Dr. Roberto Le Camembert's Blog
I am Dr. Roberto Le Camembert. This is my blog. I have others, but this one is here. So are you, it seems.
What ISN'T this blog about? Well... Probably alot of things, but I hope to reduce that number of things as time passes.
on Sep. 16 2009
I want to punch the world in the face until it makes sense
01:28 am ~ Sep. 2009 ~ Week of 09/14/09
I'm not a parent. I hope to be one day, but right now, I'm not. This means that I have no authority to speak.
Like I would let that stop me.
I have, for my entire life, and some time before that, had parents. Perfect parents? Perhaps not, but pretty damned good ones, definitely. I love my parents, and they love me (so far as I'm aware). This, some will say, again means that I have no authority to speak. These people will find any excuse as to why what I say should be ignored. Perhaps they are right, but what I am about to say is not new. When one person says something that goes against your opinion, perhaps they are a crank. If two people say it, the crank has a friend. But this has been said so many times, by so many people that you should start to think that there might actually be a point to it.I'm not a violent person. The title of this post may scream otherwise, but truly I'm not. I don't actually want to punch anyone in the face, but I DO want the world to make sense. No, I don't think a collective world face punch, no matter how hard, would actually make that happen.
The world seems to have abandoned common sense. Who needs to think, when you can blame your deficiencies on the big bad internet, or it's older cousin, TV.
Time to get to the point here. Or one of them, at least. No-one can parent your children for you. It is not, and should not, be up to the government to ensure that your darling children don't have access to violent or racy material. If you want to protect your children, do it yourself. The tools are all there to make it easy for you.
For example, if a game is rated MA 15+, then you should not buy it for your seven year old. Period. It isn't suitable. You can't buy the game for your child because all their friends have it, and then get up in arms about it being violent. You get what you paid for. Lobbying to get game content changed to protect your child doesn't actually protect them. It just annoys everyone who can legitimately buy and play the game. Sure, there's no blood now, but your child is still shooting people. All you have done is given them a game where there are no real consequences. You are part of the problem.
When the Wii-zapper came out, I remember seeing posts and rants about how inappropriate it was for children to be given something which resembles a gun. Aside from the fact that similar toys have been on the market for years (can you say "duck hunt"?) these people were correct. It may not be appropriate for children, so don't buy it. The easiest way to protect your children from the evils of the world is to not expose them in the first place.
Which brings me to my next point.
If you dress your children up like skanks, give them dolls which are skanks, and let them watch TV shows or movies that are full of skanks, they will want to act like skanks.
Is that so hard to understand? Cause? Effect? Oh, no, children are having sex because of the paedophiles on the internet, not because you have dressed them like skanks. I may be old fashioned here, but when I was a kid, if something wasn't appropriate for me, I didn't get it. It didn't matter how many of my friends got it, I didn't. Why? Because my parents understood that they made my buying decisions. Sure, I could pitch in a suggestion (or whine a whole heap), but it was their money they were spending.
I did have access to some violent games, and some lewd movies. I'm admitting that right now, in the interest of fairness. They weren't hidden away from me, but at the same time, they weren't handed to me without my parents knowing what they were about. My parents didn't get up in arms later about it. They knew what I was getting into before I got into it. They let me access it when I was old enough to understand it.
I hope that I can parent my future kids even half as well as my parents did me. I'd like to think that I turned out well adjusted. I'm not a sexual deviant, or a rampaging psychopath. I'm actually pretty normal. And that brings me to my final point.
If you accept your children for what they are, then you're more likely to maintain a happy and healthy relationship with them.
It's not rocket science. Kids will be kids. When they grow up, they'll be adults. Don't treat kids as adults, or adults as kids, and it should all be OK.
Nothing new has been said here. I've got no authority to dispense parenting advice until I've had and raised my own kids. This is all common sense, though. I will be following this advice with my children, and hoping that it all works out fine.
Stop blaming other people for your laziness, and we can all get on about our lives. The government isn't there to be your nanny. Stop messing with everyone else's lives to make your own easier.
on Oct. 27 2008
Zombie Q&A
11:02 pm ~ Oct. 2008 ~ Week of 10/27/08
You never know when people's unexplained love for zombies will crop up.
I found this today, after playing around on answerbag for the last couple of days.http://www.answerbag.com/c_view/5446
It's a category devoted to zombies. Brilliant!
Now for those who don't know what answerbag is, it's kind of like yahoo answers, but it seems less about getting the most correct answer as about making people THINK you have the best answer. For some reason it's decided to make answering questions into a competition, and as such, there's that elitist attitude that everyone has come to expect from such sites.
Basically the older users move in packs, voting up each other's answers and congratulating each other on being ever so smart, all the while complaining about newer users, and how much better it was before anyone else knew about it.
Anyway, I've got an account there, and I'm sometimes helpful, and other times a complete arse. It makes me feel better about myself when people don't know if they should trust my advice or not.
on June 30 2008
Spam
11:39 pm ~ June 2008 ~ Week of 06/30/08
Not quite the tinned stuff that you see in supermarkets, so much as the electronic kind on the interwebs.
I'm going to start replying to spam... you know, just to see what happens. Hopefully hilarity will ensue, in which case watch this space for said hilarity. In case it doesn't, pretend that this never happened.OK, spam ahoy!
on June 6 2008
Pete, the invisible space zombie.
12:29 pm ~ June 2008 ~ Week of 06/02/08
I haven't seen Pete in a while.
Not that I could see him anyway, but I've not been attacked by him in a long time. I wonder if he's dead (unalive? redead? unundead?), or if he's just lumbering around in the basement.Anyway, has anyone else seen/smelt/heared/been attacked by Pete lately? I remember a time when he use to be rather attacky. you might get attacked several times in a single visit.
Oh well. If you're no longer with us Pete, I hope your new employers pay you more than we did.
on Oct. 26 2007
Blech
03:13 am ~ Oct 2007 ~ Week of 10/22/07
I have pnuemonia. It sucks.
My advice to you is to never spend long hours doing anything for anyone. You'll only get sick, and they'll STILL think that they're harder done by.So what if you had a mental collapse? You're not me, and as such OBVIOUSLY not as important.
Wait, I think I pinpointed the issue with other people there.
Other than that, university is so painfully close to over for the year. I just have to finish off this last assignment, then I'm done for three weeks until I have to spend the day showing industry types what an awful piece of software we've made.
Sorry about being a bit negative, but it's a byproduct of being sick.
on Oct. 31 2007
Scraaabbbbllle
12:18 pm ~ Oct 2007 ~ Week of 10/29/07
Everyone seems to be playing face-book scrabble, but me.
So with that in mind, I decided to create a handy and helpful tool: www.aarghbrainz.com/scrabble_taunteriser/
The premis is simple, you give it your letters, it gives you some words. huzzah!
So next time you're scratching your head for cool words, check it out.
It's guaranteed to be as helpful as I am.
Enjoy!
on Mar. 15 2007
New patent ideas
12:54 pm ~ Mar 2007 ~ Week of 03/12/07
So while on the way home from seeing Black Rock with Sir oCean and others, discussions were had about new patenents.
My new item to patent and create is the hydro-electric powered car. With legs."He's a craaAAAAaaaaaAAAaasy man!", you might say... and well you may say it, too. That would largely be due to the elecution lessons. They really paid off for you. Anyway, that is largely beside the point.
The point being slightly to the left of that. The other left. The stage left. The OTHER stage left.
Oh, forget it, I give up. Just take my word for it.
Anyway, the discussion, while interesting at the time, happened to be one of those "had to be there" type of things, as most discussions are. I tried once to hold conversations without being there, but it's rather difficult, as it's really hard to hear what the other person is saying.
Anyway, where was I? Oh... The conversation was interesting, but not to you (due to your time-spatial handicap). That isn't important. What is important, though, is that the upshot of the conversation was that I discovered the idea of a hydro-electric alternative to internal combustion engines. The legs were sir oCean's idea.
Ok, so it wasn't that interesting, but damnit I want my car with a large water-feature working as the engine. You can't tell me that our lives wouldn't be better if we designed an engine that works soley by the power of hydro-electricity.
Anyway, there's nothign else to say on the issue at the moment, as I've come down with a case of the "being too tired to writes"
Until next time, or whenever I see you without you seeing me, creepy stalker style.
on Feb. 21 2007
Kicked in the head...
03:33 pm ~ Feb 2007 ~ Week of 02/19/07
Crushed, punched repeatedly, thrown to the ground, stood on, bent in ways that man was not meant to bend...
But still, I'd say it was one of the best nights of my young life. What is a punk gig with out some form of injury? Is a mosh pit still a mosh pit if you can leave it with everything you entered it with?Ok, some explanation. I just saw NOFX tonight at the Arena. They are insane. More than that, the pit was insane. Within the fisrt two songs, all that in the title and introduction for this blog happened. And then some more.
In the space of about 5 minutes, I got kicked in the face (a couple of times), had someone dropped on me (it's OK.. I knew him), got thrown to the ground, got trampled, got crushed by a heaving mass of bodies, had my hat stolen (twice), lost a shoe, got punched a few times, sweated about 2L of a-grade saline'n'oil, and then lost the ability to breathe for a little bit.
I then went, drank 4 bottles of water, and realised that I was having difficulty standing up straight.
OK, so all this stuff in almost any other context sounds pretty damned awful, but in the context of a NOFX gig, it was all part of a great night out.
If you've seen them play, you'll be starting to get what I mean. If you've only seen them in some form of statium, or amphiteatre, or festival, or other overly out-doors venue, you may still be wondering a little. If you've ever seen them in a nice little intimate, sold out, packed-to-the-rafters upstairs and down, pub gig, then I think you know what I'm talking about.
They go off. That's all there is to it. One of the best gigs I've been to. Of course, there's gigs which you can't compare it to, but for the style of gig that it was, it was one of the best.
on Jan. 21 2007
Big Day Out
02:51 pm ~ Jan 2007 ~ Week of 01/22/07
Ow. Pain. Ow.
Big Day Out is over... it was freaking awesome. I'm in alot of pain. I'd say it's good pain, but I have to work in the morning, so it won't be enjoyable pain.More later. Sleep and pain now.
on Jan. 9 2007
I'M MAKING A POST ON THE INTERNET!
10:09 am
It sucks, too.
That is all.
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