Still offended

Well, not me personally, but it seems there are some who are offended. It’s a commercial ok? Not real life!

Dad Gets the Bimbo Treatment in Verizon Ads

A subject near and dear to our hearts is the portrayal of dads and men as blithering idiots in television commercials. The trend has been around for a long time and now there’s an advocacy group speaking out against the practice. The group, Dad’s and Daughters which, in some circles, could be construed to stand for something very different than healthy father/daughter relationships, is furious over a recent Verizon DSL ad which features a computer-clueless Dad trying to help his daughter with her homework online. In the ad, he gets shoed away by his wife as he looks over his daughter’s shoulders. <Link>

Toys of old

You know you’re “getting old” when you look at all the toys available to kids today and suddenly become disgusted by how advanced everything is. I mean seriously, the toys today almost play with themselves. Oh sure, there’s lots of flashing lights and buttons and switches and all that, but they really don’t require a great deal of interaction. “Back in my day…ok amost not even my day because toys were starting to take that route even when I was a kid, but I still remember some of the older toys too. Point of the story is there’s a great toy maker out there called Schylling and they are bringing “Old School” toys back to the forefront. I’m talking “REALLY” old school toys. Foot powered fire engines, actual WOODEN blocks, chalkboards, kaleidoscopes. These are toys not only require (and help build) motor skills, but also imagination (something I think is starting to escape the kids of today). Here’s one review I recently read:

Schylling is one of the leading toy makers in the USA and has been reviving some of the favorite toys from the past with their retro toys.  Some of the toys were originally popular in the 1950s and some date back to the turn of the 20th century.  Other toys are completely new inventions.  Here are some of our favorites which are sure to delight young children of the 21st century! (Schylling)

Check out all of their cool toys and happy shopping <Link>

A parent…er…sucker born every minute

Time for another look at baby products and the sucker parents who buy them.

Do you remember the first time you walked into Babies R Us and picked up one of those “here are all the things you need to buy before your baby is born” lists? I dont’ know about you by my eyes about popped out of my head. After looking the list over more carefully and consulting with a few friends who already had kids, we realized that half the list is filled with bullshit products that only a new parent could buy. Bottle warmer? Wet wipe warmer? 900mhz audio AND video monitor? Sunggle nest sleep positioner? None of these things is in any way shape or form “necessary.” But by far one of my favorites, for the newly potty-trained, is the Neat Solutions Potty Topper. This, of course, is designed to protect your children from coming into contact with dangerous germs in public restrooms.

The truth? The toilet seat is probably one of the CLEANEST things your child will come into contact with in a public restroom. A quick, somewhat scientific, test performed on Penn & Teller’s Bullshit! (Safety Hysteria: Season 2) showed that people’s hands were FAR more germ ridden than their backsides after sitting on a public toilet.

A couple studies by ABC News showed that your desk at work is probably 400 times dirtier than a toilet seat. Here’s some more findings from the study:

“…He <Charles Gerba> says most of the germs you and your children pick up in the bathroom are on your hands, so make sure to wash them well but skip the so-called sanitary hand dryer.

“You actually end up with more bacteria with the hand blower because they’re taking the air in the restroom and blowing it onto your hands with the bacteria on it,” said Gerba.

But once your hands are clean there’s no need to worry about the door handle.

“Really the cleanest areas in the bathroom are actually the door handle and the toilet seat,” said Gerba. <Link>

Inducing Labor: Urban Legend or the “Real” deal?

Mom-to-be overdue? Is her continued misery causing you equal if not greater misery? There’s ton’s of so-called sure-fire methods of iducing birth. Walking, driving on a bumpy road, having sex, and so on. But I have another one for you which is even more crazy. It didn’t work for us (Michelle was 3 days over due), but according to the instructions, if it doesn’t work then chances are you did it wrong.

This method comes from Jim Phillips, a radio personality with Real Radio 104.1 in Orlando, FL. How’s it done? Mac n’ Cheese (no really). What’s the secret ingredient? A1 Steaksauce (I am not making this up).

As he puts it, “The surefire recipe is guaranteed to work, (at least 9 out of 10 times) and if it doesn’t, it means YOU screwed it up!”

Read on, and good luck <link>

Offended!

Just a quick rant to continue on with a previous post on American’s seemingly thinning skin. Several Groups have chimed in on the latest round of Superbowl ads. Apparently the fast food industry is offended by the K-Fed commercial, and The Human Rights Campaign is outraged by the Snickers “Get back your manliness ad.” Hey why stop there? The Fed Ex “Don’t Judge” ad encourages office sterotyping. The Sprint “Connectile Dysfunction” add pokes fun at Men who suffer from “sexual issues.” The GM “Robot” commercial seems to advocate Suicide as the answer when things are going poorly. And the skin gets thinner…These are just COMMERCIALS people. The only thing they are advocating is you purchasing their product. That’s it! If you think otherwise then you need to get your collective head out of your ass and stop taking yourself so seriously.

Here’s another quick take on this issue from the Hanlon’s Razor blog:

(In reference to the Snicker’s ad) “The Mars company is not condoning hate crimes, they aren’t encouraging violence against gays. They made a joke at the expense of homophobics, but the oversensitive wing of my side of the spectrum just sees “joke about gays and something violent happening” and flips their collective wigs. Wigs that I’m sure are very stylish…” <Link>

The one that I can’t believe no one is in an uproar over is the Mencia Bud Light commerical where he’s teaching english as a second language and making fun of various local regional (and racial) stereotypes….Hopefully I’m not giving anyone ideas.