If you haven’t had that freak-out yet, at some point you will. Trust me. And it sucks!
Here’s how the scenario played out for me:
Day: Son’s 2nd birthday.
Subject: Awesome birthday party Mrs. ReviewDad spent months planning and weeks working on.
Highlights: ChooChoo Train theme. Handmade decorations. Train cake made (and decorated) totally from scratch. 30 friends, family and kids.
Extenuating Circumstances: ONLY person taking pictures that day = ME!!!
Trauma: 11:15 pm, put memory card into computer, ZERO pictures.
WTF: 2GB card is Full! So where the @#%$ are the digital pictures?
The answer is that your missing digital photos are probably there…you just need to know how to get to them when the regular means fail you. And you don’t need Geek Squad or some other professional to get them back. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is the transcript of my chat with Jamie from elitecarseats.com. She won this day but I’LL GET YOU NEXT TIME JAMIE!! YOU HAVE MY WORD!!! muuuahahahaaaaaa
Jamie : Hello and welcome!
I’m a personal shopping assistant and can help answer any questions or issues you have.
How can I assist you? michael: Michael: Hi
Michael: I am wondering if you have any promotions or price matching policies. Your Gisele is about $20 more than the best price I found.
Michael: I also tried a free shipping code and that did not work michael: That’s the Graco Snug Ride Gisele Jamie : Which website are you wanting to price match with? michael: babyage.com and michael: albee baby michael: they both offered the seat for $20.99 less Jamie : Let me take a look into these sites. Jamie : One moment please.. michael: i’ll URL you
In the crush of the holiday season, a lot gets left to the last minute and being the kind of dads that we are (selfless, sacrificing), the focus is clearly on our broods. Same goes for your partner - conversations related to gift giving revolve around the kids. You can feel good about yourself as a parent but where does that leave you as a dude - most likely with a couple of gifts that are nothing that you’d hoped for if you dared to hope at all.
If you’re anything like us at Noodad, you feel, upon reflection that you had little opportunity (or maybe it’s too little energy) to drop those all too critical hints to the Mrs. that help ensure that you don’t end up with socks in a dopp kit or a cartoon-themed necktie.
While time is short, there’s still time. So in the spirit of brotherly assistance, we offer the 2008 Edition of our “What Dads Should Covet this Holiday Season” list - intended to save you time (from thinking about what you should covet) and energy: our suggestion is to print this article out and leave it on the kitchen table TONIGHT or just leave this page up on the computer screen for your significant other to see next time they check email.
What if Noodad and Foodad merged DNA and spawned an alien clone? According to the Routan Babymaker 3000, it would look like this:
You know, with all this recent talk about men getting pregnant, it is no surprise that Foodad would make a good human host for 9 months. All kidding aside, you may be seeing the latest commercials about the new minivan from VW, the Routan. Read the rest of this entry »
Do you ever find yourself marveling at the amount of trash you generate these days? Between the Diaper Decor bags stuffed with lethal hand-grenades and handfuls of dryer lint from baby clothes, bedding and towels (one day, I know I’ll open the dryer and all that will be left is the lint in the lint trap!), our single trash barrel that served us well before is overflowing by trash day. So is our recycling bin. For people so small, babies and kids generate an amazing amount of incremental trash.
It’s not a surprise that feeding and eating are responsible for a significant proportion of our trash in general but baby’s too. Without any effort, you can easily blow through roll of Saran Wrap or a box of Ziplock Snack Size baggies.
When it comes to keeping snacks contained when out of the house, you do have reusable options though…the ever popular Snack Trap and now The Snack Sack. The Snack Sack is a carabiner-toting cloth elasticized-drawstring bag
which holds a stainless steel bowl.
This is a toy for kids 8 and over. But don’t let the “toy” name fool you. These goggles give you an authentic night vision experience for a fraction of the cost of professional night vision goggles. Read the rest of this entry »
Remember balsa wood airplanes? They were flimsy but tons of fun if you could get them built without breaking them! My brother and I used to buy these at a penny candy store at the beach where we spent our Summers and fly them on the beach (softer landing zone!) in the early evening. They were like a $1.99 back then and they’re not much more now. The ones I grew up flying - made by Gillow’s are still made in Wakefield, Mass and are exactly the same as the ones you played with. I found the one pictured here at a local toy store by the register.
With Summer just around the corner and the promise of more daylight playtime in the backyard before and after dinner, consider picking up a few…dozen. That way, you don’t need to share with the kiddies (they’re hard to put down)!
For me, when I think about a robot I think about things like Optimus Prime, Short Circuit and of course, R2-D2 and C3-PO. But for kids these days, they think robots are just ordinary playmates. Technology is so prevalent in toys these days, who cares if the head moves or the lips move?
For the last few months, every time I walked down the toy aisles with my kids, one of the most frequent stops was the section of robots. I always wondered if the appeal of these things was they looked deep into the eyes of these artificial beings and found a connection, or if they just knew it was expensive because of the flashy packaging and its placement well above the reach of tiny hands.
So I was excited to get the opportunity to review the popular Robopanda by WowWee Robotics. The Robopanda is a high priced feat of robotic engineering packaged in a hard plastic shell that is rugged to the touch and cute to look at. After all, when thinking of a character to animate robotically, you would be hard-pressed to find something cuter than a panda. At a price tag between $99-$170, I was skeptical about its appeal. No doubt, for the amount of moving parts and exterior moldings, delivering this under 2 bills is a feat in itself. But despite its worth in parts and manufacturing, a big fear for parents is they will fork over that type of cash only to see it at the bottom of the toy pile in a few weeks. Read the rest of this entry »
Boston Dynamics is a cool company who calls themselves the “leader in human lifelike simulation”. The Big Dog however is neither human nor a dog. It’s the conjoined Human Fly twins! I am definitely having nightmares tonight. Civilization is doomed.
In the crush of the holiday season, a lot gets left to the last minute and being the kind of dads that we are (selfless, sacrificing), the focus is clearly on our broods. Same goes for your partner - conversations related to gift giving revolve around the kids. You can feel good about yourself as a parent but where does that leave you as a dude - most likely with a couple of gifts that are nothing that you’d hoped for if you dared to hope at all.
Do you ever find yourself marveling at the amount of trash you generate these days? Between the Diaper Decor bags stuffed with lethal hand-grenades and handfuls of dryer lint from baby clothes, bedding and towels (one day, I know I’ll open the dryer and all that will be left is the lint in the lint trap!), our single trash barrel that served us well before is overflowing by trash day. So is our recycling bin. For people so small, babies and kids generate an amazing amount of incremental trash.
For me, when I think about a robot I think about things like Optimus Prime, Short Circuit and of course, R2-D2 and C3-PO. But for kids these days, they think robots are just ordinary playmates. Technology is so prevalent in toys these days, who cares if the head moves or the lips move?
