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When the Lamb opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature say, "Come and see!" Then another horse came out, a fiery Pinkie Pie one.

Jun 20, 2011
By .
Life

Saturday, as usual, I took the kids for breakfast at our favorite diner, Rocky Cola Cafe in Montrose. Elaina wanted cereal; Evan and Abby ordered their standard — "Carly's Favorite", a barrow-sized mound of hash browns topped with bacon and cheese. It's implied, but not stated, that this breakfast item is a memorial, and that Carly has died of a massive myocardial infarction.

While we waited for our heaps of carbs, Evan entered his trance-like Nintendo DS state, and Abby and Elaina busied themselves playing with various toys they brought, including a My Little Pony and a Littlest Pet Shop stuffed with tiny plastic pets.

I was benevolently ignoring the kids, reading Fark on my iPad and drinking coffee, when the girls' dialogue began to get louder.

Abby [8]: . . . an' . . . an' . . . an' . . . these cats and dogs are all fighting, and the Little Pony has to convince them to be friends!

Elaina [4]: YEAH! [ed: to convey approximate volume of Elaina's indoor voice, imagine all of her dialogue is typed in 38-point boldfaced red font]

Abby: Little Pink Pony is going to tell them not to fight!

Elaina: YEAH!

Me: That's sweet. [ruffling Abby's hair fondly]

Abby: [making the freakishly outsized pony bounce up and down violently near the plastic cats and dogs] "Kitties and puppies! Don't fight! Don't go to war!

Elaina: WAR!

Abby: . . . .because if you go to war, so very many of your people are going to die!

Elaina: YEAH! DIEEEEEE! [smashing plastic cats and dogs in brief but entirely credible simulation of probable effects of war]

Me: Uh . . . .

Abby: They're going to die, all the puppies and kitties and turtles and fishies and birdies, and everyone is going to be so sad and go BOO HOO!

Elaina: SAD! WOO HOO!

Me: Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Abby: [still stomping the pony up and down vigorously, now into the creamer dish]: So if you don't all want to die TODAY, and get BURIED in the GROUND, you have to be friends! Okay?

Elaina: OKAY!

Evan: Daddy, is Littlest Pet Shop supposed to be violent?

Last 5 posts by Ken White

13 Comments
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13 Comments

  1. TJIC  •  Jun 20, 2011 @2:29 pm

    > It’s implied, but not stated, that this breakfast item is a memorial

    LOL!

  2. Doug  •  Jun 20, 2011 @3:03 pm

    lol. been there, done that.

  3. Burt Likko  •  Jun 20, 2011 @3:05 pm

    Abby has apparently completed the Los Angeles County Volunteer Mediator panel training, because her appeal for peace amongst the plastic ponies was roughly as sophisticated as the analysis I last got from a free panel mediator.

  4. Pete  •  Jun 20, 2011 @3:20 pm

    Oh Ken… Fark? No Reddit? I've tried to go back to Fark since switching to Reddit, and it's like a time machine – Reddit from 3 or 6 days ago.

  5. Patrick  •  Jun 20, 2011 @3:39 pm

    I believe I speak for Ken when I make these two points on the Fark / Reddit thing:

    1) We prefer Reddit. Reddit has been FAR kinder to us than the snobs at Fark. Size of the userbase isn't the only reason. There's a "wisdom of crowds" / "you can't fool all the people" / "pointy-headed" people thing going on as well, to which end Popehat is honestly better suited to Reddit than Fark.

    Ken keeps trying to raise us up to the level of Fark. What can he do? He's a social climber and a snob, but he's stuck with me. I keep dragging us down to the level of Reddit. What can I do? I'm a social loser and a slob.

    2) You must admit that Fark sounds better than Reddit. Speaking of ends, both sites are named after bathroom noises, but it's far better to release a Fark in the bathroom, or in public, than it is to release a Reddit.

    I Fark all the time. The last time I had a Reddit, I'd made the mistake of drinking tap water in Russia.

  6. Ken  •  Jun 20, 2011 @3:41 pm

    I really haven't spent enough time at Reddit to even compare. Fark has a certain charmless charm, and is good for leads.

  7. Patrick  •  Jun 20, 2011 @3:44 pm

    Reddit's so much better as a source of material (if you're willing to do a little sorting – USE the ratings and don't be afraid to click on the new stuff), than Fark that it isn't even funny.

  8. SPQR  •  Jun 20, 2011 @7:52 pm

    Never have I seen a better description of the difference between Fark and Reddit than that which Patrick supplies.

    For an encore, Patrick, describe 4chan for us…

  9. David  •  Jun 21, 2011 @10:13 am

    Am I wrong in believing, after comparing the title of this post with the quotes from your daughters, that you know the names of the My Little Pony characters better than they do?

  10. Ken  •  Jun 21, 2011 @10:16 am

    Actually I came up with the post title concept and then looked up the names on Wikipedia.

  11. Paul Baxter  •  Jun 21, 2011 @4:07 pm

    I just feel required to share this:
    http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/11/watchponies-watchmen.html

  12. mojo  •  Jun 22, 2011 @3:01 pm

    Welcome to the "repeating stupid stuff my teacher said" zone.

  13. trinlayk  •  Jun 22, 2011 @6:23 pm

    I used to babysit for a kid with severe ADHD as well as other issues (long strange story, and TOTALLY not his parent's fault)… His parents FORBID toy weapons of any kind, or violent play. I was constantly rescuing his Older Brother (by about 3-4 years) from him…

    no toy guns, no toy swords, no Death Rays from Mars… but dang, any stick, plastic pony, finger, spoon, would become a gun or a death ray the minute he laid hands on it.

    I think it's also a human tendency to role play violence (action movies), even if we don't want, and don't have to deal with it in our real lives… maybe ESPECIALLY when we don't want it, and don't have it .