Category — Entertainment

The Big Caption (via Kottke)

There are 463 episodes of The Simpsons. During the opening sequence, Bart writes on the blackboard 288 times. There’s an electrical socket in front of Bart’s knee in every season except for season 1 and 21. That is all.

Bart Simpson’s blackboard (via Kottke)

As seen on the wall of Winston Churchill’s underground war room during the Blitz in the latest series of Dr Who. The BBC has thoughtfully made it available as a free PDF download.

(Via Retro Thing)

I earned my fair share of badges during my stint in the Scouts – knot tying, rabbit skinning, camp survival level three… What I didn’t do, however, was earn a badge for completing Sonic The Hedgehog. The Boy Scouts Of America, you see, has introduced the Video Games award.

Hardworking boys can earn the ‘Belt Loop’ for ‘explaining the importance of a rating system for games’, ‘creating a schedule to fit gaming around household chores’ and ‘learning to play a new parent-approved game from scratch’. To earn the full Video Games ‘Academics Pin’, they must complete nine more tasks, my favourite of which is number six: “Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.”

That’s tough.

On a serious note, it’s heartening to see that the Scouts (an organisation I very much admire) is attempting to move with the times.

Boy Scouts introduce videogame badge, other badges ask ‘Really? (Via Engadget)

Bob’s Murder Book via Space Avalanche via my old boss, D-Man, on Facebook, via his nephew, Sean. Word.

If, like me, you don’t have space for a piano in your home, this piano built inside a dining room table could be the answer.

If, like me, you don’t have space for a dining room table… you’re screwed.

Georg Bohle Piano Table (via Boing Boing)

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Received the following email from HMV this morning:

Hi Thomas,
You asked us to let you know when Twin Peaks: Season 2: 6dvd: Box Set : Tv Series: Kyle Maclachlan: Piper Laurie was ready to pre-order.

Good news!

Twin Peaks: Season 2: 6dvd: Box Set : Tv Series: Kyle Maclachlan: Piper Laurie has just been added to our catalogue, so you can be the first to get your order in now.

Release date: 22/3/2010, catalogue number: 8261037, label: Playback, price £37.99 (RRP £49.99).

Obviously the twisted nature of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks puts this firmly in the BadParent category for the purposes of this blog but, come on… it’s been 19 years. Bring. It. On.

Pre-order Twin Peaks Season 2, Region 2, 6xDVD boxset on HMV, right now.

Baby And Me is a Nintendo Wii ‘child-rearing sim’ game featuring such realistic playable features as: “motion sensitive baby-rocking, Balance Board support for teaching the child avatar to walk, and the sound of gurgles and burps output through the Wiimote’s built-in speaker.” For added realism, you can ‘attach’ your Wiimote to a doll or grab yourself one of these limited edition releases with added doll peripheral.

Remember, kids, real babies don’t come with an on/off switch. Always use protection.

‘Baby and Me’ special edition includes Wiimote-ready doll (via Engadget)

Although my six-month-old is probably still too young to be subjected to my record collection (note: during those first few sleep-deprived weeks, various CDs were thrown on in desperation with mixed response from baby – more on that in a moment), basing that question solely on my own childhood is enough to answer it with a resounding ‘yes’. Just not in a straight-forward way…

Perhaps the more compelling question, then, is the one raised by Alexis Petridis in today’s The Guardian newspaper: ‘Should’ a parent even attempt to influence their children’s taste in music?

“Thanks to my desperate ministrations, my three-year-old now likes pop music, but I wouldn’t describe it as a wonderful shared experience,” writes Petridis.

“The first time she heard it – when I stuck the recent Madonna greatest hits set on in the car – her face lit up in a really magical way, but even the joy of seeing my child have a totally genuine, entirely unmediated response to music was tempered by the crushing realisation that I was now going to have to listen to the track at least seven or eight times in a row, on a daily basis.”

The undeniable truth

And there lies problem number one: repetition, and the risk of your loved ones rendering a part of your own, beloved record collection unlistenable.

The second problem is realisation: in my short experience, Kings Of Leon’s last album Only By The Night seemed to do the trick in stopping baby crying (until I read that using loud music as a pacifier was a form of ‘accidental parenting’ – booo). But the realisation i’m referring to is the undeniable truth that all parents know: our babies would much rather hear that loathsome nursery rhyme CD. Even if Caleb Followill’s croon did work temporarily!

Fast forward a few years to Petridis’s example (and rewind back to my own childhood) and surely this is prime ‘influencing’ territory? My dad loves Bob Dylan, but I have no recollection of hearing his music as a child. Instead, my earliest musical memories are filled with Dr Hook & The Medicine Show, Abba, Hot Chocolate and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

So kids like fun, theatrical music (or at least that’s what they remember, anyway). Hardly a revelation, is it? And in reality, nothing we play – however regularly – will change that (I have a hard enough time convincing my wife to like LCD Soundsystem as it is!).

What next for DJ Dad?

The bottom line is that despite our best efforts, kids could (and should) rebel through music. I did, but have since learnt to appreciate Dylan on my own. That Andrew Lloyd Webber cassette tape, however, is unlikely to see the light of day again. So what will I do as my role of DJ Dad approaches? Exactly the same as my dad did: ignore everything and play my music anyway. Why? The same reason we make silly faces and don’t really mind getting up at 5am: in the hope of sparking “joy” and that “genuine, entirely unmediated response.”

It’s playable, too. (Instructions and video via Makezine)