Teeny Manolo

The entire run-up to the birth of the Jolie-Pitt twins has amused me from the get go. Or perhaps bemused is a better description.

There was the whole “OMG! Angelina Jolie is in the hospital awaiting the birth of her twins!” frenzy that made no sense to me. Straight-faced news infotainment anchors would discuss in serious tones the fact that she was in the hospital and in bed and blah, blah, blah…

Hello people! Many women who are carrying twins are placed on bedrest in the last few weeks, if not the entire last trimester, to ensure that the mother rests and that those two little ones can stay in there for the longest time possible. It’s not unusual, it’s not really a big deal, and it certainly doesn’t deserve the sort of coverage it garnered.

Then even better was the “She’s in the hospital and she’s cranky!” Please give me the name of someone who enjoys a hospital stay. Of course she’s cranky! It’s summer, her hormones are in full throttle, she’s about to have two babies at once, and she’s eating hospital food. I totally sympathize.

It was even bigger news when Brad would visit her at the hospital. Yes, if I am carrying your children you are damn well going to visit me at the hospital. And you’d better bring snacks, too! Would you expect him to never see her? Then they would run the headline “Bad Dad Brad” or some such ridiculous thing. And the press seemed surprised that he would actually bring their other children to see their mother.

Newsflash! Kids miss their mom when she’s not there! The best way to deal with that? Let them see her! You know Occam’s Razor and all that.

But hey, that doesn’t make for very entertaining copy, does it?

So, now we can breathe a sigh of relief that the whirlwind is over.

That is, until Gwen Stefani goes into labor and then all hell is going to break loose.

Again.

Always wanted to raise your very own Donald Trump, Henry Kravis, or Michael Bloomberg? (but why?) Well, now there’s a summer camp designed with you and your tiny tycoon in mind. Camp Millionaire, in cut-throat Santa Barbara, California, offers a week-long introduction to the realities of cold, hard leveraged assets.

From Dealbreaker:

One little f*cker, Andrew Adams, 10, told his mommy that “her credit-card billing cycle had changed, and that she wasn’t keeping up with payments. Her delays were racking up late fees, jacking up her interest rate and hurting her credit score.” Roughly translated as, “Mommy, you numbnuts! Get your shit together and pay the bills on time.”

Then, presumably, he foreclosed on her.

Oh, how I love Devo. Those little New Wave robots stole my heart back in the last century and just never gave it back. But, as is the way of robots, they have begun to assert their independence and their indifference to human emotions.

They have come for our toys!

This is New Wave Nigel, one of McDonald’s recent American Idol toys, and according to Devo and their human slaves lawyers, his use of the Power Dome hat and his suspiciously nerdish vocals (yes, he sings) constitutes copyright infringement.

Well, there are several issues here, not even counting the fact that Nigel’s performance is a little stiff. According to the AndyOnTheRoad blog, Devo never trademarked that hat, nor do they have a hegemony on nerdish-sounding vocals; after all, wasn’t that the entire New Wave?

Ah, but Devo says they did:

“This New Wave Nigel doll that they’ve created is just a complete Devo rip-off and the red hat is exactly the red hat that I designed, and it’s copyrighted and trademarked.

“They didn’t ask us anything. Plus, we don’t like McDonald’s, and we don’t like American Idol, so we’re doubly offended…”

[Bassist] Casale said it was ironic the world’s largest fast food chain should appropriate the image of a band known for taking aim at the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society.

“The very same people that wanted nothing to do with Devo and looked down on Devo and condescended (to) Devo… enough time’s gone by that they go, ‘Hey, you know those guys are synonymous with what was new about New Wave,”‘ he said.

Of course they’re not going to let the matter drop; are they not men? They are Devo!

But why settle for 1/25th scale ripoffs? Kit your family out in the real thing:

Click here for our Stylin’ Stila Giveaway #2!

The good news is, there are some jobs that kids will do for free that you can’t even pay grownups to do. In fact, you could probably start a daycare, stick all the unsuspecting tots on this duty and charge a fortune.

From ThePoop:

My older son has been kind of difficult for the last week or two. But I’m giving him a lot of slack, because we’ve finally found a job that he’s completely fantastic at: dealing with telemarketers…

Telemarketer: “Is this Mister … uhhhh … Mister Harblop … Mister Fartlop.”

Me: “Just one second. I’ll put him on. (Hands phone to 3-year-old son.)”

Telemarketer: Uhhhh. OK.

My son: “Hi. … What’s your name? … Do you like “Ratatouille”? … I have boy nipples. Do you have boy nipples? …”

Ooooh, excuse me, I’m off to start a daycare.

Ah, the ubiquitous and well-beloved gumball machine. A sight to warm the cockles of any heart, no matter how wizened and dried. Who among us cannot confess to (even now) covertly scoping out the offerings, searching in vain for that five cent jellybean motherload. But as the ancients knew, the only constant is change, and change, my friend, has come to the gumball machine. Not only are prizes segregated now, removing the delightful thrill of actual gambling and completely slaughtering the grey market in traded prizes, but the prizes themselves have changed.

If only they’d had this a generation ago! Legions of now-regretful inked-up former hipsters could have gotten the urge to impersonate Cher out of their systems before puberty (or toilet training, for the either truly precocious or truly slow).

They grow up so fast!

When I first heard of this product, I thought it was a joke. Surely there was no one drunk/drugged/forced at gunpoint at Nickelodeon to sign on the dotted line for this concept.

But, scarily enough, it’s legit. In what is sure to go down in the annals of marketing history as the worst brand placement ever, I give you:

Yes, a rectal thermometer that plays music. Specifically, the signature theme of Spongebob Squarepants.

Years from now, there will be hordes of young children who will cry whenever Spongebob comes on, and yet have no idea why.

She’s going to be pissed.

From Consumerist. The comments on that post are a treasure trove of embitterment and condescension.

I present to you the parental stylings of mothers who take their daughters to the spa because well, 9/11 pushed them to do it! OK, well, one of them, anyway.

You’ll have to sit through a brief cereal commercial, but it’s worth it.

And is it just me, or are those half-braids really, really, ugly?

This contest totally blows!

From the Flickr stream of RandomDude,
a great shot of the bubble flashmob in Vancouver a couple of years back.

I have a confession to make: there is a soft spot in my heart for the loopy comedy stylings of Ben Stiller, and it’s not just because he smiled at me once in Waterfront Station.

Although some.

One of his finest creations is the fabulously moronic Derek(Dayre-ique?) Zoolander, and one of the best bits of that movie was the hilariously appalling infomercial with which Mugatu brainwashed him. “Governments are interfering with the age-old right of children to work as they please! Now…Kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia!”

Oops! Uh, “Spoiler Alert!” Still, at least I didn’t tell you about the Duchovny surprise, so that’s good.

In any case and in the same vein, here is a lovely news presentation from The Onion, celebrating the new Gap For Kids, By Kids collection!

Gap Unveils New ‘For Kids By Kids’ Clothing Line