So for some combination of guilt and boredom I feel like I should make an actual blog entry. There have been a number of times when I’ve been commuting where I had an idea for a short, glib, interesting and inciteful blog entry but by the time I got in front of a computer it had long since faded away. Plus having an entry like that here wouldn’t really fit in with the current contents anyways 🙂 So I figured I’d start an entry and put a few thoughts in here, revise it a few times and call it good enough. I know my masses of fans are eagerly awaiting my brilliant entries 🙂
Taking a page from the Colbert Report, here’s my Tip of my hat & Wag of my finger thoughts for the day:
Wag of my finger:
- Borders Books – I am pissed off at whomever the big wigs are at Border’s HQ that decided to make 1/4 of there store a Toy Store. The reason we bring our kids to Borders, and not Toys R Us is to show them that we are willing to buy them books and that reading is exciting and fun. It was hard enough keeping them away from the books that came with a matchbox car but now that you’ve got an entire section for Legos and other plastic stuff visiting your store has become exponentially less fun and as a result we will be shopping there less. Oh and to top it all off, I see Toy stores clossing left and right… great idea to jump on that bandwagon, maybe you should investigate selling Dot Matrix Printers, Video Cassettes and possibly even start renting DVDs too. But actually, thank you, I really should be supporting smaller more local book stores anyways, and now that your true colors are shining through I’ll be more likely to do that. I did speak with the Bangor Border’s Store Manager the first time we encountered this and he totally agreed and basically said the order came from on high that this is what they had to do. So again, whoever the expert consumer marketing strategist at the Border’s main office that came up with this idea, I have nothing but ill wishes for you this holiday season. Hrumph. grumble. grumble. grumble. <waves cane>.
- Democrats – My favorite tweet about them from last September still seems quite on target – “BREAKING NEWS: Democrats Hoping To Take Control Of Congress From Republican Minority In 2010″.
Tip of my hat:
- The Sing Off – While neither Emily or I are particularly skilled singers we’ve always enjoyed listening to acapella groups and have stack of BOCA (Best Of College Acapella) CDs that we bought a number of years ago when the folks who organized BOCA actually had a retail store right next to the school she was teaching at (it’s now web only at http://www.a-cappella.com/ ). Marshall has a CD we play in his room every night as he’s going to be which features almost all acapella songs, and for years Owen had a variant of this CD playing in his room too. So the new short but fun series NBC has on right now, The Sing Off, has been fun to watch and listen to.
- Phineas & Ferb – Owen asked to watch this show sometime last year, and I had never heard of it before. Around the same time some other friends posted links to some videos of songs from the show and I saw it stream by once or twice on Facebook. Despite it’s actually being shown on the Disney Channel it’s surprisingly good. One of those shows which is fun for kids and has stuff parents giggle at too. Lots of repeating jokes. Admittedly predictable and dumb at times, but overall I give it a thumbs up. We just ordered it (though since it’s not arriving until after we leave for xmas travels I grabbed a copy off the salty pirate seas as well. arr.)