Houston, we have a party

On the third day of Kwanzaa the kids and I went with my wife to the 50th wedding anniversary celebration of her Uncle Gary and his wife Marilyn. To be honest, I was dreading it just a little because I was worried that my two boys would be bored and fidgety. But they did fine and it was a good time.

Among the guests who entertained the boys were a father and son team of amateur magicians (a first cousin once removed in-law and a second cousin, from the boys perspective), a 6 week old baby (first cousin), and some guy named Bean.

No, not Mr. Bean, the character created and played by Rowan Atkinson. The astronaut, Captain Alan Bean, USN, Ret.. You remember, don't you? He was on Apollo 12 and was the 4th person to set foot on the moon. Maybe you've never heard of him because he wasn't the 1st guy on the moon and because nothing went almost tragically wrong.

Anyway, Capt. Bean was extremely gracious and generous with his time, giving each of my boys a copy of his business card, autographing a memento from the party, and even posing for a picture. Everyone wanted to meet him — I hope he got to eat his dinner and that fabulous dessert.

By the way, Capt. Bean is now an artist (has been for quite some time). You might like to check out his art, and maybe buy some, at Novaspace.

Some Assembly Required

Off-shoring, or moving jobs to another country, has been a hot news topic this past year. Off-shoring is not a new phenomenon to people in the manufacturing sector, where jobs have been steadily moving to cheaper lands for several decades.

This Christmas it occurred to me that some of those manufacturing jobs are coming back, in a way. There's nothing new about the warning on the package saying, "Some Assembly Required", but it seems to me that we are being asked to do a little bit more than we used to. What am I talking about?

Stickers.

Yes, my memory is failing, but I seem to recall that toys of a few years ago, even when some assembly was required, were already painted or already had their stickers in place. But now every toy seems to come with at least one sheet of stickers that must be applied to complete the decoration. Many toys come with a hundred stickers! Others don't number them for fear that you'll return the toy rather than labor for hours with no pay to complete the manufacture of the toy.

So that's how manufacturing jobs are coming back to America -- as free labor putting stickers on toys.

Off-Topic
Kudos to Mattel for having a hotline that was able to solve our first toy emergency of the holiday. My elder son's "Hot Wheels Nitro Fuelers" motorcycle wouldn't work. I called the hotline and found out that when you remove the battery cover what you see is not the holder for two AA batteries, but one side of a cartridge which must be filled with batteries — something I would have known if I had Read The Fine Instructions that came with it. The nice woman at the other end even promised not to tell my wife. :-)

Bah! Humbug.

I used to like Christmas. But that was before I had kids. Some people think that kids are what makes Christmas special — and they're right! Kids turn Christmas into Hell, and it's hard to get more special than that.

Scrooge and the Grinch may have been a bit extreme, but they weren't completely off base. Grinch couldn't stand the noise of Christmas, and I suspect it's worse here in 21st century America than it was whereever and whenever Ted Geisel was when he wrote his take on Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".

And Scrooge was rightly annoyed by all the syruppy cheer that seems to ooze from every good little girl and boy. They're so excited they can't sit still or stop yammering. I couldn't count if I tried how many times I've been kicked and shoved and head butted in the past few weeks. And it's just gotten worse as Christmas gets nearer. Of course, I'm not the only one being assaulted — they assault each other and then we get the tears and wailing.

And try to get anything done? HA! Fuggedaboutit! Every two minutes it's, "DA-ad", or, "Ma-om", followed by "come 'er!" or "guess what" or "you'll never believe this" or "__fill in the sibling's name__ just __fill in the offense__".

Church! There's a refuge! Pardon my French, but that's odiferous bovine emission. You see, CPS would be upset if I left the little devils at home so I have to take them with me. I'm looking forward to the day when I'll be able to listen to the readings or hear the priest or deacon give his homily. I'd like to get into the proper frame of mind before going up to take communion. But no, not with two children I can't.

Oh, I can almost hear the people sighing and tsk'ing and whispering to each other about how much I'll miss these precious days. Those people are all women, and as of the last time I checked I'm not a woman. I don't miss the baby years. I don't miss the toddler years. I don't get all gushy looking at pictures of those years or looking at children of those years as we go about our lives. And I won't miss these years either.

Oh, what about the toys I mentioned a few blogs ago? That's more about playing with the toys than it is about playing with the kids. The kids are a bunch of greedy, selfish brats. They're sore losers and worse winners. They have a house full of toys and are continually bored. It's tempting to give away all the toys, sell the TV, and give them nothing but a bunch of chores. And if there's any complaining, "Oh, isn't that sad. Good night. Maybe tomorrow will be better."

Bah! Humbug.

Classic (electronic) Games and "When I was your age..."

One of the fun things about being a father is getting to play with your kids' toys. Okay, playing with "Thomas the Tank Engine"™ isn't so great, but when they get into radio controlled cars, rockets, more advanced Lego™ and so forth, then it's fun!

My kids are just getting to that age (almost 8 and 5).

The kids are also getting to the age where they realize that things were different in the past, so I get questions like, "did you have electricity when you were a kid?" :-)

My father could honestly say that he didn't have indoor plumbing when he was a kid growing up in rural Colorado (though they did have electricity). But what can I say about the hardships of my childhood compared to that of my children? The answer lies in old video and computer games.

A company called Namco has released several classic (and some not so classic) video games in a console-less form factor — they plug directly into the audio/video jacks of your TV. They have one that includes Pong and Asteroids, two of my all-time favorites! I hope Santa brings me one this year.

On the computer game front, Wumpus and Adventure are still available (you can Google them yourself).

You are in room 1 of the cave, and have 5 arrows left.

*rustle* *rustle* (must be bats nearby)

*whoosh* (I feel a draft from some pits).

*sniff* (I can smell the evil Wumpus nearby!)

There are tunnels to rooms 7, 8, and 14.

Move or shoot? (m-s)

I showed them to my kids this morning and the older one was intrigued (the 5-year old can't read, so that's a bit of a challenge). I think it's really cool that these old games can still be fun even without the blood and gore of the typical FPS (First Person Shooter) type game.

Merry Christmas!

(Postscript: yes, we had Christmas when I was a kid.)

And they're off!

Another football bowl season started last night with the venerable New Orleans Bowl, which pitted Division 1A powerhouses Southern Mississippi (7-5) and the University of North Texas (7-5) against one another.

There will be 28 bowl games this season, meaning that 56 teams will go bowling. But I wonder, outside of the big bowls, which pair up highly ranked teams, do these other bowls make money? Do the schools that play in them make money? Heck, to the restaurants and hotels in the host cities, or the cities themselves make money?

Then again, since I don't care about the teams playing in these bowls (even when its my alma mater that goes), why should I care about the poor sots who fund them, however indirectly? I'll tell you why: because it interrupts my regularly scheduled programming! I'd rather watch "Cops" than watch UNT and whatever the abbreviation is for Southern Mifipi play High School level football.

Hook 'Em!

Broken down by age, sex, and income

It has become painfully clear to me in the past year that I am not in the demographic group targeted by most TV advertising. TV advertising is clearly aimed at a younger person — one who is driven by hormones, emotion, and peer pressure rather than by long term goals or values.

What makes this particularly interesting is that my primary commercial TV viewing is the news and the Tonight Show. Are the targeted viewers watching these shows? My daily interactions with inDUHviduals doesn't lead me to that conclusion. I thought that marketers prided themselves on their ability to target their advertising for maximum benefit (i.e. profit). So what should I, a 42-year old SITCOM (Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage), watch to see advertising that would appeal to me?

Fresno State for BCS!

Mack Brown, the coach of the University of Texas (American) Football Team, is asking voters in the AP and USA Today/ESPN polls to vote Texas ahead of California so that Texas can go to a BCS Bowl. There are literally millions of dollars at stake.

But why should once beaten Texas be ranked ahead of once beaten California? And why should we have more sympathy for Texas' BCS woes than for Cal's BCS woes? The simple answer is that we they shouldn't and we shouldn't. Why? For starters, Cal's only loss was to a higher ranked team (#1 USC versus Texas' loss to #2 Oklahoma). Second, Cal actually beat USC last year while Texas hasn't beaten OU for the last 5 years. And third, I can't stand whiners and that's all Mack Brown's been doing the past several weeks.

But I do want the poll voters to change their votes for this week. I want them to put Fresno State and Utah ahead of both Cal and Texas. Why? Because that would mean that 25% of the BCS bowl money would go to non-BCS conferences/teams and that would be poetic justice.

We need a playoff in Division 1A college football.

You go first.

As if we don't have enough to worry about, now we have to worry that using the internet will cause us to commit suicide in groups!

Give me a break! What's next? Using the Internet will make me catch the flu? Bah! Humbug!

W.W.L.D.

A few years ago it was quite popular to wear clothing, particularly wrist bands, containing the inscription, "W.W.J.D.", which stood for "What Would Jesus Do?" The idea was that the world would be a better place if we would ponder how Jesus would behave before we did something (stupid).

My first question is, "what do the tendencies of an Hispanic day laborer have to do with how I conduct my life?"

I think a better thing to consider, especially for men involved in relationships, is "What Would Lorena Do?" Yes, Lorena. As in Lorena Bobbitt, the woman who cut of her husband's... ahem... manhood while he slept.

You see, we all have to sleep sometime. And don't we all have sharp knives in our kitchens? Don't you think that the possibility of losing our best friend would have a, shall we say, moderating influence on our behavior?

So do I.

Now if only cafepress sold wrist bands.

Now I know why they're losing money!

There have been recent rumors that Toys 'R' Us might sell its toy stores. Of course, one has to wonder what would be left if they did that, but that's not what concerns me today.

TRU, like every other store in the XMAS celebrating world, was having a big sale Friday and Saturday. One featured toy was the Lego Alpha Team Mobile Command Center for $24.95. This is half off! Since this toy is on the "I really, really, really, really, REALLY want this for Christmas" list of both of my children I decided to brave the holiday traffic and try to get it.

So I'm at the store and there are none on the shelf. Just an empty space. It was Saturday, so maybe they sold out on Friday. But having been in this situation before I looked up. Not to pray, but to see if there were any on the top of the shelves — and there were! So I called for a ladder and waited. And waited. And waited. When the highly motivated temporary worker finally showed up he got down... one.

I explained that this toy was featured in the current circular at half price and that the empty space on the shelf indicated that it was popular and that it might be a good idea to get down a few more so that people could buy them without him having to get a ladder each time. "Well, this isn't my department."

Sigh. And I'm sure he really believes that the reason he can't find a better paying job is because, a) illegal immigrants are taking them all, or b) they're all being shipped to India. Sigh.

Thanksgiving Supper

Today my in-laws are providing Thanksgiving Dinner. Or is it lunch? We will be eating at noon. Gene Bob wants to know about the whole supper vs dinner thingee, which surprises me because he's from Mifipi and I thought they taught this in Sunday School.

Anyway, for those needing a remedial education, here's the deal: if you live in a rural community or in the South (including Mifipi), then the noon-day meal is called "dinner" and the evening meal is called "supper". Most others call them "lunch" and "dinner". Why? Because they do.

Oh, you want to get into the entomological roots of the words? You may regret it later. Some authorities think that "dinner" as a mid-day meal entered Middle English lexicon as a nounification of the French word "diner" (but with a feminine little hat over the 'i'), which meant to dine. The French verb, in turn, has latin roots which basically mean to un-fast. In other words, to eat the first (big) meal of the day. Interestingly enough, the early French dined in the morning and it was typically their biggest meal of the day. Even more interestingly, the modern English word "breakfast" has the same meaning.

Even more fascinating is that the word "supper" also appeared in Middle English to describe the evening meal and also has French roots from a verb which means "to eat the evening meal".

Over time, the term dinner has migrated to the evening meal among the urban crowd, possibly because the biggest meal of the day migrated to the evening. Similarly, among the snooty crowd, supper appears to have migrated to be a very late, light, meal, such as after going to the theater. In rural areas, however, where the noon meal was still a large meal, dinner stayed at noon and supper, which started out as a small evening meal, stayed supper but got larger.

So to the early French dinner was breakfast and supper was dinner, or supper. Got it? Thus endeth the lesson.

Short People Got...

...lots of issues with cars. And while it's true that several new car features can help there is still one area that I need help with.

But first, it's not for me, it's for a friend. ;-) Actually, to be totally honest, it's for my 7-year old son. No, he's not driving. But his problem is similar to one faced by very short drivers: the seat cushion is too long for him. This means that he will end up slouching so that his knees are past the edge of the cushion, and that means that he is in danger of "submarining" under the seatbelt in an accident. That can cause all sorts of internal injuries if the belt catches under the ribs and, in extreme cases, can cause neck injuries.

So I'm thinking that there must be some sort of place that caters to short drivers and has what amounts to a full height seat-back pad that makes it easier for a short driver to sit forward in the seat. But where?