Tag Archives: rants

It really bothers me that…

Oh look. The penguin needs a life jacket too. *facepalm*

Oswald the Octopus can’t swim and needs a floatie in the water. Because, hello! He’s an octopus. Granted he’s blue and wears a little black hat and sounds like Fred Savage and has a dog that’s literally a hot dog with a tail. And, yes, I get that he’s teaching little kids about water safety yada yada. But, y’know, even a three year old can grasp the concept that an octopus is different from a person, and doesn’t need help swimming in the water since that’s where octopuses live. Also, must he look both directions five times before he crosses the road, every single time? And so s-l-o-w-l-y too? Again, I get it. Teaching safety, etc. But talk about disrupting the dramatic momentum of the narrative. Yeesh.

… Max and Ruby is apparently a cartoon about two little orphaned rabbits. Seriously, where are the fricking parents? They’re not referenced once, not even in passing. At least in Charlie and Lola and Stella and Sam, the kids talk about their parents even if they never appear on screen. That’s fine. I get it. Parents are boring. These shows are all about siblings relationships. But Max and Ruby is just freaky — two small kids apparently living alone in a large, over-furnished, hideously upholstered house. No wonder Ruby’s an over-controlling, OCD mess and Max speaks in monosyllables. Not to mention that monumentally useless grandma of theirs who drops in for tea and ice-cream and then vamooses, leaving Ruby to cope all alone. And as if all her duties of feeding, bathing and cleaning up after Max weren’t enough, Ruby also takes on babysitting jobs, watching other little rabbits whose parents, ironically enough, are very much  present and accounted for. I tell you, that Ruby is heading for a nervous breakdown.

every building in the Peppa Pig universe is perched precariously on top of a ridiculously steep hill. I mean, why? What purpose could that possibly serve? Imagine the strain on the brakes on all the vehicles, since they need to park constantly on the almost vertical slopes of said hills. Not to mention the hazards of having little kids like George running down these slopes. And don’t even get me started on the stupid sloping gardens on the sides of the hills. They should just switch to terraced gardening or something.

Look ma! Flying pups and fancy mission towers!

… a ten-year-old boy in Paw Patrol apparently has endless income, access to fancy vehicles (including hovercrafts, helicopters and ATVs), and high-end electronic  systems, not to mention a ridiculously ostentatious tower with a glass-enclosed elevator and giant computer screens, used solely for discussing his ‘rescue missions’ with his pups. Why doesn’t anyone find it creepy that this kid, who apparently has no family, lives with a bunch of pups? What’s his source of income? How is it legal for him to be driving any vehicle on the roads (let alone his hi-funda All Terrain Vehical)? And why does Adventure Bay have absolutely no policemen or firemen or rescue personnel apart from the weird millionaire boy and his talking pups?

… cartoons such as The Hive  and Ben and Holly turn fleas and ladybirds into ‘dogs’, complete with the panting and barking and stick-fetching behaviours. Repeat after me, cartoon makers: fleas and ladybirds are NOT dogs. They’re bugs. As such, they behave like bugs. They don’t bark. They don’t play fetch. Not every pet needs to be canine-esque. Get over it, seriously.

Yes. I know. I need to get a life.

I’ll let you know when I do. Until then… stop using a floatie in the water, Oswald!

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Filed under Humour, Motherhood

‘Please close the door’

The lift in our apartment building was recently replaced. It’s an old building, a relict of the Alacrity Era of flat-building in the city, and the lift was accordingly fairly ancient. It was one of those double-gated affairs that got water-logged when it rained too much, got stuck between floors when the current got cut, and was a perennial hazard to little kids who wanted to stick their hands into the gate. It also let out a high-pitched ‘squeeeeeeeeee’ sound every time it was opened, and continued squealing until both doors were fully shut. That amounted to, as you can imagine, quite a lot of squealing in one day. That’s not even counting all the squealing that happened when the voltage was low or one phase of current randomly disappeared (which happened often).

I think I’m going to miss that old lift. And I’ll tell you why.

The new one they’ve put in has The Voice. You know the one I’m talking about. That strident, school-marm-ish voice that admonishes you, ‘Please close the door. Dayavu saithu kadavai moodavum.’ over and over and over again from the moment the doors open until they’re finally shut. It’s like having a bossy lady materialise at your elbow, nagging you non-stop to shut the damn door in two languages every time you step into the lift and every time you step out. And in a small block of flats like ours, the nagging isn’t just restricted to when you personally use the lift. That disembodied voice floats into the living room at all times night and day, preceded by those ominous chimes: ding ding DING! Please close the door. Dayavu saithu kadavai moodavum. Please close the door. Dayavu…” It’s like being haunted by an anal, repetitive, bilingual ghost. An electronic ghost that’ll nag you to death.

There was a time when I was younger, when I was first introduced to The Voice, that I actually found it quite funny. My brother and I would joke that there was a lady called Nandini madam, in a starchy cotton sari, sitting above the air duct in the lift, waiting to speak to us. That was before I was bombarded by her voice over and over to the point of absolute saturation.

Of course, it might just be that I’ve developed a wee bit of an intolerance for these recorded voices. My other big electronic-voice  bugbear is that lady who, for one of the mobile providers (I don’t recall which one), waits until you’ve placed a call and heard it ring at the other end some 20 times, and then informs you in the most patronising tone ever that “The number you are calling is not picking up.” First of all, the number I’m calling can’t pick up, being that it’s, well, a number. And secondly, really? I hadn’t figured it out at all. I mean, the fact that their phone rang and rang and rang, and that I’m listening to you instead of them really didn’t clue me in. Thanks for letting me know that they’re not picking up. Really.

Anyway, when I moved into this apartment building after marriage, I was very relieved to find that Nandini madam didn’t live here. But now that she’s moved in, I have to take a call. Is this building big enough for the both of us?

Give me that squealy ol’ lift any day.

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Filed under Humour, Madras