Holding Out for a Hero

Right, now that you have Bonnie Tyler's massive blond mane and raspy voice singing through your head, we can continue. It has been said that a dad is his daughter's hero. He can do anything, fix anything, be anything. He is stronger than Superman, faster than the Flash and can handle more repair jobs than Bob the Builder. His mighty arms provide comfort and in his presence nothing can go wrong. And as a dad, that is a lot of pressure!

My little one clearly has a lot of faith in my fatherly abilities. One night, while outside and gazing at the full moon (which she has always adored) she asked me to hold her up high so that she could touch it. I had to explain rather quickly that it is quite far away, and that she wouldn't be able to reach. Another time she brought me a rubber toy that had been treated rather differently than the designer had anticipated and was thus mangled and broken. With her big beautiful brown eyes sparkling with daughterly trust she asked me to repair it. I should explain that it had started off its life as a rubber lizard, but now resembled a thoroughly masticated jelly baby. I had to tell her that, unfortunately, said rubber lizard was beyond even my ability to repair.

There are many other examples of her tremendous trust in my supernatural abilities:

• She once asked me to make a helium balloon float again.
• Another time she asked me to pick up her boerboel and throw him on the house's roof so that he could chase and scare off birds that were annoying her.
• On another occasion, while preparing to make dinner, she declared that because I had handled the food it had magically been made edible and wanted some immediately.
• I have to occasionally do animal impressions for her as a game, the most interesting request was to pretend to be a zebra (with all the appropriate sound effects)
• She recently went on her first major airline flight and enjoyed it so much that she constantly requests to do it again. Once, when I answered that it was too expensive to do it regularly, she told me to simply build a Boeing so that we would have one of our own.

I suspect that dads everywhere can identify with the adoration that our little ones shower upon us. But I also suspect they can identify with the weird requests that our kids can come up with, because let's face it, in their innocent eyes we are all heroes.

Innocence Lost

So my little one is a big fan of animated movies. And let's face it, Disney and Pixar can crank out some really awesome ones. But of course, having a pre-schooler does mean that you have to watch the same animated movie at least 17 592 times before they get bored of it. Which usually lasts about two weeks and then they want to watch it again, just to make sure. So the other night, while watching The Lion King for the 739th time, I started noticing some rather adult references, something that would, thankfully, pass the little one by. So I thought I'd scour the internet and see if what I glimpsed was true. And I found a lot more than I bargained for! It appears that animated filmmakers like to sneak in some very adult humour in an attempt to amuse the more mature watcher:

Cars

This Pixar film about a world with living cars looks like a lot of fun, until you have a look at some of the characters depicted. I draw your attention to a rather inappropriate van in the picture above.

At some point during the movie, two of Lightning McQueen's female fans flash their headlights at him. I don't think I have to explain that reference.

Monsters Inc

Monsters Inc is another award winning Pixar film. The story revolves around monsters that scare children in order to power their city using the sound of the children's screams. In a heartwarming turn of events, they realise that children's laughter has much more power. In the scene above though, it might be the adults laughing. Have a look at the drawing to the left of the door.

Ratatouille

There are lots of funny moments in this movie that would slip past a younger audience. One such moment is where Linguini tries to reveal the truth about his cooking ability to his love interest, Colette. When he starts the sentence with "I have this tiny..." she briefly looks down to his trousers with concern.

The main villain in the film, food critic Anton Ego, also makes a rather adult reference when discussing how he rates food. He blatantly states "If I don't love it, I don't swallow."

Mulan

In the Disney animated film about the great Chinese female general Mulan, the Fa family guardian Mushu, portrayed by Eddie Murphy, explains his tremendous powers to Mulan. His abilities include being able to see right through Mulan's armour, causing her to try and cover up.

 

The Lion King

Now for the film that made me take notice of the rather R-rated moments in children's films. At some point Simba and Nala frolic together after meeting up again after years apart. At some stage during their playful session, Nala licks Simba on the cheek and then lays back and gives him a look that, thankfully, only adults will understand.

During the catchy musical number "I Just Can't Wait to be King" Zazu, portrayed brilliantly by Rowan Atkinson chases after Simba who is riding an ostrich. He flies through some trees and over some very, um, suggestively shaped hills.

These were just a few of the more mature moments in animated films. There are literally hundreds of others that I haven't mentioned. Clearly, when it is time for the little one to learn about the birds and the bees, no explanation is necessary. Just throw on a Disney and relax.....

 





Joyride

I'm not referring to the extremely catchy Roxette song from the early 90's. No, I am talking about the things that we do to amuse ourselves in our cars. Let's face it, as adults we spend quite a large part of our day driving around. And sometimes during our automotive wanderings, we get stuck in traffic. Now, when stuck in traffic, you have a wide variety of options. You can sit and steam, frustrated at the lack of movement, until all the windows in your car are fogged up. You can open your windows (weather permitting), turn up the radio and share your early 90's music with the rest of the traffic. Or you can get creative. One particularly balmy day I was stuck on a highway with traffic moving slower than a sloth on marijuana when I spotted a female driver in the car next to me calmly blowing soap bubbles. I had to look away for a moment and then look back to ensure that I was not suffering some heat induced delusion, but no, she was actually blowing soap bubbles. And it was actually cheering up everyone in the cars around her.

I've spotted some strange things in traffic, from people applying eye and lip makeup to someone actually pulling faces at themselves in the rear view mirror. One particular day during the morning rush hour (which never actually seems to rush anywhere) I spotted a young lady dancing to some tunes behind the steering wheel. The man in the car behind her opened his sunroof, got her attention by flashing his lights and proceeded to stand up on his seat and dance along with her. This amused other motorists greatly thereby improving everyone's mood.

On another day that started off quite chilly but warmed up very quickly I was also (unsurprisingly) stuck in traffic. The car next to me had two young ladies in it and the one in the passenger seat decided that it was getting a bit warm. So she proceeded to take her jersey off. Unfortunately for her, she had grabbed her shirt as well and only realised it when both shirt and jersey were already above her head, thus displaying the fact that she had decided to forgo underwear that morning to everyone in the surrounding cars. She realised her mistake very quickly and managed to cover up, but not before markedly improving the mood of all the males in the cars around her. It just goes to show, you never know what you'll see if you are vigilant enough......

Google It!

A friend and I were discussing Google earlier. It has become an indispensable tool and let's face it, most of us would struggle without its ability to provide us with information within seconds. But you do get the select few who are struggling with questions that the rest of us would not normally think of. Just to get an idea I Googled (obviously) the most random questions ever revealed by Google's search suggestions. I was not disappointed!

What was typed: why does my husband....
Best search suggestion: why does my husband wear panties

What was typed: what....
Best search suggestion: what are these strawberries doing on my nipples I need them for fruit salad

What was typed: what would a....
Best search suggestion: what would a chair look like if your knees bent the other way

What was typed: I like to ta....
Best search suggestion: I like to tape my thumbs to my hands to see what it would be like to be a dinosaur

What was typed: sometimes when I'm....
Best search suggestion: sometimes when I'm alone I use comic sans

What was typed: I am....
Best search suggestion: I am extremely terrified of Chinese people

What was typed: why....
Best search suggestion: why can't I own a Canadian

What was typed: I did th....
Best search suggestion: I did the Macarena in an elevator with a homeless guy because big bird said to and he's my leader

What was typed: what would happen....
Best search suggestion: what would happen if I hired two private investigators to follow each other

Clearly you get some rather unusual people out there! Strange searches on Google actually prompted a comedy channel called College Humor to bring out a 5 part series called "If Google was a Guy". While extremely funny it does highlight some of the weirder aspects of internet searches.

If Google was a Guy - Part 1

 

If Google was a Guy - Part 2

 

If Google was a Guy - Part 3

 

If Google was a Guy - Part 4

If Google was a Guy - Part 5

 

Side Effects

Some of you may recall that I had to go to hospital a few months ago. This was so that I could pay a doctor a large amount of money to tell me that I have something wrong with the electrical conductivity in my heart. Something that I am still convinced an electrician could have done for much cheaper. The cardiologist put me on some medication and sent me on my merry way. Only, after a few months, I am no longer so merry. It turns out that these meds have some really weird side effects.

Some of the actual side effects listed for the drugs that I am taking are as follows:

• Drowsiness or trouble sleeping
• Loss of appetite (anorexia) or increase in weight
• Anxiety and/or nervousness
• Nightmares and vivid dreams
• Hallucinations
• Depression
• Dizziness, headache, restlessness
• Extreme tiredness
• Dry, sore eyes, reduced tear flow
• Blurred vision or seeing objects more yellow than they are
• Temporary loss of hearing
• Kidney problems

Now, I don't know about you, but to me this drug seems to cause more problems than it actually solves. And let's face it, some of those side effects are downright bizarre! So either you will be drowsy, or you will have trouble sleeping. When you sleep you will have extremely vivid nightmares, and when you are awake you will see dragons in the kitchen and hear voices. But the dragons won't be in focus because of blurry vision. And you won't hear the voices clearly because you will temporarily lose your hearing. Then you will lose your appetite but pick up weight which will depress you, and your kidneys might fail but you won't be able to move because of extreme tiredness. I'm really surprised they don't have side effects like losing the ability to see the colour blue and developing an uncontrollable urge to lick strangers in the face.

I really wonder how drug companies can say "Right, this drug is making people involuntarily breathe fire, fart at funerals and grow a third nipple. But at least it cures their runny nose!" So in solving one symptom they are creating many more. And let's face it, the additional effects are somewhat more severe than the symptom they are trying to cure. Maybe it is an effect of the drug that I am on, but I just can't wrap my head around it.....

The Madness Continues

Last week I told you the weird tale of a strange creature who (badly) rules a beautiful country. In the aftermath of last week's chaos there have been people marching all over the country, protesting his actions and calling for him to step down. All the residents of this beautiful country, black, white, Indian, Chinese, Coloured, they all joined together in protest. It was a splendid show of unity in the face of adversity! And what did our strange creature do? He called the protest action racist. This puzzled me greatly, as people of all races joined together in protest against him. That is when I remembered that he is unlike any person on this planet, and hence is probably not a member of any of the races that protested against him.

Because of his questionable choices I believe that our strange creature has many advisers. Sure, they are doing their job very badly, but I think he hasn't realised it yet, so he continues to seek their counsel. I suspect that, apart from his local advisers, he also has one that he secretly recruited from overseas. Most likely from California in the United States. One that thinks surfing is a career choice and whose work attire consists of a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and sandals. He is probably called Kurt. I can imagine the conversation between our strange creature and Kurt one morning over tea and dagga koekies.

JZ: "Kurt, I am......going to make.......some changes. People will be very.......upset with me. What can I..........do to calm them down."
K: "Give them weed bro. People love weed!"
JZ: "I don't want......to spend more money. That sounds.......very expensive."
K: "Naw dude, make it legal for them to grow their own weed. That way it won't cost you anything!"
JZ: "That sounds......like a great idea. Thank you.....Kurt."
K: "It's all good man. Just make it illegal to sell weed. I don't want to put my dealer out of business!"

My sister suggested an ending to my tale of the strange creature. One where he comes face to face with Superman. After warning our strange creature to clean up his act and learn to count, they shake hands in a show of solidarity. At that moment Superman sneezes, his Kryptonian physiology reacting to the strange creature's touch. Cargo ships take flight, a massive sinkhole appears, a volcano erupts in Ghana, and Superman is left holding the strange creature's hand. But alas, there is no sign of the creature himself. And so peace and prosperity is brought back to the beautiful country, and we will all live happily ever after...

Strange Creatures

Not so long ago in a galaxy not that far away, there lived a strange creature. In appearance he was strange, for his skull was oddly shaped, suggesting (falsely) that it contained multiple brains. Anyone who spoke with this creature would have a hard time understanding him, because his speech was peppered with commas placed at odd intervals. This unusual creature lived in a beautiful country. A country filled with wildlife, natural wonders and, perhaps more importantly, did not contain Justin Bieber.

Now, I should point out at this stage that our previously aforementioned unusual creature actually ruled this wondrous land. How he came to be leader is still uncertain. Maybe he possesses strange telepathic abilities that enable him to enchant the masses. Another of his superpowers include washing away debilitating diseases by simply taking a shower. He truly is a strange and unusual creature!

Not too long ago he decided to expand and improve his dwelling, as it was deemed unsafe. So to enhance its safety and security he added a helipad (which is probably unnecessary as he can float due to excess amounts of hot air), underground bunkers (which probably contain copies of a very controversial painting containing a spear), a security team to fetch him some Nandos, a firepool (because swimming pool sounds too boring) and a chicken run. Because chickens are essential to a good security strategy.

Recently he decided that there were too many competent and reliable people in his government, so he got rid of them and placed wholly incompetent people in their stead. But he did not take into account the effect this would have. Immediately the very earth rebelled, sending tremor after tremor through the land. The local currency became close to worthless overnight and they had to legalise a previously taboo drug just to calm the population down.

What will become of this wondrous country and its people? What will this strange and unusual creature do next? Will this tale have a happy ending? Only time will tell.......