Ok, so I can already see this is going to be long and rambling. So I missed the State of the Union address because I can’t listen to the President repeatedly loose his train of thought for longer than a sound bite. So I was shocked to read that he said this:

“After her daughter was born, Julie Aigner-Clark searched for ways to share her love of music and art with her child. So she borrowed some equipment and began filming children’s videos in her basement. The Baby Einstein Company was born, and in just 5 years her business grew to more than $20 million in sales. In November 2001, Julie sold Baby Einstein to Walt Disney Company; and with her help, Baby Einstein has grown into a $200 million business. Julie represents the great enterprising spirit of America. And she is using her success to help others, producing child safety videos with John Walsh of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Julie says of her new project: “I believe it is the most important thing that I have ever done. I believe that children have the right to live in a world that is safe.” And so tonight we are pleased to welcome this talented business entrepreneur and generous social entrepreneur, Julie Aigner-Clark.”

Are you kidding me? Baby Einstein? One of the other heroes threw himself on top of a man trapped in the path of an oncoming subway and saved his life. Another was a heroic soldier from Iraq? A hero is now someone who starts a company that cynically builds upon parent and grandparents desire to have an intelligent child then sells out to Disney? A company that sells DVDs for babies and toddlers even though the American Council of Pediatrics recommends no TV for children under age 2, and states “Too much television can negatively affect early brain development.”?

Baby Einstein is the main reason that most children’s toys suck. If you try to buy baby toys you’ll notice that for some reason kids will still gravitate towards the old standards (popcorn popper vacuum cleaner, box of blocks, telephone on a string). Most of the new stuff only seems to work in so far as it makes noise or is good for banging on the floor. I mean really, you’re telling me a baby is going to learn to read the words for red in 3 languages off the side of a block? And I’m not the only one who feels this way. None other than Matt Damon’s mom (Nancy Carlsson-Paige) also generally lists Baby Einstein’s toys as being age inappropriate and potentially harmful. She lists them in the same report as everyone’s favorite hoochie-doll - Bratz.

Of course now that they’ve been endorsed by President Bush I’m sure we can be confident that they are not only retarding our children’s intellectual growth, but also completely coated in lead paint.

On another front. I’ve been invited to a basketball game with the men from my church. My sister and brother-in-law are coming in to town so I can’t go anyway. I feel bad though. I know I need to do stuff on my own away from Julie and Stella. Julie’s very good at this. I’m not so good. And I do enjoy basketball. But I dunno. I always feel weird at men only activities. I guess this is a by product of growing up with 3 sisters. I dunno. But I should get out more.

Oh, if anyone’s interested in beta-testing the ticketing site I’m working on, it’s online at http://www.loadedguntheory.com/ticketing/. Let me know what you think. And please feel free to send me CSS fixes. Oh, and anyone can think of a good domain name for it, let me know. I can’t find anything that isn’t taken. Julie and I were brainstorming last night, and yahoo domains reported that myboxoffice.com wasn’t taken. We were really excited. Then yahoo domains crashed every time we tried to buy it. So I checked another site. They had it marked correctly as taken. Yahboooo!

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Comments

mcoker (http://www.phat32.com)

2007-01-26T03:22:08.000Z

That’s awesome!! cometothetheater.com gettheatertix.com buyplaytix.com I dunno if that’s anywhere near where you wanted to go with it