Flash Mob Rob Job?

I remember when flash mobs used to be a bunch of idiots pulling off choreographed dance moves in high-end retail stores or parades of people having pillow fights in public places.  Now the term is being applied to a bunch of idiots that robbed a clothing store.

On Saturday, around 20 teenagers stormed into a Chicago clothing store and ran away with almost 3 grand in jeans.  Sounds like a lot of denim right?  Wrong!  These over-priced jeans went for around $200 a pair, meaning the "flash mob" only got away with about 15 pairs of pants; that's not even enough pants to cover the look-outs.



I'm not a fan of flash mobs anyway, their mild amusement is far outweighed by their major annoyance, but let us spare flash mobs a bad name and call this what it is.   These are flash mobs:




Harmless, usually stupid, and sometimes romantic are the way flash mobs are supposed to be.   Technically speaking, a bunch of people showed up somewhere (high-priced clothing store), did something (robbed it), and left quickly (the get-away), that's a flash mob.

Technically speaking, you're an asshole; you also misspelled glass.

But, what happened at the clothing store was a pre-planned robbery not a group of nerds congregating under the guise of "social experiments".  I guess "Kids Steal Pants" isn't as good of a headline as "Flash Mob Robbers Steal $3,000".  The misleading Yahoo headline had me clicking on the article, only to be  disappointed that the surveillance video didn't show the kids dancing while they swiped their swag.  I had high hopes.  Crooks don't rob with style anymore.

Please, if any members of criminal society are reading this, you have already ruined Astronauts,

Astronauts used to be cool Lisa. They used to be cool.

Firefighters,

Anthony Cilento. Your name is cool. Drug-trafficking for the Bonanno crime family is  not

and Beavis.

I don't know who that dude is or what he did, but I'll never see Beavis the same way again

Please leave flash mobs alone.

Mayhem Festival Concert Tips

I don't get out nearly as much as I'd like to (or need to), but I can almost always count on our yearly trip to the Rockstar Mayhem Festival.  I backed out last year thanks to 100 degree temperatures and this year looked like it was going to be the same way.  We had just set record high temps and the thought of standing outside all day on a concrete parking lot didn't seem very appealing.

When I'm at a heavy metal concert I want my face melted, not my rubber soles.  Lucky for us, it was overcast all day.  We hadn't received a drop of precipitation in almost three weeks and it looked like Satan was about to rain hell all over the amphitheater.   Thankfully, there was only the threat of rain, which was enough to keep us cool through the breakdowns and blast beats.

Festival Tips

The Parenting Dad isn't just about mildly helpful parenting advice, it's about bestowing knowledge upon all, so use these concert-going tips the next time you head out to a show.

Make it easy for your friends to find you.  With the amount of people attending these outdoor concerts, it's easy to get separated from your pack.  If you're a short fella, you may want to make yourself easily identifiable in the crowd.  Gel the gravity right out of your mid-back-length hair and gain a full heads-length above the competition.  Spiking your hair might not be enough; mo-hawks are not lacking at metal concerts.  You may want to consider painting a symbol on your "do" as our fine metal friend demonstrates in the picture above.

Wear your cargo shorts.  This will be the only time you use all twelve pockets.  Every band, label, and promotion company has their own tent.  Usually you can get free stuff like cd samplers, stickers, buttons, and more.  You don't want to have to carry your plunder around all day.  Stash it and move on to the next tent.  I came home with four Cd's, two stickers, an energy drink, and a 2XL t-shirt all tucked safely into my shorts.  When you're planning your concert-going attire, it's "Cargo or No-Go".

Wear a white t-shirt.   When it comes to metal t-shirts, black is usually the way to go, but you don't want to be in the sun all day wearing black.  White will reflect rather than absorb, keeping you cooler than your metal-tee wearing friends.  Also, sharpies don't show up well on black, as in, not at all.  Most bands do signings and while your black-shirted crew is buying up posters for the band to sign, you can just bust out your white tee with pride.  On a side note, posters don't fit well into cargo pants.

Bring your binoculars.  Unless you spring for seats, which we didn't do this year, your view of the main stage will probably be something like this.  You're not going to see much of anything other than what is displayed on the jumbo-tron.  Thanks be to the Sumerian Records Side Stage which is changing the festival experience.

Bring your camera.  You're going to want pictures to prove how awesomely close you were to the drummer (the most important member of any metal band), plus you can get some sweet videos of crowd surfing and moshing.  But most importantly, when you get to be a middle-aged parent of three, it's the only way you'll remember being there.

Sumerian Side Stage

Outdoor music festivals are a great place to get your money's worth out of a ticket.  At this year's Rockstar Mayhem Festival, I saw 15 bands for 30 dollars; that's two bucks a band.   You're not going to find a deal like that at smaller indoor venues. However, what you make up for in quantity, you often lose in quality.  The Sumerian Records side stage is working hard to change that.

Here's my view from the second stage:

The blurry-ness captures my actual view.

Pretty crap-tastic right?  I'd love to tell you who that is on stage.  I want to say it's Whitechapel, but from two miles away, I'm not entirely sure.  Most of the bands I cared about seeing played this stage, unfortunately, seeing them was the problem.  

I'm not one of those "get in the pit and try to love someone" concert-goers.  I'm one of those "stand back and let my face get melted" kind of guys that might nod his head a bit in approval of odd-time signatures and abrupt time changes.  I like to watch the band interact with each other and the fans; I'm a heavy metal voyeur and it's hard to voy from this far away.  Here's my view of the main stage:

This picture looks fairly close compared to where I was actually standing.  It's amazing how well the zoom works on my camera.  To give you a clue about how far away I actually was, take notice of the giant t.v. screen on the right side of the photo.  That's what those of us on the lawn were expected to watch the show through.  To put it another way, if I was playing golf and Tim Lambesis was the hole, this would be a 5 par round.  Not a great view for the voyeur.

As you can see, the quality of this concert so far is pretty lame.  I can barely make out the guitarists, I can't tell if anybody is even sitting behind the drums, and the bass players...well bassists don't really count.  Now here's the Sumerian Records Side Stage:

Now that's close.  If it wasn't for the huge security guard in front of me, I could have been on stage.  This is how metal shows should be seen.  It's easier to have your face melted when you can see the carnage up close and personal.  This can be accomplished at the other stages, but it's far harder.  You have to show up early, stand in the crowd all day, and slowly weasel your way to the front as others leave for drinks, bathroom breaks, and medical attention.  Even if you do make it to the front of one of the larger stages, the band is three to five feet above your head and you're still not going to see this:

I, The Breather

This is what metal shows are all about - holding the vocalist above your head while he screams unintelligibly into the microphone.

Upon A Burning Body

Metal shows are about one thing, i.e., interaction.  Personally, I flushed all the moshing, yelling, and crowd participation out of my system in my younger days, back when I could afford to go to five or six shows a year.  Now I'm lucky to get out of the house once a year for a concert, but when I do, I love watching the other metal-heads tearing it up in the pit.  It's not a concert until somebody is bleeding and the only blood I saw was at the Sumerian Records side-stage.

Ugly Babies

photo from planetugly.com

Let's be honest with each other.  98 percent of newborns fall into the ugly babies category.  Why shouldn't they?  They've been trapped in goo and baby-making juices for months, their head has been squeezed almost flat, and their recent journey down Placenta Pass has left them bruised and swollen.  Then the nurse puts this thing in your arms and you're supposed to love it immediately.  Not happening.

Dads have it  easy though.  We can hold the baby an arm's length away from us or pass it off onto an adoring grandparent.   If you're the one that actually passed this kidney stone, they plop it down on your chest, two inches from your nose, goo and all, so you can smell what you've been stewing for the past 40 weeks.

After a couple hundred baths and a month or two, most babies grow out of their ugliness.  Then there's that one or two percent that fail to clean up nicely.  No matter how hideous looking the baby is, the parents refuse to acknowledge their offspring's lack of looks.  These parents will shove photos of their kid in your face and wait for you to tell them how beautiful he/she is.  I understand their pain.  If I worked really hard at something for nine months and then failed miserably, I wouldn't want to own up to it either.  It's called denial, a self-defense mechanism, and you're going to be using it for a long time parents.
I don't want you to think that I'm some sort of conceited snob that thinks he can't produce ugly babies.  I've churned out my share of cave-babies.  Three shares to be exact and any one of them could have been the poster child for Planned Parenthood.  So here are baby pictures of my seed.  WARNING:  Some things you can't unsee.

Our five pound and no ounce son managed to have a double chin. Not pretty

Putting a pretty bow on doesn't make your baby cuter

Bald head, eye swollen shut, nasty rash, purple skin. That's textbook ugly.

I'm happy to say that our children did eventually grow out of their hideousness and turned into some decent looking kids.

Then again, I may be a little biased, it's another great self-defense mechanism.

Deceptively Delicious

by Jessica Seinfeld

As I ease my way into the mid-thirties, my waistline is easing its way into the lower 40's.  So, my wife and I decided it was time to start eating healthy and exercising.  After eating the rest of the cookies in the house, we were on our way to the grocery store to buy fresh produce.  The only problem is vegetables taste horrible.

My wife heard that Deceptively Delicious was supposed to be a great guide on how to get your kids to eat their veggies.   I wasn't about to waste my money on a vegetable-based cookbook, so we ran out to the library and picked up a copy just to try it out.  So far it's been an amazing book.

The main idea of the book is simple, purée fruit and veggies and stick 'em in foods you already eat.  We've only tried a few recipes, but so far, this technique has worked wonders on our kids.

The only fruit I get into our son is the "frosted" variety found in Pop-Tarts.  Thanks to Seinfeld's Applesauce muffins, he ate both apples and carrots (which you can't even taste) for breakfast.  First meal of the day and the kid already had two servings of fruit and veggies.  Sucker.

Three different fruits in one convenient box. Plus, they last longer than fresh fruit.

For lunch we tried the macaroni and cheese recipe.  It's like any other mac 'n' cheese except it has cauliflower in it.  Before you puke all over your computer screen, let me tell you how awesome it was.  If I put any type of vegetable on our kids' plates, the negotiating begins.

The Boy: "Daddy, I don't want to eat this, I'll just eat my hamburger."

Me (wiping a tear from eye, because he finally wants to eat meat): "You need to take a few bites before you are done."

The Boy:  "How about I take three bites?"

Me:  "You can start with three bites, but then you need to take some more."

The Boy:  "How about I take five bites?"

Me: "You can take five bites and then we'll talk."

The Boy:  "I have to go poop."

It's amazing how kids will use emptying their digestive system to get out of filling them.  Amazingly, we didn't have any problems getting him to eat his cauliflower-laden macaroni.  In fact, he asked for a second helping.  Unfortunately, he didn't want to touch the chicken I just grilled (sigh), but, I was so happy he was eating his cauliflower, I let it go and gave him some more.

She ate caulifloweroni AND meat

Two for two on sneaking healthy food into our kids (and ourselves) so far.  With our recent successes, we'll be trying more recipes out for sure and once our library loan is done, we'll have to figure something out.  I'm sure we'll be buying this book before I buy any size 34 jeans.

Deceptively Delicious : Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food

Your Kid's Name Is Stupid

A bad baby name can haunt your kid for life.  They can always change it at 18 if they'd like, but by then the damage will have been done.  So before you decide "Huckleberry" is a cute name for your newborn son, here are a few things to consider.

Pronunciation: My last name is constantly butchered.  Teachers, tele-marketers, and arresting officers never get it right.  Do you really want this for your child's first name?  It's a pain having to correct people before moving the conversation along.  Don't forget that Me-Maw and Paw-paw have to be able to pronounce the name.  You don't want them spraying spittle on you or having their dentures pop out every time they say "Shoshawnna".

Spelling:  Maybe you've decided to go with one of the less weird baby names.  Excellent, but please don't try to get fancy with the spelling.  The English language is hard enough to learn.  You don't want to confuse your kid when she's just learning to spell.  There may be 11 different ways to spell Ashley, but that doesn't mean they're all grammatically correct.  Day care facilities could learn a lesson here.  I'm not sending my kids to "Kathy's Kidz Kare", what kind of spelling do they teach in that place?

Job Employment:  This is where things get real.  One study suggests that "white names" are more likely to get call-backs than "black names" in job pursuits.   The study even suggests that a white name adds the equivalent of 8 years of experience to a résumé.  Click the link for more info on the study.

Higher-ups in companies also tend to have common names that are easy to pronounce. Companies don't want to waste precious time explaining how to pronounce a roomful of names during international merger meetings.  Unless you're trying to raise the next President, stick with something less outrageous.

Definitely stay away from stripper names.  Candy and Bambi are things that should be eaten, not things that should be found on birth certificates.  For more on how names may (or may not) predict future employment, check out The Name Game from Focus Magazine.

Celebrity Babies:  As a general rule of thumb, avoid any name that a celebrity has used.  There are a few exceptions, but for the most part celebrities think everything they do is golden and they end up picking bad baby names.    You should also avoid naming your baby after reality t.v. "stars".  They're similar to celebrities only dumber and poorer.

Name Swapping:  Boys should have boys' name and girls should have girls' names.  Plain, simple, to the point.  I don't care what Lindsay Sloane says (she's a celebrity, see above), Maxwell is not a name for girls.  However, thanks to people ignoring the previous advice, it's catching on.

If only my portfolio looked this good.

Inanimate Objects:  It's okay to give inanimate objects names like Wendy, Travis, or Dave.  As a matter of fact, inanimate objects (as well as pets) are great for all those horrible names you've been considering.   However, the reverse is not true.  Babies cannot be given names of inanimate objects.  The names Apple, Blanket and Banjo come to mind.  This is usually done by celebrities, although I once worked with a kid named "Tree".

Please have mercy on your children. If I haven't given you enough reasons to pick a decent baby name, this book below may help you.

What Not to Name Your Baby:The perfect antidote to the boring baby-naming books -- a hilarious guide for expecting parents on what NOT to name their baby! What better way to choose the perfect name than by ruling out those names that are off-limits? Joe Borgenicht offers more than a thousand names, complete with pronunciation and definitions, that absolutely, positively cannot be used for a child. But don't worry, there are exceptions to the rules, and a lot of names will work just fine, but...

The Importance of Drinking At Noon

Beer and Lao Tzu - Two great paths to inner peace.

An apple a day might keep the doctor away, but a beer at lunch keeps the kids alive.  By noon, I have already been asked approximately 50 questions.  Actually, it's more like they ask the same 5 questions ten times.

"Can you get me chocolate milk?"

"Can you start a movie for me?"

"Can you make me a sandwich?"

"Can you get me a pop-tart?"

"When is mommy coming home?"

That last question is mine, but you get the point.

All of these questions and demands can take a toll on a guy.  Don't ask what your Daddy can do for you, ask what you can do for your Daddy.  Right around lunchtime my stress level is somewhere between "I want to put my fist through this wall" and "Hammer this is Thumb,  Thumb, Hammer."

Now doesn't that feel better?

But after I've calmed the kids down by stuffing them full of Blueberry Pop-Tarts (Great Value Brand), pouring them chocolate milk, and setting them up with Monster House (again), it's Daddy's turn.  I can sit at the table eating my BLB sandwich (bacon, lettuce, bacon) and savor the sweet, calming flavors of a Dutch Lager.  There's just something about sitting down kid-free and enjoying a beer that makes the world feel right again.

I don't consume anywhere near the level of alcohol I did in my younger days.  I would like to say I'm more responsible about my drinking, but the reality is, I don't have the money to spend on it anymore.  Between paying $20 for a can of baby formula, $15 for a  box of diapers and going through a $4 gallon of milk every two days, my drinking days are far behind me.

Perhaps that's why a beer at lunch is so relaxing.  It reminds me of a time before children and responsibilities, before I had to budget beer money, and a time before my beer gut.

The Official Beer of the London Olympics.

On Willow Pond

The baby has more luggage than the rest of us combined.

It's good to be back home after our six-hour drive (which becomes 8 1/2 hours between filling the tank and emptying tiny bladders) from Bangor, MI.  Michigan isn't really a place people have on their "Must See" list of vacation hotspots, but when you have three kids and are sliding from "Middle Class" to "Aggressive Coupon-er", you take vacations wherever you can.  I also use the term "vacation" very loosely.  We have family in MI, so we basically just added three days to the weekend we were going to spend with them and called it a vacation.

The place we stayed at was, for lack of a better phrase, pretty awesome.  We booked a small 3 bedroom cottage which  saved us money over renting a couple of hotel rooms and offered so much more than any Holiday Inn or HoJo could have.   I didn't get to talk to owner/operator Tom very much (with a 100-acre farm, I'm sure he has little time for small talk), but the few times we did chat he was totally laid back; our cottage for the week was just as cool.

One of our main goals of this trip was to get the kids outside.  At home they're usually down in the basement watching movies, torturing the cat, or trying to kill each other.  Lucky for us, there was plenty to do outside.  We enjoyed one evening around the fire-pit, we almost enjoyed frog legs as one of the captured amphibians nearly jumped into the fire trying to escape from an overzealous animal-catching Aunt.

The dock included a paddle-boat that the kids must have ridden at least five times a day.  With the amount of beer and bacon I consumed that week, the exercise was appreciated.  The screened-in gazebo and patio were excellent places to enjoy the food we cooked using the cottage's gas grill.  Don't worry about bringing any fuel, the grill has a dedicated gas line; why I haven't put one in at my house is beyond me.  The biggest lure of the outdoors had to be the animals at Willow Pond.

Indoors

The inside of the cottage was just as beautiful as the outside.  A large gathering area just off the kitchen was plenty of room for our family which at the most included 7 adults and 4 children.  It never felt crowded, only noisy.  Two bedrooms (one with bunk beds, which was a big hit with our older kids), a full bath with laundry, and a decent size kitchen finished off the bottom floor.  Upstairs was the master suite with a bathroom/shower and a reading loft with one of the most comfortable chairs I've ever had the pleasure of leaving my butt print on.

My wife was amazed at the attention to detail that the place offered.  The cottage included life-jackets for the kids, magazines scattered throughout the seating areas, bug spray, supplies for starting a fire (including wood), fly swatters, dog leashes, and even some basic cooking ingredients.  It was nice to know that if you forgot something, the place most likely had it in stock.  And, if you didn't have what you needed, chances are, Tom could hook you up.

My only complaints about the place are that the stairs leading up to the master bedroom were steep and the shower water smelled like the pond.  I'm still not sure if it was the water that smelled or just me.  Regardless, this place was an excellent vacation home that I look forward to visiting again.  It sure beats staying at the In-Laws' house.

You can book your own Bangor, Michigan vacation at www.onwillowpond.com

Animals On Willow Pond

I'm often surprised by the things that amaze our kids and capture their attention.  I was worried that our family vacation would consist of my wife and I trying to alleviate our children's boredom.  Other than our plan to spend one morning at a beach in nearby St. Joseph, we had a blank schedule.  We were going to stay at our cottage and enjoy it; thank God for the animals on Willow Pond.

BUD....WEIS...

The frogs were pretty cool entertainment for the kids.  Despite our son's sensory issues, which usually cause him to shy away from anything sticky, slimy, or scummy, he was trying his hardest to catch the frogs that surrounded the pond.  Okay, so he was actually just trying to poke them with his hanger so they'd jump into the pond, but still, he interacted with something that didn't require batteries or an AC outlet.

Look at the head on this thing!

The greatest draw of the pond had to be the turtles.  When we first walked to the end of the dock, we were greeted by at least a dozen small turtles.  We went inside, grabbed some stale bread that the previous occupants must have left and started feeding them.  That's when we saw Mama Turtle.  I'm not sure if this thing gave birth to the smaller ones or if it was eating them and pooping them out whole.  Either way the kids were excited to see this monster.

The shirt says "Hello Kitty", but the smile says, "Hello Daddy, I Want A Pony".

The cottage we stayed in is located near the Willow Tree Equestrian Center, and what would an Equestrian Center be without a tiny pink-shirted equestrian?  If the turtles and frogs weren't enough to pull the kids outside, the horses were.  You could visit the horses in the nearby stable, take carriage rides with a draft horse, and let the little ones ride the pony.  Guess which one we did?  If you said all three you'd be right.

Bent at the wrist and elbow. That's a kill shot.

Of course, not all the creatures we saw were well received.  Things we killed on this trip include (but are not limited to): multiple flies, numerous june-bug looking things, one bee, and four pounds of bacon.   Our presence on Willow Pond this weekend brought death to some animals, but the presence of some animals brought life to my children.

...ER