Stupid Naming Rights

There are always ridiculous examples of event naming rights: The Chick-fil-a Peach Bowl, The AutoZone Liberty Bowl etc. But having a kids breakfast food (an admission here: I've had a bit of a renewed Pop-Tart jones ever since I bought a box for my kids on vacation last summer) sponsor even a horrendous tour like this is just weird. Will fans of the show be more apt to buy Pop-Tarts? Will people be more apt to go to the show if the see it advertised on their Pop-Tart box. What's next: Captain Crunch presents the America's Next Top Model road tour?

[entertainment] [kids stuff] [marketing] [pop culture] [television]

Stupid Warning Labels

I'm being a cranky Easter Bunny right now. I'm sitting here with a couple dozen Play-Doh easter eggs, and they are annoying in so many ways.

First, each one is tightly shrink-wrapped, so I have to sit here with a steak knife unwrapping each one. Why everything has to be sealed that thoroughly is beyond me. And nothing bugs me more than plastic wrapped in plastic.

Second, there is this little white sticker warning label on each one (of course it had to be printed in three languages, but don't get me started on that!) Didn't pay much attention at first, but then I read what it said: Notice to Parents: Contains Wheat.

Now the people who scolded me when I griped about peanut free schools will probably point out that there are kids with wheat allergies. But it's fucking Play-Doh! If little Junior decides to eat it, I'm sure there are a lot worse things in it than fucking wheat!

And by the way, we are using Play-Doh Easter eggs in the first place because my diabetic nephew will be here, and we are being correctly sensitive by not putting candy in them.

Now when I was a kid, the Easter Bunny only hid real eggs, but that's another issue.

Packaging Madness

I just ordered a new camera. Through the miracle of the internet/delivery-industry complex, it arrived barely 24 hours after I ordered it via Amazon. Camera arrived in a reasonable sized box, and cost something like $13 for delivery. Small price to pay since the camera cost me $40 less than anywhere else I saw it.

But I also ordered a memory card from a separate vendor. Again, I shopped around and got a super good deal, so I didn't grumble that much about paying $6 for delivery of a $9 item. It's all relative.

But check this picture out. See the little blue spec at the bottom of the box. That is the memory card (1" x 1.25" x 1/32") resting against the box it came in. (12" x 9" x 8")

That's just packaging craziness.

At least it wasn't filled with styrofoam peanuts. That really would have pissed me off.

This could turn into a really long post on this subject, but I just don't have the time right now. My son's birthday isn't too far away, and that might be a better time to get into the whole broader issue of packaging madness. Nothing is nuttier than the way kids toys are packaged.

Hi-5

Home with the kids today. I have a 3 and 4 year old. They love Hi-5. It's 5 kids doing songs and skits about stuff. So I'm blogging while they watch it. It's a harmless, but lightweight show. Not as annoying as Barney, which thankfully they never got into, but I have just started to realize that every song they sing is the same song. Today they were singing about Ti Kwon Do. Then they sang about soccer. Same friggin tune. And every episode is the same thing. And its a pretty lame tune too. And then the lyrics are about as lame as the tune. It's like "Tae Kwon Do, we're doing Tae Kwon Do. We love to do Tae Kwon Do." And then the soccer song. "We're playing soc-cer, we're playing soc-cer, we love to play soc-cer." Just a tad annoying.

This Year's Crappiest Toy

Those toys were pretty cheap, but this was the worst toy of the Christmas season in our house. Not faulting the buyer of it-looked like a cool remote control truck for my 4 year old son. Nowhere on the box did it mention that it had a 4-FOOT LEASH. From some company called New Bright Quality Toys. What is it with remote control toys? Last Christmas we took two of them back that absolutely didn't work at all.

Kids Toys are the Worst

We have two little kids, ages 3 and 4. I cringe at every birthday and holiday to see what new crappy toys, with life expectancies measured in hours or minutes, we'll be saddled with. Here are a couple toys that were classics from the 70s, but the versions made today are just pieces of crap.



First up is Milton Bradley's Don't Break the Ice. We've gone through two of these. First one broke in half when I tripped over it. Key feature of suckiness here are the cheap plastic hammers. They probably cost them about 2 cents each to make. But, even though the game its for 2-4 players, they cheap out and only give you two hammers. Would love to see what the original version of this toy looked like. I think the hammers were wood.



Second is a toy we just got today. Were shopping on a site called Back to Basics Toys. They sell a lot of classic toys from the 70s. Actually seem to have generally good quality stuff. We were looking for a non-plastic version of Lincoln Logs for a Christmas present. Found one here, but with a 3-1/2 month back order. But also there we saw Rock'em Sock'em Robots, and on a whim, bought it. Classic toy from the 70s. Aside from the possible example of questionable parenting, (encouraging a 3 and 4 year old to punch their siblings in the head?) the toy seemed like it would be fun for them, and kitschy for me. My friends and I used to play this for hours at a time, and put the toy through quite a lot of abuse. It lasted for years. No such luck with the 2006 version. Within 10 minutes one of the robots arms was jammed and unusable.