Guess what I just discovered?
Ladies and gentlemen that concludes today’s enormous contribution to humanity.
Filed under nonsense
Recently I stumbled across another pointless gadget that I decided I wanted whilst looking at the London Design Museum awards. Admittedly I am not cool enough to actually regularly check design websites, I found it on the Guardian website.
The Little Printer
I found the Little Printer, a gadget so cute and cool I immediately wanted one but had absolutely no idea why. It’s a gizmo with no obvious use, something that does something quite fun but ultimately, in the age of immediate digital information, useless.
The Little Printer is basically a till receipt printer with a nice little smily face that prints little snippets of information that you subscribe to. The makers claim it is like a mini newspaper you personalise. The gizmo receives data wirelessly from the “Bridge” that is connected to your router. You subscribe to different things to be printed in your regular printouts that can be set as often as you want. You Subscribe to different publications, puzzles, news feeds and you can sync it with your diary, to do list and your contact’s birthdays. You can even send and receive personal messages to your Little Printer provided your friends have an account with BergCloud, the company’s website.
You have a cute little printer giving you fun little 2 inch long messages. Imagine a fleet of small printers all over the house. It’s a bit like that scene in Back to the Future 2 when “Your’e Fired!” gets printed on little printers in every room isn’t it?
So, we have established that I kinda want one, but I have no idea why. It’s pointless, a gimmick, a needless creator of waste paper at a time when the world is trying to become paperless.
Now we come to the really shocking part. These launched at £200 (US $259) they have now been reduced to £169 (US$219). Yes. I kid you not. I nearly swallowed my tounge! NZ$260 for …. a till receipt printer?!?? Whaaaaat??? Are you kidding me? I was expecting it to be say $30, $60at a real push. I can get a wireless 2 sided printer/fax/modem unit for less than one Little Printer that and I live in New Zealand where everything technological is astronomically expensive!
So, what do you think? An amazing innovation? A modern essential? Complete junk? I am really not sure. All I’m sure about is that it will have to get a whole lot cheaper if it is to succeed.
Filed under Nerd, Toys, Uncategorized
What on earth has just ht me? Where am I and what time is it? …. And how many days have I been wearing this T-Shirt for?
OH MY GOD! He weighs less than 4Kg, I can hold him in one arm, and he has completely taken over. Like all new parents we have had good days and very bad days. A screaming baby is bad enough, but when that screaming baby is YOUR screaming baby, and your biological imperative is to do everything you can to keep him safe and happy…. It’s hard. The Wife is finding it especially hard to tune out the noise. It drills into your head, in a way another baby’s crying doesn’t. I had heard about this phenomenon before but I am surprised at how strong it is.
Aother change is that I have become Dadzilla. My life perspective is now quite bizzare and polarised. My facebook feed is full of revolting offspring photos, all I talk about is The Boy, I am boring all within earshot with tales of my cute amazing offspring, despite the fact that he can do nothing and keeps us awake all night screaming. the number of conversations I have with The wife about breasts has increased exponentially, but not in a good way. I’ll spare you the whole breast feeding saga bu needless to say, lots of time and energy is being devoted to it.
I can now see how important that oxytocin I mentioned in my earlier post is. You immediately fall in love with them in the first few hours and that feeling and that cuteness is what keeps the little sod safe when he is screaming at you for no apparent reason at 3AM. On a more unpleasant note I can really see how hideous things befall the infants of agressive, maladjusted, inarticulate men.
Standing there at my wits end in the small hours of the morning, not knowing what on earth to do to settle this little guy who has taken over my life (in a good way) I had a thought. I manage cardiac arrests, I calmly deal with life threatening asthma attacks, I deal with people at trauma calls with bits of their face missing …… but it’s a healthy screaming baby that has reduced me almost to tears and made me feel a useless failure. I’m sure all you other parents out there will agree, your living room at 3am with an inexplicably screaming child is an unexpectedly dark and unpleasant place.
The “Healthy” thing is another problem. The worst thing I could possibly imagine at the moment would be for something bad to happen to The Boy. North Korea launching nuclear war would be nothing in comparison! Every time he coughs the over protective new parent in me twitches with anxiety. Every spot on his face, every time he doesn’t feed well, I am convinced he has some hideous problem. I am a classic case of a little knowledge being a very dangerous thing. I know virtually no paediatrics, I spent 6 weeks out of my depth on a paeds ward as a student and that is the sum total of my experience. Children are not just small adults from a medical perspective, but inevitably I worry and invent problems in my head. Is there such thing as “Hypochondria by proxy”?
Everybody you speak to has advice, all conflicting, all “the only way to do it”. In my experience in Medicine, if there are numerous strongly expressed opinions there are inevitably no right answers. I will just comfort myself with that thought as I slink off to address some more nappy issues.
The Boy is here! He arrived on the 4th weighing 8lb 4oz. He’s small, cute, cuddly and making his presence known. For someone who can’t yet control his facial muscles, let alone his hands he’s doing a very good job of controlling us! Already my days are pretty unrecognisable – hence the delay in posting.
As super proud parents do, we went for a newborn photoshoot at 10 days with a local photographer. In true nerd fashion we had seen her on facebook and it turned out she was in the next town to us. She really was superb and very slick. NZers in the Waikato should look her up!
His birth was an interesting process from many perspectives. I had to go from Doctor where I run situations to what amounted to Cheerleader, and it took some adjustment. I had to constantly remind myself I was The Wife’s husband and not her doctor. This was especially difficult as it was unfortunately quite a “medical birth” no waterbaths and whalesong here my friends! After various medications, an epidural and lots of pushing and some pulling he was out. Out and screaming.
Oxytocin – The “Hug Hormone”
The biologist side of me knows that I am designed to like my offspring. Oxytocin released by both of us when I hug my Little Man is there to help me bond with him and him to me. I am SUPPOSED to be smitten, to be instantly protective and adoring. I am an animal like all other mammals before me, I’m nothing special and these biological mind control tricks are as likely to work on me as they would on a dog or a badger.
I am so very happy though. It was magical, seeing my little man for the first time. Holding him and staring into his grey eyes as we studied each other for the first time will probably be one of the defining moments of my life. It is a bigger deal than any previous life event. the pride and happiness I felt at that moment was better than all my graduations, my wedding and pretty much anything else all combined, and yet ….. it’s nothing special, babies are born every minute of every day. I am not particularly clever or unusual in that my wife has had a baby. In the grand scheme of things – SO WHAT?
I know it’s only biology that makes me feel like this. Pure and simple. It’s only biology but it’s bloody awesome! I have never felt happier!
The big day is here!
Today we head into Mordor (the delivery suite is so called by us physicianly types in my hospital because it is a dark place full of enormous aggressive monsters screaming unintelligible obscenities) to evict The Boy. The induction starts at 2pm so I’ll be a Dad ….. soon.
Today marks a turning point in our lives, things will never be the same. There is probably no greater event in our whole lives than the birth of our fist child. Other events like graduations, first jobs and marriage are big but won’t result in such a dramatic change to the way we live and who we are. We get to tick a new box on forms and join a new demographic. I am honestly feeling relatively prepared, I think I have a realistic expectation of sleepless nights with highs and lows.
Some concerns remain. Who will he be? What if The Boy doesn’t like Star Wars? He might prefer Twilight! Or even worse, what if he thinks Science is “boring”?? Can you divorce your children?
Finally – you may be wondering what the hell I am doing messing around on a computer as The wife is wheeled into delivery suite. Am I crazy? Am I some uncaring evil deadbeat Dad ALREADY? No, I wrote this yesterday and set it up to be published today, remember I am nerdy not suicidal!
Filed under Baby, Birth, Dads, Uncategorized
1stly Plz xcuz Rnt.
I M Sic ov hvng 2 contnd wid stupd txt spk @ wrk. I wrk as a Dr @ hsptl n I h8 reading txt spk in notes. The new Drs kp sndng me mssgs in BS TXT Spk and Tks Ags 2 d-cfr. Drvs Me Nts
For heaven’s sake you have spent 5 YEARS at university learning to be a professional and yet draw little circles over every i, use ‘l8r” in notes and last week I saw A ****ing SMILEY in some notes. AAAAAAaaagh!
If you can’t safely use bloody apostrophes how in holy hell are you safe to prescribe DRUGS? Oh ….. and you cannot, CANNOT, pluralise everything just by adding a Z. REALLY you can’t. REALLY.
N shrt U R S2pid! I H8 U. N fact – 4Q! NE body I catch doing it in my notz n futr wll be flogged. Flogged tll dy R ded. K?
Rnt Ovr.
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N.B. this blog entry took me longer than all the others I have written put together.
Filed under Dads, doctor, Nerd, Uncategorized
A Dad's Guide To Growing A Nerd 