8. The last three birthday parties I went to involved decorations that talked about being “over the hill”.

7. When my friends with babies come to visit they complain my house is no longer child-proof.

6. My daughter told me someone “wasn’t her type” today… (when did she become old enough to care, let alone have “a type”?)

5. The teenage exchange student staying at my house really looks like a kid! (When did teenagers become so young looking, by the way?)

4. The Legos my kids are playing with were mine when I was a kid… and they are now 30 years old.

3. The party I had last weekend started at 3pm… and ended by 9.

2. The only guys who give me a look-see in public all have gray hair (or no hair!).

1. The only public places I frequent to even give guys the chance to give me the once-over are the grocery store, gas station, and Home Depot.

My kids sometimes complain because I am pretty particular about what they watch and listen to. In fact, they don’t watch live TV at all. Instead, they watch TIVOd shows like The Brady Bunch, I Love Lucy, and Little House on the Prairie. Seriously. My kids are normal kids, except they don’t watch the supposed “wholesome” shows on The Disney Channel and network TV.

Don’t get me wrong - there are *some* good shows being produced today. I do allow my girls to watch American Idol (once they are through with the auditions) because I think it is a good “slice of real life” in that there are people who win and people who don’t win. And thankfully, everyone (so far) has accepted their fate quite graciously on AI. They also love The Magic School Bus (which is a great educational show on PBS). And then there’s… um…

The rest of the shows that my girls’ friends watch tend to focus on dating relationships. My oldest is almost 9 and I asked her, “are you ready to start dating?” Thankfully she replied, “no way mom!” Well, that settled it. She doesn’t need to watch shows about “how to snag a guy” or “how to get him to kiss you” or anything similar.

Movies are the same… we don’t need to see a movie just because everyone else is (gosh, when did I start to sound like my parents?!). I took a lot of flak from other parents because I didn’t allow my girls to watch the Shrek movies. I read reviews of popular movies before going to the theater, and the reviews of the Shrek movies discussed how much “potty talk” was used. I have enough trouble getting my kids to use nice words, why add more potty talk to their vocabulary? The way I see it, movies and TV are basically fluff… they are not necessities required for my kids to grow up happy and healthy.

But if a good one comes along, we’ll be there! Our favorite series thus far has been the National Treasure series. It’s the first big screen movie series our whole family can enjoy. [You might say, “wait - there’s lots of violence in those movies” and you’d be right. But the type of violence shown in these movies is more akin to what I watched as a kid in Bugs Bunny, and is therefor not a problem for us.]

Anyway, back to the title of this post… I heard about a father whose kids wanted to watch a popular movie that was rated PG-13. The kids made a list of all the pros (everyone’s seeing it, top-notch actors, award-winning, etc.) and the cons (only 3 swear words, minimal violence, sex is off-camera, etc.). To illustrate his point, the father made a batch of special brownies and told the kids they could see the movie if they could eat the brownies without being affected by the cons. You see the brownies were made with top-notch ingredients and an award-winning recipe, but there was just 3 tbsp. of dog poop added. He mixed it really well and baked it at 350 degrees, so hopefully you won’t notice that little bit of crap… This illustration may be a little far fetched for some folks. But why expose my kids to crap if I don’t have to? Thanks to TIVO and about a zillion TV stations, I can tailor my kids’ media intake to be exactly what they need (without any added crap).

Have you met the Ice Cream Man? Not the guy who makes you pay for the ice cream he sells, but Matt Allen (shown right) - a.k.a. Free Ice Cream Man. Matt’s mission is to travel the world, giving away half a million ice cream treats. To date, he’s given away 125,000, so he’s not finished yet.

Ice Cream Man achieves his mission through sponsorships by companies like Blue Bunny (who makes ice cream of course). And he says he pays for gas on his debit/credit card but doesn’t really pay too much attention to how much it adds up to (which is probably a good thing if he doesn’t want to get too depressed).

My biggest question for Matt was why? To which he answers… “Here are a few reasons: 1. Free ice cream makes people happy, 2. Because I know there’s a way I can give away hundreds of thousands of free ice creams, 3. It’s the best job in the world (I think), and 4. Hopefully, it’ll inspire and motivate people to get out and do stuff, like fulfilling their dreams.”

Hmmm… guess that about sums it up. Oh except for one more thing.
Matt, could you head over to my neighborhood next?

We all do it… some people do it watching TV, others snooze, and some people just “hang out”… but I think it’s fair to say a whole lot of us waste time surfing the web. Well, lucky for us there’s a new way to waste time online: Draw My Thing.

This game is like Pictionary - you draw until someone guesses what you’re trying to draw. It’s totally addicting, so watch out. (Come on… just one more game.) It’s even more addicting when you’re actually winning! The best part of this web site is that they actually list the total number of hours that have been wasted playing Draw My Thing since it was created (which was pretty recently). Nothing like seeing how many hours you’ve wasted on a web site to keep you coming back!

I don’t have a ton of time to waste these days… but for those moments when my brain is fried from work and the kids aren’t around… Draw My Thing is perfect. Check it out and maybe I’ll see you there sometime.

I rarely get involved in public discussions about politics - but I do follow politics quite closely, especially in an election year. So when I received the following message in my inbox today, I was intrigued. I decided it was worth posting, even if only to cause a few others to become intrigued

Remember the election in 2006?
At the time of that election:
1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high
2) Regular gasoline sold for $2.19 a gallon
3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%

Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:
1) Consumer confidence plummet
2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 a gallon
3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase)
4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses)
5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars
6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it! Remember it’s Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what’s handed to him by Congress.

Quote of the Day…”My friends, we live in the greatest nation in the history of the world. I hope you’ll join with me as we try to change it.” — Barack Obama

Taxes… Whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.
Verify: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Under Clinton 1999
Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750

Taxes Under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates. It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can’t wait for it to happen. This is like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of some money and they don’t even know what happened.