fLog

The Beloved has coined a word, “Squargle”, for the noise the Boy Wonder makes on occasion. For some reason, it inspired this filk of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Tit Willow.

On a bed with a pillow a little round boy
Said “Squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle”
And I said to him, “Son, does it give you much joy,
Singing ‘Squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle’”
“Is it weakness of intellect, Hughie?” I cried
“Or a Mummy-juice glut in your little inside”
With a shake of his bald little head, he replied
“Oh squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle!”

He viewed me intently with never a smile,
Singing “Squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle”
And kicked with his dear little feet all the while,
Saying squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle
He snorked and he sighed, and a gurgle he gave
Then a look of relief made his features less grave
And an odour arose from the pants of that knave,
“Oh squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle”

Now I’m fairly convinced that no diction’ry yet
Contains squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle.
However, I’m sure I shall never forget
His “Squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle”
And if you need translation to figure it out,
Examine his nappy, and you’ll have no doubt
Of the matter he’s seeking to tell us about:
“Oh squargle, oh squargle, oh squargle”

After a little recalibration of our signals intelligence (ie figuring out when he’s hungry and when he’s burpticious) we managed a much better night’s sleep last night. He has now met his Grand Moogi, his Nanny and Pa, two aunts and an uncle. Shortly he’ll be off to the doctor to get looked over properly, but given our habit of having thoroughly healthy babies, we’re not expecting him to have leprosy.

Our Boy Wonder is lovely.

The Boy Wonder, aka Hugh, took his first breath this morning, Saturday 10 November 2007, at 1:18, having arrived shortly before in what was, for him at least, quite a relaxing birth, almost not worth waking up for. He came out in four stages, facing exactly the right way and with no squishing of his dear little nosy-wosy. He almost immediately met his Daddy (who caught him), his Mummy (who did all the actual work) and Ness (who was there for moral support and because his Daddy isn’t all that experienced at this whole “giving birth” lark). The total number of obstetricians, gynaecologists, interns, nurses, midwives and machines that go ping was zero¹.

The birthing pool (with fishies on it) has now emptied (through the power of atmospheric pressure! yay for not needing to bail!) so I shall now go to bed. I’ll keep you up to date on visiting hours.

¹ Apparently “freebirthing is dangerous” according to doctors. No doubt excessive medical interventions are not dangerous, a continuing increase in caesareans is perfectly justified, and big buildings full of sick people are the ideal places for new human beings to be born into. I hope my son isn’t too disadvantaged by missing out on these benefits.

When I grow up, I want to be Robbie McGregor. He’s the voice of King Wally Otto in the Soundproof Booth on Roy & HG’s This Sporting Life, and formerly the lewd and lascivious voiceover man on SBS TV who makes Adult Themes sound like something irresistible. Frankly, he could make the phonebook sound like a dozen naked altos in a spa full of caramel sauce. And what’s the reason I mention him? Because he’s also the “on hold” voice for Internode’s phone support! So any time anything goes wrong, I get to hear the man who puts the “vice” into “parental advice”. Woo!

It appears our new connection to teh intartubes has come through, kicking TPG off the line. The modem hasn’t arrived yet, but the technical person I spoke to (who speaks english - what luxury!) says we can use our old one until it does. So while I’m waiting for databases to copy over here at work, I’ll take my Beloved through the necessary steps to set things up over the phone, and she’ll be able to get back to her relentless internet addiction. Yay!

Edited to add: One short phone call later, it’s all working.  The Beloved is net-enabled, and Internode are damn good.

Dateline: a couple of minutes ago.  My mobile phone rings.  It’s Internode, my soon-to-be ISP.  They’ve noted that I ordered a new ADSL2 modem to go along with my upgrade to their service from my soon-to-be-ex ISP, but I’ll need to pay for it.  Would I be available to pay for that now, if they put me through to the accounts department?  “Sure!” I say.  They put me through.  A nice polite fellow takes down my credit card details and quotes me a receipt number.  Have a nice day, he says.

He then hangs up the phone and forwards my details to his mafia masters.  Shortly afterward, my credit card gets maxed out, and my identity is stolen for use by Ukrainian kitten stranglers.

… Or it would be, or could be, if I were careless and unlucky.  Here’s what really happened:

Dateline: a couple of minutes ago.  My mobile phone rings.  It’s Internode, my soon-to-be ISP.  They’ve noted that I ordered a new ADSL2 modem to go along with my upgrade to their service from my soon-to-be-ex ISP, but I’ll need to pay for it.  Would I be available to pay for that now, if they put me through to the accounts department? “Of course not!” I say.  You could be anyone!  I’m sure I mentioned my plans to change to Internode on at least one public blog comment in the last few days.  If you’re really from Internode, prove it: send me an email with the details for your payments website, and I’ll pay there, happily.

This is not rocket science.  Security Through Sincerity, as I call it, is freakishly common.  I got a call from the Commonwealth Bank, if you can believe it, asking me to quote them all sorts of details about my identity and account so they could talk to me about it.  They wouldn’t prove who they were by (a) giving me a phone number I could call them on, or (b) telling me something only the bank would know about my account, because that would be a security breach!  I told them to go stick their heads in a pig.  But the best bit is that, not long after, they sent a form letter to all their customers, proudly announcing that their security measures were being beefed up, and reassuring us that all future cold callers would identify themselves by, in effect, saying they were from the Commonwealth Bank.

No doubt they would do so very sincerely, so we’d know it was true.

It’s alarming that banks and ISPs aren’t checking their processes.  A lot of people trust the voice on the other end of the phone, forgetting that it’s not hard to put clues together and deduce personal information about pretty much anyone.  Perhaps they feel a little silly, even impolite, questioning these people, all of whom presumably know what they’re doing.  The result is, of course, identity theft and fraud, and a lot of people left out of pocket while the Black Hats prosper.

The only solution is for those big businesses to audit and improve their policies, and kick up an almighty fuss about their competitors who don’t follow suit.  All else being reasonably equal, I’ll happily move to a service provider that understands this sort of simple concept.  Sadly, they’re pretty sparse.

Meanwhile, a happy ending: Internode sent me an email with identifying details that only they know.  I logged on to their accounts website and paid for the modem.  No worries.

From the Politarchopolis Seneschal, Owain “I Love Show Tunes But I’m Still Butch” Cantor ap Hugh:

Unfortunately we are now in the position again of scrambling to get an event up, after the Steward of Casual War had to pull out because of mundane life commitments. No blame can be attached on this: it’s a sad fact of this pursuit that most of us can only pursue it half-time and the rest of the world is all too ready to get in the way. The citizens of Polit being who they are, however, I had a volunteer to take over about half an hour after I asked - thank you Llewellyn de Guerre! The issue now is whether the calling of the Australian election for the same weekend (23-25 November) might force some people to stay away. As I write, we have called for expressions of interest from the citizens of Lochac and will decide on Friday 2 November whether we can pull it off.

So Casual War is on again this year, on the same weekend as the Harry/Hermione landslideelection, but there’s a twist: they need at least a dozen more people to confirm that they’ll be attending, or they’ll have to cancel. Cost is $35 per day or $80 for the whole weekend from Friday to Sunday. That covers food and accommodation at Warrumbui, the legendary Lutheran flying saucer perched amid lovely bushland half an hour from Canberra. Last year was a lot of fun, and I regretted not staying longer. This year, Seraphina had been planning a bawdy bardic circle, so provided Llewellyn likes that idea (and knowing him — duh!) it should be a lot of fun. If you can make it, or at the very least promise to try hard to get there and be willing to cover costs if you can’t, please let the bookings officer, Mathilde Hastings, know as soon as possible.

Edited to add: They got the numbers!  The Casual War will go ahead!  Excellent!

Senator Steve Fielding has announced that the Family First Party will not be disendorsing Mr Andrew Quah over those compromising photos on teh intartubes.  Instead, the party is rolling with the punches and intends to reinvent itself to adapt to this new slant on self-advertising.  Commentators expect the newly renamed Family Jewels Party will show some real growth on YouTube as we come up to the federal erection.

If you remember the eighties, you’ll love this: via Del.Icio.Us, The Ten Most Terrifyingly Inspirational Eighties Songs.  From the discussion of Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For A Hero:

It is all well and good to insist that your men stop leaving the cap off of your mascara. But in all fairness to the men of the ’80s, Bonnie went on to specify that the man she wanted was “a white knight on a fiery steed,” who was “racing with the thunder and rising with the heat,” from a place “up where the mountains meet the heavens above, out where the lightning splits the sea.” Going on these rough descriptions, the only men capable of banging Bonnie Tyler were the Justice League of America.

It scares me, how many of these songs I have on my hard disk (oo-er!).  Especially considering that much of my collection came from Iarnulfr.

Blod asked, and through the auspices of Pom Named Brian Enterprises I am happy to provide.  Go buy one and tell me what you think!

Jeff Duntemann writes about the misuse of the word “imply” in popular parlance:

The problems lies in our two different meanings of the word “imply.” In logic, “imply” means “necessarily follows from.” In modern English outside the lofty field of logic, “imply” simply means “suggests,” which may not be a diametrically opposite meaning, but is certainly 90 degrees skewed.

I have a friend who gets irritated at people using the word “osmosis” incorrectly too — “What?” he asks, “Did you stick your head and a book in a bucket of saline solution and wait for the knowledge to infuse through your forehead?”  Similarly, I and many other sane people get annoyed at Creationists claiming evolution is “just a theory” (dude - a spherical Earth is just a theory too, unless you’ve got a reeeeeally long tape measure).

There needs to be a word for this phenomenon, and since I like a bit of Liff in my morning, I’m going to rummage through the post code directory and find… Burrowye, henceforth defined as “a word stolen from scientific terminology and warped into a thoroughly different meaning for the use of the masses”.