And I Thought Summer HERE Was Boring...

I think the Swedes need something new to occupy their time. Read on:

There's a discrimination issue that's raging in Sweden right now. It involves - sit down - birthday invitations. Yup. You read right. Birthday invitations (or their improper distribution) can cause discrimination. Did you know that? I didn't. I guess the rules in Sweden are different.

The details: in a school south of Stockholm recently, an 8-year-old boy who had given out invitations to his birthday party had the invitations confiscated by his teacher. The reason: he hadn't given them to everyone in his class. Two boys were not invited. Why? His father says one of the boys bullied his son, and the second hadn't invited him to his party. But as a result of not receiving the invitations, those two boys were discriminated against. Or so the school says.

Now, I've heard - and abided by - those rules at private pre-schools, and I thought they were pretty justified for a group of really little kids (and this was a PRIVATE school). But do we really need to have PARLIAMENT decide whether this is discrimination? And why is it discrimination? Because some children will have their feelings hurt 'cause they weren't invited to a private party? Well maybe there was some justification there. And how did the other boy get away with not inviting everyone? How come he wasn't bagged for discrimination?

I don't believe in a "big government" that has to make rules for everything. In fact I personally believe some things just shouldn't be legislated. And this is one of them. Social mores are based on current social custom, which, I think, should not be legislated. Prohibition, anyone?

And hey, don't people in Sweden have anything else to worry about? This is soooo silly, and for it to have reached the Parliamentary Ombudsman is ridiculous. I've always wanted to visit Sweden, and Norway, and Denmark, and Finland, but I gotta start wondering about a place that has to establish rules on who must be invited to a birthday party. Good Grief!!!

More Info:  http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hkBG46h2R7GP4O08d5vSYk416N0gD91JTSFG0

Devo Sues McDonald's Over Toy's Look - Duh!

Hey, kids!  Long time no read!  Sorry, but the end the kids' school year was a bit harried, and it took me a while to catch up with everything.

Did you see that the late 70's / early 80's band Devo is suing McDonald's?  Yup.  Apparently the fast-food monster aligned with American Idol and passed out toys representational of different musical eras, and the "New Wave Nigel" doll, which looks like this,


is apparently (obviously??) too close to Devo's standard stage costume as seen here:



Me, I think it's kinda obvious (ok, REALLY OBVIOUS) that McD's took the image from Devo. No question at all.  Four-tiered red hat on toy, four-tiered red hat on band members.  Clinches it for me...

The real issue, I think, is that not many people, myself included, knew that the Devo hat (dubbed "energy domes" by the band) is actually trademarked and copyrighted. Cool! I didn't know you could DO that! And they were pretty prescient on that too. Who knew 25 years ago that one of the biggest corporations in the world would step on that same trademark? Or that a hat would become so emblematic of a time and its music.  Woah.

Hey, trivia for you: did you know that Mark Mothersbaugh, the lead singer (I think) of Devo, wrote the music for the children's tv show "Rug Rats"? Yup. I guess we all grow up eventually.

And on that note, here for your viewing pleasure is a taste of what Devo became known for:



I can't find a nice clip of the opening Rugrats music, but I"m sure you can easily call it to mind. Bah bah bah baaaah bah bah baah bah bah bah bah bah bah...  :)

Harvey Korman Has Left The Building...

The world has lost another great comedian: Harvey Korman died yesterday.  Most of us remember him from his days on The Carol Burnett Show, and he was also a mainstay for a while in Mel Brooks' movies (High Anxiety, History of the World Part I, and Blazing Saddles).  

While on The Carol Burnett Show, he was in many skits, and must have had mixed feelings every time he was paired with Tim Conway, who seemed to place high value on how fast he could get Harvey to crack up.  For exampe, watch this skit and keep your eye on Harvey, who in theory has no lines but becomes the centerpoint of the skit nonetheless:



Harvey Korman was the guy to watch on this show, usually regardless of whether he was the protagonist or not.  I'll miss seeing his reactions, and the lengths to which he went to try to keep his composure.  Rest in peace, Mr. Korman, we'll miss you but your legacy will live on...

It's The Most Wonderful Time... Of The Year!

Hey, kids! Sorry I've not posted lately, but I've been really busy, what with baseball, softball, lacrosse and Boy Scouts. It seems that every day someone needs a ride to somewhere, and none of the locations are near each other. I'm sure you've all had some of those days. Here's a run-down of last Wednesday (hope you're sitting down):

12:30 Pick up kids from school (early dismissal day)
1:00 Drop off #1 son at pizzeria for lunch w/friends
1:15 Arrive home and have lunch with #2 son and #1 daughter
2:30 Pick up #1 from pizzeria
3:00 Leave house with #1, #2, #3 to pick up friend
3:15 Arrive at school; drop off #1 and friend for chess; pick up friend #2
3:30 Drop off #2 son at friend's house
3:35 Drive to Girl Scout camp for hike
4:40 Friend picks up #1 son, (who's changed clothes after chess) and takes him to lacrosse practice
5:00 Try to leave Girl Scouts hike, to protestations of crying #1 daughter
5:05 Really leave Girl Scouts hike, crying daughter in tow
5:25 Pick up #2 son from friend's house
5:30 Stop at our house for pit stop
5:45 Leave for softball game in nearby town, with #1 daughter and #2 son
6:00 Arrive at softball game, which has already started
6:27 While pitching, receive a call from DH that he'll be late to pick up #1 son from lax
6:27:30 Leave mound to arrange for someone (anyone) to tell #1 to wait for ride
6:55 Finish quickest softball game of season; hitting fantastic, fielding excellent; Proud Coach!! I should be late more often! : )
7:10 Arrive home to empty house. Call DH to be sure he picked up #1 son. He soon arrives, only to say they've done fast food.
7:15 Leave to get fast food for us
7:25 Arrive home once again, this time with food
7:30 Eat
7:45 Collapse

I guess this is why I haven't returned to work. On days like this, when everyone has something, and it requires a spreadsheet to organize it all, I realize that after all the effort, it's worth it. When I see #1 daughter cry 'cause she has to leave a hike, then threaten to not play softball 'cause she's sad, then have her pop up at bat with a big smile on her face... that's what I live for!

Hope your seasons are all going well!

Days Spent Out in the Field...

My softball team (the Mariners) had a game last night, and at a slow point, I looked at some of our outfielders. One of them was fixing her ponytail, two of them were chatting, another was throwing rocks at the ground (or at me, her mom) and another was playing tic tac toe with her foot. Softball gets boring at times, I guess.

That reminded me of when I was on the Wrens back at St. Anselm's when I was a kid, standing out under the hot sun on one of the dusty fields behind Fort Hamilton High School, wearing my oversized polyester uniform shirt and my heavy (what-felt-like-wool) baseball hat (no visors for us in the 70's!!), being bored to tears waiting for something, anything to happen.

Which reminded me (again, I know) of a song I heard a while back, that I thought would remind you too of your days standing out in the field waiting... and waiting... and waiting...



Let me know if it brought a smile to your face too!

Woah! Mazda to Destroy 4,703 Cars. Woah!

Until the many mishaps with my Mazda van, I was a die-hard Mazda fan (I'm a die-hard fan of most things that can be called "obscure," I guess). I think my faith in them has been renewed. Apparently a shipment of new Mazda cars were being sent on a ship that developed a really (really) bad list, and was like that for several weeks before being "righted." Mazda then had to consider the integrity of the cars, which had been strapped down safely but were at that odd angle for so long. Do they sell the cars and risk the lives of the drivers? Do they let them get into anyone's hands and risk the reputation of the entire company? After some consideration, the company decided... no. They won't give 'em (or sell 'em) to anyone, they'd just methodically destroy them. Three cheers for Mazda!

Check this out:



For once common sense wins, huh?

TV Online? Yeah! Free and Easy Too!

I missed an episode of my favorite show, House, which is on Fox. Since the writers' strike they've played repeats, but not the one I wanted to see. When I checked out the Fox site, they offered a "video on demand" feature, but only the most recent new episode, and my ep wasn't the most recent. So now what? House is not always self-contained, in that some of the stories run in the background and advance from episode to episode, so if I miss one, I miss part of a storyline. What to do, what to do...

SO... I found a new site I wanna tell you about. It's called hulu, and it allows you to watch stuff from (mostly) NBC and Fox shows. And guess what? They're all free. And legal. Woo hoo!!!!!! How great is that? No more downloading "illegal" copies and fearing you'll "get caught." No more missing out on stuff everyone else remembered to see. No more feeling lost when you watch the next episode and not knowing what's going on.

I can't even remember how I first heard of hulu, but last night, when I was just finishing up some household jobs, it was nice to sit down and finally see the House ep I missed. I just called up hulu, searched on "House," chose which episode I wanted, and sat back and watched it. I was viewing it on my laptop and even made it full-screen, so it was like watching it on a regular tv, but up close and on MY schedule.

There is one proviso, though (although I found it only a minor annoyance): there are ads "supporting" your viewing of the show/movie you're seeing. On the show I watched last night the sponsor was Tylenol, and the ads were actually pretty cool: they seemed to have been developed for hulu, meaning they were subtle and they were short. There were probably about 6 all tolled, but each one couldn't have been more that 10 or 15 seconds. So they didn't really interrupt the story that much.

Wikipedia says hulu features shows that play on USA Network, Bravo, Fuel TV, FX, Sci Fi, Style, Sundance, G4, and Oxygen as well as the aforementioned NBC and Fox (and the CBS show I found). They supposedly have over 400 different tv shows and also a bunch of movies (I have yet to check those out).

So the next time you've missed "your show," or just want to catch something fun (and FREE), check out hulu.com and see what you can find. I LOVE stuff like this!