Sending a Message to Soda and His Cronies

Has this ever happened to you? It’s a dark and stormy night and you’re home alone, nestled into the couch watching old movies. The wind is whipping tree branches against the windows, making an eerie scraping sound. You hear a creak that seems to be out of place, and against your better judgement, decide you’d better get up to investigate.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant, 72-ounce Cherry Coke busts down the door, holds you down, and forces every drip of its syrupy evil down your throat.

Fortunately, this hasn’t happened to me — yet — but I’m looking into a new home security system to protect my family from this sort of soft drink crime that is apparently growing in frequency around the country. Continue Reading →

You Know, We Are Living In A Society

And it is royally screwed up.

I just did a Google search on “How to connect with your neighbor.” I was trying to find some people who might be interested in the Escape Adulthood show episode in which we shared a fun idea for introducing yourself to a neighbor you might not know very well. I got a bunch of posts about hacking into your neighbor’s home network, and at the bottom of the search page, Google suggested these related searches:

how to make your neighbors move
find criminals your neighborhood
find predators your neighborhood
find rapist your neighborhood
find molesters your neighborhood

No, Google, not exactly what I was looking for. Call me crazy, but methinks something is seriously wrong here. Pass this video along, and maybe we can turn the tide.

I miss Mr. Rogers. Anybody else?

Goodbye, Strawberry Shortcake

I’ll admit it. My aunt Sarah (three years my senior) had a pretty vast collection of Strawberry Shortcake dolls (I mean action figures.) If I had to count how many times I begged her to play with them, I’d surely be up in the millions.

They were so cute…so colorful…so smelly (in a completely irresistible sort of way.)

And now American Greetings has decided to ruin Strawberry Shortcake and her sweet-smelling pals forever. In the old “Hey, let’s give this classic character a face lift to appeal to the young kids” saw, Strawberry Shortcake now wears makeup, prefers fresh fruit to gumdrops, and has ditched her cuddly cat Custard for a — wait for it — cell phone. Continue Reading →

Let’s Blame Santa for Childhood Obesity

Well, I guess it was only a matter of time. Something had to be done.

You see, kids are fatter than ever. And they’re only getting fatter.

Of course, we can’t address the primary cause of the problem (parenting) because it is nearly impossible to question people’s parenting skills — it’s a touchy issue that can make the abortion debate look like a civilized afternoon tea. Since we can’t make parents be better parents (which might include doing stuff like making sure their kids don’t sit in front of a video game for hours on end every day, putting a stop to the purchase of piles of junk food, and electing for a more home cooked meals sitting around a table than fast food feasts consumed in the family SUV), we must look elsewhere. Continue Reading →

The War On Cupcakes (and Childhood Obesity)

Kids are fatter these days. But here’s a newsflash: it’s not from eating birthday cupcakes at school.

Some adults are trying to ruin everything by banning cupcakes. Yes, cupcakes, that little bastion of evil masquerading in a facade of frosting and sprinkles. A number of schools around the country “have put the kibosh on the mini-cakes for classroom birthday and other parties, claiming they’re key offenders in the growing child obesity and diabetes problems.”

The Cupcake Wars have begun. Continue Reading →

Red Ink is Evil

This from Minette, a regular contributor to the discussion on this blog:

They are continuing this entire stupid idea of banning all possible hits to self-esteem even in the corporate world. I work for a government agency and we do a lot of training. I’ve been told that I can no longer use red ink to correct my trainees’ work because it would “hurt their self-esteem.” I have to use green ink. I’ve gone ahead and done this like a good little girl but my first reaction was, “Life sometimes sucks. Get over it!”

Yet another example of Adultitis running rampant. If red pen hurts your self-esteem, I have a news flash for you: you need a new self-esteem. Kim also was forbidden from using red pen when teaching kindergarten.

Here’s what I want to know: What happens when green becomes known as the evil and vicious self-esteem obliterating ink?

Technorati Tags: self esteem, red pens, red ink, grading, Adultitis