Preschool Twister

A few times we have played a family game of Twister as a fun activity. The kids all laugh and it is a silly game that makes us happy. The other day Hannah wanted to play it, and we had more fun than I expected. It turned out to be a nice teaching tool too. She loved putting her hands and feet on the colored dots as I called out, “put your hand on green, put your foot on red…” We’re not quite to rights and lefts yet, but what a fun way for her to practice her colors, her coordination, and get a little bit of exercise. It can be kind of like yoga with all of the stretching in crazy poses, right? Hannah and I took turns and she loved telling me what to do too. Sabrina had a blast slapping the mat and laughing as she crawled around. Who would have guessed Twister would be not only fun, but have a teaching purpose too?

1,200 Quotes, and counting…

I just updated the Simpson’s random quote generator on the site with a bunch of new quotes. We’re now up to just over 1,200 hand-selected, pre-screened, gut-busting quotes. Go ahead, refresh the page. There are new gems waiting just for you!

Also, because of my extremely generous nature, if anyone else would like to have the generator on their site, just let me know and I’ll send you the files. It’s a simple wordpress plugin. You could also customize it pretty easily to do quotes from other shows (but why would you want to!).

And Heidi, we need to talk. Come on! You can’t have a Simpson’s quote generator on your site and just name it “Random Quote”. As Ralph would say, “I’m bemarrassed for you”. Get Marky to jazz it up for you (and while he’s at it, you should get him to make the backgrounds of the images transparent. This is a classy plugin, after all).

I’ll leave you with a few of the best of the ones I just added.

Lisa: Do we have any food that wasn’t brutally slaughtered?
Homer: Well, I think the veal might have died of loneliness.

Homer: I’ll do the dishes when I pick it out of the chore hat and it’s not a practice. See, there it is. But that was just a practice. The system works!

Bum: Well, there are six schools of begging: bad musician, messed up vet, cripple, fake cripple, religious zealot, and crazy guy. I think you would do well with crazy guy.
Homer: Coke and Pepsi are the same thing! Wake up, people! [gibberish]
Bum: Wow, now, that is good crazy!

Kent Brockman: Springfield will have its first annual “Do What You Feel” festival this Saturday, whenever you feel like showing up. It will be a welcome change from our “Do As We Say” festival, started by German settlers in 1946.

Mr. Burns: Now a few more details about this year’s company picnic. It’s at the plant, no food will be served, the only activity will be work, and the picnic is canceled.

Martin’s Mother: While my son’s at fat camp, I cleaned out his room. How much will you give me for this? [hands Comic Book Guy a box]
Comic Book Guy: Probably nothing but let us see… Oh, a handwritten script for Star Wars, by George Lucas? Princess Leia’s anti-jiggle breast tape! Film reel labeled “Alternate Ending – Luke’s Father Is Chewbacca”!!! Oh! Oh!… [calms down] I’ll give you five dollars for the box.

Dr. Nick: With my diet, you can eat anything you want, any time you want!
Marge: And you’ll lose weight?
Dr. Nick: Uhh, you might. It’s a free country!

Rod: Is he killing that guitar, daddy?
Ned: Yes, son.

Principal Skinner: I know Weinstein’s parents were upset, Superintendent, but I was sure it was a phony excuse. I mean, it sounds so made up, “Yom Kip-pur.”

Memories of Strawberry Shortcake

Not long ago, the kids were watching a recent version of a Strawberry Shortcake cartoon. It reminded me of an episode we had on video when I was a kid. I must have watched it a hundred times because I still know the words to all of the songs. And for some reason thinking back on that cute little girl and all of her confectionery friends makes me happy. I did a search to find it, and found that it was called “Strawberry Shortcake’s Housewarming Surprise.”

It aired in 1983, and features Strawberry’s move to a new house and a run in with the Peculiar Purple Pie Man. I found the full version of it that someone transferred from a video tape she had. She also has other fun episodes on BitTheDustTape.com of things like Care Bears and The Getalong Gang. I just had to share this bit of my history with anyone else that might have fond memories of these “vintage” cartoons.

Podcasts

So, I was able to come home early from work today (hey, wait a minute! Amy doesn’t go to work. Who is this?) and I’m watching the kids while Amy (yes, this still isn’t her) is taking Hannah to a doctor’s appointment. Before she left, Amy (have you figured out who this is yet?) told me that I finally need to write a post of my own on the blog. I think she’s gotten kind of sick of me telling her, “you should post about this” or “why don’t you write about that.” Anyway, I thought I’d post a list of my current favorite podcasts. For those not in the know (you know who you are… or maybe you don’t and that’s the problem), podcasts are mp3 audio shows. They can be from big multimedia companies or from some guy in his basement. You can subscribe to the shows using iTunes or some other program and it will download each episode as it is posted for you to listen to on your computer or mp3 player.

I got hooked on podcasts back at Duke when I was issued an iPod by the school. I stopped telling people that Duke gave me a free iPod when I started having to repay my student loans. At first, most podcasts were of the “guy in his basement discussing his latest government conspiracy theories and/or Star Trek fantasies” variety. As time has gone on, bigger companies have gotten in on it and there are some pretty good ones out there now. It really came in handy when we were up in LA and I would have to deal with some pretty long commutes. Now, though, I’m totally hooked on them and they’re all I’ll listen to in the car no matter how short the commute is.

So, without further ado, here’s a list of some of my current favorites. You can find any of these by doing a search for them in the iTunes store. They have their own podcasting section and they’re all free to subscribe to:

Slate Explainer Podcasts – these are cool, 5 minute articles from slate.com that come out just about every day. They explain something that is usually tied to some recent news event. Recent episodes have been: “Why do Iranian bombs have English labels?”, “Why does the camera add 10 pounds?”, “Was Britney’s Hair Full of Drugs?”, “Can you smell without a nose?” and my personal favorite, “Do Mormon athletes wear the temple garment under their uniforms?”

NPR: Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! – This is a great show that comes out once a week. It’s a quiz show about stories in the news from the previous week. It’s a bit of a mix of The Daily Show with Who’s Line Is It Anyway. They have three panelists for each show (Mo Rocca, Paula Poundstone and P.J. O’Rourke are repeat guests) and they quiz them on stuff from the news. The actual quiz isn’t that important; it’s mainly just a vehicle for them to point out stuff they think is funny. They also have a celebrity guest on each week and quiz them on random stuff. They just had Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer on and they quizzed him on what he knew about Ozzy Osbourne (not much, as it turns out).

The Ethicist – This is a podcast of a weekly article in the New York Times where people write in asking about ethical dilemmas. It’s short and interesting and the author can be pretty funny sometimes.

NPR: Sunday Puzzle – A weekly podcast hosted by Will Shortz, the editor of the NYT crossword puzzle (if you haven’t seen the documentary, Wordplay, about crosswords and the annual tournament hosted by Will Shortz, you should. It’s good). This is a nice, little brainteaser.

Mike Birbiglia’s Secret Public Journal – This is a series of stories written by stand-up comedian, Mike Birbiglia. He doesn’t seem to be putting out any new ones, but the ones that he did put out are really funny.

Grammer Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing – Pretty much what it sounds like. Surprisingly interesting and I’ve learned a few things already (when to use further vs. farther). There are a whole series of “Quick and Dirty” podcasts on other subjects you can subscribe to at qdnow.com. I also like Mr. Manners and Legal Lad.

Chronicle Podcasts: Correct Me If I’m Wrong… – These are hilarious. The San Francisco Chronicle newspaper posts some of their more interesting voicemails left by readers. They’re usually cranky weirdos with way too much time on their hands. One of their posts from a guy complaining about how the term “pilotless drones” is redundant has gotten popular from a bunch of people sampling it in songs.

Discovery Channel Features – These can be either 5-minute teasers for upcoming shows or, sometimes, the entire show. Pretty cool.

This American Life – This is another show from NPR. It’s a weekly, 1-hour show that picks a theme and tells 3 or 4 stories about it. I’m actually a bit surprised that I like this since the host of the show has a highly mockable presentation style. The stories can be really interesting, though. Last week, their theme was “The Allure of the Mean Friend”.

I have a bunch of other podcasts that I subscribe to, including some cool ones in Italian, but this is a pretty good sample of the ones I find most interesting. Does anyone else listen to podcasts. Any suggestions on other good ones?

The Digital Photography Book

Yes, it is a simple title, and it is a simple book written by Scott Kelby. That’s why I like it so much! This book is great if you have a digital camera that you can set manually, but especially an SLR since he mentions a lot about filters and different lens options. Each page gives you a simple explanation for how to take a certain kind of shot. He’s got things like flower close-ups, bridal photos, landscapes, and sports. One thing that I didn’t give enough credit to that he kept bringing up was using a tri-pod to keep the camera steady. He even suggests using the auto timer on extreme close ups so that there is not vibration from your finger pushing the button.

I haven’t used a whole lot of what I’ve read yet because most of my pictures are snapshots of the kids lately. But I have also signed up for a community class on lighting, and hope to get some more practice soon. The two keys to photography seem to be a sharp focus, and great lighting. Well, and I guess composition too. If you like photography, want some pointers, but don’t want to mess with a lot of info about apertures and f-stops, this is the book for you.

How Not to Talk to Your Kids

A friend of mine sent me a link to this article called “How Not to Talk to Your Kids – The Inverse Power of Praise” by Po Bronson. It’s pretty long, but worth the time to read it. I’ve cut out a few of the highlights for me:

“For a few decades, it’s been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

When parents praise their children’s intelligence, they believe they are providing the solution to this problem. But a growing body of research and a new study from the trenches of the New York public-school system strongly suggests it might be the other way around. Giving kids the label of “smart” does not prevent them from underperforming. It might actually be causing it…

Since the 1969 publication of The Psychology of Self-Esteem, in which Nathaniel Branden opined that self-esteem was the single most important facet of a person, the belief that one must do whatever he can to achieve positive self-esteem has become a movement with broad societal effects. Anything potentially damaging to kids’ self-esteem was axed. Competitions were frowned upon. Soccer coaches stopped counting goals and handed out trophies to everyone. Teachers threw out their red pencils. Criticism was replaced with ubiquitous, even undeserved, praise…

(Baumeister) will soon publish an article showing that for college students on the verge of failing in class, esteem-building praise causes their grades to sink further. Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents’ pride in their children’s achievements: It’s so strong that when they praise their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves…

Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure. The problem is compounded when a parent ignores a child’s failures and insists he’ll do better next time. Michigan scholar Jennifer Crocker studies this exact scenario and explains that the child may come to believe failure is something so terrible, the family can’t acknowledge its existence. A child deprived of the opportunity to discuss mistakes can’t learn from them…

But it turns out that the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort instead of simply giving up is a trait well studied in psychology. People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification. Delving into this research, I learned that persistence turns out to be more than a conscious act of will; it’s also an unconscious response, governed by a circuit in the brain. Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University in St. Louis located the circuit in a part of the brain called the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex. It monitors the reward center of the brain, and like a switch, it intervenes when there’s a lack of immediate reward. When it switches on, it’s telling the rest of the brain, “Don’t stop trying. There’s dopa [the brain’s chemical reward for success] on the horizon.” While putting people through MRI scans, Cloninger could see this switch lighting up regularly in some. In others, barely at all.

What makes some people wired to have an active circuit?

Cloninger has trained rats and mice in mazes to have persistence by carefully not rewarding them when they get to the finish. “The key is intermittent reinforcement,” says Cloninger. “The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. A person who grows up getting too frequent rewards will not have persistence, because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear.”

This idea is a new one to me, but is makes a lot of sense. In the article he also mentions how we shouldn’t cut out praise all together, but be specific in the praise like saying: “You really blocked that pass well” instead of saying a general, “You played a good game.” or “You must have worked hard on that report,” instead of “You’re so smart!” It seems that specific encouragement when given sincerely has the most impact. I’m going to give it a try and see if I notice a difference.