Drops of Awesome

Personal Blog of Author Kathryn Thompson

Archives for June 2010

Wii Netflix Party – A Review and Giveaway

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***The winners have been chosen by Random.org. They are Poppa2b, Carolee and Julia. ***

wii-netflixSo now Nintendo has asked me to be a Brand Ambassador. I’m not totally sure what it means but I do keep getting free stuff, which is nice and they have not yet set fire to my house so I think both of those things must be part of the agreement. As far as I can tell, we come in peace and bearing gifts.

Last weekend, they sponsored a little get-together at my house with some friends. We had a game and movie night with food and games provided by Nintendo. They also sent along a sweet little flip video camera to capture the fun and we did have a great time.

However, I’ll warn you that as I tried to edit this little baby together, I discovered that there’s not much in the world quite as boring as watching video of other people playing video games and watching movies. There is a really cute shot of Wanda in the middle of it all which I think makes it worth watching.

We downloaded Haunted Mansion Party with the free points cards they sent us, kind of a board game with interactive Wii-play arcade-type games along the way, and ended up playing some old favorites, Big Brain Academy and Dr. Mario as well.

Then keeping with the Dr. theme, we streamed Dr. Horrible with our Netflix disc. I think everyone enjoyed themselves. We’d do it again for sure.

Nintendo provided some Nintendo Points Cards to give out to our friends and since I consider you all friends, I’m extending the party and I’ll send cards to a few of you if you’d like. Just leave a comment listing your favorite game for the Wii and I’ll draw 3 winners to receive a couple thousand Nintendo Points each so you can download fun software for your Wii or DS.

The timing was a little funny to be throwing a party celebrating streaming Netflix because we’ve had some issues with it lately. We’d been really enjoying it until a couple of weeks ago. There are a lot of great movies and TV series available and it’s nice to have them on demand.

But two weeks ago, we left Magoo inside playing Lego Batman while Dan put together the play set in the back yard and he got into some trouble with the Netflix. He knows he’s not allowed to use it without me or Dan there but like most 5 year-olds, he thinks he’s smarter than us and he “totally knows what movies are for kids.”

Long story short, he ended up watching some really offensive content. It was animated so he thought it was okay but it was WAY R-rated and honestly I don’t know any adults who would not have been offended by it. It was awful. Luckily Netflix keeps track of what’s been watched so we could go back and see what he’d seen and address it, but it was a wakeup call.

Nintendo products tend to be so family-friendly, a big part of the reason I chose the Wii and the DS over other gaming systems when I had money to spend. However, the Netflix disc does open up a whole new can of worms. We now have the whole Wii on lockdown so I have to enter a passcode for the kids to use any game or the Netflix disc. I’ve also set our Netflix rating max to PG in case I leave it unlocked someday.
passcode
So, be wise. Use it for the good but protect your family from the bad.

Leave a comment if you’re interested in the giveaway!

Click to Read My Product Review Policy

Daring Dos – Tomorrow Starts Tonight

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I often blog about things because I need the reminder myself. My swimsuit post was one of those cases where I had a sudden realization that I needed to do better at something. Usually I have to re-remember several times before I actually turn a good intention into a habit.

So I’m going to start sharing my re-rememberings with you in little mini-posts called Daring Dos, things I dare you (and myself) to do or at least to keep in mind as you go about your day.

Today – I want to remind you that tomorrow starts tonight. If you want to have a great day tomorrow, go to bed at a decent time tonight. You’ll be happier, more patient, more able to handle your life. You can’t wake up early if you don’t go to bed early, not and maintain peak sanity throughout the day.

Tomorrow starts tonight. Go to bed early!

Antiques Roadshow – The Greatest Hoax Ever

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Every night when we head to bed, we turn the TV to channel 9 so that when the kids wake up at zero o’clock in the morning to watch cartoons, they will find Arthur and Sid and Dragon Tales on PBS.

As I reach channel 9 late at night, I am often sucked in to the droning convention center hubbub that is Antiques Roadshow. I’m drawn in by the people and their stories.

“This was my great grand-daddy’s Civil War drum.”

“My mammy made this quilt for me out of shards of canvas that she says were ripped up pieces of a Picasso painting.”

“Sometimes I just go online and buy ornamental snuff boxes and hope they’re worth something someday. Of course I’d never sell any of them but I dressed up in my finest jeans to come down to this sound stage and find out what they’re worth for no apparent reason whatsoever but it sure is fun to be on the TEE-vee.”

There’s always the bustle of people wandering around in the background, shuffling in their jeans. Everyone wears jeans but the experts. They are the only ones allowed to wear professional attire.

Watching tonight, I couldn’t help but wonder how awesome it would be if it were suddenly exposed that Antiques Road Show was entirely staged, like The Bachelor. They’re all actors. None of the artifacts are real. It really is just a bunch of random junk from garage sales that the producers dig up, bring into the event hall and assign to the various actors.

The more personal/incredible/inane the story, the more money the actor gets paid to tell it. If they let the hair and makeup people give them an eighties perm, they earn an extra $200.

I would love to be an extra on Antiques Roadshow. You wouldn’t get real face time in the two-shot in front of the camera, with the deer-in-the-headlights look of confusion mixed with anticipation, but you could stand in line behind them and try to get in the shot, staring creepily off into the distance, clutching your circa 1860 Pez Dispenser.

No, I don’t think it’s a staged hoax. At least I’m not willing to investigate it at this time. I don’t think the world’s ready for the truth.

Summer Swimsuit Challenge

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I want to ask you to take a bold swimsuit challenge with me.

It’s summer and it’s swimsuit season and I am sick of hearing myself talk smack about my own beautiful body every time I slip on that little black swimming suit. Sick of it. I’m sick of other people complaining about their bodies. I’m sick of hearing everyone enumerate all their many flaws.

I’m raising daughters and I want them to love their bodies. I get angry at the way media portrays physical “perfection” and insinuates that anything less than a photo-shopped super babe is unacceptable.

For almost 30 years, I’ve been complaining about my body’s flaws and it needs to stop if I want my girls to have a fighting chance at loving their own bodies. I frequently look back at old pictures of myself 2, 5, 10 years ago and think how great I looked and then remember that at the time I thought I was a tub of lard.

Yesterday Laylee was in a bathing suit and she said, “I like my body. I like being skinny.”

I looked her in the eyes and said, “I’m so glad. I love my body too. All the little wrinkles and parts show the journey I’ve been on in my life. I think my body is beautiful.” She seemed surprised because I’ve so often talked about the weight I want to lose and the improvements I want to make.

“Really?” she asked.

“Yeah. Really. I’m grateful for this body.”

She told me she loved my body too and I decided that if I really want her and Wanda to grow up loving who they are, then I’ve got to stop putting myself down and start trying to really feel the love for myself and be confident.

Please commit with me this summer to not flinch, cringe, make faces or put down your body verbally when wearing a swimsuit. Wear it with pride. Have fun in the water with your kids. Remember that the people who you have fun with are not the ones constantly ripping on themselves. The obviously fat people are the ones constantly tugging and covering up and talking about how fat they are. Don’t be that person. Get your confidence on.

Leave a comment if you’re ready to join me in the swimsuit revolution.

Schnuli

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My next door neighbors raised their first baby in Germany. They speak German at random times. They correct their children in German. They count to three in German but never make it to three. I only know how to count to two. They call binkies “Shnulis” (like shnoo-lee) and I absolutely love it. So we’ve started calling them that too.

Wanda is our first Shnuli Baby. She loves it but doesn’t need it except to sleep. I use it when we’re somewhere very germy so she won’t shove her bacteria-ridden fingers and toes in her mouth.

My mom made her one of those big soft cover things for shopping carts and I’ve recently started strapping her in like a big girl. She loves to find ways to get the schnuli dirty despite my most earnest efforts. If there is one piece of plastic showing on that cart, she will use the schnuli like a paint brush, rubbing uuuup and doooowwwn very slowly and periodically checking out of the corner of her eye to be sure I’m watching. Then when the trip gets really boring, she chunks it out through the leg hole and watches as it gets smaller and smaller and smaller in the distance.

Recently I looked over at her with her schnuli in and thought, “I’m so glad she has that thing in to prevent her from swallowing Legos or buttons that may be lurking around where I can’t see them. She can always find something to choke on no matter how clean I make things.

As far as I could tell, she kept the thing in her mouth until lunch time. I took it out of her mouth, put her in the high chair and fed her several bites of rice cereal before noticing she had something purple in her mouth. It was a heart-shaped candy which she had been sucking on behind the schnuli and WHILE eating the cereal. That kid is a diabolical schnuli-faced sneak. She hides behind it so I don’t know what’s really going on in her mouth.

Freaks me the heck out.

Dr. Horrible Learns to Clap

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Wanda yells… a lot. And when she does, she sounds quite a bit like Dr. Horrible practicing his evil laugh. We captured a bit of that as we recorded some of her first clapping. She is the cutest baby. There is no other.