DadCentric

Holiday Week Filler!

It's not just me; three-day weekends really are much more than that. I went back to work on Tuesday, and apparently the rest of the world has not. This is a good thing - it allowed me to recover from the extended post-birthday celebration hangover. (If you didn't get me a present and are looking for ideas - one of these.) Unfortunately, for those of you who may be visiting for the first time as a result of the lovely mention in the June/July issue of Fit Pregnancy, it's now Thursday and none of us has anything to offer regardinginsights on the mind of the modern father. I feel bad. Sorry. Oh - wait - Charles Nelson Reilly died this week. I was reminded by my lovely wife Beth that when we were first thinking of getting a dog she wanted to name it Charles Nelson Reilly.

La Fiesta is Coming! La Fiesta is Coming!

Just wanted to drop a little reminder for those of you that are loco local, that we are officially one (1) week away from the L.A./SoCal Blogger Party. 

First 50 guests get a free handshake from me.  Anyone after that only gets a nod, for a buck.

Nobody likes a square.  Just ask these guys:

A New Hope... For Me to Poop On

Want to feel better about your social life?

A Day Long Remembered

Wanna feel old? Here's a story: thirty years ago today, my mom and went to the movies. I was 7, the movie we decided upon clearly fit the bill for a 7-year-old boy, and luckily for us, the theater we saw it in was relatively empty - buzz traveled slow to Omaha, NE. The next day, we happened to be driving by that same theater, and weren't surprised at all to see lines of people circling the building. I asked to see it again; I didn't that day, but did the following week, and the week after, and 4 times after that, during the movie's several re-releases. Then the VCR was invented, and then followed the DVD, and cable TV, and I can tell you that I have lost count of how many times I've seen it. Must be into the hundreds by now.

So happy 30th, Star Wars. You provided me and countless others fodder (I actually learned that word from the films - raise your hand if you'd used it before hearing the phrase "bantha fodder". I didn't think so) for geeky quotes and blog posts. Now my kid is into it (although he does need some help pronouncing the names - "Darth Vader" is referred to as "Garth Seder". A Jewish Sith Lord?) and although he's still a bit too young to watch the whole thing (the Sandpeople are the stuff of a three-year-old's nightmares), we let him watch snippets. Can't wait until he and I watch the movies unedited;I do hope he believes me when I tell him that Greedo actually did shoot first.

The Devil Made Me Do It

I know it's a day early for the Friday Fuckwit, but I just couldn't let this one slide. 

From the Deep South (where else?) comes this story, in which a 19-year old father put his two-month old baby in a microwave.  The mother, sporting a stunningly tenuous grip on reality, blames Satan. 

Satan, when reached for comment, said, "Look, I'm responsible for evil, not stupidity.  Keep me out of this."

Shockingly, Child Protection Services are reluctant to return the severely burned infant to the parents.

"It's almost like he waited."

There's not much one can say about a story like this. Read it and hug your kids. (Thanks to reader Mark A., who found it via Varsity Dad.)

Putting the "Pub" in Puberty

I can't believe I'm about to say this, but what the hell is the deal with all of the underage drunk girls?  Seriously?  I don't know, maybe it's the dad talking, but I'm not sure it's as cool as E! wants us to believe.

They are everywhere, and for some reason there isn't much of an outcry from our otherwise prudent society.  Sure, their antics make for great headlines and some decent side-boob shots, but the Lohans of the world aren't even old enough to get into bars- shouldn't that raise some concern?

I'm not going to pretend that I didn't partake when I was younger.  I spent many a weekend night with my friends in the Alpha Beta parking lot, standing around, listening to Guns and Roses and The Beastie Boys, waiting for the few girls that would hang out with us to pimp their goods in the face of the right horny shopper and score us twenty bucks worth of crappy beer and 2-liter bottles of wine coolers.  What else were we going to do, bowl?

We, however, were not on the national news every night, and we most definitely were not in bars.  I didn't get my fake ID until I was 20.  By the time Lindsay and friends turned twenty we had been following their clubbing lifeystyle for years. Years.

How are these ladies, and of course the hordes of hormones and cameras that follow them, getting into places that are designed by law to keep them out?  If the paparazzi was replaced by 60 Minutes the doors would be shut tight, but Andy Rooney isn't taking the bait.  Why, besides the fact that I'm pretty sure he's dead, wouldn't a respectable news guy/humorist want to expose this?  Because it's not news, and it's only slightly funny.

America loves underage drunk girls.

I must be getting old. Think I'll head down to Alpha Beta.

Hello, I'm a Parody

Mac vs. PC, that's so yesterday (Mac won by the way).  Here's the real dilemma in a nerd's guy's life, Marvel vs. DC. 

Gut-punched

I was all set today to extol the virtues of hi-def television after having it all set up yesterday. But, I read something this morning that just knocked the wind right of my sails.

As I usually do upon arriving to work in the morning, I set about taking a look at what happened in the blogosphere overnight. Oftentimes, I take a look first at those I consider my blogamigos - ones I've corresponded with outside of comments and the like. Chag, aka Cynical Dad, is one of those with whom I've chatted about music, Yankees/Sox, etc. He was also a founding writer at DadCentric when we first got up and running.  That's why this post hit me so hard.  He and his wife, Ella, recently learned their son, Zed, has autism.

I can't speak about what they're going through; I can't even begin to understand the tidal wave of emotions they must be enduring. I see it every day and every day it rips my heart out. It's emotionally draining -- I honestly do not know how people work in this area for as long as they do, let alone how parents cope with it on a daily basis. I know I find myself on the verge of tears more often than not during the work day and, after arriving home, I'll hug Little Dub a little closer and a little longer or look into the eyes of Little Dubyette and hold her hand just a tad tighter while a silent prayer runs through my head.

I've never met Chag or Ella.  I've never met VampDaddy or Robert or any of the other dads and moms who are going through or have gone through these life-altering, soul-sucking, emotionally draining events. Their accounts are filled with raw emotion; their blogs a means of catharsis. Somehow, some way, I feel connected to them because of it, albeit in a very anonymous way. Their experiences have forced me to take stock of the way I look at life. I vaingloriously look to the future, certain that it will unfold just as I figure it will. But we all know that karma, fate or what have you has a tendency to bitch slap the prideful. So, rather than tempt these vengeful, ethereal entities, I will take one day at a time, one milestone at a time. I will be thankful and I will pray.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Chag and Ella during this very trying and difficult time.

cross-posted at Mr. Big Dubya

How To Cope With A Hot Nanny

Many of us, at some point in our parenting lives, are faced with a choice: child care center, or nanny? We went down both roads; Lucas is currently going to a center, two days a week, but in his rookie season, the boy had a nanny. We all loved her; she was great with Lucas, and she was named after a titular Allman Brothers gal (no, not Elizabeth Reed; that would be somewhat disturbing, to name your girl after the dead subject of a lengthy instrumental jam. Like naming your daughter Eleanor Rigby.) Choosing the right nanny is a pressure-laden and grueling task, and it can be a tremendous challenge to find the right one, and hang on to her/him once you have.

DadCentric favorite AJ Jacobs has a nanny. And a problem. She's apparently hot, Angelina Jolie-hot, and we men do not bandy that term around lightly. (Poor AJ - must be rough, what with having Lara Croft as a nanny and hanging out with Scarlett Johansson and all.) So hot, in fact, that she's having trouble finding dates because of the hotness - men are simply intimidated by her. So AJ does what any wordsmith with an unbearably hot nanny would; he takes a cue from Edmond Rostand and offers to help. Read the rest of the story to find out what happens.