modern day dad

Matt Damon's Diaper Bag Up for Auction

In case you haven't heard, the Johnson & Johnson's Celebrity Hand-Me-Down auction is going on. They're selling "used" baby items from celebrities, all to raise money for charity. There are eight items in the auction, all from celebrity moms except Matt Damon, who is offering a diaper bag.

Here's where the "Celebrity Auction" starts to piss me off.

Jennifer Lopez's Nursery and Other Recent Posts On Babble

Casablanca Cribs in Jennifer Lopez's Nursery
Jennifer Lopez has a (typically) ostentatious nursery and published pictures of them in People Magazine. But the crib is actually quite nice if that kind of decor is up your alley.

Audible Launches New Kids Site
Download audio books for your kids and stop putting Spongebob on their iPods.

7 Days of BPA-Free Plastics: CamelBak Water Bottles
Something to check out when you reach post-sippy cup nirvana.

Jessica Alba Gives Tastybaby
Jessica Alba gives baby food as a party favor for her shower. Seriously.

Mariah Carey Has a Hello Kitty Boo-Boo on American Idol
Mariah Carey is obsessed with Helo Kitty apparently. And she wears the same Band-Aids on American Idol that my kids wear.

Big Deal: FLOR Carpet Tiles for Kids On Sale
FLOR has a couple of child themed carpets on sale now.

CES 2008. The big yawn.

So this was my fifth year going to the Consumer Electronics Showcase here in Las Vegas, and after two days of walking the miles and miles of convention space, I have to say I'm pretty underwhelmed. In years past it seemed there were new and exciting things announced - or at least a few things that were so cool and forward-thinking you felt lucky to have seen it at CES. But this year there was nothing new and exciting, nothing really groundbreaking, nothing that really made you want to run home and blog about it.

There were some cool products for children and parents. I'll be blogging about most of them over at Babble.com (check out my posts here). And there was a "life size" statue of a Transformer from the Transformers movie that was pretty cool (pictured above). But other than that it was all kind of typical.

Maybe next year I should go to Mac World.

Check out my posts about CES at Droolicious over at Babble.com.

Happy Thanksgiving. Now get ready to shop.

Happy Thanksgiving. If you're surfing dad blogs now and not watching football or getting dinner ready, then I'm guessing you either don't like football, or you're like me and at the house of someone who's one television is in their bedroom.

In that case, you might as well get a jump start on your holiday shopping. Before you go out into the wild tomorrow, check out what all the sweet sales will be today on a web site I found - Black Friday Ads.net. If you're going to brave the crowds, you might as well be prepared.

Black Friday Ads.net  [via the CAG]

Ikea Hacker

So I was looking at the Twitter Public Timeline today and I saw a post that caught my eye - Ikea Hacker. Maybe I'm late to the party, but this is a pretty sweet idea for a blog. Anyway, the top post was about how to hack together a pretty cool girl's bed (pictured).

I've always loved how Ikea keeps good design affordable, but you kind of have to use it in small doses. Making adjustments so things will fit your life is just smart. And if you screw it up don't worry, it probably didn't cost you much in the first place.

Kid's Bed With A Little Cupola [Ikea Hacker]

Also, check out all the posts tagged with "children" on Ikea Hacker.

"Disney" wrist bands with "USB Flash Memoring."

Sometimes when your chocolate gets in my peanut butter, it doesn't really make a better product. According to this post at the Inventor Spot, kids love to wear wristbands, and kids love computers, so a wrist band / USB thumb drive must be a home run. I realize my oldest is only in pre-school, but do kids need a USB thumb drive so often that they need to wear one on their wrist? Do kids even use USB thumb drives?

But even more bizarre than the product itself, is the "Disney" characters they use to decorate them. Is this really a product approved by the Walt Disney Corporation? Am I supposed to believe they approved the use of their trademarks on a box that says "USB Flash Memoring"? Or maybe the company that made them figured as long as they put "Disney©" in small letters on them it would cover it.

Disney© USB Wristbands Mix Fashion with Function [InventorSpot.com]

Happy Father's Day. Now what's it worth?

Happy Father's Day. A friend of mine who works over at Salary.com sent this study they did recently about Stay At Home Dads. Apparently I'm worth $128,755 per year which, honestly I think is a bargain. I just wish we were actually saving $128K a year.

Oh, and we're worth $10K less than Stay at Home Moms supposedly. Maybe it's because my wife does the laundry in the family.

Stay-at-Home Dad's Salary $128,755 - Nearly $10,000 Less Than Stay-at-Home Mom's [PR Newswire]

Or check out your own dad-worth (stay at home or not) at http://dad.salary.com.

Dads who blog are the best.

Father's Day has come and gone, and in its wake are plenty of articles in newspapers around the country about dads. But this year it's all about the dad blog articles (some of which even mention this humble blog). All of them take a slightly different perspective and are all worth checking out.

21st-century dads turn to blogs for help [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
I'm offering a "virtual road map to the challenges of modern fatherhood". Kick ass! Plus it's here that Greg from Daddytypes reveals he gets 30K hits/day. Goddamn that's some good traffic.

Hey dude are you there? It's me, daddyblogger. [Austin American Statesman]
The article where I reveal that blogging helps with the isolation I've felt being a stay at home dad. Whahhh.

Rise of the Daddy Blog. [NY Daily News]
Who says K-Fed and Jack Black don't read dad blogs?
OK. They probably don't. But they're always welcome here.

MDD at CES 2006

Sorry for the lack of activity last week, but I was attending (for the third year in a row actually) the Consumer Electronics Showcase here in Las Vegas. This year - and maybe it was because I was getting used to it - was the most underwhelming of them all so far. I've got some things related to kids and parenting that I'll share in the next week, but here are some quick thoughts about it all off of the top of my head.

• Blu-Ray vs. HDDVD. The big thing this year (if you can call it that) was the battle between who will win the next home video player format wars. After hearing the long (and again, underwhelming) Microsoft spiel in Wednesday night you'd think it was all about HDDVD. But after walking the floor, it seems more people are behind the Blu-Ray. Whatever. Just tell me which one wins when it finally gets sorted out, because there's no way in hell I'm going to buy two separate $500 players.
• More kid's stuff than ever before. Maybe I was just looking for it, but this year there was a lot more products marketed towards children. Some good, some bad, and apparently I didn't even see all of them.
• The Canadian dudes who run the Harmony Remote division of Logitech rule. My universal remote - the one I love so much - the one that I've recommended to countless friends decided to die the night before the convention started. I brought it to their booth and after getting some expert technical advice (including a phone call back to the home office), the guy said he'd replace it for me. I cannot recommend these remote controls enough.
• Electronics convention attendees + Porn convention attendees = An interesting lobby. This year CES had one of it's convention spaces in the Sands convention center, right next to the Adult Entertainment Expo. And in the lobby some had pocket protectors while others had ginormous breasts. But hey, it's all business.

Baby Bush; Big idea about having a baby.

What's the Internet for really? Product research? Self indulgent Pithy blog entries? Nope. It's for clever use of stock photography. Check out the parents and kids on BabyBushToys.com (a baby boutique spoof site featuring "products for the resoundingly average child"). Perfect. My favorite toy: the "Twisty Thing. That is Red." My favorite stock photo: pictured above.

And here's a funny essay from McSweeny's you may or may not want to share with the expecting mother in your life, depending on her mood swing of the moment.

Baby Bush [via Dan].
I Don't Know What the Big Idea About Having a Baby Is by Wendy Molyneux [McSweenys.com via Brian].