Fatherhood Wisdom From Vanilla Ice

When I am trying to put a diaper on my son after he has come out of the bath, starts getting wild, or dropping food from his high chair, I find myself quoting lyrics to the song "Ice, Ice Baby". My mouth opens up and I state "Stop, Collaborate, and Listen". What makes it even bizarre is when my wife calls up while changing Jake and I can't resist saying "Word to your mother". Thanks Robert Van Winkle.

Gymboree Song Translation

Great news. My son is a genius. The folks at Gymboree called and asked if he wanted to move up to the level 4 class. He is only 15 months and they want to skip a grade and go to the level that starts at 16 months. It may have something to do with the fact that if you ask him what a sheep says, he says "ba".

Gymboree's songs are fun but they change the lyrics so you think the song is specific to the facility. I have cracked the code and am sharing the translation with all:

• Gymbo the clown goes up and down = Wheels on the bus go round and round
• Hello Jake. Hello Jake. How are you? How are you? = Frere Jacques or Are you Sleeping or Where is Thumbkin
• There are bubbles in the air in the air = If you're happy and you know it clap your hands
• Sitting in my high chair high chair high chair = Momma's little baby loves shortening, shortening
• Trot Trot to Gymboree Trot Trot to Gym = Trot Trot to Boston. Trot Trot to Lynn
• G-Y-M-B-O = B-I-N-G-O
• Fly, Fly, Fly your plane = Row, Row, Row your boat
• Everbody Find a Lap = London Bridge is Falling Down

When Will I Grow Up

I was watching American Idol last night and they had some dude who was about to audition but left because his wife's water broke. So they had the baby and he auditioned the next day. The wife even showed up with the baby, not exactly what I would have done but it was South Carolina.

The intriguing thing about this guy is that his name is Oliver Hymen. The 12 year old got the better of me and I started chuckling. I ever rewound the DVR several times to hear Seacrest say his name over and over. In thinking what clever name I would give his daughter, Cherry beat out Rosie and Chastity. I also stupidly laughed when they showed the Air Force pilot in the cockpit. Other words that give me a kick: homeowner and duty.

Jesus Seemed Cool - Why Aren't Born Agains?

I tend to avoid occassions where I encounter some self righteous conservative evangelicals. Don't get me wrong. There are many born agains who are nice, aren't "preachy", and are accepting towards people different from them. But the few nut jobs really spoil the bunch with their handing out of pamphlets, telling you that you aren't going to heaven, believing that their way of conducting themselves is the only purpose driven life" Apparently, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, and Albert Einstein didn't have any purpose because they were Catholic or non-Christian?

This is what I know about Jesus. He drank wine (even turning water into wine). He was friends with prostitutes, social outcasts, and homeless. He didn't piss and moan about gays, fictitious wizards, or how science is evil. I don't think Jesus hated Jews either, primarily because he was one. He was a uniter not a divider.

So to you - the minority of Christians who are tarnishing Jesus's name, ask yourself this question - WWJD?

Ending Sentences With So

There are some repeated aspects of American slang that really make my crawl skin. There are the ones that have persisted such as using "like" multiple times in a sentence (not as a similie or expressing preference), ending a sentence with "at" unneccessarily (such as "Where are you at?"), and including "you know" without waiting for someone to acknowledge that they in fact know what the other person is speaking about.

The recent addition to this list is ending a sentence with "So....". Some people just don't seem to know how to end a thought. Now they have a clever escape mechanism, which is to just say "so" and lift their hand in the air. For example:

Person1: Did you go see that movie I told you about?
Person2: You know, I was like thinking about it and then Angelo called asking me where I was at. I told him and he was like why don't you come watch the game. So...

I beg you people, can we just end add "there you go" so it is a complete sentence.

LifeTime Fitness Sucks: Return of the Lame

Now that I have ended my cycle of contracting contagious diseases has come to an end, I am back to work out. And working out means another visit to Lifetime Fitness. And another visit to Lifetime Fitness means another opportunity to scrutinze the horrendous music videos they play. Here are the chart toping hits played in the club this morning:

• NLT That Girl - The treadmill was too loud to hear these pre-pubescend dorks but I could tell it was junk.
• Asley Simpson - Invisible - I didn't hear this song either but the video shows Ashley getting knocked out by some she-male with a mullet. The nose job does look good.
• Roy Orbison Oh Pretty Woman - I like this song but c'mon.
• Smashmouth Allstar - A LTF favorite. I enjoy the clips from the Ben Stiller bust Mystery Men.
• Carrie Underwood Jesus Take The Wheel - There is nothing like a country ballad about Christ as a designated driver to get me pumped.
• Tiffany I Think We're Alone Now - This one gave me flashbacks to middle school dances when I folded over and rolled up my jeans he middle and wore creepers.
• James Blunt Beautiful - No need to comment on this one
• Jackson 5 I want You Back - Turn the clock back 35 years and this would be an appropriate song choice.

Lifetime should just play the top 40 on XM and everyone would be satisfied. Oh wait, then they wouldn't be able to squeeze out that extra hundred bucks a month by playing those jeep commercials and ads for the local plastic surgeon.

Lame Liberal Boycotts

I am staunch supporter of protests. I'll honk when I see union people striking. I' burned an effigy of Mel Gibson in the town hall after his anti-semitic tirade.

I usually take the passive aggressive approach myself in the form of boycotts. Some companies I am currently boycotting are Cracker Barrel for ruining my Vegas trip, Jiffy Lube for having ex con pull their flim flam and charge you 50 bucks for an oil change, and any thing with Rachel Ray because she annoys me.

Reminiscing on my boycott history I recall some of the crazy products my old hippie friends in college advised me to stop using. Snapple, I was told, I shouldn't use because the company was "anti abortion". Guess what, I am anti abortion too but I am still pro choice. Other than one dreadlocked dude giving me this information I didn't have anything to validate this with.

For the experience, I went to a Grateful Dead concert in 1994. While walking through the parking lot, I had a longneck of Budweiser. People looked at me as if I were in a SS soldiers uniform. One tie dye wearing sole told me that Budweiser gave money to the DEA. That's great!!! Why do I want more crack, heroin, and cocaine in this country.?

Do I have a point, not really. Just that you shouldn't protest because you hear one filthy person's perspective. Just this week, I received an email with a fabricated story about Barrack Obama was a closet Muslim radical who is going to blow up the world. Please check multiple sources before you believe anything. I should know, my lineage is of royalty.

Edmund Hillary: First White Man to Climb Everest

Sir Edmund Hillary has passes away today. I didn't know the man but he seemed like a good bloke. I look with skeptism on the claim that he was the first man to climb to the peak of Mt. Everest. To me this is similar to saying that Christopher Columbus discovered America. How could you be the first one if there were already people there.

The sherpas in Nepal are good buddists, humble and all. They probably didn't want to hurt Hillary's pride that they had been up there and back a couple times, realized it is just a frozen mess with little oxygen and made their way back down. "Let the silly white man have his props". Little did they know two months later he would be knighted known for the next 55 years as Sir Ed. Very little is spoken about Sherpa Tenzing Norgay who accompanied Hillary during the trek and made it to the peak with Sir Ed.

Rest in Peace Edmund Hillary. You carved a path for other hippies to risk their life doing stupid crap and having the locals laugh at them. Your legacy will not be forgotten

Boynton Knows The Toddler Mind

That Sandra Boynton knows how to write a book that kids will want their parents to read over and over again. I speak from experience as I have read Snuggle Puppy and It's Pajama Time over 200 times each. That is without any exaggeration. There is now no other book in the world that I have read more times that It's Pajama Time. Only Ten Little Ladybugs comes close.

As Jake's interest in these types of books increased, our expenditure for these also have. Now we have the complete library, including two copies of But Not The Hippopotamus. Of these, Doggies, Moo, Baa, La, La, La and Horns to Toes are writings that I can repeatedly read without getting completely crazy.

The pictures are cute with the little animals having unique expressions. The stories are fun and light hearted. Some of the books are educational while others are upbeat and show compassion. Sandra Boynton gets my lowest rating ever of 9 thumbs up out of ten.

Political Endorsements

Historically, politicians sought endorsements from large blocks of constituents, like the teamsters, law enforcement, or teacher's union. In modern elections, elected officials seek and use celebrities to show the public that they are in the cool crowd and to assist in campaign contributions. The recent trend has been to have also have an evangelical leader show their support. The 2008 election has its share of Hollywood people who read other people's lines and religious zealots to lend their hand to help their candidates.

Mike Huckabee - My nemesis has shown his hipness by shilling Chuck Norris on the campaign trail. I am not sure what credibility the bearded weirdo can contribute. All I know of Chuck is that he did some kung fu movies and cast the deciding vote to allow Average Joe's to compete in the movie Dodgeball.

Barak Obama - Obama has the ultimate in celebrity endorsements, Oprah Winfrey. Oprah is on the trail and can use her large caucus of viewers, readers, and dieters to put Mr. Obama over the top.

Hillary Clinton - Mrs. Clinton has garnered Barbra Streisand. No big surprise here.

Rudy Guiliani - Rudy has Pat Robertson helping him out. This is big for Rudy since other Republicans think he is a unscrupulous schmuck for divorcing and marrying his lover. For some reason God has used Pat Robertson as his vehicle to speak to America. Last week Pat (from God, of course) indicated that we are headed to a Recession and world wide violence.

John Edwards - Tim Robbins is on board. Kevin Bacon is too.

Ron Paul - No one has spoken out vocally, but I think that the kook Howie Mandel is a fan.

Cracker Barrel Sucks

I left the dreary winter days of Chicago to enjoy the new year in sunny Scottsdale. I met up with some family and it was nice. On Jan 1, we (the Mrs., Baby Jake, my mother-in-law, and father-in-law) drove on up to Las Vegas. Some of these road side places are sketchy so we decided to stop and the Kingman, AZ Cracker Barrel.

The woman who worked there seemed the the XX chromosome equivalent of Forrest Gump. When asked if she could give us some toasted sour dough bread, she replied "I'll Try". What kind of response is that? If I worked for Boeing and United asked me to make a plane that wouldn't blow up, I don't think they would take to kindly to "I'll try". Either you can or you can't, that is it.

So our mulleted sloth waitress brings me my food and I inhale the macaroni and cheese, carrots, and chicken so that I can watch the baby while my wife eats. Two hours later my stomach starts to ache. When we get to the hotel, I start to feel violently ill. My stomach hasn't felt this bad since some Turks poisoned my food in Istanbul. For a straight ten minutes, I was spewing my guts watching my Cracker Barrel food be deposited into the porcelain Kohler toilet.

The next two days I couldn't consume anything fried, chocolate, or alcoholic. I also had to stay horizonal for 24 hours watching Judge Maria Lopez and Springer. Tomorrow I am going home from the Vegas trip with nothing more to show than 1 hour playing cards, a pair of paints from Banana Republic, and perpetual disdain to Cracker Barrel and all its 400 pound regular customers.