Soon after The Hub network premiered here, NHL discovered Family Game Night.  This game show showed two families competing for cash and other prizes by playing modified versions of classic games such as Scrabble, Connect Four, Yatzee and Sorry.  NHL quickly grew to love the show and insisted that we record each and every new episode.  He would excitedly root for a favorite team and developed favorite games.

Meanwhile, NHL loved playing games on the Wii including one of the Family Game Night series that we had purchased.  He really loved the idea of taking a board game and playing it in video game format.

Combine the two and you get Family Game Night 4: The Game Show.

There are two modes to this game.  The first is a one or two player version of the Family Game Night TV game show complete with announcer Todd Newton assisted by Mr. Potato Head.  In this version, players compete in versions of the Family Game Night TV show’s mini-games.  Winning players get Monopoly cash cards.  At the end of the game, you see just how much those cards were worth.  The player with the most Monopoly cash wins.

In the other mode, players can play the individual mini-games either against another player or against the computer.  There are also slightly altered versions of the games.  For example, Sorry Sliders becomes Sumo Sliders.  Instead of merely sliding your Sorry sliders shuffleboard style and worrying about other sliders, you also need to worry about some big (aka Sumo) non-player sliders that are already on the board.  Just to keep things interesting, you can win trophies for completing various activities (like getting 4 in a row in Connect 4 Basketball in only 4 shots).

Though they were a bit much for JSL (age 4), NHL (age and I loved playing both the game show and individual games.  This is definitely a game that we will be playing over and over again.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Family Game Night for the Wii from EA Play.  No other compensation was given and no review expected.  The opinions stated above are my own.

Growing up, I loved the rare Twinkie or Hostess cupcake.  Are they healthy to eat?  Not by a long shot.  Are they as good in quality as a fresh baked treat?  Of course not.  Still, there’s something special (and nostalgic) about opening that package and eating those cream filled cakes.

When I heard that Hostess was declaring bankruptcy, I felt a wave of sadness.  I hadn’t eaten one of their snack cakes in years.  I couldn’t even remember if NHL or JSL had ever eaten one.  I know that the bankruptcy will likely just be a reorganization of the business, but I decided to introduce my kids to this snacking phenomenon.

We went to the grocery store and stopped by the display.  I let the boys pick out a box each.  NHL decided he wanted Twinkies.  JSL chose the chocolate-y Suzy Q’s. (I was secretly hoping that they would pick the cupcakes so I could show them how to peel off the fudge-like top to save for the end.)

When snack-time rolled around, the boys were highly impatient.  They wanted to dive right into the snack cakes and didn’t appreciate that dad was taking so long with the pre-snack photographs.

Up first was the venerable Twinkie.  Introduced in 1930, it’s a snack cake that many generations have enjoyed.  My boys loved seeing the little yellow cake come out of the package and get unwrapped.  To better take a shot of the cream in the middle, I split the Twinkie in two and showed the boys the delicious filling.  As a bonus, this meant that I could give each boy a half of a snack cake.  They could each try both cakes. This way.

NHL seemed to love the Twinkie.  At least, that’s the impression I got when, after an initial bite, he nearly shoved the remaining Twinkie in his mouth whole.  JSL seemed to savor it more.  He liked it but wasn’t as enthusiastic.  (He really is a chocoholic and Twinkies completely lack chocolate.)

Up next was the Suzy Q.  Suzy Qs are much younger than Twinkies (introduced in 1961).  To be honest, I don’t think I had ever eaten one.  After taking my picture, I split the cake into two and gave the pieces to the boys.

NHL and JSL both loved this one, but their levels of appreciation were reversed.  JSL loved each and every bite of the chocolate, cream filled cakes.  NHL, meanwhile, liked it but wasn’t as enthused as he was with the Twinkie.

In the end, the boys loved the cakes.  B and I split one of each of the cakes also.  They were good, but I’ve got to admit that I remember them being better.  Perhaps the haze of memory and nostalgia has enhanced how I remember them tasting or perhaps my tastes have simply grown up.  Most likely, a combination of both of these.  Still, they were good.  I’m not going to make eating these a daily routine, but as a once in a very long while treat for the boys, they aren’t too bad.

Do you buy Hostess (or similar) snack cakes for your kids?

On Tuesday, I went to the dentist.  As usual, my teeth were fine.  They just needed their semi-annual cleaning.  However, also as usual, came the awful question: "Have you been flossing?"  This was followed by my embarrassment-filled: "No."

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have anything against flossing.  I know that it is good for my teeth and gums.  I just can’t seem to work it into my routine, though.  I’ll floss for a few days after my checkup.  Then I forget about it completely until a few days before my next checkup.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: How good are you with flossing?  Do you floss every day?

P.S. If you haven’t already, go visit FollowerHQ and let me know what you think of my Twitter application.

P.P.S. For a bit of fun, try my other Twitter Application, Rout. It’s a +F in Fun!

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #121

Disclaimer: The “open mouth” clipart above is from OpenClipArt.org.

Being that we’re Jewish, I thought that we’d be mostly immune from having to deal with "Daddy is X real" kind of questions.  Since we don’t celebrate Christmas or Easter, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are moot points.  We’re honest about the existence of these (though we encourage our kids not to burst the bubbles of other kids who believe).  They even know that characters from most of the shows they watch (e.g. Spider-Man, Optimus Prime) are fictional.  Sure, there’s the issue of the Tooth Fairy, but I figured that was it.

Imagine my shock, then, when NHL, JSL and I were watching a Muppet Show DVD and NHL asked me: "Dad, are the Muppets real?"  I was completely caught off-guard.  The realist in me wanted to say "No, they are pieces of fabric that people shove their hands into."   Meanwhile, the Disney lover in me wanted to say "Yes, they are.  Kermit and Miss Piggy live in a house just outside of Hollywood, California" so that he would hold onto the magic just a little bit more.

Composing myself, I decided to turn the question around.  I asked him if *HE* thought they were real.  He thought for a second and answered that they were real.  I decided to leave him with this as his answer.

This came up again when we went to see The Laurie Berkner Band perform at Proctors Theatre in Schenectady.  They asked me if Laurie Berkner was real.  When I said she was, they didn’t believe me.  They were convinced that Laurie was some made-up character from Jack’s Big Music Show.  When an actual person showed up on stage, they couldn’t believe it.  (It surprised me as they’ve seen TV kids singers on stage before.  Namely, the Wiggles.)

It should be interesting as they discover what is real and what isn’t.  I just hope that they realize that there can still be magic in characters even if they don’t really exist as you see them on the screen.

What do you tell your kids about the reality of fictional characters?

On Sunday night, the boys were in bed and B and I were searching through the channels for something to watch.  We landed on Food Network where they were showing a special titled The Big Waste.  (If you missed it, it will air again on Saturday, January 14th at 4:00 pm Eastern/Pacific and Sunday, January 15th at 5:00 pm Eastern/Pacific.)

This show was a competition.  Two teams of chefs (Bobby Flay and Michael Symon versus Anne Burrell and Alex Guarnaschell) were competing to see who could make the best dishes for an audience.  So far, this sounds like many of the other competitions that Food Network has aired.  This show had a very interesting twist, though.  The competitors could only use food that would otherwise have been discarded.  Yes, they were essentially cooking with garbage.

Initially, you might wrinkle your nose in disgust.  You may picture Bobby Flay emerging from a dumpster with a half eaten pizza slice, discussing how – after he brushed off the flies – he would turn it into a wonderful appetizer.  It was nothing like this, however.

You see, Americans are very spoiled when it comes to food.  When we shop for tomatoes, we want the very best.  An otherwise edible tomato with a crack in its skin is tossed aside.  Peaches with blemishes on them are left on the ground to rot.  Lettuce is ignored because it isn’t picture-perfect.

It isn’t just the vegetables and fruits, either. Meats that aren’t the ever-desired center cuts are cast out.  Chickens with a broken wing are thrown away because people might think it means they are diseased (when the truth is that they are perfectly fine to eat).  Bagels left at the end of the day and pre-packaged foods with creeping expiration dates get the garbage bag treatment.

As the contestants gathered food, the amazement at their finds increased.  So did the disgust.  Perfectly good food was being thrown away every day.  While 1 in 4 children go to bed hungry, while people scrounge around wondering where their next meal will come from, mountains of food are being tossed in the trash.  The food recovered by the contestants was a mere drop in the bucket.

This show got me thinking about food waste by me.  I am not innocent of passing over produce because of minor blemishes.  I also wondered what my local grocery stores, bakeries, and other food shops did with their waste.  If the food is still good, albeit blemished or slightly older than customers tend to like, does the store toss it away?  Or do they donate it to a local food pantry/shelter/etc?

Thanks to this program, I plan on calling some local companies to see how they handle their food waste.  If they don’t donate it, I’m going to see if I can arrange for at least some of it to be donated.  I encourage everyone to do the same with companies in their area.

Have you seen the Food Network special?  How do you think you can help raise awareness about food waste?

Disclaimer: I wasn’t compensated in any way by Food Network for this post.  I simply wanted to share what I felt was a good program and an important issue.  The image above was created using two images from OpenClipArt.org.

Saturday mornings are usually lazy affairs.  Last Saturday, though, was different.  We needed to get up and moving quickly.  Why?  We had a concert to go to: The Laurie Berkner Band’s Animal Party at Proctors Theatre.

We got there early, picked up our tickets and, before taking our seats, got each of the boys a souvenir.

That’s a shaky egg – a small wooden egg that makes noise when you shake it like a maracca.

As we took our seats, I marveled at how close we were to the stage.

We also marveled at what a great looking venue Proctors is.  We really should go to more shows there!

NHL, being a drum player, liked the drum set on the stage.

JSL, meanwhile was prepared for one of the later songs with his monkey.

Before long, out came Bob (who plays the drums), Suzie (keyboard), Adam (bass guitar), and, of course, Laurie.  The boys went crazy as she sang song after song.  Meanwhile, I alternated between taking a ton of photos, taking videos, and rocking out with my kids.

Here are some selected photos from the concert.

Remember JSL’s monkey from before?  Well, at one point, he had to put it on his head.  After all, Laurie had a pig on her head…

In addition to having a pig on her head, her toolbox was invaded by a mouse intent on building a home for itself.

For fans of Jack’s Big Music Show, where her band is often featured, Laurie broke out into a medley of songs.

Finally, what concert would be complete without a groupie crashing the stage.  Of course, Laurie Berkner groupies are a bit shorter than some other band’s have.

We just love how the band worked her into the show.  They showed that not only do they play great music for children, but they know how to play WITH children too.  (At the time, I wondered if I’d be able to tell the mother of the little girl about this video.  It turned out that she posted on Facebook and B got in touch with her.)

All too soon, the concert was over.  It was time to take bows and head home.

Thanks to the Laurie Berkner Band for such a magical concert!

Disclaimer: We received complementary tickets to the “Animal Party” concert thanks to The Laurie Berkner Band. The opinions expressed above, however, are my own and this post was done because we had a great time, not in return for the tickets.

One of my New Year’s resolutions was to cook more.  Part of my reasoning for this was that I wanted to eat healthier.  In the past, I’ve begun the year with a "Lost 20 pounds in 20 weeks challenge."  I could use one of those again this year as I’m almost 30 pounds above where I’d like to be.

That being said, however, I’m going to try a couple of weeks of an informal diet.  I’m going to cut down on the snacking, eat less and focus on eating healthier food.  I’ll dine on more salads and snack on less junk food.

In addition, I’m going to try to work out more.  I think I’ll break out the EA Sports Active and break a sweat.  There are going to be two challenges for this.  The first is the cold weather.  With such a chill in the air, I’d much rather bundle under my Slanket and let my laptop warm up my lap.

The second reason is that I recently hurt my neck/back.  I seem to be prone to muscle spasms and, after playing some Nintendo Wii with the boys last week, I got a bad one.  The odd thing was that it wasn’t even a high-motion game.  (Kirby’s Epic Yarn – you use the WiiMote like a normal video game controller.)

It’s been over a week now and I’m still sore and achy.  My neck still hurts when I move it and I get shooting pains down my right arm.  I’m not going to let that stop me, but I will take it easy at first.

My other change, rather than not going with a formal diet, is that I’m not going to update every week.  Honestly, for some of my "20 pounds in 20 days" posts, I began to reach for content.  I couldn’t think of anything to say other than "Hey, I lost another pound this week."  While it was nice to know just what I was posting about, I’d rather have more substantial posts.  So I’m just going to post an update every first Monday of the month instead of every Monday.  I may also put something on the sidebar to help keep track of my weight loss.

So that’s my plan.  Wish me luck.

Disclaimer: The body scale clipart above comes from OpenClipArt.org.

Saturday was the day.  After a few weeks of looking, we had bought bunk beds a couple of days ago.  Now, it was time for the boys to say good-bye to their existing beds: NHL, his twin bed, and JSL, his toddler bed.

After saying goodbye, we took their stuffed animals off and packed them away in large bags.  Since these are the same bags we use for garbage, we took care to let the boys know that the garbage bags were simply the best storage method and by no means meant the stuffed animals were being thrown away,  Then, their sheets, blankets and pillows were removed.

I took apart JSLs toddler bed first.  It’s a converted crib and the only bed he’s ever known (at home at least).  After that, I leaned NHL’s mattress against the wall, put the box spring in a bag and stored it and the frame in the basement.  All this took me about two hours.  I was sure it would take much longer.

After cleaning the area up (dust bunnies love hard-to-reach areas), their room was ready.  Later that day, the Raymour and Flanigan truck arrived.  The kids could hardly contain themselves.

Two guys came and quickly set up the bunks.  Meanwhile, the kids were watching intently.  They loved seeing the bed get constructed.  The men putting the bed together were wonderful and didn’t seem to mind the boys over-attention.  Nor did they say anything when JSL asked "Daddy, why does that man not have any hair" or when he responded to my request to explain later with "But daddy, he’s got NO HAIR!!!"

Before we knew it, the beds were put together and the boys were all too eager to try them out.  That’s not to say that there hasn’t been adjustments needed.  NHL is a bit nervous sleeping on the top bunk.  JSL can’t see his night light.  I think once these adjustments are over, though, I’m sure they’ll love their new bunk beds.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever had bunk beds?  Would you rather sleep on the top or bottom bunk?

P.S. If you haven’t already, go visit FollowerHQ and let me know what you think of my Twitter application.

P.P.S. For a bit of fun, try my other Twitter Application, Rout. It’s a +F in Fun!

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha #120

As part of my stand against a serial cyber-harasser, I’ve been warning individuals and companies that she targets.  Her pattern, when it comes to companies, is to claim that her searches for business registrations came up blank.  She claims that this is proof that these companies are not licensed and, therefore, frauds.  These aren’t tiny companies, either, but some pretty big, even international, companies.

Her method appeared, to me, to be fatally flawed.  She was relying on the Better Business Bureau’s search tool.  The problem here is two-fold.  First of all, businesses don’t need to register with the BBB.  It’s voluntary.  Secondly, it isn’t a business license search.  It’s a business *review* search tool.  You can use this to find out if a business had complaints filed against it to the BBB, but you can’t use it to find every licensed business in the US.

As she claimed to be unable to find these registrations, I began to wonder.  Could I?  I pride myself on my Google-Fu and wondered just how long it would take me to find an organization’s business registration.  Once I was consistently able to find them, I figured I’d blog about my method.

For our examples, let’s take a few of the supposedly unregistered businesses: MomSelect, Bendon Publishing, and PictureIt Creations.  (I picked these at semi-random.  She’s targeted many more businesses than this.)

First, we need to visit the sites and find out in which state they are located.  Bendon’s Contact Us page mentions Ohio, PictureIt Creations’ contact number is in a 734 area code which is in Michigan.  MomSelect is a bit more complex as their web page mentions that they are part of BSM Media Inc.  Therefore, we should really look up BSM and not MomSelect.  BSM’s contact page lists Florida as their state.

Now that we have our states, we need to find each state’s business registration search website.  Luckily, I found a website called SecStates.com that listed all of the appropriate pages.  Some of them were outdated, though, so I tracked down the updated links and tested all of them.  Here’s the list:

NOTE: I couldn’t find a license search site for the District of Columbia or Virgin Islands. (EDIT: Thanks to usvirginislands and Sandra Foyt for finding the link for the US Virgin Islands.)

Now that we have the list, we just need to go to each state’s website to search for the businesses.  Let’s start with Bendon Publishing.  Searching gives two results: one (filed in 2001) that was canceled and a second (filed in 2003) that is active.  By the way, Bendon is listed as a “Foreign Corporation”.  At first, I thought this meant that they were based outside of the US.  However, all this means is that they are registered outside of Ohio.  (In this case, Delaware.)

Easy, right?  Let’s try PictureIt Creations now.  Searching Michigan’s database gives us this registration.  Ok, so we’re two for two now.  What about MomSelect / BSM Media?  Searching for “BSM Media” gives this result.  Three for three.

You can use this to find nearly any registered business in the United States.  Go ahead and give it a try.

Graphic derived from building and binocular clipart from OpenClipArt.org.