Happy Thanksgiving. Now get ready to shop.

Happy Thanksgiving. If you're surfing dad blogs now and not watching football or getting dinner ready, then I'm guessing you either don't like football, or you're like me and at the house of someone who's one television is in their bedroom.

In that case, you might as well get a jump start on your holiday shopping. Before you go out into the wild tomorrow, check out what all the sweet sales will be today on a web site I found - Black Friday Ads.net. If you're going to brave the crowds, you might as well be prepared.

Black Friday Ads.net  [via the CAG]

Ikea Hacker

So I was looking at the Twitter Public Timeline today and I saw a post that caught my eye - Ikea Hacker. Maybe I'm late to the party, but this is a pretty sweet idea for a blog. Anyway, the top post was about how to hack together a pretty cool girl's bed (pictured).

I've always loved how Ikea keeps good design affordable, but you kind of have to use it in small doses. Making adjustments so things will fit your life is just smart. And if you screw it up don't worry, it probably didn't cost you much in the first place.

Kid's Bed With A Little Cupola [Ikea Hacker]

Also, check out all the posts tagged with "children" on Ikea Hacker.

"Disney" wrist bands with "USB Flash Memoring."

Sometimes when your chocolate gets in my peanut butter, it doesn't really make a better product. According to this post at the Inventor Spot, kids love to wear wristbands, and kids love computers, so a wrist band / USB thumb drive must be a home run. I realize my oldest is only in pre-school, but do kids need a USB thumb drive so often that they need to wear one on their wrist? Do kids even use USB thumb drives?

But even more bizarre than the product itself, is the "Disney" characters they use to decorate them. Is this really a product approved by the Walt Disney Corporation? Am I supposed to believe they approved the use of their trademarks on a box that says "USB Flash Memoring"? Or maybe the company that made them figured as long as they put "Disney©" in small letters on them it would cover it.

Disney© USB Wristbands Mix Fashion with Function [InventorSpot.com]

Happy Father's Day. Now what's it worth?

Happy Father's Day. A friend of mine who works over at Salary.com sent this study they did recently about Stay At Home Dads. Apparently I'm worth $128,755 per year which, honestly I think is a bargain. I just wish we were actually saving $128K a year.

Oh, and we're worth $10K less than Stay at Home Moms supposedly. Maybe it's because my wife does the laundry in the family.

Stay-at-Home Dad's Salary $128,755 - Nearly $10,000 Less Than Stay-at-Home Mom's [PR Newswire]

Or check out your own dad-worth (stay at home or not) at http://dad.salary.com.

Dads who blog are the best.

Father's Day has come and gone, and in its wake are plenty of articles in newspapers around the country about dads. But this year it's all about the dad blog articles (some of which even mention this humble blog). All of them take a slightly different perspective and are all worth checking out.

21st-century dads turn to blogs for help [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
I'm offering a "virtual road map to the challenges of modern fatherhood". Kick ass! Plus it's here that Greg from Daddytypes reveals he gets 30K hits/day. Goddamn that's some good traffic.

Hey dude are you there? It's me, daddyblogger. [Austin American Statesman]
The article where I reveal that blogging helps with the isolation I've felt being a stay at home dad. Whahhh.

Rise of the Daddy Blog. [NY Daily News]
Who says K-Fed and Jack Black don't read dad blogs?
OK. They probably don't. But they're always welcome here.

MDD at CES 2006

Sorry for the lack of activity last week, but I was attending (for the third year in a row actually) the Consumer Electronics Showcase here in Las Vegas. This year - and maybe it was because I was getting used to it - was the most underwhelming of them all so far. I've got some things related to kids and parenting that I'll share in the next week, but here are some quick thoughts about it all off of the top of my head.

• Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD. The big thing this year (if you can call it that) was the battle between who will win the next home video player format wars. After hearing the long (and again, underwhelming) Microsoft spiel in Wednesday night you'd think it was all about HDDVD. But after walking the floor, it seems more people are behind the Blu-Ray. Whatever. Just tell me which one wins when it finally gets sorted out, because there's no way in hell I'm going to buy two separate $500 players.
• More kid's stuff than ever before. Maybe I was just looking for it, but this year there was a lot more products marketed towards children. Some good, some bad, and apparently I didn't even see all of them.
• The Canadian dudes who run the Harmony Remote division of Logitech rule. My universal remote - the one I love so much - the one that I've recommended to countless friends decided to die the night before the convention started. I brought it to their booth and after getting some expert technical advice (including a phone call back to the home office), the guy said he'd replace it for me. I cannot recommend these remote controls enough.
• Electronics convention attendees + Porn convention attendees = An interesting lobby. This year CES had one of it's convention spaces in the Sands convention center, right next to the Adult Entertainment Expo. And in the lobby some had pocket protectors while others had ginormous breasts. But hey, it's all business.

Baby Bush; Big idea about having a baby.

What's the Internet for really? Product research? Self indulgent Pithy blog entries? Nope. It's for clever use of stock photography. Check out the parents and kids on BabyBushToys.com (a baby boutique spoof site featuring "products for the resoundingly average child"). Perfect. My favorite toy: the "Twisty Thing. That is Red." My favorite stock photo: pictured above.

And here's a funny essay from McSweeny's you may or may not want to share with the expecting mother in your life, depending on her mood swing of the moment.

Baby Bush [via Dan].
I Don't Know What the Big Idea About Having a Baby Is by Wendy Molyneux [McSweenys.com via Brian].

MDD inbox.

I haven't responded to quite a lot of MDD email in a while, so I figured I'd get some of my housekeeping done here in this one post. Responses/links are in the order of when I received them.

• Julie from new (to me at least) baby t-shirt store Trendy Tadpole sent me a link to her shop to check out. She's got some cute designs that you can put on your choice of t-shirt or one-piece. There are some good ones, but my favorite would have to be the Atari Joystick (I'm old-school like that).
• Manny from d.a.d inc. dropped me a line to say hello and ask when did I find the time to work on modern day dad. Then he posted a blog entry with a similar theme. Honestly I try to blog during nap time or late at night when everyone else is asleep. I am finding out however that the older and more active Madame gets the less time I've been devoting to the blog, and consequently my number of posts has dropped in the last month or so. Hopefully it will be more quality than quantity.
• MDD reader Aubrey tipped me to Kee-Ka, a gift t-shirt store that specializes in kids and pregnant mother t-shirts. I feel like I've seen (and written) about a million of these sites. This one seems geared towards gifts, and the illustrations and designs are playful without being cutesy. This would be a place to check out if you're looking for a quick and unique shower gift.
• And last but certainly not least Dave Caolo recently started his own dad blog "DaddyDaze," and he's really hit the ground running. There's lots of good stuff there - personal posts about his family, a brand new video podcast, and I'll be damned if he didn't dress his son up like Chewbacca for Halloween. That rules me. Check out his blog, I'm predicting it's going to be one to watch.

Visitors from around the world.

OK. I know this is pretty weblog-insidey (much like my previous post) but this is pretty cool. Last night I found this service that will map any web site's last 20 visitors on a Google map for free. You just put a piece of code on your website template, and in an hour it will start to show you where people are coming from. And for a small donation, they'll give you more than 20. Here's the link to the Modern Day Dad visitor map.

Check out Gvisit.com [via Smelly Monkeys podcast. Thanks boys!]

Tagging, but not nearly as cool as graffiti.

I guess I'm not paying attention enough, because dad blogger thDad tagged me, and apparently I'm it.

Here's the fifth sentence of my 23rd post.

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that things aren’t so simple for everyone.

A pretty obvious realization in any context, but it was after all only my 23rd post. I hope I'm getting better at this blogging thing.

Since my OCD prevents me from being the killjoy that stops this weblog chain letter, now it's my job to tag someone else. Ideashak, Digital Dad, and More Diapers,  I'd like to see the fifth sentence of your 35th post (if it's a picture, re-post the picture).

A short dad blog roundup.

Not much to write about this morning, but other dad bloggers do:

• AJ over at Thingamababy is on fire. He's got tons of new stuff, most notably a comprehensive roundup of sippy cup accessories,
• Poppa Large has a really good one-paragraph thought on what it feels like to be a new father.
• Greg from DaddyTypes has a mole in Design Within Reach that says the stuff in their "new" kids line is going to look very familiar.
• Eric over at More Diapers is looking for a house in and around Boston (and hitting his head against a wall in the process). $500K for one and a half bathrooms (four years ago) is the biggest reason we left Boston.
• And last but not least, Russ at the Daily Yak avoided a speeding ticket only through the grace of Jesus Christ.

Goodbye Being Daddy. Hello Callooh.

Where have I been? I was checking out some Dad blogs today when I realized pioneer dad-blogger Brian Cassidy has decided to stop posting to his blog Being Daddy. His reasons make a lot of sense (I can seem myself eventually reaching similar conclusions someday) but I'll still miss the posts. He always had a good combination of stuff he found on the Internet and personal stories. But all is not lost. He's keeping up the site and it's archives, and he's decided to start a new blog for kids called Callooh.

Callooh is a weblog specifically for kids with cool stuff for them to check out. The best part is it isn't just "kiddy stuff," but all kinds of interesting things. Yesterday he linked to a video of a 5th grade class performing Devo's "Whip It" (anything with Devo I'm a fan of) and he also has this link to an on-line magic trick that is, quite frankly, freaking me out. (If you know how it works, please leave a comment. I can't figure it out OK. After the fifth time I finally got it. Now I feel like a dope, but it's still a good trick -mdd). If you're looking for some cool stuff to look at with your kid on the computer, Callooh is a good place to start.

Who's your podcasting daddy?

As a SAHD who spends the vast majority of his time with a 13-month-old daughter who has a lot to say but zero vocabulary (literally), I listen to a lot of talk radio during the day. NPR, sports talk radio, Howard Stern - it doesn't matter much. Without any coworkers to talk to, I end up listening to other people talk. But one thing I haven't really checked out much is podcasts.

The other day I got an email from Cliff Knopik, co-host of a new podcast called Who's Your Daddy? asking me to check it out. Their show is a 30-45 minute talk show where they talk about their dad-lives and families and other stuff going on with them personally. They've only got 5 episodes so far and it seems like their still working out the kinks, but it's definitely worth a listen. Their website has links to the episodes, but I figured out last night that if you've got iTunes you can subscribe to their podcast (just search the music store for podcasts with the keyword "dad" and it's there).

iTunes has a few other dad podcasts out there too. Rebel Dad has done some podcasts in the past (and you can subscribe to him too), though he doesn't have any episodes available through iTunes. Now if I could only get my replacement iPod back from Apple (I had the busted battery) I'd be all set.

Check out Cliff and Aaron on Who's Your Daddy? (on any MP3 player of your choice), or check out a one minute MP3 promo of their show. [NOTE: WYD is no longer produced and these links have been removed per their request. -mdd 2-10-07]

Also on MDD - Not a NASCAR Dad - an iPod Dad.

Late summer blog ennui.

Well, there was no post yesterday and after a lot of thinking and looking around the Internet today for something cool to post I've come up with nothing. It's back to school time but my one year old doesn't go to school so I don't have much of an opinion about back to school. There's a good piece about circumcision in Slate (by Christopher Hitchens) that I was found via DaddyTypes, but we had a little girl so I'm not feeling that empowered to spout off my current thoughts about genital mutilation. And I found an article in the BBC News that says a study to be published in the British Journal of Psychology has determined that women score on average 5 points lower on an IQ test than men, and are therefore less intelligent. But I'm not going to touch that one with a ten foot pole. What do I look like? A woman?

Spike TV. First network for men dads.

I don't ever really watch short videos on the internet, and I watch Spike TV less. Is Spike TV usually this funny?

Dude, You're a Dad. [Hedonistica]  (Click on the image to get the video to play.)

Cloth diapers. More than I wanted to know.

I was checking out some new dad blogs the other day when I started to read on Thingambaby.com a four part "Dr. Strangepoop" series about reusable diapers. Reusable diapers? I've never given much thought to reusablediapers. To me it just seemed like an old fashioned way of doing things, so old fashioned in fact that when I first read "reusable diapers" my gut reaction was to think he was reusing disposable diapers. But I guess there are lots of people out there who are doing this, and the technology has gotten a lot better than the fold and pin days of our mothers.

I can't argue with the reasons for doing it - better for the environment, cheaper etc. It all makes sense, but honestly I've got to say that not having to wipe off then launder dirty cloth diapers is one of life's luxuries that I can afford. Environment be damned.

Part 1: Dr. Strangepoop: Preamble for Cloth Diapers [Thingamababy.com] (the other parts are linked to in that article).

Also check out new soon-to-be-dad blogger Webgoonies.com. Especially his (facetious I hope) "Baby's First Year Expectations" in the "Tidbits" section of his right hand column. Oh to be expecting again...

Kid tracker.

A few months ago I got all weirded out about a company that was putting GPS trackers in school uniforms, but that was a few months ago. My baby can only crawl around now, but even that limited mobility has given me a completely new perspective.

A British company has come up with a pretty simple solution for parents wanting to know exactly where their kids are. They've got a GPS device that kids carry around with them, which will let their parents know where they are within one meter (or "metre" if you're British). The company charges a subscription service to the parents allowing them to track their kids on their personal computers and cellphones. The device also has a panic button, sending a text message to the parent's cellphone when pressed.

This is still kind of creepy to me (I'm glad my parents didn't make me carry GPS around when I was a teenager), but you know, I'm guessing someday soon this stuff will seem really normal.

Sazo GPS Location [via Shiny Shiny]

also on MDD - It's not quite an ankle bracelet. [April 15, 2005]

Dad blog roundup.

After yesterday's Internet creep-fest, I decided to check in with the dad blogs I usually read.

Daddytypes: Greg has lots of great stuff as usual, but my favorite is this short conversation between two little boys at a McDonald's that he found.

Rebeldad: Rebeldad is continuing his comprehensive roundup of the Father's Day articles that appeared online. (It's a lot more comprehensive than my quick roundup).

Ideashak: Paul's little girl is 5 months old already (damn that went by quick) and he's got a list of the baby stuff that's worked out the best for him (including Brian Wilson's Smile and The Beach Boy's Pet Sounds - my Madame loves the oldies too, and these are about the only oldies we can all agree on).

Metrodad: Metrodad found a pretty cool little online tool that maps all the countries you've visited. I'm a little embarrassed to say I've only been to ten. I guess I've got some more traveling to do (apparently Los Angeles doesn't count as a country).

I'm Not A Slacker!: Kevin has updated his "Dumbass Parent of the Day" column. My favorite:

Woman:"Did I do something wrong?"
Sgt. Tyler "Yes, you did."
Woman: "I don't think so."
Sgt Tyler "What about the three children you have in the trunk of the car?"

Digital Dad: DD found an interesting article about how parents are using on demand video on their cell phone to quiet misbehaving children.

The double-edged sword of the Internet.

Some days when trying to think up something to write about, I troll the Internet looking for interesting, funny or even weird dad and kid related things. Sometimes I come across great, bizarre things, and occasionally I come across something that really creeps me out.

My example for the first category - things that are completely bizarre but interesting nonetheless - is a guy I found via Boing Boing who is in the process of making one stuffed animal per day for an entire year. Boing Boing called him an "extreme crafter," and I'm sure I can't give a better description than that. Check out photos of many of his creations here (my favorite is the stuffed book of matches).

The second category - things that creep me out - doesn't actually happen all that often when looking for dad related stuff. But the other day I was looking around and I clicked a Google ads link on a dad blog (one of those "contextual" links), that took me to Diaperstation.com, the "leading supplier of Superior quality Adult Baby items" (sic). If you were also wondering what "adult baby items" are, think adult-sized snapsuits, diapers, rubber pants and even - holy crap - adult-sized cribs. I like to think of myself as a fairly liberal guy, generally leaving each person to their own bizarre fetish (as long as they're not hurting anyone else), but this seriously makes my stomach turn. Now I'm sharing it with you.

Hopefully I'll think of something better to write about tomorrow.

DIY wipes.

It's one thing to half-ass a Bugaboo cup holder for your stroller, but this is a level of do-it-yourself that I can't even approach. Apparently some people make their own baby wipes, and one of these people use a table saw to do it. Basically  you cut a roll of paper towels in half, put them in a plastic bin with a soapy water solution and you're done. The guy who came up with it figures he gets the cost of wipes down to about 0.6 cents per wipe. The thing is, even though I wouldn't do it to save the money (especially when you can get a big box of wipes at Costco), but if I had a circular saw lying around the house I'd probably give it a try just so I'd have an excuse to use the power tool.

Actually, no I wouldn't.

Homemade Baby Wipes [via Boing Boing]