Say It Ain’t So: 2012 Ice Cream Crisis!

i-deem-man

i-deem-man

I try not to have regrets. Life is too short to worry about what might have been. However, the Dude missed two career paths that have left trails of regret.

1. Zamboni driver. You know. That car-type thing that cleans the ice at hockey games. Always seemed like a great job. I should have earned some college money driving the school zamboni.

and

2. Ice cream man. Awesome high school summer job. It’s mindless. Outside, somewhat. And you’re driving a truckload of happiness. Perfect summer job.

I’ve pretty much moved on from these regrets, but now that summer is here, and Little Dude learned what the “i-deem-man” does, it’s all flooding back.

The ice cream man is a pretty hilarious concept.

$3 for one of what you can buy a box at the store. .But somehow it makes sense because a dude in a truck, that’s about to breakdown, is selling it out of his window.

Okay. Two please.

At the beginning of the summer it’s great. Once. Maybe twice. After a few weeks, it settles in that this dude is coming everyday. And the kids want ice cream. Everyday.

Kids and parents react instinctual. Consistently, the same reactions. Kids scream. Amazing, ridiculous screams. And may run around in circles.

Parents, hang their head and slouch their shoulders – like their favorite team just lost a big game – knowing they are about to get ripped off.

Little Dude now recognizes the “i-deem-man’s” music and knows that it leads to a truck with delicious snacks.

It’s pretty adorable.

Dada. I-deem-man. I-deem-man.

Awesome.

Which is why I’m dismayed to learn that the there is a 2012 Ice Cream Crisis. Don’t tell Little Dude. He’ll be heart broken.

Good Humor is short on the Toasted Almond, Chocolate Eclair, and Candy Center Crunch in the Northeast. They are blaming it on an unusually warm spring.

Is this a plot to get us to believe in climate change?

And why only the Northeast?

Those aren’t popular on the west coast.

No taste buds in Cali?

Blogging is More Important Than Ever

Monopolies are no bueno. Parker Brothers taught us this a long time ago with the board game.

We all know that by the end of a game of Monopoly – once all the power has been consolidated in the winners hands – Mom and Dad aren’t talking, Uncle Jim is no longer welcome at the house, and the kids are rolling around on the ground scratching each others eyes out.

It never fails, consolidation of Boardwalk and Park Place in the hands of the thimble leads to decisions made for the benefit of the few and a mass unrest for those on the losing end. And the board game is a decent corollary for the real world.

Yet, some how the masses tend to miss the formation of real monopolies…or more likely, fooled into missing the real monopolies.

Check out the below “Illusion of Choice” infographic.

  • 6 major companies dictate about 90% of the media we have access to.
  • In less than 30 years the number of companies providing our media has dropped from 50 to just 6.
  • The six companies consisting of GE, New-corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner, and CBS.
  • One media executive to every 850,000 subscribers.
  • To add to the craziness, check out how much GE paid in taxes…how about zero?!
    • 57,000 page tax return and paid the big donut on $14 billion in profits.
The Illusion of Choice

The Illusion of Choice

So, this leads me to my main point. Blogging is more important than ever. Mass media may be monopolized and homogenized, but the interwebs is wide open.

Turn off the TV, stop reading mainstream media, and open your eyes to the rich information on the intertubes.

I’m a blogger, so I’ll admit I’m a bit biased, but I am amazed at the quality and quantity of independent media at our finger tips. Far more than we can keep up with, but choose your interests and pursue with vigor.

Let The Man have the monopolized media. The people have each other.

Quick tip: Between work and home, I currently follow 316 blogs. Crazy, right? How do I keep up? It’s pretty easy…and fun because it’s information I’m into.

  1. Get a Google Reader account – this allows you to consolidate all of your blogs in one spot. With the magic of RSS feeds, there’s no need to go out and look for new posts
  2. Setup an IGoogle page with Google Reader, Facebook, Twitter, weather, a surf report – anything you look at on a regular basis – and make this your homepage. Every time you get on your computer, you’ll see new blog posts that you dig.
  3. Don’t get caught up in reading every post. Scan headlines, and only dig into posts that catch your attention.
  4. To take it to the mobile level, you can get apps for your smart phones and tablets that give you the ability to check your Google Reader – I use “MobileRSS” for my IPhone and “Feedler” for my IPad.

As an example, here’s a look at my IGoogle homepage…

 

Dude's iGoogle

Dude's iGoogle

Thanks to Frugal Dad for the great infographic.

Dude’s News

The quantity of information available these days is amazing.

A short 10 – 15 years ago, the biggest source of information was TV and radio. We are now inundated with information almost constantly. We are riding the information superhighway after all.

I think it’s about as rad as rad can be. I love finding new sources of information, learning something new, starting a new hobby, teaching myself how to do something I’ve never done. The pace of learning has exploded.

I’m sure it’s a double-edged sword. I’m sure negatives can be argued, but I dig the plethora of information at our finger tips. The drawback I find is having the time to consume all of the ideas that I’m interested in.

I have so much great information coming at me through my RSS feeds (If you’re not familiar with RSS feeds, it’s worth the read – awesome way to collect info you’re into without having to go find it.) that it’s impossible to follow every idea down the rabbit hole, and even content that I dig is often pushed aside or forgotten.

I’ve been collecting a few nuggets of greatness in my email for a week or two. My goal has been to write separate posts for each, but time keeps passing, and the content keeps coming. So, rather than try to get individual posts out, I figure I’ll share them all at once under the amazingly clever name of “Dude’s News”…I know, you love it.

Let’s start with some Local News

Local News
The Boy is a lunatic, and the lunacy grows everyday. Running, screaming, throwing, kicking, and a whole bunch of eating along the way.

Words are coming slowly but surely. He is always moving and exploring, and he’s becoming much more sure-footed. It’s fun to set him loose in the yard and follow him around. A great way to slow down and enjoy some everyday exploring.

The Princess is crushing first grade. Reading like a champ, loving piano lessons, and being a fantastic big sister.

The local news is all unicorns, gummie bears, and rainbows.

Science
Here’s a very cool video from TED (as in “Ideas worth spreading,” TED) about the complex experimenting and decision making that babies and toddlers use to figure out the world around them. I get the impression that the collective “we” views babies as lacking in some of the cognitive muscle that we flex as we get older. But maybe “we” have it wrong.

Judging by Little Dude’s constant exploring mentioned above, I’m inclined to think that psychologist Alison Gopnik may be onto something here. She says something in the video about toddlers not having ADD but rather lacking the ability NOT to pay concentrated attention to all of the amazing things around them, and that seems to fit Little Dude to a T.

Here’s the video description: “Babies and young children are like the R&D division of the human species,” says psychologist Alison Gopnik. Her research explores the sophisticated intelligence-gathering and decision-making that babies are really doing when they play.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cplaWsiu7Yg[/youtube]

In other science news, here’s an article from Discover titled: 100,000-Year-Old Paint Factory Suggests Early Humans Knew Chemistry.

As in one hundred thousand, 100k, one hundo thousundo! That’s craziness!

As a culture, how can we feel comfortable with the idea that we have any clue about what is going on? We know of a blink in time of history.

Jesus was around two thousand years ago. We have written history for something like ten thousand years. That still leaves 90,000 years between our knowledge and people sophisticated enough to craft paint.  That’s “20,000-30,000 years before archaeologists had previously thought such complex thought processes possible.”

That’s a huge amount of time. Wild.

Lastly in the science department, this is what the Universe looks like. Insane, right? The Universe. You’re looking at it. A second ago I implied we don’t know anything, and now we have an example of us mapping out the entire Universe. Life is full of paradoxes.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/29769051[/vimeo]

Nature
As described on Kotke.com: “Richard Feynman talking about the beauty of science and of the natural world over a bunch of video footage taken from NASA, Microcosmos, and BBC nature docs like Planet Earth.”

This video is super cool. Got a special place in your heart for Mother Nature? You will after you watch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRmbwczTC6E&feature=related[/youtube]

In a similar nature-loving vain, here’s a great video of a dude following mountain climbers for National Geographic. The Dude is becoming increasingly intrigued by mountain climbing.

If you have a chance (especially if you have Netflix), check out 180° South. It’s a surfing/mountain climbing “documentary,” and it’s pretty rad…with a rad soundtrack. It gave me a new outlook on mountain climbing. A completely isolated and useless act, but you come back with a new perspective. Anyway, onto the feature presentation.

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/27786807[/vimeo]

Amazingly Cool
In the amazingly cool department, ABC News is reporting that the DeLorean is coming back! Back to the Future…Present.

And, it’s coming back as an electric car.

Nice work making electric cars cool. Didn’t think it could be done.

Economics
And to round out the Dude’s News coverage, let’s take a quick look at a report from Bloomberg stating that DC now outpaces Silicon Valley for the highest household income in the country.

As Don King is fond of saying, “Only in America.” How is the region that houses the government and all of the cronies that go along with it the highest paid area of the country? How is that possible?

Federal workers earn an average of $126,000 in total compensation!

Our tax money pays them, correct? Do we see the shitstorm going on in country/world right now? Are they really worth an average salary of $126,000? Things are waaaaayyyyy out of whack these days.

Amazingly Cool Part Deux
To end on a positive note, let’s showcase what could be one of the greatest father/son bonding experiences of all time – and absolutely the greatest Hotwheels track the Dude has every laid eyes on (hats off to TheKidShouldSeeThis.com for another gnarly video)…

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzTRTQkmHpU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

The Kid Should Definitely See This

I think I just found my N.F.B. – new favorite blog.

www.TheKidShouldSeeThis.com.

Classic videos that entertain Dudes and Little Dudes. Short videos approved by a 3 year old co-curator that will make you smile…and forget that you might be learning something new.

Great description from the site:

There’s just so much science, nature, music, arts, technology, storytelling and assorted good stuff out there that my kids (and maybe your kids) haven’t seen. It’s most likely not stuff that was made for them…

But we don’t underestimate kids around here.

I’m amazed by the wide selection of videos. Kudos to the curators…keep the radness coming.

I didn’t know elements could be so entertaining:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy0m7jnyv6U&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Hard Work

Hard work is an important lesson to pass on to the kiddos, but it seems like a strong passion for what you’re doing is, at least, equally important…if not more…probably more.

I wonder how many people said riding a bike or skating was a waste time. Looks like art to the Dude.

1. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShbC5yVqOdI&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

2. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd3TlkitmAk&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

And a great example of hard work is Mr. Rogers.

Who woulda thunk it? The Dude’s second reference to Mr. Rogers? I didn’t know I had such an affinity for the kind hearted soul.

3. Fred Rogers was amazingly dedicated to his craft.

Wild, I know.

P.S.  – You should check out Kottke.org. A great blog covering a wide variety of topics. That’s where I strolled across 1., 2., & 3. at different times.

Rock N’ Roll

Tattoos and guitar are very rock n’ roll; so in the spirit of enjoying a great Saturday rockin’ out with the fam, I have a couple tidbits to pass along.

  1. Kids love temporary tattoos…there’s something great about seeing artwork on your body. And to be fair, the Dude loves some ink too. So, you can imagine my excitement when I stumbled upon these super awesome designer temporary tattoos.

Designer Temp Tats

Designer Temp Tats

2. Numero dos: Sweet perspective of a guitar being strummed.

Hope you’re enjoying your Saturday. Rock on!

Say It Ain’t So: Kidzania

Are we really building “amusement parks” where we are willing to pay for kids to be exposed to mass marketing/consumerism and work in a mini-world as mini-adults?!

It seems like we are. Kidzania hasn’t arrived in the US yet, but it has locations around the world, and could be in your neighborhood soon.

Here’s Wikipedia’s definition:

Every KidZania is themed as a child-sized replica of a real city, including buildings, shops and theaters, as well as vehicles and pedestrians moving along its streets. In this city, children aged 2 through 14, work in branded activities from bottling Coca-Cola, working in a Crest-sponsored dentist office, and working at a McDonalds restaurant. The children earn KidZos currency while performing the tasks, and the money is kept in the KidZania bank for children to spend at the gift shop and on non-free KidZania activities. The blending of marketing has led The Morning News to dub KidZania as “advertainment”, stating “there is little that’s pretend, and the play revolves around following instructions from the adult Zupervisors.”

Sounds like a blast, right? Pay money to be exposed to marketing and work in menial jobs getting bossed around by Zupervisors for low wages that accumulate in fake banks (that probably lose your money on bad investments) so you can pay for more consumerism. Holy shit?! What’s wrong with us?

Really, I’m going to pay you to allow my kids to wash car windows and pump gas, all while you flash your company logos in our faces?

Adults don’t want to act like adults. Why would we make menial labor and purchasing junk seem like it’s fun for our children? How about some imagination, art, music, reading, physical activity, and god-forbid some non-big-business related fun? A beach perhaps?…and it’s free.

I can feel the brainwashing seeping into our domes…and it’s scary that we’re letting it happen.

Princess, Little Dude, please don’t ask; Kidzania is off limits.

Perhaps “Say It Ain’t So” needs to be a new regular installment for the Dude….an area where I wax poetically about the ways of the world. Eh, maybe not.