Comic for December 9 2006

So as of today's episode, I've committed myself to purchasing the Playmobil Devil Gnome.

Yes, that's a rather kid-friendly name for a toy, isn't it? Bound to have been popular with the conservative European Catholic crowd, I imagine, which is why it was discontinued half a dozen years ago, making it a bit of a rare piece, even on Ebay (I've only seen one in the last six months, and I missed getting that one at the time, darnit).

On note related in that "Hell and back" kind of way, our little family went to get our passport pictures done up all at once a couple of weeks back. It was all very last minute because of our usual procrastinatory planning skills, and we showed up at the photographer's at quarter-to-closing. The only thing that got us a shot at getting our shots taken was our sweet little girl, smiling in her freshly done up pigtails, burbling happily and fresh out of daycare for the day.

This was the last happy moment for a little while, as you realize there's a genetic marker embedded deep within the human program that says "love the camera when Daddy points it at you" and "freak out if it's not a family member pointing a camea at you". It must be some kind of anti-paparazzi (or maybe an anti-stalker?) gene, because it was a real chore to get a proper passport photo taken of her.

Not that the passport office makes it easy. Your picture has to be neutral expression, eyes open, mouth closed, head facing forward, don't move aaaaand...... (*BOOMF*) okay, you're set for the next five years. It's ridiculous how difficult it is to get a small kid to adopt all of these options at once. Especially when she's crying, wriggling, shaking her head and reaching for Cheerios. (that would be a zero out of five situation).

At this point, it becomes something of a video-game puzzle to get the picture, where giving cheerios stops the crying, but the mouth is opening and closing and the hands a moving back and forth, and removing cheerios sets you back about three loud and tearful variables.

Long story short, we all got our pictures taken, but mommy's got sent back a few days ago because it was "not good". So we had it re-done, and went back to the passport office, where they told us the second one was probably going to be also not good because they were both "off" in terms of contrast.

So now it's likely she'll have to sit dow for a third time (fortunately the other pix were ok) but we'll try a different place entirely and the folks at the 'office said that they can just insert the photo (if it's good) into the passport within 20 minutes with the on-site process they have there.

But it's been a pain in the ass, for the record.