Robot Killer!

"Daddy, what do you do at your new job?"

"I fight robots," I could tell them what I actually do, but that would be boring.

"Dad, you're gonna get killed!" GoofBoy, who has recently seen the Terminator movies, exclaimed - deeply concerned.

"I don't fight killer robots, I wouldn't have a chance. I fight workaday robots. Today I fought Wall-E."

"There really are robots like Wall-E?" GoofGirl asked excited.

"Not anymore, I smashed it into tinfoil with a sledgehammer."

GoofGirl went away upset. But the next day, the kids were back asking me what robots I fought.

"They built these special little drones designed to deliver a single flower. It's called the Butterfly. I knocked them out of the air with a baseball bat."

"Dad, you are a terrible person," GoofBoy said flatly.

Yet they kept asking.

I told them about a new robot vacuum cleaner that looked like a ballerina and danced around the room in beautiful unpredictable patterns and makes music instead of vacuum cleaner noises. I used a Nerf disc gun to destroy it.

"What robot did you fight today Daddy?"

"It was a really boring robot today. It was just a cognitive radio."

"How is a radio a robot?" GoofGirl asked.

"Well it is designed to switch places on the radio spectrum depending on the situation. So it senses the environment, processes the information, and takes action. By our working definition, that's a robot."

"That's a pretty boring robot. I'm sure it was a tough fight," GoofBoy said, sarcastically.

"Oh, it was! I had to tear it apart with my bare hands. And it kept playing music at me. When it blared Mumford and Sons I was pumped to wreck it. But then it switched to kids music, Laurie Berkner, The Wiggles... I was almost crying as I threw it to the floor and finally smashed it."

"Daddy, why is the government paying you to break robots?"

"Top secret, I can't tell you."

"If it were really secret you wouldn't be telling us about it."

Good point.

"OK, look, the robots have watched the Terminator movies as well. They aren't stupid. They know we'll be expecting this. So instead, what if they try something sneakier, will all the little robots doing little things to try to slowly get us to do what they want? We need to make sure we can still take care of them. In short, I'm doing it for you."

Inclusive Little Goofs

When GoofBoy came home from his first summer at Camp Ramah several years ago, one of the very first things he told us about was meeting and getting to know the kids in the special needs program. He relished his time with them. Many had limited vocabularies, but he appreciated how funny they could be given their limited tools to communicate.

Each year GoofBoy was a "buddy" to one kid. He took walks with him on Shabbat and visited with him regularly throughout his time at the camp. One year his buddy was there for eight weeks, but GoofBoy was only there for four. He was disconsolate when he learned GoofBoy was leaving. But GoofBoy introduced him to some of his friends who would be there all eight weeks and could keep him company.

GoofGirl also spent time with the kids in the special needs program. She mentioned visiting them to play games and to dance. She said not every kid in her bunk went out of their way to spend time with the special needs kids, but no one was mean to them - all the kids treated them with respect.

But this inclusive attitude wasn't learned at camp, just encouraged. The little Goofs brought it with them and, as always, I am very proud and touched by their deep kindness. (They are also great about visiting sick, elderly relatives and friends - no easy thing for children, or adults for that matter.)

One day during carpool we saw a social services bus in front of a house. A wheelchair-bound young man who we know from synagogue was being taken to the van. GoofBoy and Carpool Buddy enthusiastically exclaimed, "We know him from shul! So that's where he lives!"

Another time we were sitting at Panera's having lunch. A man sitting near us we gesticulating (a little) and muttering. Out of the corner of my eye I diagnosed him as having Tourette syndrome. In the car on the way home I asked if they had noticed him. They hadn't. I asked if it might have bothered them.

The boys answered in chorus, "No way! Why would it? There was a guy with Tourette on American Idol. He was awesome!"

As it happens, I have a pair of developmentally disabled cousins. They are in their 60s now. One is in a group home near us and comes to our synagogue. The little Goofs are always nice to them and happy to see them. They mention them proudly. My cousins have been told they are "uncles" and are very pleased with this.

This is all very different from when I was a kid. I don't remember us being particularly interested in special needs kids, and almost certainly not particularly nice or respectful.

This is different and different can be wonderful.

People with special needs face enormous challenges to living full lives. But the distances they have come have been enormous and the changing attitudes of today's kids hold promise for an even more inclusive future.

Under the Bus: Lessons on Horrible Humor

Once after buying something at CVS I made a donation with my purchase.

GoofBoy, observing this, said, "Dad, that was really great that you gave that money to kids with diabetes."

"Buddy, I gave it to help kids with diabetes. I wouldn't give it to the kids with diabetes, they'd just use it to buy candy."

GoofBoy laughed hard and then said, "Dad that's really horrible."

"But funny. Lots of things that are really funny are also really horrible. That's how humor works."

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Driving we like to put the GPS in other languages. For a while we had it set on German, which is fun because even if you don't understand a word, it is very insistent.

As I drove GoofBoy and his friends around to their practices, I translated the GPS.

Make a right in two minutes.Make a right now!You haf failed to follow instructions. U-turn immediately!U-turn! Schnell! You vill be late.Clearly you vill not follow ze instructions.Alternate route plotted.You vill take ze train. This train vill haf no stops!

GoofBoy laughed, and then said, wisely, "Dad, that's horrible."

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I came home from a meeting at the synagogue and observed, "Could we have one synagogue meeting in which someone didn't invoke the Holocaust?"

Note: if we ever really wanted to debunk Zionist conspiracy theories, we should just invite anti-Semites to a synagogue meeting. They will pretty quickly be convinced that Jews can't run anything or keep a secret.

"What was it this time?" MamaGoof asked.

In a bellowing old man voice I yelled, "No gefilte fish after Shabbos services? It's like the Holocaust!"

Everyone laughed, but GoofBoy, again the voice of reason, noted, "Dad, this is horrible."

"But funny," I said, "And you know why? Because there's no business like the Shoah business."

This quickly became a punchline around the house. "We're out of the good maple syrup? It's like the Holocaust!"

"Ten minutes waiting for the ATM? It's like the Holocaust!"

Another aside: So far I've made fun of diabetics, Germans, Jews, and the Holocaust. I hope any outraged comments (assuming I have any readers) are similarly balanced. Also, in fairness, I regularly threaten to sell my kids on the dark web and make fun of their friends mercilessly. I also do truly terrible things to the Spanish language.

It resonated. GoofGirl came home from school the other day and said, "A lot of kids in my class were complaining when the school ran out of their favorite juice box. And I was like, 'We're out of raspberry-lemonade? It's like the Holocaust!'"

Here I sat up, "Did you say this?"

"No," GoofGirl answered, "But I was thinking it."

"OK. Good. Because a lot of people will, as your brother says, think this is horrible. You will get into big trouble. And I will have to go to lots of boring meetings at school. No one wants this. So if you slip up and say something inappropriate - I'm throwing you under the bus."

"What does that mean?" the Little Goofs asked in unison.

"It means that I'll tell them you are out of control and should be sent to juvey."

Just so we're clear.

First Day Jitters

Lots of first day jitters around Goof Manor earlier this week. The little Goofs returned to school. They weren't worried about bullying since they go to a Jewish day school where the quality of bullying is definitely sub-par. Although there is occasional litigation.

The little Goofs primary worry was other kids in their classes who, by misbehavior, might distract them from focusing on their school work. Really, they were stressed about this.

I was pretty nervous though since I'm starting something new. FatherGoof has been accepted for a prestigious fellowship for brilliant scientists (despite the fact that yours truly is neither brilliant nor a scientist - apparently they have a quota to accept a certain number of middle-aged acerbic goofs to balance the brilliant young biochemists). Having made my own hours (i.e. worked from home while wearing sweatpants) for over a decade, having to go somewhere every day, I mean every single day, while wearing pants and a nice shirt, seems impossible. 

When will I work out, when will I blog? What's that tiny violin sound I hear?

I will be driving less carpool, which is - in a word - wonderful. The children of the Carpool Clan are pretty happy too. Carpool Mom, less so.

But I was pretty nervous. The fellowship includes an extensive orientation. Scientists can be pretty mean. I was afraid the big scientists would take my reactor core, leaving me with nothing but a middle school microscope for looking at slides of snot (remember those, they were pretty cool at the time - I thought I was seeing snot molecules.)

MamaGoof knowing how jittery I was kept tabs by text and email. GoofGirl was doing ok, in her Advisory Group (which used to be called Homeroom) she is in with an old friend. They used to design guillotines together, but now they are working on a laser cannon. (Does the school not know it is a terrible idea to put them together?)

GoofBoy had normal jitters, but things calmed down when they spent math discussing swords. I guess this is part of geometry?

But I was in trouble. When I got there it was just like I thought. No one would let me sit by their table.

I knew what I had to do, I saw it in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Here are the texts MamaGoof recieved.

So everyone had a good first day.

Dronies - A Dad Goes to BronyCon

As we were driving to Baltimore THE Harry Chapin song came on. The one that brings a tear and wave of regret to every parent: 

And the cats in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little boy blue and the man in the moon

When you comin' home, Dad, I don't know when

But we'll get together then

You know we'll have a good time then

Except for one thing, I was driving my daughter to BronyCon. I have NOTHING to apologize for. If my children don’t get the level of attention they want from me it is because they are insatiable timesucks - not because I ignore them.



BronyCon is probably pretty interesting. My daughter loves the edgy reboot of a once insipid animated series. For an animated kids show about magic ponies, My Little Pony is really good. There is a vast, fleshed out multi-verse, smart references to culture, and interesting characters. It is so good that “Cons” are held where people can dress up in costumes, make music inspired by the series, and talk endlessly about it. It is SO good that young men have taken to it and are fans (hence the appellation “brony” - bros who like My Little Pony.)

One’s first thought would have to be that these guys are maybe just a little off - but that is unfair. They may be weird - but hell so was I at their age (and probably still am). But there is an important distinction between weird and creepy. A distinction I’ve been trying to teach GoofGirl, with limited success.


I’ve enjoyed watching a lot of gender barriers shrink and fall. GoofGirl plays with Legos - I don’t remember any girls playing with Legos ever when I was kid (in fairness, I don’t remember a lot of girls.) I remember at some point in my 20s a friend of mine asking me, “When did it become ok to talk about Star Trek around women?” But it had and it was great!

I guess I’m a little worried that girls finally have this really cool thing, so naturally guys will jump all over it and make it their own. But I probably don’t need to worry too much. These girls (and women) aren’t exactly pushovers!

That being said BronyCon itself didn’t do much for yours truly. GoofGirl spent a day with some other girls, chaperoned by a friend (THANKS!). I joined on Sunday. I went to science fiction conventions as a kid, I know the drill. Panels, autographs, people in costumes, and an exhibit hall with a vast range of stuff to buy.

GoofGirl likes to shop, so we spent a LOT of time in the vendors hall as she agonized over what to buy. I put the kibosh on the $75 Princess Luna. Canny GoofGirl had shown me a $300 one and firmly declared she wasn’t interested before taking me to the one she wanted. Good try.

Sorry, but there are limits. I acquisced to a $12 Fluttershy needed to keep GoofGirl’s current Princess Luna company - although I think Fluttershy, who is very shy, is not such great company. (Wow - I’ve retained something from her hours of plot summaries - which are often longer than the actual show.)

My preferences are Pinkie Pie because she is easily identifiable and her name is alliterative. But I’ve come around to Apple Jack who runs an apple farm and brews cider. They pony world (Equestria) is not without merit.

We attended a panel about how to make your own pony plushies. GoofGirl was fascinated - I learned that the ears are harder than you'd think.



I was not alone, there was a fair spattering of middle-aged guys who were not bronies, gamely following their little girls around the conventions. We weren't really bronies - we were dronies.

DroneyCon

That's where the hip flask could come in handy. Or better, the next BronyCon could accommodate our needs and maybe set up a bar for us. If they played My Little Pony Episodes while we drank we could really get into it. Maybe, when the full sentiment and decency hit us, as we were deep in our cups of Applejack's handiwork. I have a vision of us drones huddling together, sobbing on behalf of Rarity or Rainbow Dash.

I can see our daughters finding us and nodding sadly and telling us, "Daddy, just because it is ok for boys to cry now doesn't mean they have to."

THUNDERSHIRT!!! or why MamaGoof dreads summer storms

Regular readers of this blog (assuming there are any) know that I fall in love with words and ascribe unique meanings to them that are not in accord with the general understanding of the word.

Recently, I have taken to the word "Thundershirt" which is a product intended to calm dogs, who tend to find thunder nerve-wracking. Here is a very good natured dog I know who finds thunder scary, but who is now finally able to chill during a summer storm.

While the reasoning part of my brain appreciates this, the dominant part of my brain envisioned a thunder shirt as something a mild-mannered copy editor at a trade magazine for insurance adjusters (that's a pretty specific back-story because I've been thinking about this a lot) might put on to become ThunderBoy!

ThunderBoy flies around, creating storms, saving people (possibly in trouble from the storm he caused, and of course fighting super-super-villians.

I saw a little boy running around his house yelling, "Thundershirt! BOOM! Thundershirt! BOOM!"

Gentle reader, you undoubtedly know what happened next... I became that little boy running around my house yelling, "Thundershirt! BOOM!"

Since I work alone at home a lot, I would also text this to MamaGoof - who was seriously considering getting an actual thunder shirt for people to perhaps calm me down.

Instead, she sent me some helpful videos and this graphic about thunder shirts so that I would be properly informed and hopefully lose interest.

This graphic on how to use a thunder shirt does not come with written instructions. So I've rectified the situation below.

1. Place THUNDERSHIRT!!! on dog. To make full use of THUNDERSHIRT!!! dog must be airborne.

2. To lift off, flap THUNDERSHIRT!!! wings vigorously.

3. To land, fold wings in.

4. To stop dog from flying around, place food directly in dog's mouth.

WARNING: For use with dogs only. DO NOT USE with other household pets. Especially cats. SERIOUSLY, do not use this product with cats. For other pets and children of all ages, see our Cloudburst line of products.