Kids TV Show Comments

Some random comments on some the shows my kids watch.

Curious George:
That's one tough city kid. We have an eight show DVD. In two of the episodes
he floods his home. Why would anyone ever leave George alone? The man with the
yellow hat is not a very good dad/guardian. He should give up George for adoption.


Dora the Explorer:
Is Swiper the fox (who always try to steal stuff from Dora) a metaphor
for corrupt 3rd world governments in Latin America or simply a metaphor
for taxes paid to the government? Maybe Swiper is just there to remind
kids that someday you may get mugged? Or maybe it's simpler than that...
maybe it is just telling kids not to steal?

She also likes to repeat where they're going about 10 times through the
course of an episode. "We're going over the bridge, through the pyramid,
and up the hill." Does she repeat herself so much so my kids will understand
or is it because she has a short attention span and may forget where she's going?

A positive of this show is the Spanish. That helps hold my attention.

Wiggles:
The music is repetitive, and the singing is poor. They should call
Simon in from American Idol for help. Maybe that's why the Wiggles are
not on the air anymore? Maybe they're getting help from Simon ... or maybe
from Paula Abdul? Maybe that's why she left the show? That would be
fun if she was on the Wiggles. I would watch it then. I would make
my kids watch it. I'd be like, "Here's a cheese stick... why don't
you sit in your seat and watch the Wiggles."

Sims Castaway

$15 well spent.

Once a week when the kids go to bed and Amy is too busy blogging to spend any quality time with me.... I play "Sims Castaway" on PS2. There are only a few goals of the game: find the other three castaways (my wife Amy, Cindy Lauper, Bob the Sailor), get married to Amy, find all four islands, get rescued, and build a sustainable house/farm/compound.

Following the same lameness of the game Sims, "Sims Castaway" also requires your dirty dishes to be cleaned up in your hut regardless of any "real life" dishes or chores that need to be done in your regular life.

Prior to starting the game, I had to create three other castaways. Creating "Amy" was a natural first choice so Amy would not get jealous seeing my character with another computer woman. The second (non-threatening) choice of Cindy Lauper then followed. I made Cindy with a crazy big funky hat so real life Amy sees her in the game and just laughs.

Bob the Sailor started out as "Mr T" when I was creating him, but the game did not have a mohawk style haircut option. So, the SIM esentially became Mr. T without the mohawk and dressed in a prepy saiiling outfit. "Mr T the Sailor " was too awkward of a name so I just call him "Bob the Sailor".

The last part of the game to mention is that it has natural 2 minute pauses when my character has to eat, sleep or travel. These two minute breaks are just enough time to re-position my 8 month old daughter's bottle (being held up over her blanket w/her lying next to me in a bouncy seat) or just enough time to burp her. Hey... If she wants to get up at 6 am on the weekend the quality of care she gets does go down a bit (just kidding... sort of).

Sure.. the game offers no real long term gain... but it does occasionally offer a bit of downtime before fantasy football starts up. RIP Steve McNair.

Top Hobbies for New Dads

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