we [the dad] :: team dad blog

Guess Who's Back in the *wiki wiki wiki wiki, shut up!*

Vacation Season????? That is one of the big fibs ever told. Who "goes away" for 6-months and calls it "Vacation"? In some circles they call that "doing a stint"

Did Eric get sent up the river? Did I? Not bloody likely. Besides, the records are sealed. So much shit happened, where to start. How about backwards.

1. sweN xoF htiw no dengis nilaP haraS

Yes, I am still obsessed with Miss "Your book made me throw up in my mouth" ex-Gov. of Putin, I mean Alaska. But she's back (thank you Fox News for ensuring that Jon Stewart gets a contract extension), so I am back. and hopefully Eric will be back as well.

2. Jude is addicted to puzzles. Have you ever seen a 2-yr-old do a 100-piece puzzle by himself? I have. Mr. No-Attn.-Span actually has an attention span. who knew? I guess this either means he'll end up in the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit or guessing your weight when the carnival rolls through town. either way I'm a proud papa.

3. Scarlett can bloody read. She doesn't think she can, but she can. She says, "Is it reading if I just know the word, instead of sounding it out?" She thinkgs that's "guessing"--I told her that if everyone sounded out every word all of the time, then no one would ever read books (ooops - that's already happening. Can't wait to have my news and literature administered by intervenous drip).

4. Stef is stef - she's a rock, plugging along, fighting the good fight, burning both ends of the candle, working for the love of it (and I am a cliche machine it seems). She has been helping the world one patient at a time (or sometimes in groups) and keeping me in check as well.

5. I still live half my life in one city and half in another. nothing new there. Shameless plug: I've started keeping another blog. It's like a blog mistress I guess (Eric, forgive me for my blog-infidelity). Surprise, another blogger with multiple blogs cloggering up the inter-web. It's basically a place where I can post my inane thoughts (oh wait, that's what this is for). Actually it's more of an outlet for my artictic endeavors (look for some critical pieces posted to it, some poems (print and audio) and I'll be posting saome of my music there soon too. It's called The Novice Is Apprentice. Check it out @ thenoviceisapprentice.wordpress.com

So, yeah, that's a start. I'll leave you with the best Daily Show clip I've seen in awhile. It'll take 6 minutes from your life--but hey, so will those Ziggy cartoons you get sent to your email every day

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Gretchen Carlson Dumbs Down
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Holy Gluttony Batman!

Have you seen this show--Man v. Food on the Travel Channel? This glutton, Adam Richman, travels the country profiling any food that is gluttonous, big, spicy, etc--while simultaneously taking part in any "pig out" challenges he comes across.

He ate a 72 oz. steak in under and hour (complete with salad, bread and baked potato), he attempted (and failed) to eat "The Sasquatch" burger, a 7.5-pound cheeseburger, he ate the "hottest" curry in the country (Phaal curry) and something called "Noodles from Hell" or something like that, which features the Ghost Chile (that sounds spooky). There was also some 35-inch pizza challenge. (As you may be able to tell, there was a Sunday marathon on the TV yesterday). Overall it is a sight to see, entertaining like a cross between a travel show and a bloody car crash--you just can't look away.

But, by far the most over-the-top thing I have ever heard of that Mr. Richman has eaten so far is the Double Bypass Burger he profiled at The Vortex Bar & Grill in Atlanta, GA. This burger is a heart attack in a bag (hence the name). It has an 8-ounce hamburger topped w/  three fried eggs, four pieces of cheese, six pieces of bacon, and get this, instead of a bun it is sandwiched in between 2 grilled cheese sandwiches. It may just be the most impressive and disgusting thing I have ever seen. Did I mention that it seems to come with a heaping portion of chili cheese tater tots? I think I got fatter just watching the show.

Immersion

There are many perplexing perplexes one encounters in the parenting experience. For a while, we wondered how much a part of our kid’s lives video games should be. I love gaming. My kids love gaming. Our policy is, if they start loving gaming more than playing outside, well then, game over. Easy for me to say now, when they are more than entertained with driving and adventure games. What happens when they play a first-person shooter at a friend’s house and snipe a soldier with a headshot from the clock tower for the first time? Or smack down one of their hoes for not earning their keep?

Whether you think that’s just normal child’s play or a disturbing reality, check this out:

Immersion - The New York Times - Video Library

Of course, the ill effects of violent video games has been studied and studied. Case closed - violent games are a pretty shitty influence on kids. And as Robbie Copper’s film illustrated, contort their angelic little faces, making them look like heroin addicts suffering from withdrawal. But I maintain, common sense should, and will for us, rule the day.

Payback

I sometimes find myself hypnotically lobotomized by the childrens shows my kids like to watch. The music is just so damn catchy, the visuals mesmerizing and the performances so flippin over-the-top that I often wonder what it might be like on the set of those productions. Either way, many of them make my brain hurt, incessantly. Luckily, there are mashup artists who have expertly mocked some of the worst offenders. And it somehow makes the pain go away. 

Here are some of my favs. Parental discretion advised.

Gangster Wiggles

Dora the Explorer - Crank That

Lil John Meets Lazytown

But how can we avoid what's everywhere . . .

Sorry Eric, I know that though it's election time, and that our world is going to hell quicker than we can write a post about it, I should be more of a DAD--but I can't help it. It's everywhere.

And now it's infiltrating our children's lives.

 

SESAME STREET HAS GONE INTO FORECLOSURE! and PBS has apparently shut its doors. According to my sources, the Cookie Monster has been giving bunk loans to all the people in the neighborhood, Miss Piggy has been sold to Tyson, and Bert and Ernie have jumped from the window.

But I'll try to keep it together. It's DAD or bust from here on out (or until I'm pulled back into the post-election melee, whichever comes first).

Just Plain Wrong, But Very Funny

In yet another attempt to stay true to our DAD theme amidst the election madness, I offer you Sesame Street. (And thanks for nothing on the Michigan Electors.)

It's good to know . . .

that my kids are not the only ones obsessed by the TV - you know, that eternal fire, that idiot box we belly up to in times of need or of no-need. sometimes it is on and we don't even watch--it's just a babbling thing running on a loop for what feels like forever.

They love it. I mean they really love it. REALLY. LOVE. IT. As in, Jude sometimes tries to lick it. Now if that's not love, then I don't know what love is.

But I feel better, I feel better after seeing Michelle Obama on the Tonight Show. She tells a story of her husband's upcoming 30-minute I'm-buying-time-on-all-the-stations-the-week-before-the-election-because-I-can "thingy" (commercial, promotion, documentary, policy speech--whatever he's going to call it). The story unfolds with Barrack telling his mother-in-law about this upcoming TV event. The older Obama daughter, Malia, overhears and says, "You're going to be on ALL the channels?"--as if to say, "I hope you didn't really mean ALL of them!"

Obama reassures his kid that Disney, Nick, Cartoon, and the others are safe for now . . .

especially because Nickelodeon already held their kids election, which Obama won with 51% of the vote. Apparently over 2.2 million kids voted, and it was a close call that may be heading for the Supreme Court as we speak.

In a further aside, "Kids Pick the President" on Nick has been happening since 1988, w/ the kids correctly predicting 4 out of the last 5 elections correctly. So much for all those "polls" out there (and sorry to John Kerry in 2004 who must have thought he had it in the bag, after the Kids had weighed in).

The Mighty B rocks it

The Mighty B just might be the new coolest kids show on TV. Hands down.

Amy Poelher is a co-creator and the voice of main character Bessie Higgenbottom. Bessie is a fanatical Honeybee scout who is 9 3/4 years old. She’s overly ambitious, a bit standoffish and talks with a priceless lisp through her missing two front teeth.

The show is smart, one of those cool cartons that my kids love, but that is also playing to me at the same time (see The Simpsons, Looney Toons, Spongebob, etc.).

Working with Amy Poelher as co-creators are Erik Wiese from Spongebob and Cynthia True of Fairly Oddparents, so that will give you a clue into the type of humor they’re going for—it can be heady, but they are not above a good booger joke when the time timing is right.

The animation is totally cool, too. I can’t put my finger on it but it almost reminds me of Ren and Stimpy . . . let me check on that . . . okay I’m back, it looks like Ren and Stimpy because the animators on The Mighty B are the same who actually did R & S—makes sense.

Anyway, my wife loves the show, I love the show, the kids like the show as well—makes for a good family half-hour—to watch Bessie try and give herself chicken pox, so she can earn the chicken pox badge for her Honeybee sash, by ingesting the snotty gloop from her pox-suffering neighbor’s thermometer is priceless and nauseating all at the same time.

Well worth it—another Nick show that has hit the bullseye.

Worldwide "Day" of Play

On Saturday @ noon, Nickelodeon went dark for a day (3 hours) when they announced to kids throughout TV-land that they should get outside and run around (luckily it was actually a very mild and pleasant day, in Michigan at least, how kids in Nome took to that advice I’m unsure).

 

This was all part of their 4th annual Worldwide Day of Play. Kudos. Good job.

While it is commendable to want kids to play outside (you remember the outside, it’s the world of real trees and non-videogame happenings, that semi-mythical pre-Tron world), the whole endeavor seems just a touch contrived and also ultimately inconsequential, a bucket of water bailed from the oceans of TV we're afloat on.

In a supply and demand world, the crack dealer pulled his supply—you can imagine what happens to the demand then. Am I calling Nickelodeon “crack?” I guess I am. Of course it’s primo educational crack. Their programming is actually pretty good, though I won’t be pulling my kids from pre-school anytime soon.

Scarlett was legitimately confused. “What’s wrong with our TV,” she wanted to know, which prompted me to explain to her that Nickelodeon wasn’t going to show “shows” anymore,

just this picture from now on:

At her continued confusion, I tried sincerity: Nick wanted her to go outside and get some use out of her swingset. That didn’t work. “They want me to watch Spongebob” was her reply.

Yes they do, three hours from now.

Wake up the members of my nation . . .

As part of Nickelodeon’s stable of shows in which they run the same indentured actors out there for different roles on different shows, iCarly has the goods—it is a perfect lozenge of TV candy, and perhaps one of the better that NICK puts out in that same pre- to teen mode. Three hip, web-saavy, smart-dressing, junior-high kids run a web TV show with tens of thousands of viewers—all from the loft of Carly’s older bro/guardian. Sort of a Party of Five for the digital age. Except the parents aren’t gone, they’re on an aircraft carrier in the Pacific or something like that. The sheik loft is in Seattle, capital of all things hip and ironic, a perfect locale for this progressive “family.”

 

Like all shows of this sort, money just appears from the void, there’s always enough with little to no explanation. Freddie the nerdy, techie, cross-hall-friend and producer of the show is lovable for his nerd-dom, his zanily overbearing mom (she gives him daily precautionary lice baths), and his secret love of Carly. Sam is Carly’s best friend and co-host. She’s the edgy trouble-maker to Carly’s even-keeled character (Carly is nearly Seinfeldian in that she is surrounded by outlandish, nutty orbital characters). The older brother (Spencer) is severely ADD-inflicted, an absent-minded sculptor who couldn’t find the hat on his head—a hipster dufus or sorts. Though when it comes to guardianship he’s where it’s at. This is, after all, a kids show. No dark comedy here, just a half-hour of good clean hip caricature of life in digi-ville, complete with cool computers with a “pear” shaped logos gracing the set.