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Behold... Nightcrawler!

Excuse me, it's another Dad blog moment:

This is a Silas creation, and it was one of those moments where you realize your child has taken this quantum leap that you hadn't been tracking. Objectively, Silas is a reasonably smart kid, but he's never really cared about drawing and ur-writing—so like many boys, he's also never built up much fine dexterity, despite showing all sorts of gross motor puissance (which you'd know if you'd witnessed his hip-shaking dancing and surprising soccer accuracy). Whenever we've offered him crayons and such, he's always been, like, fuck this.

At the same time, he's also become obsessed with classic boy cataloguing, like learning the names of Transformers I've never heard of, and citing or asking questions about the secret identities of various superheroes (thank you, Wikipedia, for letting me look up Scott Summers from our garage in about 15 seconds). So I was surprised when Silas gave me this drawing, and he made a big deal about the figure having three fingers and being "indigo" (one of his favorite words).

I know from my mom being a kindergarten teacher that the number of features and the amount of detail (just arms vs. arms and hands vs. arms and hands and fingers, etc.) on a person drawing is a big developmental milestone, and often used as a test—like you worry when a kid shows up in your class and draws his family as a series of blobs. I was floored that Silas could draw fingers at all, but honestly (because I am stupid, and because parenting is mostly the stifling of reflexive worry) I was worried for a second when I saw three fingers and not five.

He was so emphatic about the three fingers, though, and the fact that the figure was indigo, so I asked, "Wait... is this Nightcrawler?" "Yeah." Mystery solved! Awesome, awesome mystery solved.

Meowtron!

In case you're wondering what to get me for Christmas.

(via Super Punch)

Borders bingo

This is awesome, found via the Slog, a Bingo card created by Borders employees for the big going-out-of-business liquidation sale that's going on now:

Mutton busting

In the NYT today. This is what HB did for fun growing up. Silas has seen but not attempted it.

In an age of rubber-covered playgrounds, a sport in which a child can have 150 pounds of sheep roll over him defies expectations. That it is gaining in popularity defies comprehension, at least to some people.

More Reggie Watts!

You wouldn't know this was a Reggie Watts video but then it is:

Reggie Watts hawks Nando's

I wholly approve of this selling out. Nando's is delicious.

This is what democracy looks like

I mean, D&D:

Courtesy of the Internet

Oh, David Bowie

The original video for Major Tom:

My favorite part is the zero-g effects. My other favorite part is the "MAJOR TOM" astronaut uniform.

What's the point of playgrounds?

Because it is possible, not surprisingly, to make them too safe.

“Paradoxically,” the psychologists write, “we posit that our fear of children being harmed by mostly harmless injuries may result in more fearful children and increased levels of psychopathology.”

This comports well with my desire to maiximize the number of non-debilitating injuries for Silas.