Bug House

You can tell that it is almost summer when there are bugs everywhere. One thing I like about winter is that all the bugs are dead. Anyways, we've had problems with ants everywhere. Last night our kitchen reeked of anti-ant spray. This morning Luke came to Mom and said "Mom! There's a bug in your room!"

"What is it?" Mom asked.

"I dunno," said Luke. "I think it's an ant. It has wings."

Bugs are really annoying.

Pestering

I've been creating a computer game for Luke based on a computer game that he plays ad nausea. However, Luke isn't one for patience. Every time he sees me, he asks me how I am doing. Often he does not do this directly. For example, he has said all of the following at least once:

"Hey Duncan! What are you going to do on your computer?"

"Hey Duncan! I can't wait for the game to be finished! *wiggles eyebrows*"

"Hey Duncan! You know who my favorite character is?"

It is quite flattering. Saturday night I was walking to my bed at 10:00 when he suddenly sat bolt upright. His face showed me that he was in a state of half-sleep, half-coma. However, he was apparently awake enough to say, "Hey Duncan! Did you work on the game?" I wonder what this kid dreams about...

Curve Ball

On Friday we had our first restaurant outing for memorizing Scripture. I noticed however that there was one Bible verse that all the kids chose to memorize that messed them all up. Since they were allowed to pick which verses to memorize out of a given set of 18 (I had to memorize all of them, so I didn't care) I wondered why they didn't select one that was a bit easier.

The verse in question was Romans 11:3. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that was is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (ESV) I bolded the part that all the kids messed up. It doesn't look too hard at first glance, which is probably why the kids picked it. However, the stacking of passive construction, participle phrases, and relative clauses really throws the kids for a loop. For example, Luke simplified it to "what we see is made out of invisible things." True, I say, but that's not exactly what the verse says. Try again, Luke.

Happy Hell Day

Hey, everyone. It's Hell Day again, that special time of year when our beloved Savior did some time in the Ultimate Clink. In honor of this momentous occasion, I wrote two papers that I've been procrastinating on for quite some time. And they are still not completely done. I descended into hell and on the third day rose again with my Grant Proposal and my Cochlear Implants paper all done. Anyways, Happy Easter.

Yesterday, my brother Luke asked why we called it Good Friday if it was the day Jesus died. It was very cute so I decided to immortalize his ignorance in a blog post. The reason I gave him was the Great news that Jesus rose just two days later! He is risen! He is risen indeed.

Douglas Has Arrived

Status Report: After four days delay for snow and a missed flight in Texas, Douglas has arrived. Heather is much quieter this morning: She's probably more talkative online than in person when it comes to Douglas. Alexie has not come downstairs yet. Since Douglas was lain over in Texas for a while, he bought Emily a Sheriff's Badge, which is really great since we got Bang for Christmas and Emily and Luke have been really loving it. Dad loves it and plays it whenever we have five players, but the older kids minus myself are uncooperative and unenthusiastic. The problem is that Bang is not a game for kids under the age of five and the subtle intrigue often proves elusive for kids with the mental capacity of Emily, Luke, and Andrew. Maybe Douglas would play...

You know what I'm talking about

This morning I woke up to the dulcet tones of my sister telling me that Emily had dropped what amounted to an entire roll of toilet paper into the girls toilet and tried to flush it. Multiple times. Anyways, being the best plumber guy in the world besides Mario (and he's busy), I'm always the go-to guy in these situations. I got out of bed and promptly stepped on a toy. The toy slipped out from under me and I fell, smacking my head on the table. If it was brighter I would have been able to tell what toy I had tripped over and therefore know who to kill. Unfortunately it was dark so I had to resign myself to swearing to track down whoever left that toy there and then tie them to the pear trees near UTC campus that give off the dead fish smell. Then, I hear a sigh from one of the loft beds. Luke's voice wafts down, clearly disgusted, "That's not very funny, Duncan." Oh. Sorry, your majesty. Guess I'll have to try harder to amuse you the next time I trip. Anyways, grumbling I unstuffed the toilet and then came downstairs for morning devotions. Not a very good start to the day of my first final. (Whatever.)

Master of Interrogation

Yesterday while I was preparing my college lunch and Andrew was cleaning breakfast a great ruckus suddenly broke out upstairs.

"Hooray! Luke has tied his first shoe!" Heather exclaimed. Then Mom got excited and made an even bigger deal out of it and the upstairs rooms became very calamitous.

"Mark my words," Andrew said to me, "Luke brought an already tied shoe upstairs and told Heather he had tied it." Ha ha. Good luck, I thought. Every time I have sufficient proof that one of my younger brothers is lying, he will deny it and Mom accepts his word for it. Anyways Luke meandered downstairs as happy as a clam. "Hey Luke," said Andrew, "Did you take an already-tied shoe upstairs and tell Heather you had tied it?"

"How did you guess!?" Luke squealed. Andrew shrugged. Luke walked away. The end.

Really, nothing ever came from this encounter but a blog post.

The results are in!

The results for the happy birthday poem contest of all time/September 09 are in! And it was A COMPLETE UPSET VICTORY!! Here's first place:

Torchics are red
Mudkips are sexy
Happy birthday to
David and Lexie
--Duncan McPherson

And the judges decided that this haiku deserved an honorable mention:

MUDKIP MUDKIP MUD
KIP MUDKIP MUDKIP MUDKIP
WE WANT MOAR MUDKIPS
--Luke McPherson

Fictional Grief

Have you ever been watching a movie or reading a book and you start crying when a fictional character dies? Not like a random background character is murdered and the main character has to figure out whodunnit but an actual character like one of Harry Potter's father figures dies and you just begin to weep for the brevity of such a beautiful life. Well, why? It doesn't make much sense to mourn a fictional character. If you never lived, can you really die?

P.S. My brother Luke is the only person I've ever known to weep at the death of a nonfictional character in a book, The Life of Abraham Lincoln. (I won't spoil the ending for you, just in case you haven't read it.) Just saying.

Math Whiz

Today, Luke learned how to multiply by 11. First he had to write down every multiple of 11 down a list that said 11 x 1 = ____, 11 x 2 = ____, 11 x 3 = ____, etc. Then they asked him some review problems to see if he understood the material. Here is his answer sheet:

1. Look at the addition problems. Why is it easy to add 11?
Luke's Answer: 2+11=13

Duncan's Response: WHAT THE HECK!? What does the miraculous fact that 2+11=13 have to do with ANYTHING!?

2. Look at all the products. What pattern do you see in the first nine products?
Luke's Answer: 4

Duncan's Response: ... What can I say? I still don't understand why Luke put down 4 in the space where they wanted an answer to a short-answer question.

3. What do you think 11 x 0 is and why?
Luke's Answer: 0. Because easy.

Duncan's Response: ... migraine migraine migraine.

4. What do you think 11 x 13 is and why?
Luke's Answer: 124. Because hard.

Duncan's Response: Why is my brother a caveman? 124 isn't even the right answer.

Wake-up call

"Breakfast time, guys," said Andrew, slamming open the door.

"Alright, Alright. I'm up," I said, because all my brothers have a tendency to repeat themselves if they think I haven't heard them.

"Oh, not you Duncan. You can sleep," Andrew said. That made me pretty suspicious, but I shrugged if off thinking, if Mom gets mad at me I can always tell her that Andrew told me I could sleep in.

Twenty minutes later, Connor and Luke slammed open the door, clapping their hands with every step they took, and then staging an extremely loud pseudo-conversation. In between stomps on their faces, they managed to spit out that they had wanted to wake me up. (I had assumed as much FYI, and I'm just kidding about the stomping part, I just glowered at them.)

Now, I have no idea why Andrew wanted me to sleep and the kids wanted me awake, and why the kids thought it would be better to wake me in an obnoxious manner than just saying "Hey Duncan, it's time to get up." Even if they weren't sent by Mom to wake me up, they could say they were and I would be too tired to know the difference. So it was a very poorly executed plan.

P.S. Upon arriving downstairs Andrew said and I quote, "*gaaaasp* He Liiiiives!" These pieces are not falling into place.

Misreads

My younger brother Luke is still in the area of life when he can't read every word in a sentence. Some of these mess-ups are entertaining like when he misread a verse in 1 Peter as "Cast your anxieties on him before he casts his anxieties on you." Or when he misread a sentence in his picture bible from "Jacob feared that Esau would attack his women and children" to "Jacob feared that Esau's women and children would attack him." Or when he misread "Jesse" as "Jesus." And I've come to find that "not" is the most underappreciated word in the English language. Only three letters long yet it is the most important word in every sentence. Leave it out and the sentence takes on a whole new meaning.

Dr. Obama

So, I was chilling in the living room reading my completely biased Republican propaganda, the Limbaugh Letter, when Luke meandered in. I was reading an article called "Dr. Obama Strangelove," which was pretty insulting although I didn't see what it had to do with Dr. Strangelove. It was more like, "Obama is spending all our money and Nancy Pelosi is quoted as not caring." Anyways, Luke sidled up to me and stared over my shoulder for a minute.

"So," he said in a conversational tone, "I see that Obama has become a doctor."

What's for dinner?

So I was chilling at my computer and celebrating my new breakthrough, having discovered that I was multiplying my variable by -1 instead of 0, when Luke barged in and yelled "Hey everybody! It's time for dinner!"

"What's for dinner?" Connor asked, peeling himself away from his computer.

"Chips and salsa!" Luke said, his eyes alight.

"And cheese!" yelled Emily as she hopped in.

"With a side of Mexican Casserole, I presume?" I asked, since I am as sarcastic and unrelatable as Artemis Fowl.

"Exactly!" Luke said, bounding out again to go tell someone else the good news.

Life in general

Yawn, it's morning. Life goes on as usual. Mom is teaching, that's what she's always doing. Andrew is being taught, per usual. I can hear him reciting his Shakespeare part. Mom just called Lexie and reminded her to do class with Emily. Any second, she'll walk in and ask me where Luke is and whether he's finished with his math. Heather is still asleep, and she's probably still mad. I told her over and over that I didn't wipe snot on her bag, which is true, but she doesn't listen. (How's that for a weird statement. It's a long story so I won't bother boring you with it. Just be assured, I did not do anything so morbidly disgusting.) I think Luke is now asking Mom a question. That'll speed up the Mom-comes-looking-for-Duncan process. Looks like I've got to go. I can't put off teaching Luke any longer.

Hello? Testing, Testing, 1 2 3

I'm just a stupid blog post that was scheduled to post later than I was written. La la la la la.

Hey! I'm going to Psychotic Fun today! Yahoo! I don't know why it is called Psychotic Fun, though. I'll know when I get there.

Hm. I had a story about socks and Andrew saying something stupid, but I can't remember it now. So that blog post dies.

Uh-oh. School time with Luke. Got to go.

Door in the Wall

Halfway through the trip in NC, Andrew sent me an e-mail saying "Luke is very excited. He can't wait for you to get back to tell you that all the clothing in the boys' closet was moved around." Alright, I thought. That's pretty boring but I'll pretend to be excited when Luke attacks me when I get home.

So I got home. "Duncan! Duncan!" quoth Luke, "Guess what?"

"Ah, the clothes were moved around in the closet, weren't they?" said I, once again displaying my psychic powers.

"Yeah, and now there's a door there!" said Luke.

Well, Andrew later told me he didn't think that was an important detail. You know, having a door put into your house, being able to access attic space that you have never used before, stuff like that. Weird.


P.S. I scheduled four posts to appear while I was gone, but they didn't. I am so disgusted with these posts. I deleted all four of them.

Disney should adopt my Ranking System

I've been reading a Disney guide book on this trip. In this book they list every ride and assign it a number of stars. Unfortunately, these stars don't really mean anything to me because they aren't qualified so I'm going to make my own ranking system and list it here. Just for fun.

1-star (*): Little kid rides. Think Dumbo and all its unfortunate progeny. When little kids start crying, mothers put their children on these rides to put them to sleep.
Who will enjoy: Meredith, Emily.
2-star (**): Scares Meredith but excites Bryce, and therefore by extension Luke. Think little kid roller coasters and race tracks. When little kids say to their parents: "Put me on something really scary" and the parents don't have enough cruel sense of humor/irresponsibility to put them on something like TOWER OF TERROR!!! then they put their kids on this ride. For uppity young children.
Who will enjoy: Emily, Bryce, Luke, Grace (Connor would probably be bored.)
3-star (***): The rides that no one goes on. When you ask Aunt Jennifer if she went on them, she rolls her eyes.
Who will enjoy: Alexie
4-star (****): Rides that everyone will enjoy. The little squirts may or may not go on these rides, depending on how scary they are. Everything from PhilharMagic (Fun for the whole family) to Thunder Mountain Railroad (Fun for any of the family who don't mind broken ribs) that is fun and good falls into this category.
Who will enjoy: Everyone or most everyone, depending on how scary it is.
5-star (*****): The big attraction. These things attract lightning bolts like nothing else because they are the tallest things in the park and you can see them from anywhere in Florida. They garner the longest lines in the park that are slowed down by little kids crying their eyeballs out at the thought of riding and girlfriends who are only riding it because their boyfriends are. That's how scary and awe-inspiring these rides are.
Who will enjoy: Duncan, Kathryn


Well, that's it. I'm going to go alter all my past blog posts on disneyland to include my ranking system. I'll also put in the label "vacation" just in case any of you want to find these posts quickly. Just click on the label below.

Logic

Yesterday, Luke got his hair cut. Coincedentally he also got sick. He was lying on the boys' room floor all day yesterday without the ability to get up. Every now and then one of the older boys would kick him and tell him to move whereupon he would tell them he couldn't. After one episode of this I realized that he was sick and just left him alone. (I know what you're thinking: A good brother would have carried him to his bed. His bed, however, is about eight feet off the ground.)

Because I am his logic teacher he naturally had not learned to avoid the logical fallacy "Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc." Every time someone told him to move he would say: "This hair is making me dizzy." This statement is actually the only reason I wrote this blog post because it is such an obvious logical mistake. Luke has the tendency to say things which don't make any sense and make me laugh.

Thomas Jefferson

I'm teaching Luke's school and boy is it ever a trip. His subjects with me include math, reading, and logic. For reading, we always read the same book every day, which is called Thomas Jefferson or something. The annoying thing is that it is written in "short words" that are easy to read interspersed with really hard words. The short words are like "Dick and Jane" words and are very easy to read but then you get words like "Monticello" and "House of Burgesses" thrown in there. Of course, you have to have these words because otherwise you're being historically dishonest, but Luke mars every word longer than five letters long. He still reads the House of Burgesses as the House of Burglars, which I bet King George would say they were.

The last book we read was about Abraham Lincoln. It REALLY tore Luke up when Lincoln got shot. I mean he cried about it for days. It was pretty incredible.