The Origin of the Child Leash

Seems to be quite the hot topic with a lot of parents. To leash, or not to leash. Fuck’s sake, some kids I see running wild could also use a matching mussel, perhaps Hello Kitty will bring out a range for Christmas this year. One can only hope.

In all seriousness, I am not a fan of the leash. I don’t even really like to tether the dog, but have no choice as she isn’t quite as up on the English language as our 4 year old human.

After reading some rant today on Facebook about a child of a leash I got to thinking about the lighter side of child abuse. One of the posts was carrying on about some old lady pulling a kid along like it was a resentful pug unwilling to take a bath. Disgusting to say the least. Another post started raving on about how we have not needed leashes for children in the past, so why all of a sudden do we need them now.

Hold that thought….. Have you ever asked yourself the question: What is the origin of the child leash?……

If not then never mind, I did all the work for you. Turns out there is actually some kind of circa 1990 style HTML homage to the history of restraining your toddlers. From what I have determined, this whole leash business started early in the 17th century, perhaps late 16th century. (Although this website makes note of telling us they have found no evidence in the 16th century yet).

Take a look at this baby. It is a painting of a young Louis XV with a child leash on. I highly doubt the leash is of any consequence that young Louis pictured here would turn out to be
known as Louis the Beloved, but perhaps being restricted to a one meter radius around his caregiver  fostered a sense of empathy.

Hell, good enough for the French, good enough for… ummm…. Just don’t bind your child folks, it isn’t a dog.

Oh yeah, after almost a year without so much as a whisper on the blog, I am back. 🙂

Christians Against Dinosaurs

Poor T-Rex can’t catch a break. bastardised for his taste in food, given small, useless arms and now being attacked by Christianity.

Yep, this exists. There is also a Facebook page called ‘Christians Against Dinosaurs.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. Check this link too for a best-of collection. 🙂

Last night, my partner showed me a post from a concerned mother ranting about the impact dinosaurs are having on her children. Dinosaurs are evil, apparently.

So, true to Christian form, she burned her children’s dinosaur toys at the stake. Well, stake not included, but you get the idea. She burned them good and proper. Need to make sure they don’t come back to life right, a dinosaur zombie apocalypse is the last thing we need. Better pray on that tonight.

In all honesty, I apologise to any of you who are religious, I don’t mean to offend you. But seriously, what did dinosaurs ever do to Jesus? Or is ‘dinosaur’ really a codename for Jews?

Either way, wow, there are people out there who debate the existence of dinosaurs. Fuck man, to quote the late great Bill Hicks, ‘I think you were put here to test my faith dude.’

You may also be happy to know, like I was, that there is a somewhat dinosaur revolution going on against their oppressors. Another Facebook group exists, ‘Dinosaurs Against Christianity.’ I am now a member of it to show my support for the T-Rex’s noble cause. That is, the right to be recognised as a legitimate part of history… Just like Jesus is… Umm no, sorry bad joke.

To all the dinosaur skeptics out there, let me make one thing clear. There is NOTHING in the Bible that says Jesus WAS NOT a raptor. Nothing, not one piece of evidence. He may very well have been a raptor, or maybe a T-Rex. Or maybe just a religious allegory for the ‘sun’. Who knows. Just throwing it out there.

Viva La Dinosaur’!!!

Weed could be Legal in NSW soon

It probably comes as no surprise, but i have smoked my fair share of pot in my time. As a teenager, and up until i was around 24, i smoked daily. I was not a lazy, sleepy stoner, i went about my life as any other person would. I was just slightly high all the time.

It probably comes as no surprise, that i support legalisation of marijuana in Australia. In light of recent changes in state politics in NSW, the new Labor Leader, Luke Foley, is a big supporter for legalisation for medical purposes. About fucking time. NSW could become the first state in Australia for legalised weed. Given, it is decriminalised in the ACT, but this is a big step. I for one, am a little excited.

I know what you may be thinking, ‘of course the stoner supports legalisation’…. Well, i dont smoke anymore, i havent smoked in 5 years. Not totally true, if a joint was being passed around, and came my way, i would still have a toke. Anyway, i would just like to say i totally support it, and i have what i consider a legitimate reason to do so.

A few years ago my mother lost a short battle with cancer. She had an extremely rare, extremely aggressive form of cancer, in which she was never fully diagnosed with a particular ‘type’. To give you an indication of just how aggressive this fucker was, here is a brief explanation.

When my friend died, my mother decided to take leave and fly up to my house to be with me. She was working fulltime in a mining industry. She spent the next 2 weeks at my house, a few times she spoke about her current health. Then one morning, i got up and she told me she was going to check herself into hospital, just to make sure she was ok. The next day, an oncologist tells me she has cancer, but it should be ok, early enough to deal with it. A few little dots on her kidney is all they could see, bit of kemo and she would be good again.

Not the worst news ever, but ok. So i decided that she would stay with me during this time. About a week later, she goes back in. This time, something had changed. They call me and say they are now doing a biopsy on her lung. Shit, the fuck?

In that one week, the cancer has spread from being a dot no bigger than my fingernail, to full-blown, aggressive, malignant cancer. They do their tests, and she comes back home with some endone and other meds.

I was back at work at this stage. I went one morning after checking on her before i left. I got home for lunch to find her on the ground in a pool of dried blood, big cut on her head. Ambulance takes us to hospital.

Cancer moved to her brain and bones. Curative medicine had failed her. I called my brother, and he came up to spend the last few weeks with her, we cared for her full-time from home until we were unable to do so.

She died in hospice on 30/10/2013 at 55 years of age.

It took only 5 or so weeks to take her.

I support legalisation because she got to a point where her pain medication was being rejected by her body. Her liver and kidneys were in such a state that they could no longer handle opiate based pain medication. One of the oncologists asked me at that point if i smoked, and said if she could prescribe it, she would.

I know the subject of legalisation is a little tabu, but i would like to know your thoughts on the topic too, please share below. 🙂

Fight Club – What I have learnt without having a full blown personality complex

Something has changed in me. I am still unsure what it is exactly, or to what ends it will take me. One thing is for sure, life isn’t the same anymore.

For those that have read my post about some sad events in my life, i guess this is all to be expected. I am a Business Analyst by trade. Or at least, i was… Now i am simply showing up to work pretending to be one.

I have had enough. I really don’t care anymore. I think my current mood is akin to that of the protagonist in Fight Club. See, i seemingly had it all, a well paying job, a happy family, enough freedom to do as i pleased, within reason.

Then all that happened. I took six months off from work and the world. I drank a lot, i smoked a lot. You know what, i also LIVED a lot. If you put aside the alcohol abuse, i had a really great time spending time with my loved ones and getting more engaged with my life, and theirs, ours even.

Then i started a new job, my current one. Once again, i am a BA. But i am no longer the young, motivated, innovative person i once was. I have lost my passion for it. It isn’t like i am not capable, i just don’t care. I see no value in what i am doing, it gives me no satisfaction to be working again.

Don’t get me wrong, i am not about to stage a claim for a disability pension by any means. I intend to work.

I had an interview over my lunch break. At a supermarket of all things. Doing their invoices and crap, mind numbing data entry. You know what, i would rather do that. The interviewers were almost scared of me. After i explained to them that i have not worked with such a bunch of snobby, rich wankers in my life, they laughed. I explained i was fully aware i’d be taking a huge pay cut, but i am happy with that.

It means no late night phone calls, no trips away, no wearing a fucking tie to work.

I crunched some numbers recently, and realised that i don’t need this job. I don’t need to sit in an office making money for my boss so she can pay off her second tennis court.

Fuck it. I’m out. My life is more important to me than tangible assets and money. I was once a dread locked hippy with nothing more than a backpack. What the fuck am i doing wearing a tie?!?!?!

Yes, i’m ranting. I apologise. But really, i ask myself now, what is more important.

I have my answer. What is yours?

The Samoyed – awesome dog, but is it the right one for you?

We get a lot of people asking us about our puppy. Whenever we take her out somewhere, she is met with hordes of kids wanting to pat her, and adults treating her like she is a new-born baby. Given, she is fucking adorable, and has the most lovely nature ever. But, there is a lot to owning a Samoyed, as i have come to learn. If you are thinking about getting a Samoyed, please do lots of research. I hope you find this post useful too, but please i cant stress enough that these dogs are a lot of work, and you need to understand that. Very rewarding for the right family though. 🙂

My partner and i have always been animal lovers. In a strange and unfortunate turn of events, she became allergic to cats and dogs after having our little boy. News to me, i didn’t even know that could happen, apparently it can.

Anyway, we spent months looking online at various dog breeds that are good for allergies. Little fucking yippy dogs and hairless Montgomery Burns looking things, all of them. My apologies to any of you who like these dogs. But, they are not for us. I grew up with a Rottweiler and a Rhodesian Ridgeback, both large dogs, and she grew up with a Rotty and a Red Cattle Dog. Suffice to say, a little yipper was out.

Then we came across the Samoyed. These dogs are fucking beautiful in my opinion, just look at them. All majestic looking and shit, and a medium-sized dog. Ok, let’s do some research shall we. They also produce a surprisingly low amount of dander, which is the allergen in dogs/cats. We also sourced a local person in town with a Samoyed for my partner to meet and play with, just to be sure. Well, all good.

Looking online, there is always a few things that come up consistently about the Sammy:

1. Grooming
2. Barking
3. People Loving
4. Training
5. Grooming

Yes, there are a few other, more specific things you need to look into such as hip dysplasia, and a genetic disease they are prone to called, Samoyed hereditary glomerulopathy, which kills them after about a year old. However, these can be mitigated and avoided by going to a good breeder.

1 / 4 / 5. Grooming
Ok, i will start with the grooming. As you can see, these beasts are very, very fluffy. They have a double coat of fur which insulates them from the cold of Siberia, where they originate, and also the heat. If you live in a hot climate like us however, make sure you give them plenty of shade and water as overheating can happen.

Anyway, like i said, double coat, grooming and such. Our pup is now about six months old. She is not fully grown just yet. At the moment, i spend around half an hour each night giving her a brush. Not so bad right?

Actually, every other night (about three times a week), she also gets a good going over with a steel toothed comb. This session generally takes about an hour. We the Samoyed is shedding its undercoat, like has just happened with Zelda, the combing can take about two hours. That’s right, two hours, three times a week, a brush every other day. AND SHE LIVES INSIDE MOST OF THE TIME!

Now, aside from that, there is the bath. Oh the bath and how she hates it. As Zelda lives inside, we get away with a bath once a month. Luckily, the Samoyed does not really have that ‘dog’ smell. True, no shit. Anyway, a bath is quite an ordeal, not only for me, but for her too. I will cover it in the below steps for you:

i) Brush and comb. Yep, you know that two hour comb, you need to do it now
ii) Bath. I throw her into our bathtub with some warm water and wool wash liquid mixed in. Then use a bucket and some doggy shampoo. To actually get down into her fur you really need to scrub. Who needs a gym?
iii) Blow dry. For fucks sake, you are kidding right? Nope. Sadly, not. She then NEEDS to be blow dried. If not, the fur will mat up and she will be sporting dread locks for life
iv) Brush. I should really comb her too, but fuck it. A brush will do

That’s the bath. It usually takes the best part of a weekend morning to do it. On a good note, you would be surprised to know that the white fur does not get ‘dirty’ as such. It repels dirt and will remain mostly white for a month or so, which is good.

2. Barking
The Samoyed is well-known for its vocal range. No shit, they make all sorts of weird and wonderful sounds! 🙂 But, the downside is they can become nuisance barkers. This needs to be tackled very early on as part of training. Our approach was to train her to ‘speak’ on command. She will still make her sounds and all that, which we love, but it is not an issue. Be warned, you MUST KEEP AN EYE ON THIS.

3. People Loving
Dear god, these dogs love people. This was one of the deciding factors for us, seeing YouTube clips of kids pulling at them and crawling over them, most dogs would hate it. But the Sammy loves it, welcomes it even. We can very comfortably leave Zelda and our little guy alone to play with no concern for either of their well-being. She is just a lovely thing, will not ever hurt him. He has punched, kicked, pulled her hair, tail, ears, and even wrapped an elastic band around her snout to stop her from barking. This was met with nothing but love from Zelda. Of course, we had to scold the toddler though..

There is a downside though. Samoyeds are prone to separation anxiety. They can get very lonely and destructive if left alone consistently, and for long periods of time. If you can’t be around them much, the Sammy is not for you. That said, with some training, you can leave them be for hours at a time with little to no issue.

If you want a guard dog, forget it. These things love everybody, i mean everybody.

4. Training
We read a lot online about the importance of formal puppy obedience training. So much so as we booked her in, but as fate would have it, that afternoon we couldn’t go as we had other more pressing issues to attend to. We have still not sent her, and won’t now.

Given, we are dog people, and know how to train a dog. This is not easy with a Sammy though. They are very intelligent dogs, and will try to excerpt their dominance over you while young. You need to make sure they understand where they sit in the pack, and who the leader/s are. Your training also needs to be modified. They need to be constantly challenged, or they will lose interest quickly after picking something up. We had this issue with ‘lay down’, had to change approach, too much to tell. Send me a message if you want the details.

With patience and time, they will become very loyal and obedient dogs. Zelda is lovely, one word commands, all the time. She does have the attitude of a pre-teen girl though, and will ‘grumble’ at you if she does not want to do something. Very cute and funny i think, good to have some personality. 🙂

Three of the best (or worst) Unfortunate wedding names

I had to share these….. Wang-Holder? Oh please stop, i can’t, it hurts….

1. Mr. & Mrs. Traylor-Hooker

2. Mr. & Mrs. Wang-Holder

3. Mr. & Mrs. Kuntz-Dick

Online Dating – ‘Oh no, i have become one of those people….’

I am proud to say i have been happily unmarried for a few years now. However, i am not so proud to admit, i met my partner in an online chatroom, full of trolls and other strange internet dwellers.

Sadly, i have become one of those people…..

Yes me, i was a chatroom regular on and off for the best part of ten years. It was my guilty pleasure, my escape from my parents, my other, anonymous life. One day, those worlds collided, and i have never been happier.

As some of you may have read in a previous post, i lost a close friend and work colleague of four years to a crocodile attack. Click this link to read the article about it by SMH. Needless to say, it was a horrible, difficult period in my life. Shortly after this event occurred, i also lost my mother suddenly to a super aggressive, still undiagnosed form of cancer.

Anyway, enough on that for now. So, back to the story.

As i said, i had been chatting for a long time. And like me, there were several others that frequented societies online dive to cure their hunger for something other than bad TV and reading. I had ‘known’ my future partner for many many years. For a little under a year at that stage, we had even been talking on the phone for a laugh. Nothing creepy or dirty, we just enjoyed each others words and thoughts. We shared lots of interests, it was all good fun. A sneaky bonus was, she is also quite attractive.. 🙂

I told her one night, so i am off to a friends birthday this weekend, should be fun. Explained where we were going etc.

Then, that happened.

Against my wishes, and also her family and friends wishes, she got on a plane and flew across three states to be with me through the ordeal. What an amazing person. But, what the fuck just happened, my online chat friend has come to my aid in my time of greatest need, although we have never met before. This was crazy.

After several phone calls from her understandably concern father, sister and grandfather (even coping the stereotypical ‘what if you are an axe murderer?’ stuff), she was here…

Well, some time has passed since then. I now joke with her father and grandfather about how to best sharpen an axe.

Yes, under possibly the most extreme circumstances, and the weirdest of chance encounters, i have met the love of my life, and i have never been happier. I have a lovely family, kid, dog and bird! 🙂

Do i suggest online dating? Hell no, but it worked for me, kind of.

What are your thoughts about online dating? I would love to hear your experiences with it. 🙂

Give a Gift to a Total Stranger Through Reddit

My partner and I have been on RedditGifts for quite some time. There is something nice about sending a gift to a total stranger, also receiving one in return. Below post taken from Boston.com, link at the end. You should join up for the Christmas exchange and become part of a Guiness World Record! 🙂

The best way to spread Christmas cheer is Redditing gifts for those far and near!

Reddit is bringing back its annual Secret Santa program, and if you’re interested, the concept couldn’t be simpler: start a profile, fill out your likes and dislikes, get matched up with another Redditor and buy your new stranger friend a present based on their interests. Aside from the purchase of a gift, participation is free.

As of Nov. 20, over 150,800 santas were signed up for this year’s swap, spanning across 175 countries.

This giant online gift exchange started in 2009, but rapidly grew in popularity each year. In 2013, over 85,000 people across over 120 countries came together to break the Guinness World Record for the largest Secret Santa gift exchange. It was the third year in a row that Reddit broke the record, according to Guinness.

And it’s not just a faceless sea of anonymous Redditors: During last year’s Reddit Secret Santa, Bill Gates gave a teenage girl a stuffed-animal cow and a certificate showing that an actual cow had been given to an impoverished family in her honor, through Heifer International.

Other notable Santas include Arnold Schwarzenegger, Shaquille O’Neal, and evenPee-Wee Herman.

Sign up opened on November 2 and ends on December 1.

By Meagan McGinnes

Boston.com Staff

Taken from here: http://www.boston.com/entertainment/celebrity/2014/11/20/give-gift-total-stranger-through-reddit/cHz8i3EFGxiyvG6hgJ8YSL/story.html

A Politically Correct Happy Holidays Greeting

I knocked this up out of boredom last Christmas. Enjoy.

Please accept with no obligation, either expressed or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the summer solstice holiday, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious/secular persuasion of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

Furthermore to this, I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, medically-uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2015, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make Australia great (not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only great country in the southern/northern/other hemispheres), and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Meet Zelda, our Samoyed Puppy

She gets all depressed when our little boy isn’t around. Here she is sitting on his chair looking all depressed…. No one to play with..

Had to take her to the Vet late last night. Bloddy thing has been burying bones for safe keeping. Only to return to them a week later when the meat is rotting. Poor fur baby has a tummy bug now.

She is a pain in the ass at times, and being a Samoyed, she is alot of work. But, it is all well worth it. 🙂