If you have a kid and you have a video ipod, do yourself a favor and subscribe in iTunes to the Shorty McShort’s Shorts video podcast. Free cartoons for your ipod. We used it today to keep my daughter nice and quiet while we shopping. You’re welcome.
Tags: geek, ipod, itunes, animation, cartoon, cartoons, fatherhood, dad
My five-year-old daughter loves Zula Patrol on PBS and yesterday she asked me if I could get the theme song for her so she could listen to it on her JuiceBox. A quick look at the Zula Patrol website and they offer 13 songs from the show (including the theme song) for free download in MP3 format! How nice of them! I wish more kids shows did that. I grabbed them quickly with DownThemAll with Firefox and we were soon singing along to the Zula Patrol Theme Song! (Now I can’t get that dang song out of my head).
This was much easier than snagging MP3s from NickJr.com.
Tags: geek, mp3, mp3s, kids, audio, music, kids mp3s, kids songs, kids music, songs, firefox, children, free, freebie, freebies
NOTE: I actually wrote this the night after I got the pin, but am just now posting it. It’s still not perfect, but it’s close enough.
My dad died 26 years ago from injuries sustained in a motorcyle accident. I was 10 years old. He was a great dad. He taught me how to play baseball and always went to my little league games. My Mom says he would always say “That’s my boy!” when I played. He taught me to play pool and snooker at the recreation center on base (he was in the Army). We played Atari Basketball and Midway’s Sea Wolf at a place down the street …. and we played pinball.
That place down the street had a Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine. I rememember playing it many times with my Dad. Was he any good? I honestly don’t remember, but it doesn’t matter. My Dad played pinball with me and that’s all that matters. It’s one of my fondest memories of him.
Now that I’m grown and have a gameroom of my own, I thought it would be really cool to see if I could get a Harlem Globetrotters pinball machine of my own. I poked around online a few years ago but didn’t find one in my price range. It came up again in my mind so I posted on a local mailing list a few weeks ago and as luck would have it, a local dealer, Donnie, had one and agreed to sell it to me 100% working and at a great price. I picked it up last night and on the drive there I actually teared up a few times thinking about my Dad and playing this game with him.
Tonight I set it up and played some games with my almost-5-year-old daughter. Hopefully I am giving her some great memories of playing the same pinball machine with her dad. So, the moral of the story? Enjoy your children. Play baseball, video games, chess, pinball or something with them. Make memories. You never know what memory will stay with them for a lifetime. I think I’ll own this pinball machine forever. And Dad, I’ll keep a credit in it for you.
So my daughter and I were playing around on the Nick Jr. website and we were listening to the Nick Jr. Radio. I started wondering if the techniques I outlined in a previous post would work on the Nick Jr. website so she could listen to these songs anytime she wanted on her MP3 player. Well they can. I was able to grab 164(!!!) 112kb/s MP3s from Nick Jr. in about five minutes using most of the techniques mentioned in the post I mentioned above just by using Firefox and the LiveHTTP, Linkification, and DownThemAll extensions. I also used a text editor’s search and replace function.
Also see free Zula Patrol MP3s
UPDATE: Due to popular demand, here is a zip of a .txt file that contains all of the links. Load it into Firefox with the Linkification extension and the DownThemAll extension to grab them quickly and easily. Or, load it into EditPad Lite and click on every link by hand.
geek mp3 tunes freemusic nickjr bluesclues free mp3s freebies freebie
I haven’t mentioned Hurricane Katrina yet because I didn’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said. Now I do…..
My wonderful wife, Jennifer, has been a Red Cross volunteer for a few months now. She is on the Disaster Action Team (DAT) and was on pager duty a week at a time once a month. She would respond to fires in our county and help out the fire victims.
Recently, some Katrina evacuees (about 400?) were brought to the Raleigh, NC area and my wife was able to work for the Red Cross with them (in fact, she is there right now). The other day my wife called me before I went to work and asked if we had any extra routers we could let the shelter use. They had three laptops but only one cable modem to provide internet access so she wanted a router to give all three laptops ‘net access.
So, I loaded up a backpack with two routers, two CAT5 cables, and two mice (I hate laptop touchpads), and delivered them to my wife at the shelter. It was a small contribution, but I was happy to do it.
On the same topic, we talked to my four year old daughter and asked her if she had any extra stuffed animals and/or baby dolls she would like to give to the kids at the shelter that had NO toys. She, of course, has WAY too many of these anyway, and we figured this might be a good lesson for her. Now remember, at four years old, your life REVOLVES around toys. She ended up picking out about eight stuffed animals and baby dolls to donate. Once again, I was SO proud of her. Jen took them to the kids at the shelter and she said they were VERY happy to get them.
So I put a picture of My Pretty Pony up in my cube at work today. I’m pretty sure the only way I can get away with it is the fact that it was a picture my four year old daughter colored for me. Try explaining to her that Daddy doesn’t want a picture of My Pretty Pony in his cube. Can you color a rocket ship or a dinosaur for me instead? So, the picture hangs proudly in my cube - well, it’s not prominent and front-and-center, but it’s there. Laugh if you want, but *I* know why it’s there.
I’m proud of my daughter for many things. She’s smart, polite, kind, loving, and she plays well with others (just to name a few). Here’s one more thing that makes me proud.
The other day she wanted to play a game on the Xbox while I was on the computer so I threw in the Wallace and Gromit game and tried to get something done real quick before she got stuck and needed help. She really hadn’t figured out the controller yet - it takes a lot of coordination to use an Xbox controller when you’re four.
After a few minutes I realized she hadn’t asked for help yet so I turned around in my seat (the TV is behind me whn I’m sitting at the computer), and lo and behold, she had figured out the controller. Just like that. I watched her run Gromit up to a platform and easily jump right up. I kept watching and it was blatantly obvious she had finally gotten the hang of it.
I am so proud.
Geek Tags: geek, gaming, fatherhood, daughter, games, videogames, xbox
I realized today that I haven’t posted any real DadStuff posts yet. So here we go…..my 4-year-old daughter was talking to me about going to the library and she said “it’s your ticket to the world” so matter-of-factly that it cracked me up. She said she heard someone say it on RugRats. I am so proud of her that she loves the library like she does though - despite the cartoon quotes.
I started playing the new Conker: Live and Reloaded Xbox game this past weekend. Fun game - great graphics and lots of humor. DEFINITELY not for kids. There is a lot of foul language I don’t want my 4 year old hearing (I don’t mind hearing it though).
Technorati: Xbox, video games, game reviews
