It is all our fault and apparently nobody is immune.

My wife’s car has one of those rear entertainment centers. We thought it would be nice to have since when we bought it we knew we would take it on family trips and the bulk of the driving with the kids.

After a while the kids got used to the DVDs we had in the car and if they were good we told them that we would get them a new DVD. They really thought they were top dogs when they got a new DVD, so we started to use that as a reward system. Then one day I was noticing that the kids would laugh during the DVD when it sounded like nothing was happening. Then it hit me, we never actually watched the DVDs. For all we knew it could be some of the most graphic and vulgar things known to man as the video with a nice kids show audio track and we would not have known the difference.

So I have decided that maybe I should start to pay a little more attention to the things my kids watch, and most definitely the programming that I put on for them.

Take tonight for example. I was doing some work while my children where up in the play room and they where watching the ever popular kids show “Dora the Explorer”. I thought to myself “this is this is on Noggin, it’s part of the Nickelodeon family of channels, it’s got to be safe”, but I was wrong. It was filled with all kinds of insane things that seemed cute and maybe even harmless on the surface.

For those of you who don’t know, Dora is this little Hispanic girl with a football shaped head. And that’s about the most sane thing about this show. Dora has a talking monkey that wears shoes as her friend. In the episode tonight, Dora was talking with her grandmother and her grandmother was telling her about making some chocolate treat. And she told Dora that the chocolate grew on a tree and that this tree was her friend and that the tree gave her hugs when she was sad. WTF?!?! And this tree sings with her, yeah the tree sings.

So Dora decides that she is going to go find said singing tree, but she has to check her map to find out how to get there. But for some reason she can’t check the map, you have to check the map and tell her how to get there. Oh and the map talks. Anyone else think that the creators of this show are constantly on an acid trip? Well the map says that to get to this magical chocolate tree that you need to go through the jungle and then to a cave. Say what?!?!

While un-chaperoned laces out and her talking monkey are in the jungle she comes up to a toucan who tells her that there are snapping turtles, snakes and a crocodile in the jungle and that these animals wont let her pass unless she feeds them cookies. Let’s think about this shall we, teaching kids to hand feed wild and dangerous animals. Yeah, I can see why this show is wildly popular.

So maybe feeding turtles isn’t a big deal. And the snakes, while not a bright idea still could be done with some distance and you might be safe. But a fucking crocodile!! Come on.

Then after jungle it’s off to the cave, but not just any cave, oh no no no, it’s a fucking bear cave. Sure, let’s teach our children to go to bear caves. Makes perfect sense to me! The monkey asked what happens if they meet the bear and Dora advised him that they “would have to be very careful”, ya think? Then the monkey and ole football head meet up with a talking iguana, sure it happens all the time. But the iguana tells them that they just have to sing to the bear to put it to sleep. I know that is what they tell you to do in wilderness survival school, to sing and to do so loudly! You know, draw lots of attention to yourself. And they where wondering where the bear was when they got to its cave, almost like they were disappointed because the bear wasn’t there. Of course the bear comes while they are at the cave and they sing it to sleep… yeah.

One of the other episodes had a water skiing bull. In the same show the talking map sent extra point head along with the pronouncing primate to “Pirate Island” where they had to sing and dance for trees so that the trees would let them by. Who sends a kid, even with a monkey to any place called “Pirate Island”?

Oh and don’t forget about the talking backpack and the stealing (and talking, apparently everything talks in this show) fox.

No wonder that the younger generations are fucking stupid. Look at what is (was in our case) entertaining them. Just remember that these are the people who are going to be taking care of us when we get old. You know, WE ARE SCREWED!

Don’t get dead

Hidden Camera Reality Television

I just realized that I haven't posted much on why I swear that I must be on some hidden TV show, like the movie "The Truman Show".

First off, let me hip you cool cats to my neighbors. On one side we have the side we the swingers, no seriously they are swingers. They even had a topless Halloween party. But if I paid as much for a body as the wife did, I would show it off too. Just not in the front yard dressed as topless Wonder Woman. They also like to watch porno… on the back porch that I could see from my kitchen window. In case you were wondering, Vivid Video's Naughty Nurses IV is good stuff.

Then on the other side there are the terrorist. No, they aren't mean or malicious or anything like that. In fact they are just the opposite. They are an overly nice and pretty quite Middle Eastern family. But think about it, every time they interview the neighbors of a bombing suspect, what do they say? Oh they were quite and kept to themselves, blah blah blah. But they are secretive. Like if I am cutting grass and they have the blinds open, they will close the blinds and they wont make eye contact. I am on to you Al Qaeda.

Of course in our old house, I came home to a note on the door one day that said someone from the Department of Defense wanted to speak with me about one of our neighbors.

And if the neighbors weren't enough to make you realize that it's a hidden camera reality show, then there is the other "cast members" who we have to interact with. Like the other day when while in a store my daughter asked a Middle Eastern woman, who was obviously married, if she knew that someone had drawn on her face. And then she told the woman that she shouldn't let people draw on her face. How do you save grace after that? You just got to move along.

This kind of shit don't happen to normal people.

I just hope the prizes at the end of the season are really good ones.

Don't get dead

House Fire

Periodically we get these fliers at the house where someone is coming to our area and for a small fee of usually $10 to $20 they will paint our house numbers on the curb out in front of our house. The theory is that it will help people find our house, even though the numbers are on the house.

One day I am doing something in the front yard when one of these guys comes to leave a flier. He ask me if I was interested in getting my house numbers painted in reflective paint on my curb using a 4 inch stencil. Of course I told him nope. Which he should have left at that, but NOOOO he had to keep trying to make a sale. So he asks why I wouldn't. To which I asked him why would I?

I can paint my own numbers on my curb if I wanted them on there. So he tells me that it is to help the fire department find my house if it caught on fire. Are you F'ing kidding me? I can't believe that is his sales pitch.

I tell him no thanks and continue doing what I was doing. I am trying to be nice here by the way. But he just doesn't get it. He doesn't realize that no matter how hard he tries to sale me on it that I am not going to give him $10 to paint my curb.

So there I am trying to ignore him when he says "wouldn't you want the fire department to be able to find your house if it caught on fire?" Is he for real? To which I say to him "Hey, don't you think the smoke boiling out of my house would be a hint? I am pretty sure firemen, of all people, can see smoke." Then he comes back with (what I am sure in his head was a great point) "What if it caught on fire at night? You see the paint is reflective." I really hated to bust his bubble but he was starting to annoy me, so I replay with "Fire emits light dip shit, pretty sure firemen can see flames too. Move it along."

Like some reflective Krylon is going to be brighter than a house fire.

Something that I have never told but just a handful of people.

Several years back I bought my first house. I remember the day like it was yesterday. Beautiful clear spring day, the sun was shining, little puffy white clouds in the sky, a bit breezy, about 80 degrees. Just a perfect day, even if I was writing a huge check.

I close on the house, funding goes through and I get the keys with no problems. Since I had the keys I started to move in. I thought it might be a good idea to get the important stuff taken care of first. So I put my bed together, hook up the washer and dryer, hook up the fridge, unpack my clothes, stuff like that. And I was doing pretty good too. This was probably because I didn't have cable or internet service yet. I mean it was the first day.

I don't know if it was because this was a new-to-me house or if it was because of the kind of friends that I have or what, but I kept hearing what I thought were strange things. Like I would hear the storm door open and close, but no one would knock or ring the bell. This didn't bother me at first, but then it kept happening as the day turned to night. Now it is dark out and this is my first time in this house other than touring it prior to buying it. And I hear it again, the storm door opens and shuts but nothing happens. Since I was moving in, I had all of the lights in the house on and was moving from room to room. One time as I was walking by the entry way I heard the storm door open again. Thinking it was someone I know jacking with me, I thought I would turn on the porch light and open the door really fast to bust them. When I opened the door, there was no one there. Damn, they must be fast to get out of sight that quick, haha. So I realize that it is the wind blowing the door around and from what I could tell from a brief inspection the door wouldn't stay closed unless it was locked. So I locked it, no more open and closing, cool.

So there I am being a busy little bee just doing as much as I could to get unpacked and things put where I want them when I realized that I was getting tired. Since I couldn't just flip on the TV I thought the next best thing would be to just go to bed. I am guessing it is around midnight at this point.

I am lying in bed, just about to doze off and I hear a strange noise. I can't really describe it in text but it was almost like a strange squeaking/creaking noise. I sat up for a second, looked around and didn't hear it anymore and just shrugged it off. I lie back down, get comfortable and try to get to sleep when I hear it again. WTF is that noise? So I sit up in bed and really listen to see if I can hear it again. Nothing. Once more I lie down, pull the covers up and try to get some sleep when out of nowhere I hear it again! DAMNIT! What is that noise? So now I am on a mission, it's me or the noise, one of us is going to have to go. So I am looking everywhere, front door, back door, laundry room, under the sink, toilet tank, kitchen, you name it. I even decided to check out the closet. I go and get a chair, why I have no idea, but I decided to check the upper shelf on my master closet. I am all the way in the back of the closet, the light is on and I am standing on a chair with my hand searching the top shelf when I felt something. What is this? I slide it to me and see that it is … a paper mask of Mad magazines Alfred E. Newman that just about made me wet all of my clothes hanging there. I don't know why but to see this weird smiling tooth missing face where the eyes cut out kind of startled me for a second.

Forgetting what I was looking for, I took a deep breath in and out and then I heard the noise again. It was my damn nose whistling! Spring time and allergies are in full force. The creepy sound I was hearing was me, half asleep, exhaling through my congested nose which caused it to whistle.