Obviously the kid doesn’t quite comprehend the scoring on Wii Golf.

And sometimes that’s a good thing.

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Nigella Lawson, the daughter of a wealthy couple and wife to one of the wealthiest men in England, has said that she will leave her children not one penny. Claiming that she had to work hard for the money and that inherited wealth makes people weak, she boasts about her plans to exclude them from the family’s riches.

From the Daily Mail…

As the daughter of a former Conservative chancellor, Nigella Lawson knows a thing or two about privileged upbringing.

But when it comes to raising her own children, the celebrity chef clearly believes in tough love.

She shares an estimated wealth of more than £110million with her husband, the marketing guru Charles Saatchi, and has a £7million London home.

However, Miss Lawson says she will leave none of it to her offspring.

It is not a decision with which her husband agrees.

Mr Saatchi, 64, is adamant that the children should be allowed to inherit the couple’s wealth - and the subject causes more than a little discord between them, according to Miss Lawson.

Mr Saatchi has one daughter, 12-year-old Phoebe from his first marriage.

Miss Lawson, 48, has two children, 13-year-old daughter Cosima and son Bruno, 11, from her marriage to the late journalist John Diamond.

I say you work for your children. I’m by no means wealthy or even comfortable, perhaps middle class but one thing that has always been certain, whatever is mine is my children’s and if one day I can afford to contribute generously to their house budget or cars or special gifts, it will be my honor to do so.

What is good enough for the goose (and it looks like she’s eaten her fair share), is most certainly good enough for the gander. Why she thinks that the fortunes that were awarded to her should not be shared with her children is just selfish and ruthless in my opinion. Perhaps if she didn’t want life-long responsibility, she shouldn’t of even had children to begin with. No matter anyway, my guess is when they are older those kids won’t be coming over for Christmas dinner to a mansion and privilege that they are no longer privy to.

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Hi, my name is Prescott, and I’m a home makeover show junkie. (Hi, Prescott!)

Seriously — if the show involves tearing down walls and slapping up paint, I’m so there. I have a season pass set for Property Ladder on the Tivo. So it’s no surprise that when Trading Spaces debuted in 2000, I was immediately hooked. The chaos, the low budget, neighbors screwing up each other’s living room, Doug making women cry, what’s not to love?

Then TLC had to mess with their winning formula and take the show in a “new creative direction”. Paige Davis was dumped, designers left, they ditched a carpenter, and the participants went from soccer moms to young, trendy couples. And we didn’t like it. I gave up watching after a few episodes, along with millions of others. Trading Spaces’ ratings sank lower than a lead weight in the Mariana Trench.

But instead of canceling the show, they decided to give it one more try and go old school. Paige’s career as a stripper wasn’t working out, so they were able to woo her back — although sporting a kicky new haircut, which the wife could not get past (”Where’s the flip? WHY DID SHE CHANGE HER FLIP?” Yeah, she has issues). The budget has returned to $1,000 without all the “bonus room” and extra cash that was floating around the past couple seasons. Many of the original designers have returned as well — Frank, Laurie, Hildi, Doug, and Edward are on this season, but sorry, gentlemen, no Genevieve. We do have a little eye candy for the ladies (and closeted homosexuals like myself): meet Thad and Brandon, filling the role of hunky carpenter #1 and #2, respectively, a prerequisite on these shows.

The one big difference from the original is that they are no longer having neighbors trade spaces. Instead, the teams are put together to create maximum tension: a woman trading with her mother-in-law, an executive assistant trading with her boss, and on the premiere episode, ex-spouses trading bedrooms. It sounds gimmicky, but it did add a nice flavor to the show, especially since the ex-wife has since remarried but the ex-husband has not. So he constantly had the pained expression of, “sure, I would love to help design a lovely bedroom where ANOTHER MAN WILL BE BANGING MY WIFE.”

Doug came up with something completely non-offensive as always (although he did add a meat cart to the “steak house” look he was going for). Hildi is thankfully still working her “unique” (i.e., bat shit crazy) designs which usually feature 2,000 pounds of feathers or 6,000 doll heads, this time nailing up 1,500 rubber rings all over the walls. Have you noticed that she sadistically makes it so that if the homeowner doesn’t like what she’s done, it will require hours and hours of time to remove?

Bottom line: The original fun of Trading Spaces is back, and I’m glad to once again have my regular Saturday night date.

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Fit Pregnancy recently released their list of the best cities to have a baby, and U.S. Crunchy Central Portland, Oregon was at the top. The magazine looked at the 50 largest cities and their quality of health care, breastfeeding rates, availability of doulas and midwives, stroller friendly parks, etc. Results were tabulated by the “Fit Pregnancy Advisory Board”, whoever they are — probably a bunch of interns throwing darts at a map. Maybe I’m just bitter because my hometown, Chicago, ranked number 28th. What? Who wouldn’t want to have a baby in a Cook County hospital? And the Windy City gets an “F” for stroller-friendliness? The whole place is covered with concrete, what’s not stroller-friendly about that? Have you ever tried to push a stroller on a wooded trail or through a lush meadow? Not fun. Hmmph. Here’s a run down of the top 10:

1. Portland - perfect for socialists who don’t like to shave their armpits.
2. Minneapolis - great if you’re having a baby popsicle.
3. San Francisco - every commercial that uses a runaway ball, car, piano, etc. films on San Francisco’s hills — that’s stroller-friendly?
4. Seattle - like Portland, but with more caffeine and software moguls.
5. Denver - good luck with those high altitude breathing exercises.
6. Boston - if you’re carrying a wicked pissa, Boston is freakin’ awesome.
7. Omaha - so boring I don’t even have anything to say about it.
8. Virginia Beach - best thing Virginia has going for it? It’s not West Virginia.
9. Austin - just hope your due date isn’t during South by Southwest.
10. Albuquerque - actually, Albuquerque is kinda nice.

Bottom of the list? Detroit. So at least we’re better than the Motor City. Which is like being a better parent than Britney Spears.

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I could be wrong, but I have a sneaky feeling that this sheet of “made in China” Spongebob stickers we got at the dollar store is not an officially licensed Nickelodeon product:

Exhibit A — the oddly proportioned titular hero:

I would say this offers definitive proof that some sort of child labor law is being broken, and first graders are drawing these stickers by hand:

Squidward, from the rarely aired Simpsons crossover episode:

Despite the crude drawing, they still managed to convey Patrick’s tortured soul and suppressed homicidal rage:

This one erases any doubt as to these stickers country of origin:

Because “Happy Joy Luck Plane” wouldn’t fit.

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Your kid works hard, juggling hours of basketball practice with their school work, getting up early in the morning and coming home late at night. He showed the coach his dedication, and earned that spot on the varsity team. Then he went on to lead the team in scoring and rebounds. And what is his reward? No, not a starring role in High School Musical, instead, his natural ability is questioned and he’s tested for steroids:

The Illinois High School Association on Monday joined a small but growing number of states to implement mandatory random drug-testing for student-athletes. Its Board of Directors voted 10-0 to begin testing with the 2008-09 school year.

The timing was coincidental with two highly publicized incidents regarding drugs and sports. Last month the Mitchell report on the use of performance-enhancing substances in baseball included allegations Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award-winning pitcher, had taken steroids and human growth hormone.

Last week a U.S. District Court judge sentenced former Olympic track champion Jones to six months in prison in part for lying about her use of performance-enhancing drugs.

While at least a few dozen Illinois high schools have instituted drug-testing of athletes on their own in the last two decades, this is the first time the IHSA has mandated statewide testing. Few, if any, of the schools tested for steroids.

I’m what you might call a bit hard core when it comes to right-to-privacy issues, even when it comes to our kids’ schools. I don’t condone random locker searches, and I don’t condone random drug tests. I think it sends a horrible message to our children, that no matter how much they strive or how much they try and keep their noses clean, they will always be under suspicion. When I hear, “Well if they aren’t doing anything wrong, then they have nothing to worry about,” it makes me want to punch something. The fact that someone isn’t doing anything wrong means they should be free from being hassled.

Like I said, I’m a nut about such things, so maybe I’m being irrational — can anyone offer a little perspective? Is there any good reason why our school district should be conducting drug tests?

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I will admit that I cringe whenever I hear someone say, “Guess what? We’re pregnant!” The phrase really rubs me the wrong way. I think it’s because I never romanticized the whole pregnancy process, so to me “we’re pregnant” just feels so corny and cloying. Couple that with my bit of anal insistence on proper language use and disdain of malapropisms, and the eyes tend to roll back into my skull — not exactly following the rules for politeness on hearing such joyous news from a friend (perhaps that’s why I don’t have many of them).

So imagine my reaction reading this piece from the L.A. Times about a Christian group — quelle surprise — that’s trying to “change abortion’s pronoun”:

These days, he channels the grief into activism in a burgeoning movement of “post-abortive men.” Abortion is usually portrayed as a woman’s issue: her body, her choice, her relief or her regret. This new movement — both political and deeply personal in nature — contends that the pronoun is all wrong.

“We had abortions,” said Mark B. Morrow, a Christian counselor. “I’ve had abortions.”

I don’t doubt that some men may feel a sense of loss, but slapping a label on it and treating it like some sort of syndrome is a bit much, is it not? He goes on:

Morrow, the counselor, described his regret as sneaking up on him in midlife — more than a decade after he impregnated three girlfriends (one of them twice) in quick succession in the late 1980s. All four pregnancies ended in abortion.

Years later, when his wife told him she was pregnant, “I suddenly realized that I had four dead children,” said Morrow, 47, who lives near Erie, Pa. “I hadn’t given it a thought. Now it all came crashing down on me — look what you’ve done.”

What have you done? You prevented yourself from lining up “baby mamas” like you were P. Diddy, that’s what. I was prepared to write it off as a guy a bit too much in touch with his feelings until I read that this melodrama was part of a bigger plot — to use the passionate stories to try and influence the Supreme Court:

Therapist Vincent M. Rue, who helped develop the concept of post-abortion trauma, runs an online study that asks men to check off symptoms (such as irritability, insomnia and impotence) that they feel they have suffered as a result of an abortion. When men are widely recognized as victims, Rue said, “that will change society.”

Abortion rights supporters watch this latest mobilization warily: If anecdotes from grieving women can move the Supreme Court, what will testimony about men’s pain accomplish?

“They can potentially shift the entire debate,” said Marjorie Signer of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, an interfaith group that supports abortion rights.

I say not to worry — we all know that when a large group of privileged white men feel they are suffering an injustice, nothing is ever done about it, right?

Oh, shit.

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As a work-at-home parent (or WAHD), having the kids home all day every day for the 2 week winter break can be a bit, shall we say, DISTRACTING. My productivity levels were about as high as an unsupervised and disenchanted college intern who just discovered the subtle pleasures of Minesweeper. So it is without any shred of guilt that I say I’m exploding with joy that the little shitheads — I mean ANGELS — are back in school today.

Even despite my 9-year-old’s comment, “You’re just happy to get rid of us.”

Yep! Don’t let the school door hit you on the ass on the way in!

Can I get an amen?

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I remember, when I was a kid, a neighbor boy had the mouth of drunken sailor and at age 6, his fundamentally religious mother was not amused. It was the first time I witnessed somebody punishing another human with a cleanser. This was the 70s, so I believed she used Zest bar soap. It wasn’t pretty and it didn’t stop the kid from cursing up a storm at any given moment outside his home. It was gross, but he lived to tell the tale and continue to be a little jerk. I actually wish his mother did the soap punishment more often, because the kid was bad news and he was super creepy. His mother was really nice, but I think he was screwed up because his mom was too busy praying and making him read the Bible than because of the soap in the mouth.

…but I digress. On MotheringDotCommune, I read about an instance where Mother A was at Mother B’s house, picking up Mother A’s child from a play date. Mother A asked her kid to pick up and she said no. Mother A then marches the child into Mother B’s kitchen and squirts soap in her mouth.

Whoa! That mutha means business!!

This got the mothers on the forum into a tizzy. From the preponderance of deciding whether or not you can dictate what punishments parents are allowed to use in your home to the suggestion to call family services on the mother and whether or not that constituted child abuse and potentially removing the child from the mother’s care. As if they don’t have anything better to worry about.

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To: Prescott
From: The Disney Online Team
Subject: Your Disney Online Account

We are writing to inform you that inappropriate language has been found within a chat log attached to your child’s account, shown below:

15:14:04 : hell ball

15:18:05 : fuckin ball

15:24:01 : fuck ball

15:37:00 : FUCK

15:39:02 : FUCK SHIT CRAP BITCH DICK

15:41:01 : WHAT THE FUCK?

15:41:02 : FUCK!!!!!!!!!!

15:41:03 : F U C K

15:42:00 : F.U.

15:42:03 : F U C K

15:42:04 : @ss

15:42:05 : @SS

15:43:00 : F U

15:43:02 : F U HANAH

15:43:05 : OK F U C K E R

15:44:03 : fuck

15:44:05 : fuck

15:45:00 : F U HANAH

15:45:04 : FF.UU.CC.kk

15:46:01 : F..U..C..K

15:47:03 : YOUR A FUCKER HANNAH

15:48:01 : F U FU F U

15:48:04 : F U

15:49:05 : F U C K

15:50:01 : F U

We wish to create a friendly online environment, so using language that could be deemed inappropriate on Disney’s community of web sites is not permitted. Remember to keep it clean and keep it kind!

Thank you,

The Disney Online Team

————————————

To: Disney Online Team
From: Prescott
Subject: RE:Your Disney Online Account

To whom it may concern:

I’m very sorry about this infraction. Shit, I’ve been telling his goddamn mother to watch her mouth in front of the kids, I knew this crap was going to go on sooner or later. You can be sure as fuck that we will take care of this immediately, and I’m going to kick his ass if it happens again.

Yours in Mickey,
Prescott

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