Dad Revisited

It’s a very special holiday show, complete with special guests. Join us for a spectacle that is too good, or at least wierd, to be believed.

Check out these wonderful musicians on the Podsafe Music Network:

• The Brian Setzer Orchestra
• Geoff Smith, Some Christmas Huggin and Kissin
• The Alice Project, Regifting for the Holidays
• Darrell Smith, The Fourth But Not-So-Wise Man
• Emily Jones, Jingle Thrash
• Dokken, Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Best wishes to you and your families for a wonderful holiday season.
Thanks for listening!

Join our conversation…

We’d like to know what you think about the topics we discussed. Send
us feedback and we’ll include it in an upcoming episode of The Daddy
Dialogues. It’s easy:

• You can leave a comment on the blog.
• In the U.S., you can leave a voice message at (908) 344-5688.
• You can also record your own message and upload an audio file at our official website:
  http://TheDaddyDialogues.com/contact

This show is brought to you by…

Vincent Green is a veteran Podcaster and provides professional podcast consulting services. You can also enjoy more of his opinions on family, marriage, technology and faith.

Roland Reinhart is a veteran marketing and advertising professional. Learn about his interactive marketing services or enjoy more of his parenting advice and inspiration.

Copyright 2008 The Daddy Dialogues. All rights reserved.

Vinny and Roland discuss frustrations with politicians, CEOs, and
lousy Christmas gifts. Plus good gift ideas, favorite holiday movies,
comic memories and holiday safety tips.

Time Index:

[00:30] Post-election Thanksgiving hijinks.

[03:15] It’s a month since the elections, and the change that was so
hyped can’t come fast enough. We seem to be poorer than ever and the
prospects are getting worse. We talk about interesting solutions we’ve
heard.

[25:00] Listener feedback from Pete in Australia.

[27:45] Christmas/holiday gifts that suck.

[45:10] Holiday gifts that don’t suck.

[57:00] Favorite holiday movies.

[01:01:00] Memories of Opus, Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Doonesbury

[01:06:00] Carbon monoxide and electric safety reminders

Links Mentioned:

• Sarah Palin Thanksgiving slaughter interview
• South Park “Change is in the air” episode
• Jack Black as Jesus Christ, “Obamination”
• PhotoStamps
• Cell phone gift cards

Favorite holiday movies:

• Christmas Vacation
• It’s a wonderful life
• A Christmas Story
• Die Hard
• Elf
• A wish for wings that work

Best wishes to you and your families for a wonderful holiday season.

Thanks for listening!

Join our conversation…

We’d like to know what you think about the topics we discussed. Send
us feedback and we’ll include it in an upcoming episode of The Daddy
Dialogues. It’s easy:

• You can leave a comment on the blog.
• In the U.S., you can leave a voice message at (908) 344-5688.
• You can also record your own message and upload an audio file at our official website:http://TheDaddyDialogues.com/contact

This show is brought to you by…

Roland Reinhart is a veteran marketing and advertising professional. Learn about his interactive marketing services or enjoy more of his parenting advice and inspiration.

Vincent Green is a veteran Podcaster and provides professional podcast consulting services. You can also enjoy more of his opinions on family, marriage, technology and faith.

Thanks to…

The Daddy Dialogues theme music by 2006 Pl@stic Soul and courtesy of the PodShow Podsafe Music Network.

Blubrry Network

Copyright 2007-2008 The Daddy Dialogues. All rights reserved.

Midnight Mass 2007,
originally uploaded by invervegas.

I was made aware of a phrase a few years back that I hadn’t heard before- the CAPE Catholic. These are the folks who come out at specific times, most notably when we are either having a party or giving something away. CAPE stands for:

• Christmas- Yeah baby… I mean, yeah Baby! The biggest baby shower ever. Billions of people worldwide get together to sit for an extra-long mass, many of them so late at night they can’t keep their eyes open. There are usually a lot of singers and extra altar servers, visiting priests, extra lay ministers, and even the occasional pageant with kids and some animals. (I mean sheep and donkeys, not the parents fighting over pews.)
• Ash Wednesday- Going to church in the middle of the day and in the middle of the week is highly unusual for most folks, even the more devout. What is the draw? We leave our jobs and go before the priest so he can put a dirty thumbprint in the middle of our forehead.It’s not just dirt from anywhere- it’s left over from another party from last year! Awesome! Year-old dirt.. er… ashes.
• Palm Sunday- The party which supplied the dirt/ashes for Ash Wednesday. Everyone gets together to symbolize the return of Jesus to Jerusalem. As he entered the city, the faithful gathered and waved palm fronds, also spreading them out before him to create a path. What makes this interesting is that many of the people who come out (including me) would probably not have come out for the original event. (”Jesus? I remember him. Always found him a bit… preachy.”) The ashes are the remains of burnt palms from the previous Palm Sunday.
• Easter- In my opinion, the granddaddy of them all. This is the big one. Longest mass, most miraculous events, intense music. Heck, the guy rolled away a stone, died, rose to heaven, and forgave most everybody who did him wrong. You have to love the bonnets (and depending on the town, there are some serious bonnets) and the little boys in their communion suits. You also must consider the fact that somewhere along the way we got a bunny in the mix. I don’t know where he came from, but it sure is strange.

Chuckling aside, it’s great to see everyone, no matter when they last came. I can not in good conscience throw stones, as I would be one of them were it not for a professional commitment, and the pledge to be better in my faith to better guide my children. As a lay minister, however, I take my mission seriously. It is my job to make the guests and parishioners feel welcome, to lead them in faithful song, and to hopefully inspire them to return again.

Here is hope that no matter what your faith, no matter what your record of attendance, and no matter whether you worship in a House or in a house, you find the joys and solace of faith this season.

I find Governor Mike Huckabee to be a fascinating man. He’s now got a show on Fox, and I would consider watching it IF I had a TV. Much of what he says, I can relate to personally. However, I cannot and will never be able to square with his thoughts on homosexuality and the universal right to marriage. (I choose now NOT to call it gay marriage because, as Stewart and many other pundits are saying, “who is next?”)

Huckabee is an accomplished speaker and capable of winning an argument against the most skilled interviewers. Stewart has had Huckabee on before, and hasn’t tossed him softballs but has never really gone toe to toe. The other day, he did. With a new book entitled Do The Right Thing, Huckabee opened himself up to a no-holds-barred discussion of his support of what he calls “the definition of marriage.”

If you didn’t get a chance to see this marvelous interview/argument a la Stewart, take a moment. You’ll appreciate Stewart’s even tempered, sensible reproach of Huckabee for what is at it’s core a faulty argument.

Infomercials are the used-car dealerships of television. No one believes much of what they say, although if the claims were true, we’d be thrilled! I’ve seen some I’d love to believe, some I can’t imagine are true, and a few so unbelievable I can’t imagine they sell a single unit of stock. That said, there are two infomercials currently running I know to be true. The first is for magicJack.

Do you fight for the phone in your house? I don’t, but my issue is different. I live in a place where I have no landline, and my cell phone get’s spotty service at it’s best. Enter magicJack.

magicJack is a USB dongle. That’s not something dirty, but a device that plugs into your computer. magicJack starts automatically, and allows you to connect a standard telephone to your computer and make telephone calls for a single annual fee. $40 is the initial cost of the device (including one year of free calls) and $20 is the annual cost for future years. I’ve connected my Uniden ELT560 5.8 GHz cordless to the magicJack and have had great results. I get good sound, consistent connections, and free voicemail. They gave me a local number (631) and even have me configured for 911 service in my apartment. If I choose, I can take the magicJack home (or on vacation) and use it in any location where I have broadband internet. magicJack has a full set of features, including away messages, busy messages, call forwarding, and international calling (for an additional fee).

Who would want magicJack? Anyone desiring:

• a second/third landline
• a non-landline cell phone alternative
• an inexpensive alternate number/ voicemail service
• a semi-disposable number for posting in their internet presence (although you might try K-7 for free)

I’m not Billy Mays, but I can tell you this is a pretty good deal.

I go out, 6 a.m., with my lady looking fine.
Gotta go to the mall cause it’s Christmas time.
Score a bunch of gifts cause my crew they been good
with a list so long I think it covers all the hood

No matter, cause I know that gifts ain’t free
and everything I buy helps the economy.
With GM going broke I gotta do my part
and going Christmas shopping is a pretty good start.

Everybody say Hey! Yo!
Everybody say Ho Ho Ho!

We shop on Black Friday, but we ain’t like the rest.
We didn’t wait at 4am at Buy the friggin’ Best.
We only use the day ’cause I ain’t got no school
And my lady got vacation so we’re shopping like fools.

We start at Target cause they got the most stuff
but getting to the iPods is a little bit tough.
I’m waiting in line just to score a new Shuffle
but the people at the counter can’t handle the kerfuffle.

Everybody say hip hop,
everybody say shop till you drop.

We got a cart of toys, and we scored some clothes
We also got computer games, you know how that goes.
We try to be cheap, or should I say “frugal”?
I use my Touch to check the prices out on Google.

We don’t have any cash but that makes it all easier
Cause when we finish shopping we just yell Visa.
We know we gotta save, but the kids have been fly
so we gotta get ‘em gifts ’cause if we don’t, they’ll cry.

Everybody scream and yell,
All the vendors sell, sell, sell!

We want a Merry Christmas so we buy a lot of stuff
so the kids on Christmas morning won’t be acting all gruff.
We know it’s not about the gifts, it’s s’posed to be ’bout love.
But you know just like I do, that you can’t get gloves.

So if you have a kid or two, you have all my pity,
no matter where you live, whether suburb or city.
I hope you’re shopping’s done, and I hope you’re not strapped,
’cause now you gotta start on your Christmas Wrap.

Last year, just before Christmas, I invested in an Amazon Prime membership. For $75 a year, you get free two day shipping on most of your orders from Amazon.

At first blush, Amazon Prime seemed like a terrible idea. However, I was ordering something last December, and I was in a hurry. I believe it was something like a PS3 game, and I needed it in 3 days. Well, when I calculated the two day shipping, it amounted to nearly half of the cost of an Amazon Prime membership. I did the math, I rolled the dice, and signed up.

Since then, I have completed 44 orders from Amazon. Each of them has 2 day shipping free. Amazon is not dumb in offering this service. I have ordered three times as much this year from Amazon as I have in the past. When I go looking for something on the internet, I always check Amazon. I was getting ready to pay shipping on an ink cartridge for my photo printer the other day when I thought “wow, I wonder if they have a double pack on Amazon.” They did, and while I paid 1.7 times what I would have paid for the single pack, I saved money on shipping, and I will certainly print enough photos to use that extra cartridge.

It’s no small piece of change, and really is not a bargain for you if you don’t really use Amazon, but if you do, review your purchasing history this year and see if a Prime Account will save you money. I calculate that I would have spent at least the cost of membership this year on shipping. I’ll let the account renew, because simply breaking even on two day shipping would be good enough for me.