Watch Hero Dogs of 9/11 On Animal Planet
Ah, the Twitter. It is many things. One of them is a distraction, of course. But out of distraction comes information. Sometimes information one didn’t even realize that one wanted to acquire.
For example: through a series of tweets, the good folks at Animal Planet alerted me to a show called “Hero Dogs of 9/11” that is airing tonight, September 10, 2013, at 8pm EST.
@brettsinger Hero Dogs of 9/11: Check out a sneak peek here – http://t.co/7yNIWeJkJ5 #HeroDogs
— AnimalPlanet (@AnimalPlanet) September 10, 2013
Aaaand here’s the video sneak peek. It has dogs in it.
Watch the whole thing tonight, 9/10/13, 8pm EST, on Animal Planet.
Now if you’ll excuse me, there’s something in my eye…
Meet YA Author Kristi Cook (Get Out)
As part of DaddyTips ongoing efforts to get you to leave the house, here’s an event you can take your tween/teen kids to — a chance to meet YA Author Kristi Cook on Friday, September 13th, 6 p.m. at The Voracious Reader (1997 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont, NY 10538, Phone: 914-630-4581; map link).
More details are below.
Join us for an exciting Friday the 13th evening with acclaimed YA author Kristi Cook and the finale of her Winterhaven Trilogy. Whether you’re new to the series, set in a boarding school for the paranormally gifted, or eagerly awaiting the mind-bending conclusion (no spoilers, we promise!), you’ll love meeting Kristi and her many fans as we talk about writing,romance, and spooky superstitions! There will be autographs, swag bags, photo ops and fun! And wait til you see our gorgeous butterfly adorned cupcakes! FREE event but please call ahead to reserve your spot. TEENS THROUGH ADULTS
Here are links to all of the books in the Winterhaven Trilogy.
Haven |
Mirage (Haven) |
Eternal (Haven) |
Find out more about Ms. Cook at her website, at her Amazon page, and also at this special event where you can meet her live and in person!
Meet YA Author Kristi Cook at The Voracious Reader ~ for young people with an appetite for books (Event Link)
Kristi Cook, Author
Also: Friday the 13th. Can’t help ourselves. Did you know the original movie came out in 1980 and Kevin Bacon is in it? Here’s the trailer. Note: is has nothing to do with the event mentioned above.
Video – Alabama High School Football Coaches Fighting (Stupidity)
Via Deadspin, a story about high school football coaches behaving very badly:
Alabama high school football coaches coming to blows after a game shouldn’t be that surprising, considering how seriously Alabama takes football in general, but that doesn’t make the incident any less ridiculous.
The key phrase above is “but that doesn’t make the incident any less ridiculous.” I don’t care how “seriously Alabama takes football in general,” these are adults being paid to coach kids. Yes, high school football is a big deal in some parts of these United States. Youth sports in general have become increasingly popular over the past 10+ years (my estimate), with major media coverage of younger and younger players. Remember the story about a 13-year-old QB committing to USC in 2010? (Here’s a follow-up on the now 17-year-old David Sills from June of 2013 if you’re interested; I admit to not actually watching the video I just linked to because I don’t really care.)
In case the above parenthetical was unclear, I’m not a fan of the excessive media coverage of youth sports. These are kids, most of whom will not go on to have professional sports careers, and they don’t benefit financially from the attention they receive unless they do manage to make it to the pro level. I am a fan of kids participating in youth sports, and I hope that the increased scrutiny of young athletes hasn’t taken away any opportunities for less talented youngsters to get on the field. For example, I was a sub-par baseball player — my first season I didn’t get a hit, although I was third on the team in walks because I quickly realized that 12-year-old pitchers don’t hit the strike zone all that often (at least they didn’t back then). By the time I stopped playing, I was good enough to start at first base and probably hit about .260 (guessing here). But I loved baseball. I was never going to be a superstar, but neither were most of my teammates. Why did I quit? Because the kids AND THE COACHES became increasingly hostile and hyper-competitive. Competitiveness can be a good thing on and off the field. But when a grown man screams and curses at a 10-year-old for striking out, that’s insane. A lack of sportsmanship from teammates doesn’t help either. This isn’t to say that everybody has to congratulate you for whiffing at an easy pitch and ending the inning with the bases loaded. But, to paraphrase Lisa Simpson, why would you come to our game just to boo (and curse at) us?
That’s why the video upsets me. It looks like a freakin’ bar bawl. I know these aren’t little kids; many high school football players are anything but little these days. It doesn’t matter. No one should behave like this, but for non-professional coaches it’s even more embarrassing.
via Alabama High School Football Coaches Get Into Postgame Brawl (Deadspin)
Discount Tips From Lifehacker (DaddyDeals)
We love us some deals, be it free stuff or discounts. Lifehacker has a list of ten intriguing tips to help reduce the total amount of your daily expenditures. That’s a fancy way of saying “save money on stuff.”
My personal favorite? Using 867-5309
Hit the link below for many more money-saving tips.
Top 10 Tricks to Get Discounts on Almost Anything (Lifehacker)
Odin Wonders Why Thor Doesn’t Have a Girlfriend (Texts From Superheroes)
Texts From Superheroes comes through again with an exchange between Odin and Thor and his “Midgard Girlfriend.”
Riiiight. She’s on MIDGARD. Of course she is.
Reminds me of this little ditty from the musical “Avenue Q.”
Ouya Football Game Raises Eyebrows With Kickstarter Campaign (And Why This Matters To Parents)
Ouya is an attempt to create an alternative gaming console. By “alternative” I don’t mean REM back in the day, I mean “a gaming console that isn’t an XBox 360/One, Wii/Wii U or PS1/2/3/4.” It’s unclear whether or not the thing will succeed, but the folks at Ouya seem to have cash because they’re offering some kind of matching funds to developers who can raise a certain amount of cash via Kickstarter.
One of these developers, MogoTXT, is causing consternation amongst the console cognoscenti, according to a story post at IGN. (Note: all of our information in this post is from the linked IGN article below. That’s our source. We’re not going to go into all of the details because they did all the work so you should go there and read their story if you want to know all the stuff.)
The game Gridiron Thunder (video below) raised sufficient ducats to get more ducats from Ouya, but they had very few backers, and many of the backers seem to have names remarkably similar to each other, as well as to MogoTXT CEO Andrew Won. In other words, some suspect… foul play.
Another intriguing wrinkle: how is MogoTXT planning to release a football (as in NFL) game without having permission to use the images of real players? Maybe they aren’t planning to use images of real players? We don’t know. In general, video sports gamers prefer to play games featuring their favorite superstars, or at least real dudes. I thought the license for this was sold exclusively to the good folks at EA, which they use to make a little game called Madden NFL.
The IGN story states that Gridiron Thunder is the second game to reach the funding mark required to receive extra moneys from Ouya. The other is Elementary, My Dear Holmes!, which sounds much more fun: “A point-and-click adventure game starring legendary sidekick John Watson on an epic quest to prove that Sherlock Holmes is just a jerk.”
By the way, Sherlock Holmes? Public domain. No rights issues there. Just saying.
Why are we writing about this? One, kids play video games. Two, Kickstarter is a real thing. By that I mean crowd-funding is a way to get the money to make a professional quality video game, as well as movies, watches, and who knows what else. Your kids are going to be asking you about Kickstarter. They may already have asked you about it. It behooves you to put crowd-funding on your parental digital radar. Yes, it’s one more thing to think about/learn about/be annoyed with. (What, the Facebook, the Twitter and the Snapchat weren’t enough? Now I have to learn about the Kickstarter too? Oy vey.) At least with this one, your kids could potentially find the money from people other than you to turn their great idea into a reality. That would be awesome.
That’s why I care if a Kickstarter campaign turns out to be skeezy. I would prefer that it NOT be skeezy. There will always be a certain percentage of skeeziness with anything involving the Interwebs. But the less skeeze the better.
Suspicious Ouya Game Kickstarter Campaign Raises Eyebrows via IGN
President of Nintendo Actually Says “Meh”
More Presidents of major gaming companies should say “meh” when describing their competitors products. It would be amusing.
http://m.ign.com/articles/2013/08/28/nintendo-president-on-ps4-xbox-one-launch-lineups-meh?&
