelations: babies are a lot like hand grenades. How you might ask?
- Like hand grenades, babies are unstable. The slightest jarring will set them off.
- Throw an unhappy baby that is about to go off into the middle of a group of people and watch with amusement as they react as though a hand grenade has landed among them. Most will dive for cover and beat a hasty retreat. Infrequently someone silly enough or someone desiring to earn more honour will throw themselves on top of the smoldering device (and attempt to comfort the exploding child). Their is no honour, only a slow painful demise as they realize the "owners" of the grenade have decided to take an overdue break.
- A babies dummy (or soother) is much like a grenade pin. Often she will be sleeping and the pin will slide out of her mouth. It is then a race against time to replace the pin before she detonates.
***
We've received many wonderful gifts since the birth of our child, but one of my favourites is a puppet that causes me to wonder at the state of mind that created it.
It's such a innocent looking thing, yet so wonderfully deranged at the same time. Its potential to cause joy is separated only by a hair's width from its potential to cause terror (particularly in the wrong hands). Naturally I love it.. It's the sort of thing I'd make if I were lucky enough to be designing toys. It is the Bunny Hydra:
It's such a innocent looking thing, yet so wonderfully deranged at the same time. Its potential to cause joy is separated only by a hair's width from its potential to cause terror (particularly in the wrong hands). Naturally I love it.. It's the sort of thing I'd make if I were lucky enough to be designing toys. It is the Bunny Hydra:
Iona is often happily entertained by me waggling the Bunny Hydra's heads a few inches from her face while speaking in tongues in a low guttural throaty voice that goes something like this:
Glarghablagablarghablagahitlerblarghaglargasatanglarghablargha!
I think she must have my sense of humour.
When she's older I intend to tell her the terrifying tale of how the Bunny Hydra came to be. It involves how an Easter Bunny was captured by Nazis and experimented on during the Second World War. The resulting creation broke loose (and now being completely deranged and despising anything like the evil that mutated him) lurches around every Easter in search of bad children to slowly devour in the middle of the night...
Uh-oh. The pin fell out. Time to go.
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