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Dog Training

Posted on January 11, 2010 at 12:01 am

by Richard

Now that we have a dog, I’m able to do a little compare and contrast and I’ve come to a conclusion. To wit: It is much easier to train a dog than it is to train a little dude. Much, much easier.

In the probably less than five months that we’ve had our Labrador/pit bull mix, Buzz, we’ve been able to teach him not to poop on the floor, how to roll over, sit, not to beg at the table, how to tell which hand has the treat and how to choose that hand.

In the sixteen years we’ve had the little dudes, we’ve managed to teach them how not to poop on the floor. Most times.

Buzz has his own little area and he doesn’t mess in it.

I’m afraid to walk into the bedrooms of m three little dudes for fear the mess will have gained sentience and will attack just on general principles.

Buzz has his own bowl and will eat from it, making sure not to spill on the floor. If he does, he’ll clean it up. (With his tongue, but still the principle stands.)

After a meal with my little dudes, I’m tempted to rent the place out as a rest stop to a horde of migrating cockroaches moving south to escape the growing threat of the arctic boot heel.

Buzz actually likes to get in the shower. True story: we’ve got a shower without a door or curtain (on purpose, I assure you) and, whenever one of us is in the shower, Buzz will wander into the shower, get wet and happily start licking up the water on the ground.

Sometimes the funk surrounding the older little dudes, George of the Jungle and Zippy the Monkey Boy, is so fierce it’s almost a dose of concentrated evil. Eeeeeevvviiilllllll!

The point of all this. Not much. I’m just sitting here watching the dog lie quiet on the floor while Zippy chases Speed Racer around the kitchen and living room and dining room screaming something about death and dismemberment.

You know, there’s something to be said for a household of pets and no kids.

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Dude Review: Planet 51

Posted on November 30, 2009 at 12:01 am

by Richard

You know, there’s something I really, really love about animated movies meant for the young (or young at mind [or, you know, feeble-minded]). Things are just so very much simpler.

Take, for example, Planet 51, the new Sony animated movie, starring Dwayne Johnson and Justin Long. Johnson voices Chuck, the American astronaut character while Long voices Lem, a (well, to us) alien. Chuck is stranded on the strange planet, the inhabitants of which are (while green and be-antennaed) suffering through a 1950’s amazingly like our own. Full of monster movies and a paranoid fear of the other. Most of them are suffering from this. As well as some overwhelming surrender instincts to authority.

You might not get the joke initially, but Lem, just by his name, is an attempt at funny. See, when the Apollo space craft series began landing on the moon, there were a number of sections. One section stayed in orbit and provided the trip back home. Another section landed on the moon and was originally called the Lunar Excursion Module, pronounced LEM. Yeah, a bit obscure, but at least it was an attempt.

So, here’s the simplicity bit. See, learning a human language is hard enough, but it’s something at least familiar. Something meant to be pronounced by a human mouth using human lungs. An alien language now, that’s something all together different. It might take decades, centuries to decipher an alien language, not to mention the difficulty in having a human speak it.

Here’s where the filmmakers did something so mindboggling it’s almost brilliant. They didn’t want to spend the movie having the astronaut learn a language until he was older and gray. They just had the aliens and the humans speak the same language, English, with no explanation whatsoever. One alien says the astronaut is speaking his language and Chuck accuses the alien of speaking his language. That’s it. Move along. There’s nothing to see here. Let’s get on with the hijinks. I mean, robots aren’t going to piddle oil on their own.

While a passable movie for adults, my youngest little dude really liked this flick. Speed Racer didn’t move around at all during the entire flick. Not bad, then, for him.

Most of the humor consists of watching aliens do things humans do, seeing human attitudes adopted by aliens and watching robots piddle oil when they’re scared. Just about perfect for a fifth-grader.

I’m going to give this movie three (3) dudes out of five. Not bad, but nothing I’d sweat if I missed it in the theater.

Before we

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Freaky Friday: Gang Green

Posted on October 16, 2009 at 12:01 am

by Richard

It’s a movement that’s sweeping not only the nation, but the world. Go green, we’re constantly extorted. Reduce your carbon footprint. (Which doesn’t mean lop off a couple of toes to get a smaller shoe size. Trust me on this one. — Your friend, Limpy)

Of course, just like with every attempt to do something good for the planet, there are those who try to ruin the whole thing for the rest of us.

. . . buying those same products can have the opposite effect. Researchers found that buying green can lead people into less altruistic behaviour, and even make them more likely to steal and lie than after buying conventional products. Buying products that claim to be made with low environmental impact can set up “moral credentials” in people’s minds that give license to selfish or questionable behavior.

Well. Isn’t that special?

Let’s try to put this into more concrete terms, shall we? Pretend you’ve just been a good dude and you’ve helped out a nice, little old lady at the grocery story. She was struggling with getting all her bags of cat food into the trunk of her 1977 Cadillac. You walked up, assured her you weren’t going to do anything mean to her, and then offered to help her load her cat food. Very nice. You’ve been good.

However, according to this, if we extend the analogy, after helping the nice, little old lady you’ll be more likely to gun the motor and run down that really slow old dude tottering through the cross walk as you’re leaving.

Okay, it’s probably not completely accurate, but I think it gives you the gist of the thing.

“This was not done to point the finger at consumers who buy green products. The message is bigger,” says Nina Mazar, a marketing professor at University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and a self-admitted green consumer. “At the end of the day, if we do one moral thing, IT doesn’t necessarily mean we will be morally better in other things as well.”

All of which means, I’m thinking, that you have to be more on your guard than you are right now. If you think about this sort of thing, I believe we’ll be more likely to avoid the push back. And that’s a good thing. And also a very important lesson to impart to our little dudes and dudettes.

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