The Invisible Man

Crazy Old Lady At The Grocery Store: "I'm concerned about this baby being left unattended."

DK: "I think me standing right here next to him disqualifies him from being unattended."

COLATGS: "No. Where is his mother?"

Kids, there are times in life when lying is not only forgivable but necessary. Sometimes it's to save the feelings of those you love, an attempt to keep you out of a Turkish Prison, or in this case an attempt to make some old lady feel bad for saying something really fucking stupid and offensive.

DK: "She died about a month ago... But thanks for your concern."

Super Tuesday

The new Beck Album Modern Guilt hit the stores (and the internet) yesterday. I decided this was as good as any reason to introduce Q to The Electric Fetus and the joy of new release Tuesdays.

I didn't realize how much I missed the record store environment. The chorus of click click click click being played by browsers flipping through the CDs. The excitement of discovering something new or forgotten. The crazy mix of people. Even the smell. God damn! I missed it all.

Fucking itunes! The easy whore that she is has led me, and so many others, astray. Led me away from the brick and mortar ones I love. Now they are dying. The fact that I can't take the boys to Let It Be Records depresses the hell out of me.

I remember cutting class in high school most every Tuesday just to drive over to the local independent record store. We would spend hours there expanding our collections of Nirvana and Pearl Jam bootlegs and drooling over the Bob Dylan and Led Zeppelin boxed sets. It was on those Tuesdays that I discovered Ben Folds Five and was blown away when I first heard Beck's Odelay album.

I even got a job at a record store when I first moved to Minneapolis, albeit a now defunct chain store. I don't think I realized it then, but working there was a blast. All the free CDs, free concerts, VIP passes, free beer, partying like a rock star with rock stars, getting hit on by movie stars... ok, that only happened once and I had to turn her down since I was already dating K8.

Anyway, I really have to start making regular trips to the record stores with the boys.

As for the the Beck CD:

DK: "What do you think of the new Beck CD?"

Q: "No, no, I don't like it."

DK: "Really? I do. Why don't you like it?"

Q: "I like the dancey stuff better."

Here you go Q

Weird Science

The Science Museum of Minnesota, every Monday, has a poorly publicized event cleverly dubbed "Pre-school Playdates". Even less publicized is that if you're a Children's Museum member you can get into their playdate for free. The free admission doesn't get you into the special exhibits like the current Star Wars geekfest. But since Q has yet to see any of the Star Wars movies, I figured all that stuff might end up taking away from his experience of seeing the films for the first time anyway. The little extra playdate activities are certainly not anything special and most of the exhibits are a bit over the head of your average pre-schooler. But as long as it's free, then getting in to see the dinosaurs and to play with light 10,000 different ways is worth the occasional visit.

Update: Preschool Playdates has been moved to Tuesday.

Happy belated 4th of July

Another Independence Day celebrated/survived at the lake without need of major medical intervention... though K8 and I damn near sunk the Hobie-Cat.

This one's for you Grandma Sally!

Hilton Head

All Paris Hilton Blowjob jokes aside, our family trip to Hilton Head for K8's firm's "Family Weekend" was a lot of fun. Not being golfers we would have never gone there on our own and will most likely not return. All the stuff the Marriott had set up for all of the children was amazing and Q had a blast. We stayed a few extra days to go to Charleston to visit some friends and to tour Savannah before flying home.

Highlights of the trip:
Q peeing on K8's leg on the beach.
Q peeing on the plants right in front of the beach towel booth.
Q peeing into the packed kiddie pool.
Q not peeing in his pants!
Pizza at Mellow Mushroom.
Two (tipsy) nighttime walks on the beach, just K8 and I.
County Road 17.
Wandering beautiful Charleston with our friends Bill, Ana, Will, and Izzy.
Shopping in ShopSCAD and Cherub in Savannah.
Eating two of the best damn cupcakes I've ever had.
The 70% of the time in the air that Ozzi wasn't screaming as though a confederate flag was being branded into his side.

Boys Who Like Boys

Most day's I'll say that having two boys is ideal for our little family. I love having two boys and am relieved that I will never have to worry about a teenage daughter or have to put up with a ton of princess shit. I know I, of all people, shouldn't be giving in to socially prescribed gender roles, but Hannah Montana is lurking around every corner to deprogram all attempts to raise an anti-princess. Having two boys also provides me with an almost endless supply of Beastie Boys costumes for the three of us for many a Halloween.
That all being said, every once in a while I do miss the little girl we will not have. I'm bummed that we'll never get to use the name we picked out for a girl (Harper). I'm even more disappointed when I think of all the great songs that I would have sung to her. Not that I can sing.

Gone Baby Gone. The Goat is Gone!

If it wasn't bad enough that I had to take the boys to the mall this morning, somewhere between The Apple Store and Urban Outfitters, Goat, one of Ozzi's favorite wrestling partners, abandoned stroller never to be seen again.

With the tragic irony of this and my previous post fresh in mind I frantically searched everywhere praying I would find him. No luck. I annoyed the hell out of a few MOA employees. No luck there either.

But, all is not lost. Pacifier reassured K8 that Goat is still replaceable. During the search I also meet a super cool family from Iceland, Norway, or one of the other Nordic nations. Their orange Phil & Ted's was much cleaner than ours and they weren't in a panicked frenzy.

And just in case you were wondering who makes the cutest and cuddliest little goat this side of the alps: blabla kids. A fantastic globally responsible company that you can be happy to give your money to.

Hero(es) of The Week: The volunteers that found Keith Kennedy

Kennedy, an autistic man with some health problems, had been missing for a week. Just before the search would have been called off for the day, a group, including a few St. Paul Firefighters, decided to "go back in" one last time to search an area that had already been searched at least three times since the searching began. Kennedy was found in rough condition but alive Sunday.

Here's to all those willing to "go back in" one more time.

While I'm on the subject of cool new cars...

I really wish the people at great companies like Tesla Motors and Fisker Automotive would strike up deals with great toy companies like Plan Toys and Automoblox. A Tesla Roadster is too impractical to ever be parked in our garage, but a Tesla Roadster wooden toy car... We'd gladly make room in the playroom for at least a few.

BTW, we finally got the Automoblox C9R Sportscar. Without a doubt, Automoblox make the best toy cars you can buy.

But does it come with the LATCH system?

At $100,000+ the Fisker Karma is still a lot more than I'm willing to pay for an environmentally friendly car. But, next to the similarly priced Tesla it does have some major advantages.

Four doors. The Tesla doesn't even have a back seat.

The Karma is an electric-first plug-in hybrid. So for your under-50-miles-a-day commute you won't use any gas, but on the weekend when you need to go 300 miles out to the lake the backup gas engine will get you, and the kids, there.

The design for the interior of the Karma is way cooler.

Best of all, the Karma has a solar roof that, while it is parked out in the hot sun of the Super Target parking lot, will power the A/C to keep the inside of the car nice and cool when you get back in. Oh hell yeah, that feature itself is worth $100,000.



Now if only they (or Tesla) would make a wagon.

Hero of The Week: William Kamkwamba

and here is his blog.

Go pee before you watch this video, trust me.

Thanks to the Pioneer Press article about us "daddy bloggers" I found Looky, Daddy. Thanks to Looky, Daddy I found one of the funniest videos I have ever seen, or ever will see, in my lifetime.

Behold:

Picture Books A Go Go

Though a bit limited so far, LookyBook.com is a super way to find new picture books for the wee little ones. You can set up a bookself to share what books you and your spawn are reading over and over and over and over and... Or you can use it the way it should be, a wish-list of books that friends and relatives can go to for gift ideas. At least that's what I did because they don't have much for books that we already have at home. The feature that puts lookybook above all else though is that you can actually look at entire books on-line and even embed them like this:

Just click on the book.




And yes, I know the illustrations in the Jabberwocky book is pretty dark for the little ones. That one would be more for me. I'm weird like that.

Concentrate Daniel-san

As I type this Q is in the other room trying to catch the dust floating in the sunshine coming through the window. Like Mr. Miyagi said, "Man who catch fly with chopstick accomplish anything."

Anyway, I wanted to post about Siji Kids the great kids clothing store that recently moved from Snelling, blocks away from our house, to Grand, just a few more blocks away from our house. It's hard not stopping in whenever we walk past while out on a walk and I'm glad we did the other day because we found what I believe could be the coolest kids shirt ever:

The Hipster's Father's Day

We've got a heap of stuff going on this weekend but I'm still hoping that we can make it to the Stone Arch Festival of the Arts. With a variety of food, music, art, cars, and kids activities, there's something for everyone. And while you're in the neighborhood you might as well stop by Pacifier and check out their big weekend sale with 70% off the clearance racks.

If you're going to the festival on Saturday you can try and get there early and hit the Mill City Farmers Market first.

Are 3 year olds allowed in Nye's Polka Bar?

Green Babies

For those of you that are looking for ways to become more environmentally friendly, you know, for the kids, and have stockpiles of cash that you saved by selling your Hummer and biking to work everyday. Check out Tiny Decor and they will tell you where to go for those $200 organic cotton print shades you just have to have for the nursery. Or you can wait for them to open their online "boutique" sometime this summer. (Sorry, the last shred of manliness I have forces me to put words like "boutique" in quotes.)

Big Ups to My Homegirl in NYC

We got a care package in the mail yesterday from our favorite New Yorker, Becker. A couple of great books that we surprisingly didn't own and a "I (heart) New York" shirt for Ozzi. Great. Thanks Becker.

But forget all that stuff. She also included a tro-tro book that she picked up in Ghana a while back. I guess my begging the last time we saw her paid off. Tro-tro books are wonderfully bizarre and unintentionally hilarious. The Girl Who Lived in a Tree Part 1 seems to be about a little girl that climbs a tree to avoid the outbreak of a disease. Like I said, hilarious. They are a bit like a West African Aesop's Fables but with much stranger "lessons".

Thanks Becker. One of these days we will come to visit. I swear.

Update: Holy shmoly! She sent us 2 tro-tro books! "The Wicked Teacher and the Stubborn School Boys 1" was stuck inside one of the other books for the boys. Sweetness!

Ants in my Arty Pants

I was just about to post about how this Tuesday is the day to go to Arty Pants at the Walker because of the two great exhibits in the Sculpture Gardens right now. But now that I check the Walkers schedule I realize that Design for the Other 90% doesn't open until 11am (same time the museum opens up) and the artist-designed mini golf is only open Wed. - Sun.

We'll probably still be going, partly so I can voice my opinion about the mini golf not being available before Arty Pants to some poor Walker employee that will obviously not give a shit.

If you happen to find me in the Sculpture Gardens before 11, I've got 2 free admission tickets for the museum.

Update: There were more people at Arty Pants today then I have ever seen. We made time to go through the Design for the Other 90% exhibit which was pretty cool and were able to at least explore the mini golf, albeit without balls. Here's some pictures to motivate some of you to go next time:

Quote of the Day

If I absolutely had to name one, and only one, musical artist as my all time favorite it would have to be Ben Folds. So I was pretty damn pleased this morning when Q exclaimed, "I'M ROCKIN' THE SUBURBS!" after I put on his Clash t-shirt.

Ozzi vs The Octopus

Target Family Day at MIA was great. The highlight, making shadow puppets.

K8 made an Ozzi puppet:

I made an Octopus:

Q and Ozzi made it worthwhile: