Childrearing Techniques for the 21st Century

Exceptional steps must be taken to properly raise your child in an increasing violent modern world. To aid in your defense of your child's health and well being in the face of this ongoing offensive comes these new childcare products sure to be essential components of any caring parent's arsenal. Want to take your baby for a walk but a worried about stray bullets from drive-by shootings. Worry no more when the little tike is outfitted in his own Kevlar vest and bullet-proof stroller. Want to help your child stand-up to the playground bully. Outfit him in full riot gear and he will be able to quell any grade school uprising. Now, if we could just convince the government that our toddlers should be able to pack heat as well, then, we as parents, could rest easy knowing our children our properly equipped to face the world. Just ask these guys.

Because you care about your child's safety, you wouldn't trust he or she to any pimply-faced teenager or kindly hobo when you and your baby's momma need to go out on the town to celebrate your 50 cent an hour raise at the local KFC. Instead, hard-partying, meth-dealing parents should consider the use another revolutionary parenting device, the baby cage. Combine this with everyone's favorite babysitter, the television, and parents can enjoy a guild-free weekend bender secure in the knowledge that their little one will be properly sedated and free of the dangers of electrical outlets and your liquor cabinet. It sure beats the alternative of locking the kid in the car where busy bodies bar patrons can kill your buzz by calling the cops. As evidenced by the clip below, utilization of the baby cage in early childhood results in a healthy, happy adulthood.

Guns Don't Kill People, Free Access to Guns Kill People

Being that we are in the midst of an active political campaign that latches onto the latest headline in a desperate attempt to generate their own top of the fold notoriety, it is hard to believe there has been almost no conversation on gun control. Granted that the Democratic Party has become an impotent imitation of Republican opposition, but you would think the recent spate of mass shootings would be ceased upon for political capital. There is no defensible stance for the resistance to reasonable gun control. Sportsman can still have their guns but they don't need automatic weapons to kill Bambi's mom. Registering ballistics reports for every gun sold doesn't invade anyone's privacy, only makes catching criminals easier. Delaying the purchase of a gun months to do full background checks including declarations on mental history and use of psychoactive drugs doesn't negatively affect anyone other than looking to exact immediate vengeance on someone. If you want a gun, you need to prove you can handle it. I understand that the economy and Iraq should be center stage but how about some thought about getting our gun culture in check. Want to know how out of control it is, see the ad below.

RU-DY! RU-DY!

What can I say, I am a sentimental fool. I get misty eyed at the end of It's a Wonderful Life and don't even get me started on the end of Charlotte's Web (when all those horridly ungrateful baby spiders start leaving Wilber). Add a sports theme to the mix and you had me at hello. Come on, a boy and his dad connecting from beyond the grave over a game of catch. What stone visage could stand up to that? So, when Samwise Gamgee finally overcomes long odds and seemingly insurmountable obstacles to realize his lifelong dream of playing for Pope-worshiping Golden Domers to the chant of "RU-DY! RU-DY!", I became an instant fan of the movie. And believe it or not, this moment of lilliputian triumph actually happened. Below is the actual, real-life Daniel "Rudy" Ruettiger footage and the Hollywood dressing up of that same action.

An Apple a Day

If there is one company that knows how to produce a catchy advertisement, it is Apple Computers. I guess you have to be good at selling an image when your business model is predicated on convincing people to shell out hard earned for over-priced, under-powered, proprietary, closed system technology. Apple is especially good at IDing cool new musical ditties that stick in your head like a starving brain sucker (my sisters always seemed to have one of those on their heads as children). If radio stations were this good at putting enjoyable music on the air, people might still listen to them. But then again, that is the way it is with all technology advertising. Convincing people to pay way to much to buy something they can't possibly use to its full potential. I have an iPhone that can synthesize food from air, diagnose disease, and fight crime at nights as a masked vigilante but I use it mostly to call my mom. Hey, but at least the $600 price tag came with a felling of self importance and belonging. And now a few of my favorite tech commercial parodies.

Sold on Science

Despite being a multi-billion dollar industry, you will never see an ad for a biotechnology company run during the Super Bowl. Up til now biotech ads have be relegated to the science geek ghetto of hard core, full frontal, peer-reviewed science journals. This meant of course that they always took the form of an exceedingly dry, stationary, 2-D solicitation. But thanks to the wonders of the internet, biotech companies can now finally enter the 19th century realm of moving pictures. And based on the geeky humor of these ads by microarray producer Illumina and general biotech supply company BioRad, biotech is ready to go straight to the big leagues. Come on, there are more people doing PCR than will ever drink PepsiMax (now with extra carcinogens).

Terry Tate - Office Linebacker

The hype for Super Bowl commercials has come to equal Super Bowl itself. We have been led to believe that millions of people watch the game just for the commercials but then again TV talking heads tell us a lot of things that aren't true. But it really seems that the water cooler quality of the Super Bowl commercials has really decreased over the last couple of years. Of course, I do view the commercials of Super Bowls of yesteryear through those rose colored glasses of nostalgia. In my day..... In reviewing past commercials, I saw a number of ads that I have a fondness for (Monster.com, EDS, and Budweiser) but not many greats. My favorites from this year had to be the Night at the Roxbury referencing Pepsi Max commercial (never funny as an SNL sketch but always amuses me when it is performed out of context) and the Barkley-Wade T-mobile ad. Of course nothing in this year's disappointing crop can equal the Terry Tate sales pitches introduced during the 2003 big game. Now that is quality pseudo-entertainment.

The NFL Writers Ran out of Good Ideas

The NFL season started with so much promise. Unlike so many past parity-stricken years, there appeared to be at least four truly dominant teams, one of historic proportions. We were on a path to some epic football clashes to conclude the year. But like a TV series (X-Files and hopefully not Lost) or movie (Independence Day because aliens use Macs) that develops a killer hook but does not have the intellectual wherewithal to pull off a satisfying conclusion, the NFL season died a painfully slow death of dashed hopes and squandered potential. None of the great match-ups materialized. Not one. We did not get Packers v. Cowboys, Colts v. Patriots, Cowboys or Packer v. Patriots. Just a bunch of mediocrity mindlessly meandering through the playoffs. At least the Super Bowl provided the hope that we would be able to observe history, even if it required replaying a game from just five weeks prior with a team quarterbacked by a guy that looks like the least intimidating member of a high school marching band (probably plays the French horn). Of course, to be consistent with the rest of the playoffs, the game was an underwhelming snooze-fest involving a Patriots team that came ready for a coronation ceremony instead of a football game. The whole season quickly went from historic to forgettable in the span of 5 weeks. And we won't even get into the 4th down non-holding call that allowed a vastly inferior Jacksonville team to triumph over the mighty and deserving Steelers. The only good thing that came out of this year's playoffs was this YouTube clip. It makes perfect sense to me that Hitler would both be a Cowboys fan and own a T.O. jersey.