Sunday, March 19, 2006

Today we celebrated the 75th anniversary of my father. Happy birthday, old man!

He doesn't actually read this blog because I've never told him about it. I'm pretty sure that if he did read it, he'd be fairly disappointed in my subject matter, sense of humor, and bosom fixation. He'd be left wondering why I waste my time on this and where his nice boy went. Those are good and unanswerable questions, so, let's let a 75 year old man enjoy his retirement, while his son enjoys his bosom fixation. Everybody wins.

Buying a suitable present for my father is damn near impossible. The man doesn't seem to have any respectable hobbies. He neither golfs nor speaks incessantly about breasts. What does he do with all his retirement time? Well, I think he spends many of his hours backing up the data on his computer, but he's already got all the gear he needs for that . (He has shelves covered with old floppy disks, drawers bursting with computer tapes, and a closet filled with zip disks. Additionally, although his latest computer has a dual-disk RAID disk array, he still performs comprehensive backups onto zip disks. I have no idea what all this "data" actually is. I sure hope it's porn.)

So, what do you buy for a guy like that? The one other activity we thought of that he enjoys is digital photography. He takes a crapload of pictures of his grandkids and lots of images from recent trips. So, the wife suggested that we could buy him some nice picture frames. That sounded better than buying him a book about the persecution of Jews, which is what I do most years.

We bought him a couple of nice-ish frames and wrapped 'em up all purty. My father carefully fingered the wrapped presents during his party today and correctly deduced what they felt like. "Oh! Pictures of Daisy!" he exclaimed happily before carefully removing the wrapping. The frames, of course, did not contain any pictures of Daisy BECAUSE HE ALREADY HAS A ZILLION OF THOSE, but rather of stock B-level photo models. He looked minorly disappointed and everyone laughed at our lame gifts.

Sorry, Dad. I'll do better on your next 75th. Love you!

10 comments:

tinyhands said...

Your 75-year-old dad has a RAID array in his PC? Just when I thought I couldn't feel any worse about myself.

zelda1 said...

Now I really feel bad, what the F is a RAID array? Okay, I really don't want to know, but I thought when I found out that I could back up my stuff on one of those memory sticky thingys that I was treading in high cotton. Oh well, I will never catch up. Did I tell you that my hearing aides have a really awesome computer chip inside that allows me to do special things? I don't know how to do them, but they allow it. The last gift that I bought for someone over 70 was movie tickets. That went over like a lead balloon. So, I'm with you, what do you buy people who have been around for seven decades and have had just about every lame gift left to give? Oh, a gift certificate to their favorite restaruant, dancing lessons, a trip to the zoo, maybe a picture of the great wall of china. Yeah, that's what I want when I hit 70.

Siôn said...

You should tell your father about the blog. No father would be disappointed to find out his son has a bosom fettish. Surely?

...especially in San Fransisco...

Unknown said...

You didn't frame your new avatar for him? He would've loved it. Although, I'm thinking he'd say something to the affect of: "Son, small cups don't run on my side of the family!"

Mike said...

Oh, hazzah! Blogger comments are working for me again! Man, some weeks you get what you pay for with this service.

Tiny, yeah, the man is OBSESSIVE about his virus protection and data backups. Has he ever lost a single byte of data to either of those issues? No.

Zelda1, I know you don't want to know, but I'm going to tell you anyway. RAID stands for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks. Basically it means that he has TWO hard drives in his computer, each with the exact same stuff. So, if one breaks, he still has all his spreadsheets and documents and programs and whatnot on the other.

Siôn, I think after the all the ex-girlfriends he has met, and the wife I have, and the child I've fathered, hopefully my father understands that I'm heterosexual. More amusingly, did you spell San Francisco as San Fransisco to sissify it? I hope so. I chuckled.

jr, please, let's stop discussing my father's cup size.

TheTart said...

It is just a goat rodeo in here! Thank goodness...my blog has become a zoo.

RAID, that had me going too... I was thinking little roaches working through the night under the rule of RAID bug king... ya never know with California... ya'll are the first to do everything. ; )

BTW... I kinda miss the artsy avatar... your Mr. Prince Charming takes away from the cuppa! I heard it's the cuppas on the mom side that decide...right?

SMooch,
The Tart

Mike said...

Tartlet, yes it does come from the mother's side. I see that I've finally found my match when it comes to theories of genetics.

Also, please note that you have been immortalized in my sidebar.

Siôn said...

Mike - er...yes...of course i did.
(note to self:- must lern too rite proper inglish)

Mike said...

Siôn, hey, it's not like I can spell the name of the city where you live!

Siôn said...

It's not quite a city. (approx 19,000 inhabitants). Though interestingly, it is known as the gay capital of Wales.