Things about The Peng Challenge Thread that I'll love to see in CMx2 WWII

[Stuka]

Do not bold the unworthy!

Emrys is far better alluded to in a script suited to his standing.

[Noba]

Do not bold the unworthy!

Emrys is far better alluded to in a script suited to his standing.

Or, in his case a script which reflects him laying around not even playing the game...

Noba.

[Noba]

Were you charged $5 a minute to talk to the nice lady?

Gee. They charge you that much. I thought you would be on discount rates by now !

Noba.

[Joe Shaw]

Gee. They charge you that much. I thought you would be on discount rates by now !

Noba.

Do they have a discounted program Noba? I ask because I imagine you'd know if anyone would. What do they call it, the Frequent Desire Club or somethine?

In any case I'm sure his time is maximized since the ladies have his credit card number memorized.

And Stuka I'm in full agreement as to the bolding but technically Michael is an Other Recognized and therefore is accorded some of the rights of a full member. It's not my decision, the Olde Ones were feeling particularly kind that day.

Joe

[Michael Emrys]

Gee. They charge you that much. I thought you would be on discount rates by now !

I think in stuka's case they simply hang up as soon as they hear his voice. No amount of money can persuade them to go through that again. Life is too short.

Michael

[Joe Shaw]

Welcome to the first in a series of your Beloved Justicar for Life of the Peng Challenge Thread's "The Rest of the Story"... today's installment comes from Australia, simply fill in the rest of the story:

The Australian city of Townsville is facing a drastic shortage of sperm, according to Australian media.

The shortage has got so bad that fertility clinics are instead paying up to $700 an ampule for American sperm, according to the Herald Sun.

In recent years clinics have struggled to get Aussie men to donate ...

because ________________________ .

(Remember lads, this is a family friendly thread ... the Addams Family perhaps but still)

Joe

[Michael Emrys]

You know, all they really need to do is the same thing they did during the war. Just bring in a few shiploads of US sailors and marines and let nature take its course. Gallons upon gallons...enough to make it through to the end of the century.

Michael

[Boo Radley]

... a few shiploads of US sailors ...

I was going to make a joke about 'common semen" bet decided against it.

[Boo Radley]

because...

They're too sheepish.

[Michael Emrys]

I was going to make a joke about 'common semen" bet decided against it.

Good choice. Even better would have been to refrain from telling us about it. Now we all know about you. Believe me, I really wish I could erase that memory.

Michael

[Boo Radley]

Now we all know about you.

Michael

Forcing you yet again to drop your present rank on the planetary food chain.

[dalem]

I can check the basement if they need. I've got jars of the stuff.

[Joe Shaw]

I can check the basement if they need. I've got jars of the stuff.

Along with the buried heads I presume ... I always wondered about you dalem ... all those guns and the tidy bookshelves, yeah it all adds up.

I suppose I should count myself lucky that I escaped from that one visit to your place.

Joe

[Boo Radley]

I can check the basement if they need. I've got jars of the stuff.

I just thought of about a half dozen things to say about this, but would you believe they're too gross for even this place?

[Michael Emrys]

I just thought of about a half dozen things to say about this, but would you believe they're too gross for even this place?

Yes.

Michael

[Seanachai]

Weeeellll...

I was just talking to Dalem on the phone, and he said to me:

"I'm like a lamb, trembling in the field, afraid of the wolves...and then I reach down for my drop piece..."

I think, perhaps, that Dalem has a less than perfect understanding of lambs.

[Seanachai]

Here's a Tale of Small Friends that I started a while back, and finished the other day. I call it: Tales of Small Friends: Movie Night, Robots and Pirates.

I dedicate it to Peng and Joe Shaw, who hate my Tales of Small Friends.

The other night my friends Jen & Chris had the opportunity for a night-out occasioned by the Oscar Awards. They had a chance to go drink champagne and eat shrimp at the house of a friend who was having an Academy Awards Party. And so, cue: Grandma Steve, Baby Sitter to the Stars!

Well, not as such, although Jen and Chris are, in fact, stars in my book. Oh, and as a side note, when they returned home, they told me that they got to watch the Oscars with someone who was actually in one of the movies up for awards. The Coen Brothers are Minnesota boys, right? And 'A Serious Man' was up for awards, right? Well, the woman who had a minor role as a secretary in that movie was at the Oscars party with them. I know, I know! The stars come out in Minnesota!

So, I arrived about 6 PM, and as is always the case when I babysit, we had cheese pizza. It's gotten to the point where when I show up to babysit, Smaller Nora shouts "Yay! We're having pizza!" Which is amusing given that I spend the entire dinner hour trying to get her to eat her pizza. I get her to the table, she eats two bites, and then, theatrically, she announces "Grandma Steve, I am TOO full". The next 50 minutes are spent telling her: 1) No, you are not full, eat your pizza 2) No, you do not get dessert unless you eat your pizza 3) Fine, go to the bathroom, but then come back and eat your pizza 4) No, we do not get to watch a movie until you eat some pizza 5) No, we cannot play until you've eaten your pizza 6) No, no one eats any chocolate, of any description, until you've eaten some pizza 7) No, I will not eat your pizza for you, I have my own pizza to eat 8) Stop doing that, please, and eat your pizza 9) I don't care if you don't want dessert anymore, you still have to eat more pizza 10) Look, you had better eat some pizza, or I'm going to call Mommy and tell her to come home, because you won't eat your (expletive thought, but not voiced) pizza! 11) I don't care how much it looks like the dogs need a hug, you better get back here, young lady, and eat this sodding pizza (expletive uttered, but they don't follow it).

I have become a past master at commanding, bullying and coaxing children into not starving. Small Emma, now quite the young lady, watches this with quiet amusement, unhelpful suggestions, and the odd helpful attempt to get her sister to eat pizza.

Eventually, after the labors of Hercules, enough pizza is eaten to maintain life for another day.

It needs, perhaps, to be admitted that even though the consumption of pizza is paltry, and sometimes insufficient, that dessert is still forthcoming. I would like to be one of those masterful, stern, brutal figures who laughs and says: "Haha! There will be no dessert! You haven't earned dessert!" But I'm not.

If the Bounty mission had been left up to Grandma Steve, they'd have never left Tahiti.

But, and I want to emphasize this, I work at getting the both of them, despite every attempt to the contrary, to eat at least a minimum amount of pizza. And, I succeed. Roughly speaking. Of course, within an hour, Smaller Nora looks at me and says: Grandma Steve, I am hungry! When I offer her some pizza, she says 'No'. So, usually I get her a banana, or some yogurt. Something that cannot be identified as 'more dessert'. Not directly. Hell, fruit, yogurt, it's all food. Silly little bugger.

But that's an ongoing struggle. This particular night, dinner goes pretty well. Emma eats her pizza, Nora is cajoled into eating her pizza. Pizza is eaten.

And, because Mom and Dad know that perhaps it's best to give Grandma Steve an easy assignment, they get to watch movies. Jen and Chris are pretty good at limiting the TV/Movie intake. But it's still cold outside, and the backyard is still full of dog sh- poop, so it's not yet time for playing outside in the evening. So, rather than have the two little demons run Grandma Steve ragged with one of their strange, kid's games (I could do a freaking doctoral thesis on kid's games: their strange, repetitive nature, their apparent similarity to stories/movies/tv shows that go off in directions that NO ONE understands, and the insistence on rules that change according to a formula that I am THIS CLOSE to quantifying...), so instead, I get the easy job of watching movies with them.

Easy. First, we race up to 'the third story', where the big screen tv, dvd player, etc. are. Grandma Steve, puffing and blowing like a walrus the whole way. Ah! But to be a 'movie night', we have to all CHANGE OUR CLOTHES! Well, not me. But everyone else gets into pajamas. Now, normally, this would be great. Everyone already in their pajamas. But it's still January, and the third story is probably about 55 degrees. And do Small Friends put on warm pajamas? Christ no! They put on something cute, like they're on a cruise of the South Pacific. They dance around like 'Fairy Princesses' in something you'd wear in July. Stern enjoinders to 'put on something warm, it's cold up on the third level' are ignored.

But, finally, after all the 'eat your dinner', pajama changes, impromptu games, bathroom breaks, etc., we're going to watch a Movie! This has all taken bloody hours! They're supposed to be in bed, by even the most lenient time schedule of an old man who is often up until 3 AM, by 9 PM.

And now we're going to watch a movie! But, and I know you're asking yourself this, which movie? That's easy. For Nora, who's going through a phase, it's the Disney version of 'Hercules'. For Emma, of course, it's a whole bunch of stuff. And the thing is, Emma is 6 1/2, and she definitely wants to be in charge. And, generally speaking, if it's down to her, her sister, and Grandma Steve, she is in charge. So, she wants to watch the 3D version of 'Coraline'. No prob. I love that movie.

And Emma can almost always talk her sister around to 'making the right choice'. What's hilarious is watching her give her sister a choice, and then, first, ignoring it, and then second, talking her sister around to it. I swear to the gods, this little girl should be our ambassador to the UN. For one thing, after a couple of years of this, Nora is no longer an easy sale. And the way that Emma goes about it is simply priceless. Let me give you a taste:

"Nora, Nora, do you want to watch 'Hercules', or do you want to watch 'Coraline'? In 3d, Nora, with the glasses and everything? (response "HERCULES!"). Okay, Nora, but do you want to watch Hercules, which we've watched a bunch of times lately, or do you want to watch 'Coraline'! Which is great! Remember how you like the part where XYZ happens?! (response "Hercules"). Okay. Okay. But Nora, do you want to watch 'Hercules', or do you want to watch 'Coraline', with me and Grandma Steve, and we'll put on the glasses and we'll be all on the couch together, and you know you like Coraline a lot, and we'll all be on the couch and watch 'Coraline' together. Is that what you want, Nora? (response 'yes?'). Okay, so we're going to watch 'Coraline', okay, Nora? (response 'HERCULES!'). NO! Nora, you just agreed we're going to watch 'Coraline', and we're all going to sit on the couch together, and you can sit next to Grandma Steve, and we're going to put on the 3d glasses, and we'll watch 'Coraline', right, Nora? (response "Hercules?"). No! Nora, we watched 'Hercules' last night, and it's my turn to pick, and you like 'Coraline', and we're all going to sit on the couch and you can sit next to Grandma Steve and we'll watch 'Coraline' with the 3d glasses, and it will be great, right? (response, somewhat quiet, "Ok").

It's a delightful combination of persuasion, wheedling, and bullying. So, we're going to watch 'Coraline' in 3d. And they get all set, in a room that's just above the temperature where you can see your breath, and they're dressed like freaking Tinkerbell, and Grandma Steve goes to put on the (by unanimous decision) 'Coraline'. In 3d.

But there's a problem. Daddy has routed the plugs on the Amazing Home Entertainment Center so that the Blu-Ray player isn't in the loop. And Grandma Steve usually takes a solid 5 minutes, even when everything is working as expected, to simply sort out the various remotes and devices to get ANYTHING to happen. And 'Coraline', in 3D, is only possible on the Blu-Ray player.

Have you ever fumbled around with 3-4 remote control devices, trying to get one of 4 possible devices (Cable TV, DVD player, Blu-ray player, Wii, or Weird Mystery Device) to work, while two small children dressed like fairy princesses at a slumber party, each wearing weird arsed, square-framed glasses with red and blue lenses watch you, increasingly impatient, and commanding you 'Grandma Steve, turn the movie on!'?

I thought not.

It is a humbling experience. Look, I've retrieved a single, lost file from the remote, virtual back-up drive for an entire office on an operating system that I had no comprehension of at all. I've set up stereo systems, trouble-shot hardware installations for friends, and fixed all the formulas in Excel for an office when I'd never even opened Excel before. But I couldn't get that movie to play, because the Blu-Ray player was out of the equation.

But it's way weird, to have two small girls looking at you with red and blue glasses on, and insisting that 'you're not doing it right'. And when I explained that 'Small Friends, we cannot watch that movie, because Daddy will need to make the Blu-Ray player work again', Emma told me: "Grandma Steve, you can do it. Just switch things around!"

And I told her "Honey, Grandma Steve cannot do it. I don't want to start pulling cords and swapping plugs, because I don't want to make Daddy spend most of tomorrow trying to get everything to work again if I get it wrong."

Worst Renfield EVER.

So, there's always the alternative. The regular DVD player is online. We could watch a different movie (response "HERCULES"!). Emma does NOT want to watch 'Hercules'. So, she resorts to the Great Stratagem. She runs and gets the 'Movie Drawing Box'. Which is a box filled with movie titles written on scraps of paper, and she lets Nora pick. But she reads the first title, and they both agree they don't want to watch it, so she draws another. And that one is terrible, so she draws another. She finally just goes through them until she gets one she thinks isn't too bad.

It's 'Zathura'. I've watched this movie with both of them before, but it's been a long time. So Emma decides that will be cool. But it's not necessarily a movie for a four year old, like Smaller Nora, because there's some scary parts. So she tells her sister 'Nora, you sit with Grandman Steve, who will protect you if it's scary, and if it's too scary, put your hand over your eyes.'

So, we put on the regular ole DVD version of 'Zathura'. And it's good. They're digging it, it's pretty good for adults, everyone is happy. And Small Emma, little girl in charge that she is, first takes away all the remote controls and puts them on the side table, and then turns off every light in the room 'so that it's more like a movie theater'.

Until the scene with the giant, malfunctioning robot (the 'broken robot', in the terminology of Small Friends). And when it appears, and attacks the kids, Nora budges up to me, and I can feel her trembling. And she says 'Grandma Steve, I do not like that robot!' And I tell her "Nora-gnu, we will beat that robot! It is okay!"

And that's fine, so far as it goes, because the robot, if you've ever seen it, plows into the fireplace, arms extended, and sags and stops. Which, as all adults know, is simply the prelude to what comes next: The robot comes back to life, pulls its arms out through the brick, and goes more berserk.

And Smaller Nora begins to scream. Piercingly, and repeatedly. This is not a little shriek of surprise. This is the kind of scream that runs right up your spine, and into your ears, and rushes to attach electrodes to that part of your brain that remembers being a monkey. A small child 'I'm unhappy and scared ****less' kind of scream that, if you heard it in another room, would make you pick up anything that could be used as a weapon and rush in to kill something, or be killed. And it keeps going on.

I swear by all the gods I rose 3 inches off the couch. And Emma starts shouting "Nora, cover your eyes! Grandma Steve, turn it off, turn it off!" And I am all but gibbering, because it's totally dark, and I'M shouting 'I CAN'T turn it off, Emma! What did you do with the remotes?! Turn on the lights!'

So, I've got a small, screaming child hanging on one arm, and I'm shouting at her 6 year old sister to find the damn light switch, and I'm flailing around with the other arm trying to grab the proper (out of 5, count them 5 freaking remotes; universal remote my arse), and I finally find the right remote and switch off the movie about the same time that Emma finally gets the table lamp on.

And then, we all just sit there, for a while, breathing. And Nora says: "I do not want to see that robot anymore". And no one can argue with that.

After we sat there for a while, the Small Friends were recovered enough to ask 'can we watch a Different Movie?' So we talked about it. And Emma suggested we watch the live action 'Peter Pan'. She said: "Do you want to watch Peter Pan, Nora? We watched that the other night, and you liked it. Should we watch that?"

Nora thought about it. I told her 'Nora, remember, there are pirates in it. Would you be scared about the pirates?'

And Nora thought about it, and she said 'We can watch Peter Pan. And if there are pirates, and they scare me, I will PUNCH them!'

Normally, I know my place as Grandma Steve, and I do not advocate punching, hitting, hair-pulling or any other acts of child violence. But I totally agreed with her.

"Yes, Nora. If the pirates try and scare us, we will punch the snot out of them!"

Mom and Dad came home, and found us ready to rip the lungs out of anyone who messed with us. It was pretty much past everyone's bedtime. But we were pretty pumped up. I'd have hated to be a pirate that showed up there that night.

[Mace]

You know, all they really need to do is the same thing they did during the war. Just bring in a few shiploads of US sailors and marines and let nature take its course. Gallons upon gallons...enough to make it through to the end of the century.

Wankers?....

[rune]

So Seanachai, you are now teaching the small ones to hate baseball players from Pittsburg? Carry on, Carry on...

Rune

[Boo Radley]

Here's a Tale of Small Friends that I started a while back, and finished the other day. I call it: Tales of Small Friends: Movie Night, Robots and Pirates.

I dedicate it to Peng and Joe Shaw, who hate my Tales of Small Friends.

I certainly don't hate your "Small Friends" tales, but I fervently hope to read one entitled, "A Tale of Small Friends and How They Went All 'Lord of the Flies' on Grandma Steve's Lily-White Arse".

Is that so wrong?

[Michael Emrys]

...but I fervently hope to read one entitled, "A Tale of Small Friends and How They Went All 'Lord of the Flies' on Grandma Steve's Lily-White Arse".

Is that so wrong?

Not at all. In fact, it is the one ray of light in this whole bedimmed debacle. The image of small children sawing off half-cooked bits of Stevie's carcass brings a kind of quiet joy to my heart.

Michael

[Joe Shaw]

Seanachai sayeth thusly ...

I dedicate it to Peng and Joe Shaw, who hate my Tales of Small Friends.

I don't hate the tales ... I hate YOU.

Joe

[Joe Shaw]

I've said it before and I'll say it again ... the Great Barrier Reef is to keep these freaks isolated from the rest of the world ...

And they didn't even mention the Platypus male with the deadly poisonous spine on one of it's hind feet.

Joe

[Boo Radley]

And they didn't even mention the Platypus male with the deadly poisonous spine on one of it's hind feet.

Joe

Wait a minute... I thought that was Stuka!

He's got hind feet, doesn't he?

[Patch]

Here's a Tale of Small Friends that I started a while back, and finished the other day. I call it: Tales of Small Friends: Movie Night, Robots and Pirates.

I dedicate it to Peng and Joe Shaw, who hate my Tales of Small Friends.

The other night my friends Jen & Chris had the opportunity for a night-out occasioned by the Oscar Awards. They had a chance to go drink champagne and eat shrimp at the house of a friend who was having an Academy Awards Party. And so, cue: Grandma Steve, Baby Sitter to the Stars!

Well, not as such, although Jen and Chris are, in fact, stars in my book. Oh, and as a side note, when they returned home, they told me that they got to watch the Oscars with someone who was actually in one of the movies up for awards. The Coen Brothers are Minnesota boys, right? And 'A Serious Man' was up for awards, right? Well, the woman who had a minor role as a secretary in that movie was at the Oscars party with them. I know, I know! The stars come out in Minnesota!

So, I arrived about 6 PM, and as is always the case when I babysit, we had cheese pizza. It's gotten to the point where when I show up to babysit, Smaller Nora shouts "Yay! We're having pizza!" Which is amusing given that I spend the entire dinner hour trying to get her to eat her pizza. I get her to the table, she eats two bites, and then, theatrically, she announces "Grandma Steve, I am TOO full". The next 50 minutes are spent telling her: 1) No, you are not full, eat your pizza 2) No, you do not get dessert unless you eat your pizza 3) Fine, go to the bathroom, but then come back and eat your pizza 4) No, we do not get to watch a movie until you eat some pizza 5) No, we cannot play until you've eaten your pizza 6) No, no one eats any chocolate, of any description, until you've eaten some pizza 7) No, I will not eat your pizza for you, I have my own pizza to eat 8) Stop doing that, please, and eat your pizza 9) I don't care if you don't want dessert anymore, you still have to eat more pizza 10) Look, you had better eat some pizza, or I'm going to call Mommy and tell her to come home, because you won't eat your (expletive thought, but not voiced) pizza! 11) I don't care how much it looks like the dogs need a hug, you better get back here, young lady, and eat this sodding pizza (expletive uttered, but they don't follow it).

I have become a past master at commanding, bullying and coaxing children into not starving. Small Emma, now quite the young lady, watches this with quiet amusement, unhelpful suggestions, and the odd helpful attempt to get her sister to eat pizza.

Eventually, after the labors of Hercules, enough pizza is eaten to maintain life for another day.

It needs, perhaps, to be admitted that even though the consumption of pizza is paltry, and sometimes insufficient, that dessert is still forthcoming. I would like to be one of those masterful, stern, brutal figures who laughs and says: "Haha! There will be no dessert! You haven't earned dessert!" But I'm not.

If the Bounty mission had been left up to Grandma Steve, they'd have never left Tahiti.

But, and I want to emphasize this, I work at getting the both of them, despite every attempt to the contrary, to eat at least a minimum amount of pizza. And, I succeed. Roughly speaking. Of course, within an hour, Smaller Nora looks at me and says: Grandma Steve, I am hungry! When I offer her some pizza, she says 'No'. So, usually I get her a banana, or some yogurt. Something that cannot be identified as 'more dessert'. Not directly. Hell, fruit, yogurt, it's all food. Silly little bugger.

But that's an ongoing struggle. This particular night, dinner goes pretty well. Emma eats her pizza, Nora is cajoled into eating her pizza. Pizza is eaten.

And, because Mom and Dad know that perhaps it's best to give Grandma Steve an easy assignment, they get to watch movies. Jen and Chris are pretty good at limiting the TV/Movie intake. But it's still cold outside, and the backyard is still full of dog sh- poop, so it's not yet time for playing outside in the evening. So, rather than have the two little demons run Grandma Steve ragged with one of their strange, kid's games (I could do a freaking doctoral thesis on kid's games: their strange, repetitive nature, their apparent similarity to stories/movies/tv shows that go off in directions that NO ONE understands, and the insistence on rules that change according to a formula that I am THIS CLOSE to quantifying...), so instead, I get the easy job of watching movies with them.

Easy. First, we race up to 'the third story', where the big screen tv, dvd player, etc. are. Grandma Steve, puffing and blowing like a walrus the whole way. Ah! But to be a 'movie night', we have to all CHANGE OUR CLOTHES! Well, not me. But everyone else gets into pajamas. Now, normally, this would be great. Everyone already in their pajamas. But it's still January, and the third story is probably about 55 degrees. And do Small Friends put on warm pajamas? Christ no! They put on something cute, like they're on a cruise of the South Pacific. They dance around like 'Fairy Princesses' in something you'd wear in July. Stern enjoinders to 'put on something warm, it's cold up on the third level' are ignored.

But, finally, after all the 'eat your dinner', pajama changes, impromptu games, bathroom breaks, etc., we're going to watch a Movie! This has all taken bloody hours! They're supposed to be in bed, by even the most lenient time schedule of an old man who is often up until 3 AM, by 9 PM.

And now we're going to watch a movie! But, and I know you're asking yourself this, which movie? That's easy. For Nora, who's going through a phase, it's the Disney version of 'Hercules'. For Emma, of course, it's a whole bunch of stuff. And the thing is, Emma is 6 1/2, and she definitely wants to be in charge. And, generally speaking, if it's down to her, her sister, and Grandma Steve, she is in charge. So, she wants to watch the 3D version of 'Coraline'. No prob. I love that movie.

And Emma can almost always talk her sister around to 'making the right choice'. What's hilarious is watching her give her sister a choice, and then, first, ignoring it, and then second, talking her sister around to it. I swear to the gods, this little girl should be our ambassador to the UN. For one thing, after a couple of years of this, Nora is no longer an easy sale. And the way that Emma goes about it is simply priceless. Let me give you a taste:

"Nora, Nora, do you want to watch 'Hercules', or do you want to watch 'Coraline'? In 3d, Nora, with the glasses and everything? (response "HERCULES!"). Okay, Nora, but do you want to watch Hercules, which we've watched a bunch of times lately, or do you want to watch 'Coraline'! Which is great! Remember how you like the part where XYZ happens?! (response "Hercules"). Okay. Okay. But Nora, do you want to watch 'Hercules', or do you want to watch 'Coraline', with me and Grandma Steve, and we'll put on the glasses and we'll be all on the couch together, and you know you like Coraline a lot, and we'll all be on the couch and watch 'Coraline' together. Is that what you want, Nora? (response 'yes?'). Okay, so we're going to watch 'Coraline', okay, Nora? (response 'HERCULES!'). NO! Nora, you just agreed we're going to watch 'Coraline', and we're all going to sit on the couch together, and you can sit next to Grandma Steve, and we're going to put on the 3d glasses, and we'll watch 'Coraline', right, Nora? (response "Hercules?"). No! Nora, we watched 'Hercules' last night, and it's my turn to pick, and you like 'Coraline', and we're all going to sit on the couch and you can sit next to Grandma Steve and we'll watch 'Coraline' with the 3d glasses, and it will be great, right? (response, somewhat quiet, "Ok").

It's a delightful combination of persuasion, wheedling, and bullying. So, we're going to watch 'Coraline' in 3d. And they get all set, in a room that's just above the temperature where you can see your breath, and they're dressed like freaking Tinkerbell, and Grandma Steve goes to put on the (by unanimous decision) 'Coraline'. In 3d.

But there's a problem. Daddy has routed the plugs on the Amazing Home Entertainment Center so that the Blu-Ray player isn't in the loop. And Grandma Steve usually takes a solid 5 minutes, even when everything is working as expected, to simply sort out the various remotes and devices to get ANYTHING to happen. And 'Coraline', in 3D, is only possible on the Blu-Ray player.

Have you ever fumbled around with 3-4 remote control devices, trying to get one of 4 possible devices (Cable TV, DVD player, Blu-ray player, Wii, or Weird Mystery Device) to work, while two small children dressed like fairy princesses at a slumber party, each wearing weird arsed, square-framed glasses with red and blue lenses watch you, increasingly impatient, and commanding you 'Grandma Steve, turn the movie on!'?

I thought not.

It is a humbling experience. Look, I've retrieved a single, lost file from the remote, virtual back-up drive for an entire office on an operating system that I had no comprehension of at all. I've set up stereo systems, trouble-shot hardware installations for friends, and fixed all the formulas in Excel for an office when I'd never even opened Excel before. But I couldn't get that movie to play, because the Blu-Ray player was out of the equation.

But it's way weird, to have two small girls looking at you with red and blue glasses on, and insisting that 'you're not doing it right'. And when I explained that 'Small Friends, we cannot watch that movie, because Daddy will need to make the Blu-Ray player work again', Emma told me: "Grandma Steve, you can do it. Just switch things around!"

And I told her "Honey, Grandma Steve cannot do it. I don't want to start pulling cords and swapping plugs, because I don't want to make Daddy spend most of tomorrow trying to get everything to work again if I get it wrong."

Worst Renfield EVER.

So, there's always the alternative. The regular DVD player is online. We could watch a different movie (response "HERCULES"!). Emma does NOT want to watch 'Hercules'. So, she resorts to the Great Stratagem. She runs and gets the 'Movie Drawing Box'. Which is a box filled with movie titles written on scraps of paper, and she lets Nora pick. But she reads the first title, and they both agree they don't want to watch it, so she draws another. And that one is terrible, so she draws another. She finally just goes through them until she gets one she thinks isn't too bad.

It's 'Zathura'. I've watched this movie with both of them before, but it's been a long time. So Emma decides that will be cool. But it's not necessarily a movie for a four year old, like Smaller Nora, because there's some scary parts. So she tells her sister 'Nora, you sit with Grandman Steve, who will protect you if it's scary, and if it's too scary, put your hand over your eyes.'

So, we put on the regular ole DVD version of 'Zathura'. And it's good. They're digging it, it's pretty good for adults, everyone is happy. And Small Emma, little girl in charge that she is, first takes away all the remote controls and puts them on the side table, and then turns off every light in the room 'so that it's more like a movie theater'.

Until the scene with the giant, malfunctioning robot (the 'broken robot', in the terminology of Small Friends). And when it appears, and attacks the kids, Nora budges up to me, and I can feel her trembling. And she says 'Grandma Steve, I do not like that robot!' And I tell her "Nora-gnu, we will beat that robot! It is okay!"

And that's fine, so far as it goes, because the robot, if you've ever seen it, plows into the fireplace, arms extended, and sags and stops. Which, as all adults know, is simply the prelude to what comes next: The robot comes back to life, pulls its arms out through the brick, and goes more berserk.

And Smaller Nora begins to scream. Piercingly, and repeatedly. This is not a little shriek of surprise. This is the kind of scream that runs right up your spine, and into your ears, and rushes to attach electrodes to that part of your brain that remembers being a monkey. A small child 'I'm unhappy and scared ****less' kind of scream that, if you heard it in another room, would make you pick up anything that could be used as a weapon and rush in to kill something, or be killed. And it keeps going on.

I swear by all the gods I rose 3 inches off the couch. And Emma starts shouting "Nora, cover your eyes! Grandma Steve, turn it off, turn it off!" And I am all but gibbering, because it's totally dark, and I'M shouting 'I CAN'T turn it off, Emma! What did you do with the remotes?! Turn on the lights!'

So, I've got a small, screaming child hanging on one arm, and I'm shouting at her 6 year old sister to find the damn light switch, and I'm flailing around with the other arm trying to grab the proper (out of 5, count them 5 freaking remotes; universal remote my arse), and I finally find the right remote and switch off the movie about the same time that Emma finally gets the table lamp on.

And then, we all just sit there, for a while, breathing. And Nora says: "I do not want to see that robot anymore". And no one can argue with that.

After we sat there for a while, the Small Friends were recovered enough to ask 'can we watch a Different Movie?' So we talked about it. And Emma suggested we watch the live action 'Peter Pan'. She said: "Do you want to watch Peter Pan, Nora? We watched that the other night, and you liked it. Should we watch that?"

Nora thought about it. I told her 'Nora, remember, there are pirates in it. Would you be scared about the pirates?'

And Nora thought about it, and she said 'We can watch Peter Pan. And if there are pirates, and they scare me, I will PUNCH them!'

Normally, I know my place as Grandma Steve, and I do not advocate punching, hitting, hair-pulling or any other acts of child violence. But I totally agreed with her.

"Yes, Nora. If the pirates try and scare us, we will punch the snot out of them!"

Mom and Dad came home, and found us ready to rip the lungs out of anyone who messed with us. It was pretty much past everyone's bedtime. But we were pretty pumped up. I'd have hated to be a pirate that showed up there that night.

That was a cute story, it made me laugh!

I like Small Friends stories.

So, you better dedicate the next one to me or I will punch you!