Deception

Don't be fooled by those eyes, last night he kicked out the wall of his crib. 


He's a demon. A cute demon, the worst kind.

And We Now Return To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

Boys R Us

For Kids, Big And Small

Before we go anywhere, I'd like to take a minute to thank Blogger for nothing. Particularly not saving all the earlier changes I'd made to this post, making all that work... for nothing. You suck.


Carrying on...




Let's start this out right. Play the first few seconds to get the idea of what's happening, then skip ahead to the 50 second mark.



Not sure how many times the boys and I watched this, but it hasn't lost it's magic yet.


So today's random is random with a point. With the exception of the first video, everything posted here came from a fantastic new site called The Kid Should See This that is made up of videos that, while maybe not originally geared towards children, are educational and actually interesting to them. And no, I'm not promoting this site. Well, actually I am, but purely because I think the site is awesome and I think anyone with kids should know about it. Hell, even if you don't have kids, these videos are great. I've watched all of them and can't wait for more to be posted. I first heard about it on Kottke.org who described it like this:

With obvious exceptions, media “made for kids” is mindnumbingly dumb. YouTube, Flickr, and Vimeo are amazing resources of not-made-for-kids but totally-appropriate-for-kids stuff like what Rion is posting here.

Anybody out there remember the movie The Black Hole? If you do, you'll get the reference in a minute.




The next one is from General Dynamic. It uses dropped objects and gelatin molds to illustrate the transfer of energy in their dynamic braking system on hybrid locomotives. Dropping heavy things on jello in slo-mo, how can you go wrong?



Lastly, and my favourite, is this. A NASA promotional video that wasn't even created by NASA, but a fan who wanted to show what the space agency could do for itself if it only tried.

"In all of their brilliance, NASA seems to have forgotten to share their hopes and dreams in a way the public can relate to, leaving one of humanity’s grandest projects with terrible PR and massive funding cuts."

Make sure you supersize this one, it deserves it.



It's sad to think that what we spent on the mortgage bailout a few years back was more than NASA's entire 50 year budget. That 50 years bought us a man on the moon, the shuttle program, the International Space Station, the Mars rover, probes sent out past the farthest reaches of our solar system and inspired countless numbers of boys and girls to grow  up and become scientists and engineers. The mortgage bailout bought us out of our own stupidity, and only temporarily at that. Wouldn't it be great if we could go back to the optimism of the early space program? Wouldn't it be great to have something like that to inspire our children? Personally, I'd be much happier knowing my tax dollars were going towards that than buying our way out of poor financial decisions and padding the wallets of the Wall Street executives who got away with letting it all happen.


Seriously, go check The Kid Should See This out, there's more awesomeness then I could possibly post here. I highly recommend the bike guy, the element song and the crazy octopus.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall...

Less Words, More Content

For the lack-of-Star-Wars-content complainers:

Moss graffiti

Put in blender: one can of cheap beer or 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, a few handfuls of moss, one teaspoon of sugar. Paint on wall and mist daily until it grows.

This is pretty cool.



I finally, finally, FINALLY got an iPhone because my wife is awesome and said I could get one for our anniversary. After I got her a new bedside lamp from Ikea. Don't be jealous ladies. Anyway, here's some text between my brother and I. (btw, an otter is an iPhone cover)

There's really no way to introduce this.



There's 2 minutes you'll never get back. You're welcome.

'Cause You Can't, You Won't, And You Don't Stop

So it turns out that when you abandon your blog for long periods of time people stop coming round. Then it ends up looking like the dark house on the block with the scary old recluse that gives you the stink eye through the blinds when you pass by. Jeez, you'd think somebody would at least stop by and offer to cut the grass.




I've been seeing this ad for some new Dodge minivan lately. At one point, the cutesie family inside is stuck behind this ancient flat bed truck carrying a load of hay up a hill and passes it in a show of the van's speed and versatility. Seriously, this is your ad campaign? Your van can pass a 60 year old farming truck. Oh goodie.


MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

My office works from 5am to 9pm and for the last week or so I've been doing the morning shifts. The kids spend the day at my in-laws, so after work I go over and usually wait around for Supreme Leader to finish work so we can all go home together. The new schedule also means that I'm at my in-laws everyday in time to see a new soap opera that my father-in-law is watching. Sure it's in Mandarin and I have no idea what anyone is saying, but after watching it for a week in my post-work coma on their sofa I'm hooked. It takes place on a Chinese air force base, but it's the usual soap-ish drama, regardless of geography or language. Apparently, there are no lady pilots in the People's Republic, but their ground crews are sure hot.


Sesame Street breaks it down from Wonderful Creative on Vimeo.

With SL back at work now I've been spending a lot more time on public transit. Lately I've noticed that people don't seem to want to sit next to me, even when I make a point of holding my bag in my lap so they have a spot to sit. Do I look like an axe murderer or something? Maybe I should get an axe. No, that's totally impracticle, I'll get a hatchet instead, easier to swing. "The wheels on the bus go round and round..."

Random child picture. Well, random picture of my child, not just some random photo of another child. People frown on that.

Not sure if he has to pee or if it's just a guy thing. Wait... no, just a guy thing.

Have you seen this video yet? It's Neil Patrick Harris' intro to this year's Tony Awards. I see it every day. Many times a day. For some mysterious reason, whether he's a fan or likes show tunes (we're not judging), Finn will stop whatever he's doing to watch. Temper tantrums, injury, climbing across the ceiling spitting fire, whatever, he will climb up into our laps to watch. Whenever it's bottle time, on comes Harris and we all slip into a little bubble of peace and harmony. Thank you, Neil.

Teachers

Dialing it in as usual, but this one is worth it.