All The Hats I've Eaten - 2016

The 2017 SMH Good Food Guide was released back in October.

When the previous guide was released, my personal tally was 20 Sydney hatted restaurants.

Now it is... 

Stuff My Kids Say, Part Two

This is the funniest stuff my kids have done in the last couple of months.

Stories from before these HERE. Also, there is the funny stuff my toddlers said from before that.

Bad Words

CONTENTS

That Time Yesterday Where My Three-Year-Old Said A Lot Of Bad Words Because I'm His Dad.

AND:

That Other Time Last Weekend I Thought My Three-Year-Old Said The N-Word, Like I Wasn't His Dad. And Instead He Was Raised By An 1850s Plantation Owner.

Hot Cricket Newz~! November 2016

In these extraordinary cricket times, I've brought back the highly reputable HOT NEWZ~! masthead.

In this edition:

• There Are No Selection Failures
• Lollygeddon! 

Baby Names

There are thousands of good names for your baby. But half are ruled out by gender. Then most of the remaining half are ruled out too, because they don't work for you. And then most of what's left don't work for your partner.

And so you've now culled thousands of perfectly good names down to, like, one. And you're both not sure about it either.

It's very stressful picking a good name.

Here are a few suggestions I threw in there for naming my boys. They were pretty quickly thrown out. All are good names you should use instead.

Ranking All The Australian Cricketers, 2016-17

To coincide with #AusvSA starting tomorrow in the bustling metropolis of Hobart, this blog entry is a ranked list of every current Australian first-class cricketer. I’m quietly confident this is the best and most respected ranking of its type in the history of Earth.

This is the second edition. Last years edition is linked HERE. 

Halloween 2016

"When is it which day?", asked R.

"Which day? Which day are you taking about?", I said.

"Which day."

"Which day?"

"Which day."

"Which day?"

This went on for awhile.

Then he said, "which day where you get the pumpkin buckets and knock on doors to get chocolate."

"Oh, WITCH Day! Halloween, you mean. It's next Monday."

"Yeah. Witch Halloween Day."

Here's a recap of Halloween 2016, starring R & J.

Stuff My Kids Say, Part One

I'm back to mine the rich seam of comedy gold my two oldest boys provide. They are twins. This may or may not be a picture of them:

With twins you could say we have... a Full House.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!1!

I've previously documented their best stuff in the Toddlers series: see parts one, two, three, four and
five.

Here's the latest...

NRL Grand Final Diary 2016

I watched the NRL Grand Final and wrote stuff down at the same time. Here is some of it.

It was an epic contest between Melbourne Man-In-A-Cloud
and The Shire Aquariums.

The Childcare Commute

What happens on the commute, stays on the commute. Until now. These are real things that really happened to me earlier in the week.

Last Weekend One Of My Kids Shoved A Blueberry Up His Nose

DANGER~!

NRL Ladder Prediction 2016 - Revisted

At the start of the season, I tried to predict the NRL final ladder positions.

Last year, I scored myself just 6 from 16 on predictions. Can I do better this time?

Here's the final scorecard for 2016...

Toilet Training

These are amusing anecdotes from my experiences in toilet training twin boys.

When I started writing these down, it was a much darker piece. The opening line in my second draft was:

Toilet training is probably the worst thing about having children.

This was a more positive tone than my first draft, which began:

Why can a dumb animal like a cat learn to use a litter tray over a weekend, yet my children are still waiting to put on a nappy so they can shit themselves instead of using the toilet after seven months?

Then this week, it all started working! No accidents. No nappies for afternoon sleep. Going to the toilet when asked. Going when not asked.

I don't know how. I can still offer no advice on successfully toilet training children, even though it is mostly done. The whole experience has left me with more questions than answers.

If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.

But now these are all lighthearted moments that I can look back upon and laugh!

Until the eight-week-old is a toddler at least.

Sports of the 2016 Olympic Games - Official Power Rankings, Part Two

Last time: We came up with an Official Power Rankings criteria for Olympic sports, and determined there are either 39, 41 or 42 sports, before duly counting down from 41 to 25.

This time: The rest of the Sports of the 2016 Olympic Games Official Power Rankings.

Sports of the 2016 Olympic Games - Official Power Rankings, Part One

I like to power rank things.

So here are the Official Power Rankings of all the sports at the Olympic Games.

Sports ranked from last to 25 are here in part one, and the top 24 sports will be in part two.

These Official Power Rankings are rigorous and scientific.

The basic principle to determine these rankings was, should this sport be part of the Olympics? To answer this question, I have scored each sport on five criteria to determine the rankings.

Toddlers, Part Five

My twin boys are toddlers and they do and say funny stuff.

A picture of R & J and definitely not a stock image found through an Internet search engine.

Earlier editions: one, two, three, four.

In this edition, there is a new addition to the family: Baby O.

Differences Between Twins and Singles

So yeah, I have three children now.

This is not one of them.

After a pause for your heartfelt congratulations, I'll continue with some observations I've made between having twins and then having one baby at a time.

Election 2016: Australia Doesn't Decide

A diary about half paying attention to the election.

The Simpsons Quotes, Part Three

Part one is here, part two is here.

I thought I was done with The Simpsons quotes, but then frinkiac.com upgraded to allow creation of GIFs.

Toddlers, Part Four

More funny stuff my toddlers say and do.

Pictured: J (left) and R (right) wearing their underwear on their heads on two non-consecutive occasions.

Earlier editions: Part One, Part Two and Part Three.

Let's start with some updates...

Sunday, Day of Rest

Sunday started by being awoken by a slamming door. I got up to investigate, and J was in the living room, emptying many of his toys out from a shopping bag.

I asked him, "what are you doing?"

Without turning around, he said, "I'm playing with my toys."

The Day of Rest had begun.

If you like images like this, I probably hate you.

State of Origin Selection Bashing, 2016 Edition

The New South Wales State of Origin team is deceptive this year.

At first it looks like the selectors did a reasonable job. Then you realise there are 19 players named, and as per usual, the Daily Telegraph has a leak of the actual 17.

So I made my annual visit to the Daily Telegraph online, and discovered that in knocking two players out, everything is fucked up.

The 2015 version of this column is here.

And for historical perspective, I found a 2010 version of this column, from when I administered a footy tipping competition by email.

2010 State of Origin Thoughts

From my e-mail archives! (When I was running a tipping competition through e-mail)

My First and Last Ever Angry Political Rant

The election campaign has been going for eight (working) days. Unfortunately it is scheduled to go for eight weeks.

I've had enough already.

Stop the ride, I want to get off.

Toddlers, Part Three

My twin boys are toddlers, and they do and say funny stuff.

Pictured: R & J

Earlier funny stuff: Part One and Part Two.

Marrickville Cafe Power Rankings

(or: How I Learned All Online Food Lists Are Awful and Made My Own Better Version)

I lived in Marrickville. I now live in Tempe. This means I still spend a lot of time in Marrickville, because the only things in Tempe are an obscure Scandinavian furniture shop, an iconic pie stand outpost, and some serious aircraft noise.

Now there are lots of lists of things to eat in Marrickville, or the wider area known as the Inner West, that can be easily found via your preferred search engine.

But in my experience those lists are all terrible.

Malcolm Turncoat and the Seagulls Fighting Over a Hot Chip

Today, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull was part of an announcement that the AFL would play a premiership game in China.

This logo inexplicably exists.

Review: Sydney Royal Easter Show

We went to the Easter Show on Good Friday.

Don't ever do this.

Especially don't ever do this when Easter does not align with school holidays, as the crowds are concentrated on the long weekend even more than usual. It was madness.

We lasted about five hours with twin toddlers, and probably did about three things, if you don't count slowly pushing a pram through a crowd for hours as a thing.

Here is a review of the Show:

That Time I Watched All The Police Academy Movies In One Sitting

It was on this day, six years ago!

Here are some film reviews based on that experience. I've assumed you're familiar with the basic premise and characters.

My face after watching the seven
Police Academy films in one sitting

The Simpsons Quotes, Part Two

These are the other quotes I use most often.

Part one here.

Images from frinkiac.com!

The Simpsons Quotes, Part One

I've seen every episode of The Simpsons from when it was still a good show - about the first ten seasons - between three and approximately three-hundred times.

My wife thought I was funny until I gradually revealed all my best lines were recycled jokes from the show. Fortunately by the time she realised I was totally devoid of humour, we were married and she was trapped in our relationship with two children, so it's all good.

These are the quotes I use most often.

Credit to the amazing website frinkiac.com for the images.

NRL Ladder Prediction 2016

National Random League. amirite!?!

At the beginning of the last NRL season, I tried to predict the final ladder positions.

It didn't go well.

But I'm coming into this new competition after training well all off-season, and I think I can turn it around if I take it one team prediction at a time.

Also, if things go badly I'll just blame the refs.

So here are the best 2016 predictions you will ever read...

Toddlers, Part Two

My twin boys are toddlers, and they do and say funny stuff.

Pictured: R & J

Earlier stuff is here.

Newer stuff follows below...

Lockouts

I only heard about #casinomike today.

The 10 Worst Australian of the Year Awards

With the announcement tonight that David Morrison is the 2016 Australian of the Year, there have now been 61 Australian of the Year award recipients over 57 years*.

* There are four years where there were dual committees and dual winners, because nothing reflects Australia better than arguably her highest civic honour becoming the disorganised plaything of petty provincial rivalries.

Greatest country in the galaxy.

I thought about ranking all the winners in some colossal countdown, then after doing proper serious journalist research - that is, briefly consulting Wikipedia and Twitter - I realised how silly it was trying to decide whether, for example, Dick Smith is better than Robert de Castella. And who was Sir John Crawford anyway?

Yet while ranking everyone is pointless, it is clear that some award decisions are much, much better than others.

The following is a list of those others, counting down to the worst award decision:

BBL05 Best XI

I've watched a lot of the Big Bash League. Here is the team of the tournament.

There are only two rules:

1. Selection is based on performances during the tournament only. Past performance and reputation counts for nothing.
2. Selections are limited two imports, just like the teams, sorry, franchises.

The official unofficial BBL05 Best XI is presented in batting order:

Messed Up Nursery Rhymes

We have a book of nursery rhymes.

The boys sometimes ask me to read it before bed. This usually works by them pointing to a page and saying, "I wanna read this one!". This routine is actually redundant, because they point to every single page in the book. Some rhymes have illustrations over two pages. I have to read them twice.

A lot of these rhymes are a bit wrong. In order of appearance in the book:

Unconscious Sexism

It's not that surprising that cricketer Chris Gayle would demean Mel McLaughlin - he's done it to other female interviewers before, both in Australia and in the Caribbean. On his Twitter account he basically plays the role of Jamaican Hugh Hefner, but with much less literacy.

I can't relate to doing your job and having your work completely ignored so you can be propositioned, then when clearly uncomfortable at the advance, being called "baby" and having the initial comment repeated. Then to have work colleagues sniggering in the background and your employer initially play it for laughs before going into damage control much later. Then to have the person punished by his employer, who then excuses the behaviour as a cultural misunderstanding "said in jest".

I can't relate to that, because I'm a man.

Toddlers

My twin boys are toddlers, and they do and say funny stuff. Like...