I received a Star Wars Death Star ice cube mold for Christmas this year and was super excited to give it a try.  Especially because I’ve been enjoying some of the large ice cubes in my bourbon at one of our local bars that cools the beverage without watering it down.  So when I go this is was a double duty of cool.

As you can see in the picture above the detail is pretty good, but not as good as in the pictures in the packaging.

When inserted into the beverage (Maker’s Mark in this case) the detail completely vanishes and you are left with an ice sphere.  It did a pretty good job of maintaining it’s size and not watering down my drink while keeping it cool.

As a bonus it looked like the exploding Death Star after a few minutes (theatrical release, not special edition when Lucus messed up all the effects).  I would recommend this to other bourbon/Star Wars fans, the only down side being that at $15 a pop you can’t really afford to have that many of them.  So you might do what I do and just save it for those special occasions when you are have a quiet drink by yourself (and playing Black Ops II)

Leonard Maltin is the lazy minded person’s Roger Ebert.

My article about several misguided parents hooking iPads to strollers went live on 8bitdad.com com today.  Check it out:  Link to article

Williams-Sonoma Mini Silicone Spoonulas, Set of 4

In our house we have tried lots of different types of baby spoons, and the CLEAR winner for us were they Williams-Sonoma Spoolulas, which are not technically baby spoons.  My wife got them from me for Christmas a few years ago and they quickly became one of my favorite kitchen items.  The are just the right size to get every last drop of that bacon-flavored mayo out of the jar, can stand up to heat on the stove, and are super easy to clean by taking the head of the handle (also dishwasher safe).

For all those same reason they are the perfect baby spoon.  After all, we didn’t spend hours in the kitchen cooking homemade baby food not to get all of it in his mouth.  With these spoonulas you can scrape it all out of the bowl, easily clean his face with a quick swipe and retask dropped food from the tray just as quickly.

When baby decides that it’s his turn to do the feeding these are still our top choice since they are easy to grip and the plyable head is forgiving when jammed a little too far into the mouth.  At $19 for a set of 4 they are also a pretty good deal.  We use the same set for cooking as we do feeding and they perform wonderfully.

Williams-Sonoma tech info:

• Heads are molded from flexible silicone that won’t chip or crack
• Heads withstand heat up to 500°F
• Heads are removable for cleaning in a dishwasher
• Maple handles
• 7 3/4” long
• Made in USA

Playforever Enzo Motorbike (Red)

I recently came across these amazingly designed retro-inspired toys and was blown away.  The lines are so nice and the construction and materials feel much to solid to be a modern toy.. but I guess that’s what you get for $60ish each?

Playforever Midi 1 Race Car (British Racing Green)

I’m not sure if the manufacturing price is that high, or importing them from England is to blame, but at that price point it would be hard for me to justify giving one to my kid until he is a bit older and really appreciates the design of the toy rather than just smashing it together with blocks to make a banging sound.  But, until that time they can look great  sitting on my shelf.

Playforever Midi 2 (Blue)

You can see the rest of the line on Playforever’s website, which reminded me of how much I hated flash based wed design.  But after the huge load time it does have some nice images and really hard to read, but interesting information on the designer of these toys.  I also found the retail locator to be completely unreliable as the vendors I know of in GA are not listed (nor is anyone in GA) so I would just buy them at the above links via Amazon.

My mom bought me this book for Father’s Day this year and it was a really nice surprise.  Both because it’s great to see a book about fathers and sons, and because it almost feels like it’s written about me.

Spending the day with my son? I love that.

Playing soccer with my son? I love that.

Flying kites with my son? I love that.

Eating ice cream with my son? I love that.

Reading to with my son? I do that.

It’s a sweet little board book for pre/early readers that had some really nice illustrations and is fun to read and look at the pictures.  You can see more about the series here.

I was, however, a little puzzled with this review I found while looking for a picture to post for this story (see the bottom review).

3 stars and that description? 

I’m thinking drunk mommy (AKA Kirei) got online after ex-daddy’s support check bounced and wasn’t handing out any love to Mr. Hill, Spot or his daddy.

Farm living, is the life for me: When we remodeled our dining room into our son’s room in preparation for his arrival it didn’t take long for me to visualize all the toys that would fill his shelves.  Meanwhile, I suspect my wife was having the same visions of shelves full of books.  As a (toy) collector and designer, I took the job of choosing my son’s toys very seriously.Right from the start I told my wife I wanted to implement a “No toys with batteries” policy, which she went along with, perhaps not knowing the true implications of what she had agreed to.  At first it was awkward to explain to good friends that we couldn’t accept their gifts due to this policy, but once they had rolled their eyes at me it seemed like no big deal.

Atticus and his 1967 #915 barn

So, as I was thinking about my all time, top five favorite toys, and adjusted the list for age appropriateness, my #1 was Fisher-Price’s Little People line.  These were my first “action” figures.  Yes, yes, I know what you are say “But, an action figure is defined by having at least 1 point of articulation, which Little People don’t”.  You don’t think I know that? I know that! (and don’t get me started on My Little Ponies as action figures because the mane is “Articulated”) ..anyway, some how the Little People figures are like the appetizer to action figures.  Kids play with them in the same scenarios, and in the same way, just minus the articulation (and then you graduate to Adventure People, or Star Wars figures).

He’s a bit older, note that the FP #985 house boat has been added to the mix

Barn raising: Thinking back to when I was a kid, the Little People barn as one of my favorite toys, and I’m sure that everyone of my age knows that “Mooooo” sound that it makes when you open the left barn door.  Thus, it was an easy choice as one of my son’s first toys (sans figures of course).  It was my first, of many “I know this says ages 3+ but I think he will like it” decisions.  And this one paid off.  Right from the start he was very interested in turning the barn around to look at the different sides.  As time went on he started opening the upper and lowers doors.  And then, eventually, he started putting objects in and out of the compartments with great joy.  I hope that once he gets past putting everything in his mouth, and we are able to give him the figures, that he can once again find a new way to enjoy the barn.

At a year the barn is still his favorite toy

Sharing the love: Since I actually had a 1986 version of the #915 barn, in addition to the one we gave our son, I was very pleased to be able to give it to his cousin Cooper after he visited and spend the entire weekend carrying our son’s barn around with him.

His cousin Cooper having fun with the 1986 #915 we gave him

And of course since no collection of Fisher-Price barns would be complete without a 1979 version of the #915 I was able to give that one to our friend Alex.  Who I understand likes to use it as a launching platform for his new found standing, and on at least one occasion, to test the density of his face (Alex’s parents).

Our friend Alex’s first encounter with the 1979 #915 we gave him

The bottom line: I love this toy!  As long as it’s pre-1990, because at that point they destroyed the design by bloating everything to make it “safe”. 

You can can easily buy the #915 barn from eBay for less than $30 with shipping.  A lot of them say “1960’s version” but the real key is to look at the base.  The origonal had the thin brown masonite base and the newer ones have a thicker green plastic.  And honestly, the plastic base does stand up a little better to a beating, but I like the origonal just a bit better, even if ours has a few chips in it. 

Be warned, once you buy the barn the and see how great it is, you risk having to buy the parking garage, then the house boat, castle, airport.. and, well, those posts will be coming soon.

Research or Junkie fix: A great resource for vintage toy info online is thisoldtoy.com as well as this nice site Fisher-Price Little People World and here is the page on the #915 barn with WAY more information than you could ever want to know about it.

Alex, just a little more than a month later, is a barn pro!

Responsible dad talk:

WARNING:  it is important to keep the Little People figures away from kids until they stop putting things in their mouths as these toys pre-date our current “choking hazard” standards.  AKA: pay attention dumb ass!

DOUBLE WARNING: the doggie and little girl with pig tails figures are know to get lodged in kids throats because the dog ears and pig tails can act like barbs and have been known to require an incision in the throat to remove them.  Like I said, don’t give these to your kids if they are putting things in their mouths.  But the playsets are fine at any age!

Playtex straw sippy cup “volcanoing” from cold milk warming to room temperature.

(Elapsed time 7 minutes)

Hitting the bottle:  as we transition away from the bottle with our son we had a large collection of sippy cups that various people had given us and without knowing much about it I started using them, because it seemed like the logical next step.  One of those sippy cups had a straw rather than they nipple-like spout and he really seemed to prefer drinking from that one.  Also, when we were out to eat he was VERY interested in drinking from our straws, which we encouraged.  So it seemed like skipping the “nipple” sippy cup and going right to a straw made sense. 

That day I went to our favorite baby store (New Baby Products) to browse the selection of straw cups since I know that they hand pick the best ones.  The sales person recommended the Bot straw cup by Zoli, which looked good to me, so I bought one and took it home.  One the first use our son dropped it from his highchair and a part inside the cup broke.  Bummer.  I Emailed Zoli and they were very quick to send me a replacement part, which eased the frustration of it braking on the first use.  However I soon noticed that it leaked a lot around the joint of the cup and the lid.  Especially when he would bang it on his high chair tray.  I thought that perhaps I was not screwing the top on all the way and made a concerted effort to be more careful.  However, the next day when I tossed it on my diaper bag to run some errands I was really pissed to find that it had leaked everywhere in the 10 minutes it took us to get tot the store.  Especially because I was SUPER careful to to the top on correctly.  It was at that point that my quest for the perfect straw cup began.

Since that bag soaked day I have bought a ridiculous number of straw cups and turned my product designer focus on them. 

User Study: When designing a new product one of the first things I like to do is a user study.  That is watching people use the current products in the area that I am working on, and to that end my son has been using all of these different cups for the past few months.  From that data I then write a “Design Criteria”.  This is a list of all the factors/features that I (or the client) am looking for in a successful product design.  It also acts as a checklist to evaluate design concepts as well as the final design against to ensure that it meets the desired needs of the product.

Close, but no cigar:  One of the first things I noticed about pretty much all of the cups (other than the Bot) was that the straws stopped about 1/2”-3/4” of an inch from the bottom of the cup.  This meant that no matter how had my son worked he could not get that last bit of drink, which he could see since most of the cups were clear.  It was interesting watching him trying to solve the problem by shaking, banging and ultimately tipping the cup up like a bottle, but none of this would yield any drink for him.  The other frustrating (and expensive) thing (for me) was throwing out the 1/2 cup of his organic milk every time he used the cup because he could physically not drink it.

Bot straw cup by Zoli with weighted straw

The Bot cup had a nice idea by adding a small weight to the end of the straw so that no matter how the cup was tipped it was always in the fluid.  However, as I mentioned my weight broke on the first use after being dropped, I suspect due to a design flaw in the thin walls in the up spout that attaches to the straw.

There she blows:  Another issue was, as we called it, “volcanoing”.  When you place cold liquid inside a pressurized contained as it heats to room temperature it expands.  Since the cups didn’t have a pressure release valve the milk exits the cup the only place it can, via the straw.  Once again this was very frustrating and expensive, especially because at this point he is walking around with his cup at snack time and it “erupts” milk on our carpets, furniture and him.

      Cup “Volcanoing” milk after 7 minutes of sitting on the counter

What’s that smell: Another big problem I found was cleaning these cups.  The Bot with it’s weight, which scored high marks in the drinking department, was the worst offender in the cleaning.  I bought the small brushes specifically for cleaning these straws, but they would not fit the Bot and soon it had a foul smell to it.  I looked on the Zoli website and they recommend adding hot water and shaking it (to make it volcano) and using your fingers to “remove the muck”.  YUCK!

Several of the other cups had pretty straight forward straw designs that we easy to clean, with the exception of the Munchkin Flip Straw Cup which had such a complex system to insert the straw that it was almost impossible to get out to clean and put it back in.

That sucks:  Two other big issue are intuitiveness and usability.  You want your child to understand what the cup is, how it works AND be able to use it.  Remembering that the goal of this cup is not only to hydrate/feed them but also train them to use a “real” straw.  Most of the straw cups do that in the same way, they are a straw.  Simple right?  Not for the Nuby (no-spill) cup with “Touch-Flo valve”, they have a fluted top to the straw that you have to bite to open the valve and be able to suck the fluid out.  Bite and then suck.  Seems very intuitive and like it’s training a kid for the next step.. did I mention that the opening is only in one direction?  So if you bite in one direction it opens, but rotate the straw 90 degrees and your bite actually closes it more.  The straw does have small raised areas that I guess is a guide on where to bite, but it took me 5 minutes to figure it out.  Then once I go t that I realized that you about about a 1/3” bite zone to open the straw.  bit too high and it will not open, but bite too low and will not open either.  Hoping that my kid was smarter than me I gave it to him and he spent 5 minutes and could not figure it out either (RETURNED).  Which really sucked because it was the only one with a pressure release valve and it had a nice rubber gasket to seal the lid with.

                     Nuby (no-spill) cup with “Touch-Flo valve”

ETC. ETC: I also found that a lot of these cup leaked when banged around (open or with a top on them) from what seemed like poor fitting of parts or lose tolerance (see cover closure of Bot cup).  I know that I could carry his beverage in a separate container and dispense it in to the cup while he drinks it and them pour the rest back into the container, but that just seem stupid to me.

Design Criteria:  So, here is what I came up with for the straw cup based on my user study.

Essential features (things a successful cup design should do on every use)

1. Cup must permit consumption of all fluids
2. Cup must not leak when in use
3. Cup must not leak when sealed and not in use
4. Cup must be easy to clean
5. Straw must be easy to clean
6. Straw must be easy to remove and reinstall
7. Rugged construction
8. Intuitive (for both child and parent)

Desirable features  (while not 100% critical, features that should be included)

• Internal pressure release system
• Dishwasher safe
• BPA free
• Transitions from sippy to straw to drinking cup
• Minimal parts
• Availability of replacement parts (as needed)

Survey says:  Out of all the cups I tested NOT ONE had every feature that I think these cups should have.  It’s kind of crazy actually.  I’m not sure why that is, maybe a price point issue?  We paid as little as $2.75 and as much as $18.00 for a cup and would gladly pay (slightly) more for a single cup that did it’s job.  When you factor in the wasted/spilled milk, damage from spills, cleaning products used and general frustration it would easily be worth it.  But, as I said it does not exist.

For us the Kid Basix Safe Sippy 2 is the closest to our dream cup.  It is stainless steel, so it can take a beating, has a nice straw that reaches (almost) to the bottom.  It can be used as a straw cup, or drinking bottle (although they don’t change the mouth piece, which again goes to confusing interface for the kid).  It does not seem to volcano (much) but the big flow is that you can’t seal it for travel.  Well, you can, but you have to disassemble the cup and put a plug on the inside that will then have to be removed when you want to use it.

Kid Basix Safe Sippy 2 shown w/straw removed, travel plug (dark orange) & cap

So, I guess the best I can recommend to anyone is pick the features that are most important to you and buy that cup and try not to think about the others you are not getting.  After all he will only use it for 4-8 months before graduating on to a “big boy” cup anyway.  And I’m sure those are all perfectly designed!

Shopaholic: I love Target.  I do. 

As a stay at home Dad I do 95% of the shopping for our family, which includes groceries, clothing (for the kiddo, myself and even a lot for my wife) as well as the other kink-knacks we may need.  As a product designer I love to shop and see what new products and packaging are out there.  So when my son and I have enough items on the list to make a trip to Target we spend a good hour plus there, and walk the entire store, whether we need something from every department or not.  It’s a pleasant store to be in, nice AC in these hot Atlanta months and I always find at least one item that surprises me (which I enjoy).  Not to mention that my wife is also a designer and that her company’s products are carried by Target (AKA Target pays some of my mortgage) so I like to show them some love. 

Another nice thing about Target is that they have a good rotating selection of Men’s clothes.  Not that I buy very many clothes, but when I need something basic like jeans, underwear* or a basic shirt I know Target has me covered. 

HOWEVER, recently I’ve been paying more attention to the “Graphic Tees” display in the Men’s section.  I’ve always seen it, but usually I think of it as focused on the same frat-boy/post-frat boy crowd that buys the prefaded trucker Guinness hats that come with a matching shirt.  Not someone like me, a late 30’s nerd.

You are only as old as you feel: Then last week I had that stereotypical Old Man reaction thinking to myself “I had that shirt when it came out originally.  Do these kids even know what an Atari is or who the Goonies are?”.

Thinking back on it that night I started to wounder if Target was trying to reach me as a customer?  Or was this “Atari/Goonies” stuff cool again for the younger folks like my parents reel to reel when I was a kid?  Then the harsh realization hit me.  Despite the fact that I did have a lot of these type of shirts when they were new, and still have some, I think I’m too old to wear them now.

When I see guys my age in these shirts I think: 1. I know you got that at Target and it’s not vintage (minus 7 cool points for you), 2. you look like you are trying to be younger than you are(minus 16 cool points), 3. why are you “buying style” rather than creating your own (minus 33 cool points).  This is a harsh realization for a man that owns several Star Wars shirts that are in regular rotation.

So am I that guy too?  I was reminded of a brilliant quote from a shitty movie:

        “The men dress like children, the children dress like superheroes”                       -Ben Stiller in Greenberg

This seems pretty right on to me.  I still like a lot of the clothes that I wore as a kid (not the 80’s stuff) and at the same time I love my 40’s style double breasted suits and fedoras too.  Maybe I’m in danger of becoming like that friend of my Dad that continues to wear his polyester leisure suits to this day because that’s the time in his life when he felt that he looked the best or felt them most comfortable as a person?

At any rate, I’m not sure we necessarily hit an age when clothes become inappropriate (if you can physically pull it off), but perhaps we hit a mental state that they are.  Now that I’m a father of a 1 year old and in my late 30s (and live in the sweltering heat of the South) I struggle to find things that are comfortable, not too hot, easy to clean puke off of and make me feel like I’m an adult that likes to have fun.  Right now that means ugly sneakers with bike socks, cargo/Northface pants and fun but subdued non-mainstream Ts and perhaps a short sleeve button up over it.  The real test is unexpectedly walking past a mirror out in the world, seeing myself and hoping that my reaction is “hey, there is a hip Dad” and not “WTF was that guy thinking this morning”. 

So far it’s 50/50, but I’m working on it.  And I still wear my Umbros with boxer shorts around the house because that is the most comfortable/coolest look ever!

*Side Bar:  In all my years of buying my underwear at Target, and shopping at many different Targets, I have never been to a single store that the Men’s underwear section wasn’t totally mis-stocked.  It’s as if a hurricane blows trough them and all the different sizes are wildly thrown on the racks.  ‘Nuff said.