Its Time to Arrest the Man in the Yellow Hat

So I was reading a Curious George book to my 3 year old the other night and it finally made perfect sense. No, not the inane book (side note: I loathe Curious George books, and I have never known why until now. Part of me felt guilty everytime I read them to my kids - who love the books - because I wouldn't "bring it", really sell the story with proper voicing, emphasis, dramatic pauses, you know, really sell the story), but the answer to why I have always hated reading Curious George books: The Man With the Yellow Hat is the biggest criminal on the planet and should be arrested. There I said it. OK, maybe I'm being a tad hyperbolic (ooo, nice SAT word, don't you think? I'm feeling very erudite right now! And we'll be back with Paul Finds a Thesaurus right after these commercial messages) when I say that he's the biggest criminal on the planet. I mean, that's obviously a tie between Rosie O'Donnell, Madonna and whoever invented Webkinz. But, TMWTYH (I can't type The Man With the Yellow Hat anymore. Well, after this one, I mean) is pretty high up the list. I mean, if Curious George books were written today, the author would have the ASPCA, child development experts, and social commentators ripping him (or her, I can't really remember who authored the books right now, but I suppose I could easily Google it and get right back to my point, but that seems like alot of effort for one lousy name that really has little bearing on this story right now right? Of course, in the time that it took me to type that explanation I could have Googled it and have been back to my original point instead of right here, making this very tangential [Thesaurus!!]comment. But I digress.) a new one. Now granted, most of those people are whiny reactionaries, but in this case, they would have a point. Take the story I recently read for example: "Curious George Gets a Bike". Seems like a heart warming tale, right? George gets a new bike for his birthday from TMWTYH, George is happy, all is well. But, no, because as soon as George unwraps the bike and is so excited he can hardly speak (well, he's a monkey and can't speak, but you catch my drift), that cruel bastard TMWTYH announces that he's leaving and tells George not to ride the bike until he gets back. OK, I have a huge problem with this on a million (hyperbolic) levels, but let me mention a few. First, what kind of sadist gives someone an awesome new present like a bike and then tells him he can't use it? How cruel is that?? Second, this is not the first Curious George book in the series, so TMWTYH has to know George is going to take off on the bike, endangering his life and the lives of those around him in the process. Not to get all legal on you or anything, but we lawyers call that mens rea from the Latin meaning "guilty mind". In other words, TMWTYH knew George had a predilection (oh man, I'm on a roll!!) for disobeying him, and yet he gives George a bike - a freaking mode of transportation for goodness sake!! - and tells George to stay put until he comes back. Why not give him a loaded gun or a syringe full of heroin, you heartless bastard? I'm sure Curious George and the Strung Out Bender would be a huge seller. And then, to cover his sorry ass, every time he find George has screwed up again, he acts all dumbfounded that this could possibly have occurred - "Gee, I didn't think that George would take his new bike and drive immediately into oncoming traffic. Who could have predicted that?" Well, I'm on to you, TMWTYH, and I will see you put behind bars if its the last thing I do.

The End of Arguments

I was watching a soccer match on tv the other day and it occurred to me that all of life's little arguments and disagreements can be avoided if we adapt the yellow card, red card penalties to real life situations. Everyone (and by 'everyone' I mean, of course, me and anyone that I choose to also be included) should be allowed to carry yellow cards and red cards to use in everyday situations. If someone is acting like a jerk, bang, you show them a yellow card and they are on notice that if they receive one more, they have to sit out of society for a day. If a person is commiting a flagrant no-no, the red card comes out immediately and the person is sent home. If I had these in college, how many unpleasant hook-ups could have been avoided - one of your drunk friends is about to hook up with an ugo, show them a yellow card and snap them back to reality. If you're on the beach, at the mall, in a bar (or let's face it, anywhere in public) and a morbidly obese woman is wearing a belly shirt, bikini, or short shorts, bang, red card - go home immediately. Or, if a really hairy, overweight guy shows up in a tank top, jean shorts or, God help us, speedo - bang red card and he's gone. How many of life's little unpleasantries would be wiped away? I really have to look into this...

Things That are Currently Bothering Me

Or is it, bothering me currently? Oh well, you know what I mean (and by "you" I mean "me" because I'm not really sure how many people are even reading this. Which reminds me, if anyone out there is reading this, well Hi, but let me apologize for not posting more frequently. I've decided that the hardest part about having a blog is finding the time to blog. Some of the blogs that I read just amaze me in that the authors seems to be able to fire out postings at an astonishing rate! But I'm going to continue to try to get better.) Anyhoo, on to the current topic at hand, which is things that are bothering me currently (eh, either way, I guess). Now I don't get mad very often - well certainly not drive-900-miles-in-a-diaper-and-try-to-kidnap-my-lover's-girlfriend kind of mad, but there are things that annoy me. Webkinz are currently at the top of my list - and if you don't have young kids, or if you've managed to avoid Webkinz if you do, consider yourself extremely lucky. These are little $10 stuffed animals which seems harmless enough since my kids have enough stuffed animals to start a Stuffed Invasion of a neighboring house (which would inevitably lead to a full-scale Stuffed War and cost hundreds of downy casualties, so its a good thing my kids, and their stuffed army are for household protection only - sort of like a stuffed state militia). But the Webkinz stuffed animals come with an id tag and a website that, once a child logs on, provides a whole world of Webkinz - virtual outfits, accessories, houses, games, money - it is like a cult! And every parent of a child in the 5-11 range is experiencing this rather unpleasant phenomenon where all our children want to do is go on the computer and play Webkinz. Whoever had this bright idea for a Webkinz world should be taken out and shot (or, if not shot, then at least strapped to a chair in front of a computer screen for a week straight while kids play Webkinz - that's actually worse than being shot; they'd be begging for someone to shoot them after a few hours).

You know what else bothers me - and this has actually bothered me for sometime now - bumperstickers. Yes, the pseudo-philosophy of the great unwashed; the pop-psychology of the brain dead masses. To any and all bumperstickerers out there, I'm only going to say this once, so pay attention: no one cares if you 'heart' your cat, dog, hampster, pet rock, tv remote, cookies, grandson, granddaughter, polka music, Irish music, or state. You are not tough because your car is protected by smith & wesson, or because you threaten to beat me up if I tailgate you. I don't care if your kid is an honor student, loves soccer, hates mean people or won a state championship. I never asked you - so please stop broadcasting that: you love Jesus, you love Mother Earth, you are against abortion, you are for abortion, you are a vegan, you love meat. I didn't ask you - and don't care to know - what your "other car" is. And your pithy little slogans that seem extremely deep to you, only serve to prove to me and everone who has the misfortune of driving behind you, that you are a certifiable moron who shouldn't be allowed to hold a drivers' license in the first place. Maybe I'll throw that on a bumper sticker and drive around for a while...

Award Shows

With the Academy Awards and Grammy's upon us, and the Golden Globes and SAG awards just behind us, I thought it appropriate to add my two cents on award shows in general. And, your faithful blogger has the inside scoop because although I could give a flaming you-know-what about these shows, my wife sees those dates as somewhere just south of her birthday and just north of our wedding anniversary in terms of important events in her life. If I even suggest that we watch something else or - God forbid - be out of the house on the date and time that these shows air, she looks at me with the same shocked expression as if I suggested we sell one of our kids. (Note: That conversation, of course, never happened. Well, I might have gently suggested it one time, but it was a vague reference and I got right off the subject when I saw it wasn't going anywhere. I mean, I would NEVER sell one of my kids and I'm shocked, SHOCKED that you would even think I would.... But just so we nail this down once and for all, in fairness I did get a very good offer for one of them and we really can use a nice wall-mounted flat screen tv so that we can watch important television like...The Academy Awards! See how that all dovetails nicely? Man, I can weave a story - you never saw that coming for a minute before - BAM! - its right there, tied up in a nice little bow. But I digress.)

If the Academy Awards show is the "Super Bowl for Women", then the Golden Globes, Emmys, SAG Awards, people's Choice Awards and, to a lesser extent, the Grammys are the Playoffs for Women" (personally, I prefer the Grammys for three reasons: 1. because of the great music you can hear/watch performed, 2. because the female music stars and the wives/girlfriends of male music stars are not afraid to slut it up a little wardrobe-wise in a way that would make an academy award-nominated actress throw up her quarter tablespoon of rice cake dinner, and 3. the music stars who don't fit into the previous category can be counted on to set a new bar on the comedy scale for the outfits they wear - from lavender tuxedos to hardcore rock outfits to headwear and clothing a New York socialite wouldn't put on her poodle. I'm telling you, its the gift that keeps on giving. Second place would be the Golden Globes because they don't seems to take themselves too seriously, they get right to the awards, and there is drinking at the table, so you have a very good chance to someone saying something funny, stupid, or controversial - paging Dr. Washington, Dr. Isaiah Washington.)

And, jumping back to my Superbowl analogy, the parallels of sports to award shows are amazingly similar - with so many channels on cable now, all of the entertainment channels have a pre-game show - interviews with the stars as they get ready, interviews with stars in their limos as they wait their turn to hit the red carpet, interviews with the stars as they get their botox injections, silicone implant adjustments, spray-on tans, pre-dress fitting vomit sessions, smile and wave practice, posing and pouty-lips-look practice, I'm-too-cool-to-care-look practice, oh-shit-I-didn't-win-and-that-bitch-did-but-the-camera-might-be-on-me-so-I-have-to-look-gracious-and-thrilled-that-someone-I-hate-won-look practice. And in addition to star interviews, we are now treated to teams of 'analysts' - from fashion people, to film critics, to talking heads of the entertainment world, who offer criticisms, witticisms (and I use that term loosely - hell, I'm not even sure I spelled it correctly, so we're talking very loosely), and predictions about how the night will go. So, you have a big event, several competing pregame shows, interviews, analysts, odds makers, post game shows, and the follow up magazine blitz - all you are missing is a ball of some sort and you could be talking about sports. I think we have to take this to the next level and start to market Hollywood trading cards and Hollywood video games, and instead of buying the jersey of your favorite teams, you could buy faux-Vera Wang, size zero gowns with the names of your favorite stars emblazoned on the back (unless it is a backless gown, then I don't know what we'll do - damn this is falling apart already!). Oh well, enjoy the shows!

Parent Things

I am not a big fan of "lists" articles. You see them every year, usually around the end of the year - "Best Movies of 2006", "Worst Dressed of 2006", "Most Annoying Lists of 2006". Real writiers must get giddy at the end of the year, knowing that they have two or three mail-it-in columns locked up. And women's magazines are the worst - not that I read women's magazines or anything, I mean, that Cosmo was just sitting there in the dentist's office and I had already read the Sports Illustrated from 1996 that was sitting next to it. Is it my fault that the dentist offers no current reading materials? Anyhoo, women's magazines love to hit you with these dim-witted articles "22 Fashion tips for Summer", "30 Easy makeover Tips", "10 Ways to Make Him Hot" (actually, Kat, please feel free to skim that last article), and they all utilize the cheap list gimmick so they don't have to engage in any meaningful discussion or analysis. Boy that annoys me.

But, on an entirely differnt topic, here is my list of 7 Things I Can Remove from Car Carpet/Upholstery Since I Became a Parent:

1. Sand. Please, a rookie can get sand out of carpeting, but it is mentioned here only because after a week-long beach vacation with three children, plus beach toys, chairs, towels and coolers, the amount of sand that ends up in your car can rival certain small deserts. A nice vaccuming will do the trick - time: 10-15 minutes. Or for the more patient, you can pick each grain up by hand - time: 50-60 years, depending on amount and area of dispersal.
2. Chocolate. Ups the degree of difficulty a bit because of the stain and sticky potential, but a wipe with a wet cloth should do the trick, followed by a little scrubbing to make sure a stain doesn't set - time: 10 minutes.
3. Beverages. Water. Ignore, it will dry. Clear liquids. See: Water. Milk, baby formula. Underrated because of potential for lingering spoiled milk smell - hit it with scrub brush and lemon scented industrial cleaner asap. Soda, juice boxes, chocolate milk. Has RST potential (see below), so must be dealt with quickly. Soapy warm water and a good scrubbing. Time: 10-15 minutes.
4. Random sticky things. The next step up from chocolate, RSTs (random sticky things) can be tough because, a) you might not be able to identify the RST, and b) RSTs tend to draw other foreign objects to themselves like some sort of sugar gravitational pull. So what starts out as an RST will, if not quickly discovered, become an embedded RST- hair-filled-sand crusted-dirt globbed-small-annoying-plastic-birthday-party-favor-giveaway-toy-pile of yuck that can require a good deal of effort to remove. Tough to offer cleaning solutions because RSTs can vary greatly, but tools you will need will include a putty knife or other flat scraping tool, a hard scrub brush, soapy water, cold beer (or beers depending on how long this takes and how frustrated you are), and a vasectomy (because you will swear a blue streak and vow to have no more children while you try to get a f@#&ingly stubborn RST out of the carpet of your brand
F%$#ing new SUV!!). Time: 30 minutes to 1 hour, and a piece of your soul.
5. Vomit. Which is not easy to remove. Well, let me rephrase, the vomit is easy to remove, the smell is not. You can hit the carpet/upholstery with everything from soap and water to a sand blaster, but the first thing you notice when you get back in the car is that smell. Oh, that smell. The single hardest removal as a parent. I, personally, go with paper towels, followed by a shop-vaccing, followed by fifteen minutes of dry heaves while you try not to throw up yourself, followed by a lemon-scented industrial cleaner and a heavy scrub brush, followed by another bout of dry heaves, followed by another shop-vaccing. If you're lucky enough, you'll never have to face the dreaded daily double, where one child throwing up induces a second child to do likewise - the Titanic of car trips. Time: 45 minutes to one hour for a single; 3 hours at a professional car wash for the Daily Double.
6. Dog Poop. Since we don't have a dog, this little present is transported onto our carpet by little shoes, with the added bonus that it is a "trail of tears" rather than an isolated location, and gets ground into the carpet by said little shoes. Tools you will need include large rubber gloves, surgical mask, clothes you don't mind burning immediately afterward, lots and lots of beer and lemon-scented industrial cleaner and a good scrub brush. Time: 1 hour to clean car, one day to recover.
7. Human Poop (hopefully this involves a faulty baby diaper or potty training toddler. If it involves someone other than these two, may God have mercy on you.) See above removal of Dog Poop, but add: hysterical crying (baby or toddler), quiet sobbing (you). This is truly the worst of all possible situations because not only do you have a carpet and/or car seat and/or upholstery to clean up, you have a small human to clean up as well. And since you don't have an extra set of clothes because your wife ditched the diaper bag in favor of a single diaper and pack of wipes because she has enough to carry and besides carrying last year's black diaper bag isn't cool because everyone is carrying Vineyard Vines diaper bags and your monogramed one hasn't been delivered yet (hypothetically), well you're screwed, aren't you? Time: approx 1 year of therapy.

Happy New Year

OK people (person?), sorry about the lack of posts for the last couple of weeks - holidays you know. Besides, I figured that the few of you who are reading this had plenty to read for a while, catching up with the old Christmas Letters. Speaking of Christmas cards (what an amusingly average segue!), until this weekend when we did our Christmas decorations purge, we had approximately 7,000 photo Christmas cards decorating our living room. I'm quite certain that every single family we know sent us a picture card this year - or at the very least a card with a photo inside. Now, don't misunderstand me, I am not complaining. In fact, I love receiving those cards, and as many of you know, we send them out ourselves. But, two things always came to mind as I read the cards this year: first, I have no idea who these people are (more on that later) and second, that all of our friends are obviously hiring blond-haired, blue-eyed, J-Crew kid models for their family photos. As to the first point, I have a running battle (well, "battle" is a tad strong, let's go with "debate" or "discussion", after all, we're not exactly talking about missle reduction treaties here, are we? Actually, for all you know, we might be. Since I haven't written and, hence you haven't yet read, the rest of this blog, you have no idea what we're talking about here, do you? Feeling pretty uniformed, I'll bet. Maybe, just maybe mind you, I am smart enough to spin a seemingly innocuous topic like Christmas card letters into a discussion of anti-nuclear weapon proliferation treaties. Wouldn't you be impressed then? Well, it turns out I'm not that smart. Or maybe I am that smart but I can't imagine getting into a discussion about - never mind blogging about - nuclear arms treaties.... No, I was right the first time, I'm just not that smart. Anyhoo...let's go with "discussion") with my wife about whether we (she and I) should appear in our Christmas card photo, or should it just be the kids. Well, anyone who knows me, knows that not for a second would I entertain the notion of not appearing in our Christmas card (Wow, that was a tremendous amount of double-negatives there. In fact, it is not unlikely that we may or may not have set some sort of unofficial record. Yay us!) Well, more to the point, my ego would not allow it. And, if you've never met my ego, well, you don't want to get on his bad side. After all, this is the same ego that is dying to tell you that I won my fantasy football league for the second year in a row, but I am not going to mention that here for fear of the uber-geek social consequences of being a blogger and a fantasy football player. In fact, I'm probably one or two small steps away from uber-geekdom as it is, so if you see me attempting to play Second Life please beat me sensless. (By the way, Second Life is the Aughts equivalent of Dungeons and Dragons. Have you heard about this? Basically, you go online and create - or join - a virtual world, your second life. And you "live" in this world to the point where you buy property, start virtual families, and have a virtual carrer. I read a news report a while ago where a "person" became the first virtual millionaire. I think I just virtually threw up. Raise your hand if you have enough trouble maintaining your hold on one life without needing a virtual one. If I had virtual kids whining at me as well as my actual kids, I may go virtually postal). OK, I'm so far gone now I have no idea what I was talking about. Oh yeah, the Christmas photo. So, I used to think it was just my outsized ego that kept me in the Christmas card every year, but I now realize that there is a second, more important reason: I have a house full of cards with adorable kids on the cover and I have no idea who they are. Seriously, every Christams card in our house contain adorable, blue-eyed, blond-haired, compleltely anonymous kids. Now, whether or not there are any ugly kids is an existential discussion on the innocence of youth and inner beauty that I am not prepared to engage in at this time (but, yes, there are ugly kids - where do you think ugly adults come from?). But suffice it to say, it seems that every family we receive a card from has stunningly beautiful kids. I am convinced they are J-Crew kid models that are available for downloading on some website to facilitate Christmas card writing. Step one, download happy looking blue-eyed blond kids sitting on a beach. Step two, complete the greeting with one of the following "Happy Holidays from (choices: Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, Cape Cod, Block Island, Montauk, the Hamptons, Hilton Head, Florida, the Carribean or the French Riviera) and best wishes in the New Year!" And even if I vaguely recognize the one of the kids, the likelihood that I can put a first or last name on them is about the same as an intelligent discussion on anti-nuclear proliferation treaties on this blog. And, until this year, I felt alone in this view. But lately, there has been a groundswell of support for my position such that I think the tables are about to turn. So, I keep hope alive that this time next year minus three weeks I can open a card and remark, "oh, theres Gunther and Midge and there adorable kids, Grosean, Flower and Pancake.

Erratum

Those of you astute enough to notice (or still awake) might have picked up on an alleged error in Christmas Letter 2006 - when I wished everyone a safe, healthy and happy 2006 (not 2007). Well, this was not an error at all, it was a reflection on my commitment. You see, its a lot of pressure to wish everyone who reads the Letter a safe and healthy 2007 - that is alot of people multiplied by alot of days, and I just don't think I can pull it off anymore - I'm worn out. So I figured, if people get my letter the week before Christmas and I wish them a safe, healthy and happy 2006, I'm only on the hook for like ten more days. That is a much more manageable figure to deal with - and you know, we can take 2007 a day at a time, see how it goes...