Lillysaurus puts the lotion..

Based on a true story.

Glasses, Macbook, and Lillysaurus

Based on true events.

Glasses?

Glasses! ^_^

...

MacBook?

MacBook! ^_^

Smash! Smash! Smash!!!!

Dear Laminator,

  I warned you...

  I warned you several times. . .

  You have one job. One simple job. It's bad enough that you're wildly inconsistent at your sole responsibility.

  Sometimes you like to be the burning laminator of doom. The plastic encased paper I feed you gets chewed up and spat out looking like those melting clocks in that Salvador Dali painting. That acrid stench of fried plastic in the air, my materials warped and suddenly very three-dimensional, I'm forced to wait for you to chill out...

This can't be good...

  Sometimes, lets face it, you just phone it in. I don't know if it's because all of our other laminator machines died last year and you know you're the only option I have; or maybe I was interrupting you from a nap; or you know I already blew the this year's budget on magic markers (again); or because I was critical of the anti-Semitic jokes you told at last year's Christmas party... but there are days when I'd get better results leaving my papers to bake in the heat of the sun than giving them to you. I could probably do a better job just breathing the papers, because when you don't even try my materials come out with so many air bubbles I'd be better off using it to wrap fine China. I can literally float my materials down the river and rats could use them as rafts.

You want me to laminate that? Phhffffttt... Whatever dude...

  Oh, and the noises you make. When you first came to us you made a nice little whirring sound. It was the closest thing to therapeutic that you'll find in a school that isn't a foot massage from the nurse. But now you choke and wheeze and make these strange grinding belches that make you sound like you're auditioning for the evil death contraption that James Bond has to escape from.

  But my biggest bone to pick with you is your ravenous appetite. Somedays you just binge eat on anything and everything I give you. The first time it happened I didn't know what to do. I gave you my paper and you ate it. I waited and waited for it to come out your other end, but all you expelled what the stink of burning and eventually some smoke. You have a button that says "release" so I pressed it and nothing happened. Just more burning smell and smoke. Finally, I realised I was going to have to go inside you to get my paper back.

FML...

  Of course your underside was labeled with a very clear sticker saying not to unscrew any of your screws. I'm sure I voided your warranty and possibly even violated the Federal do not remove tag if you had one, I didn't check. It took me a good fifteen minutes that first time to figure out where to put my screwdriver. It was painful for both of us, too, I know. I made so many mistakes, fumbling around, lost and confused. I didn't really know what I was looking at... But I popped your hood and eventually after burning my fingers a few times I found the still smoldering remains of my materials and extracted them.

Bad laminator! Bad!

  I closed you up, plugged you back in and you promptly ate the very next sheet I gave you, but I realised what was happening before it was too late and with all my strength I ripped the sheet back. It was quite the tug of war, but you are a laminator and I am a 70kg adult asian man.

  But I'm busy and you're sneaky. You'll obediently work and work and work until I let my guard down and then the minute my back is turned... nomnomnomnomnom!!!!!

  So it's come down to this. For some reason, whatever idiot designed you and slapped that "do not use a screwdriver to open me" on your bottom, decided that you needed eleventy million screws to keep you shut. I disagree. Breaking into my roommate's safe back in college was so much easier and faster than opening you. So now, every time you ruin something for me, every time I have to take you to the storage-room and sit on the concrete floor and tear you apart to rip out whatever mangled, melted, and burned remains are preventing you from continuing to do your primary (and sole) function, I will take one of your precious little screws from you. And NEVER give it back...

You're so screwed... 

  This is both a punishment for you and it will make it easier on me should you test me again. And it will continue to get easier and easier for me the more you materials you eat. When we get to the point where you are screwless, I'll feign ignorance and you will get replaced...

Regards,

Motnock...

Seriously?
So when laminator jams there's nothing we can do?
I'm not a genius,
but taking apart a laminator isn't exactly rocket science...

Fruit Striped Gum

Kids are wonderful and magical creatures. They soak in knowledge and new information like little sponges. They're as apt to accidentally say something oddly profound in their naïveté as they are to binge eat playdough when your back is turned.

Still healthier than a Twinkie...

The commercials that ran on the shows I used to watch were criminal. This was the 90's so each product usually had but a single commercial and each show only had a handful of sponsors, so you'd see the same commercials over and over and over again while you watched Tom and Jerry...

Those commercials preyed on the fact kids are attracted noise and bright colors. They bullied us into thinking we we couldn't possibly be the hippest cats around without their help. They lied to us, that happiness was only an Easy Bake Oven away. The biggest offender I can remember was Fruit Stripe Gum. 

Easily the hippest of the hip cats...

God I wanted Fruit Stripe Gum. I loved chewing gums, I listed it as one of my points of interest on MySpace right between boobs and that lie about reading Plato. But no matter how much I begged my mom she never bought it. She went on and on about the evils of sugar and how I'd lose all my teeth if I ate it. "But Mom! I argued. My teeth are already falling out! And you know what? I keep growing new ones like a frigging shark!" I begged and begged, but all I could do was imagine how much cooler I'd be, how much happier life would feel, how many more paint splattered zebras I'd've hung out with, if only I could get some Fruit Stripe Gum.

Perception.

I never got to eat Fruit Stripe Gum as a child, but I found some later in life in a gas station in the middle Kansas. I'm pretty sure it was the left over from the 90's which by the look of the place was the last time they had ordered any inventory. There was a stack of National Geographics behind the counter and they some how still stocked TAB and New Coke. I bought it out of nostalgia. 

Reality...

Oh Fruit Stripe Gum, you lying little bitch. There were no gaily painted zebras prancing about. My white shirt didn't change color, my black bow tie wasn't replaced with a red skinny tie... The flavor was an intense, but not really "fruity." While there were many different colored sticks of "fruit" gum you'd need a million extra taste buds to even come close to discerning any differences between the colors. It was like chewing on a fist full of Skittles, except Skittles don't lose their flavor seconds after hitting your tongue. 

The experience of Fruit Stripe Gum went from a shotgun blast of sugar in my mouth to spitting out something that was so devoid of anything remotely recognisable as taste that it made lima beans smell like gourmet dessert and cow stomach look like hickory smoked bacon.

It kind of made me hate my former self. I was so gullible and easy it was like selling candy to a baby.

Uh oh...

I was April

Growing up is confusing...

My mom was kind of a stick in the mud. She wanted to protect me from stuff for various (and often obvious) reasons. Sometimes it was pretty embarrassing. I remember the first time I played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with some kids from the neighborhood. There were four of us and when I asked which character I could be they gave me the rundown of the important characters in the show. I wasn't allowed to watch the show, but I was loath to let anyone know that. I had to pick my words carefully to keep my secret safe.

Motnock: Sooo... this is the 1st time I'm playing with you guys. You guys already picked your characters, great choices by the way... especially you Brian, Rafael sounds so smart! Anyway, who is it okay for me to play? I don't want to take any of your 2nd or 3rd favorite characters ya know.

Dan: Ummm... You could be Shredder! Or Splinter I guess.

Brian: Well... there is Donatello, too.

Kevin: You could just be a ninja! There's lots of ninjas!

Dan: (laughing) You could be April!

(Every one laughs, including me)

Shredder sounded pretty badass, but I was pretty sure he was the bad guy based on his name and I hated bad guys so there was no way I was going to be Shredder. I hated getting splinters and it actually happened a lot to me as a child, so Splinter was out of the question. Donatello, sounded kind of cool I guess, but Brian was one of those kids that was actually proud of the fact he occasionally dined on his own buggers, so I never really trusted him. And I didn't really want to be a nameless ninja, though I wasn't sure why we wanted to be turtles either, even if they were ninjas... I mean a turtle's most badass move in real-life is hiding until danger gets bored enough to go do something else...

Motnock: I guess I can be April.

I mean everyone laughed at that name, so I guessed that April was the plucky comedy relief. Plus my birthday was in April so I took that as a sign from the universe that day.

I was never invited to play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ever ever again in my life. The entire confusing day of playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I was trying to flesh out my April character through the subtle hints the boys gave me:

"You don't fight."
"You can ask for help."
"Order us a pizza."
"Write a newspaper."
"We're supposed to rescue you, but for some reason we don't really want to..."
"Go make out with a dude."
"Make us a sandwich."
"Wear this make-up."

My mother asked me how my day was when I got home.

Motnock: Great! We played Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! I was April.

Mom: Isn't April a girl's name?

Motnock: No! It's the name of a month! And the best newspaper writing pizza orderer in the world who's friends with giant shelled kung-fu reptiles!

Mom: No, son, April is a girl's name.

Motnock: Oh... it is?

Mom: Yes, dear.

Motnock: Well... I guess that kind of makes sense now... by the way, how do you make out with a dude? I didn't do that right at all apparently...

But my mom, many times over, made up for the 3 potential (slightly homophobic) friends I lost that day... But those are stories for another day...

My daughter the dinosaur...

We're near the end of the baby cycle right now it seems. At least for 1st babies. Most of the people around us, e.g. family, friends, loose acquaintances, have already had their first child. So we've been fortunate enough to have lots of baby stuff handed down to us.

Lilly was born large though... So a lot of the clothes that people gave us either fit for a few days after she was born or the stuff they gave her to wear when she was a year old she started to wear when she was three months old.

Around the time she got big enough to wear hoodies I learned that she doesn't like stuff covering her head. Pretty much every hoodie I put her in, as soon as the hood went up she started clawing at it trying to tear it off. If she's unable to remove her head from the hoodie in a reasonable amount of time, (about 3 seconds), then she'll pout and glare at me until I do it for her.

All except one...

Whenever I put her in her dinosaur hoodie she becomes kind of zen like calm for a few moments. Then she beings rampaging about making guttural growling noises, trying to chug baby lotion, and pulling off the dog's ears... I'd be concerned, but she pretty much does that all the time anyway... Plus, it's much funnier when she does all of that with a little green tail...

All those years playing with Photoshop have finally paid off...

Morning dino-attack!

Dinosaurs like going to restaurants...