Monthly Archives: December 2008

Screen time

Kids' shows are a little trippy

Me: Did you like “My Magical World”?
Pi: Yeah. Sammy made me laugh, and I have five fingers!

Me: What was your favorite part?
Pi: Sammy!

Me: What did you like about Sammy?
Pi He was a puppy dog and a cow and a monkey.

Lest you think my little girl’s lost her marbles, “My Magical World” does feature a segment on counting your fingers, and one of its characters does in fact look like a puppy dog. Or maybe a cow. Or a monkey. Whatever he looks like, Sammy lives on a cloud and he hops into books, taking his young viewers along for the ride. The books Sammy jumps into are the “My Magical World” stories, where a wizard named Abra and a young lady named Georgia live with a host of furry little puppet critters. The puppet critters don’t always get along — neither do Abra and Georgia, for that matter — and thus, lessons for the kiddos are delivered.

Continue reading “Kids’ shows are a little trippy.”

Flotsam / Jetsam

A big, magical giveaway in Indy

Have you seen anything about the HP Magic Giveaway? The company has selected 50 bloggers and given them each $6,000 worth of stuff to give away. That’s, what?, eleventy billion dollars worth of stuff? Pretty nifty. One of the giveaway sites is Moosh in Indy, where Casey is giving it all away to whomever has the best plan for spreading the magic.

I love geeky, gadgety stuff, so it would be super cool to win $6,000 worth of computer equipment. But let me tell you: I don’t really need any of it. Our computer is a little past its prime, and it’s definitely slowing down in its performance. But it’s still functional. I do, however, need a printer, so I’d exercise my selfishness on that.

And the rest of it?

It’s gotten awfully cold here these last few weeks, and every time I go outside I think about how blessed I am to have not just a good, heavy coat and some nice mittens, but to have a home. There are a lot of people in our city who don’t have that. They’re living in tents in the woods — and that’s if they’re fortunate enough to have a tent. So I’d like to take the rest of the HP Magic Giveaway prize and auction it off. Then I’d take the money to wherever it would go the furthest, and I’d load up on warm coats, socks, hats and gloves to take to the homeless shelter. It’s not much; it’s not enough. But it would be something.