Jack says....

me: "Jack, are you poopy?"
Jack: "No. I'm Batman."

------

me: "Jack, let's get in the car to go to the store."
Jack: "But Daddy took da car."
me: "No, Daddy went in Dwight's car."
Jack: "Oh! So we can go in da blue car."
me: "Yes."
Jack: "Because Daddy went in da white car so we can go in da blue car because da white car is gone with Daddy and you fixed it!"
me: "Uh....the white van is still broken. Daddy went with his friend, Dwight in his car."
Jack: "Yes. In da white car. So we can take da blue car to da store."

------
Jack: "Mom, can we make these cakes?" (Holding a cake pan that has animal shapes in it)
Me: "Sure."
Jack, looking at the pan: "Giraffses are soft. But lions are scary scary scary! They could eat me eat me!"

Caleb says....

So, I was helping Dan with math and tuned in to the other kids just in time to hear "adjusting the laws of physics..." come out of someone's mouth.

"What?" I said. "I tune out for just a minute and you're all adjusting the laws of physics on me?"

"Yes, I am adjusting the laws of physics," Caleb responded, "but in a controlled, fictional, nonexistent environment. You don't have to worry."

Am I relieved?

Fox news must have fired their copy editors to save money....

My favorite headline ever, right at the top of foxnews.com today:

"Labor Pains Expected"

Very funny when you consider I'm nine months pregnant--although I suspect I might have a different meaning in mind than they did!

Just below, we find this gem:

"Easy-to-Use 'Palm Pistol' Aimed at Elderly, Disabled"

Did they really mean that?

And this isn't a copy editing problem, but rather a 'really? you can't be serious' problem: "Fla. Man charged with Assaulting Girlfriend With Burger"

'nother funny headline

This one from foxnews.com:

"Skydiver Dies in Second Fatal Jump at Virginia Airport"

How on earth did he have two fatal jumps at all, much less at the same airport? I mean, after he died once there, you'd think he'd go somewhere else to die the second time.

I Don't Think They Know What 'Simple' Means

From the side of the Ivory Soap packaging:

"simply ivory
simplement ivory

INGREDIENTS/INGREDIENTS: SODIUM TALLOWATE AND/OR ET/OU SODIUM PLMATE, WATER/EAU, SODIUM COCOATE AND/OR ET/OUT SODIUM PALM KERNELATE, GLYCERIN, SODIUM CHLORIDE, FRANGRANCE/PARFUM, COCONUT ACID*, PALM KERNEL ACID*, TALLOW ACID*, PALM ACID*, TETRASODIUM EDTA.

*CONTAINS ONE OR MORE OF THESE INGREDIENTS.
*CONTIENT UN OU PLUSIEURS DE CES INGREDIENTS."

'Simply' Ivory, huh?

I don't think I have ever seen a less exact, more complex list of ingredients. It's like a list of cookie ingredients that says, "May contain one or more of: eggs, flour, sugar, butter and/or shortening, vanilla...."

What exactly is in that soap, anyway?

Bad writing can be so funny!

Now, keep in mind what Snopes says about this. It is NOT accidental bad writing by high school students. It was all intentionally written to be as bad as possible, and it's hilarious!

http://www.snopes.com/humor/lists/metaphor.asp

Read it because..."her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever" and "He was as tall as a six-foot-three tree." Oh, and numbers 18 and 19--you gotta love those....

Science Songs for Kids

Time for Learning's demos for the playground have a "Hurricane" song that Anda just loves. So today I googled "science songs for kids" and found the source: a series of records full of science songs for kids, with music reminiscent at times of the sixties folk song tradition and at times of the title song of "the Blob" (click below if you haven't seen it--skip to 1:10 for the vocals--they're the good part!)



The Science Songs for kids can be found here: http://www.acme.com/jef/singing_science/


I am generally opposed to pirating songs (since I'm married to a musician), and I don't know the legal status of these. I suspect they are the equivalent of "abandonware" (software that is technically still owned by the company, but it no longer produced or supported by them and is only available by "pirated" download or purchase at a thrift store), or books that have gone out of print and can't be found anywhere but are still under copyright (so they can't be republished and distributed by, say, a fan society).

This is really fun stuff. We especially were smitten with the song about how to make heat, and the hurricane song, and....well, just go listen. It's a riot.

Disney Cereal--Is this a joke?

We went to a local dollar store called the 99c store. It was awesome. Produce. Dairy products. Canned papaya and guava. A huge aisle of every kind of cookie could could imagine. Garden stuff. Medicines. Christmas candies (like filled marshmallows) for 25c a bag. We had a lot of fun.

One of the things they had was cereal. So I let each kid pick out a box.

Anda got one with Disney princesses on the box. Caleb got one with Mickey Mouse on the box.

When I got home, I looked at them more closely.

The Princess cereal says on it,
"Disney Princesses
Fairytale Flakes."

Just like that--in two lines, like a newspaper headline and subheader. I'm not kidding. I laughed out loud when I read it. Who Wrote that?

Then the Mickey Mouse Cereal. The cereal is little and kind of puffed-grain shaped. It really looks just like....brightly colored mouse poop. I mentioned that at the store, and it wasn't until I got home that I realized it was Mickey Mouse on the box. Holding a big bowl of rainbow colored sugared mouse poop. How's that for something Disney would create?

Weird Headlines

So science news is getting bizarre. The latest headline I keep running into is that someone did some research on why pregnant women don't fall over when they get big. Why is this important to know? And, for their information, pregnant women DO fall over. Lots of us have. Plus it's NOT comfortable, despite the extra vertebrae, and if it looks easy it's because we go home and sit around and don't do anything else but waddle with a baby. Sometimes one in the arms, too.

But this one tops all:

"Scientists Clone Glow-In-the-Dark Cats." http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/12/13/fluorescent-cats-clone.html?dcitc=w19-506-ak-0005

Wow. Pretty hard to clone something that doesn't exist!

If you read the article, it explains that the glow-in-the-dark-ness is a side effect of the cloning. So the headline is a little misleading. Still.... why do you need cats that glow? Do the cats want to glow? I always got the impression that stealth at night was a good thing for cats--at least from their point of view. I am imagining glowing felines creeping around the house at night. Spooky. Oh-oh-or that movie on YouTube about cats flying (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtbjH8Tm4fM)--but the cats can glow!

In other science news: They found Captain Kidd's pirate ship! I was checking my email and saw the headline and had a "novel" moment--suddenly I was Melora, a character in my novel, and she was seeing that headline, and somehow it connected to or led to an adventure she was having--either the catalyst for the adventure, or the catalyst for the climax.....I need to use that sometime.

How was that for a glimpse into the mind of a writer?

So now I want to know where the real science is.

CNN--Comedy News Now?

I read articles on CNN occasionally and often get lost clicking links to other stories when I do. Bad habit. Anyway, CNN.com has a screen format where every article is summarized at the top, right next to the headline, so you can know the whole story without reading it. I've always seen it as some higher-ups way of shortcutting the writers and moving right on. It seems kind of counterproductive from a writer's standpoint: why write it if someone is going to give everyone the important info without having to read your words?

Anyway, today I was following links and found this summary at the top of a lifestlyes article:

"Story Highlights
Funny and busy writer Lisa Kogan details her hectic day
Offers Miss Cuckoo Pants $260,000 for extra hour of sleep
Pulls strand of ketchup-coated spaghetti out of bra"

A news summary of a comedy piece!

To me, this was much funnier than the article.