Entries from June 2010 ↓

I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that, in addition to being the World’s Greatest Dad (and I’ve got the mug to prove it), I also qualify for the role of World’s Funnest Uncle**.  But as one comedian put it, there is a very thin line between “fun uncle” and “creepy uncle”… or words to that effect.  And few things define that line quite like a little game I played last night called, “Flapdoodle.”

Flapdoodle, according to its Amazon production description, is “a totally silly game for kids and families. Use your creativity and imagination to answer crazy questions and do silly stunts.” For each of these questions and stunts, you get to move forward a certain number of spaces.  List three things from the ocean that you would NEVER want on your sandwich (seaweed, algae and, let’s face it, oil) and you move ahead one space.  Use the back of a chair like a steering wheel and pretend you’re a motorcycle for 60 seconds, and congratulations, you just bumped up three spaces.

Now I’d say 95% of these questions and stunts would place any adult male safely into the category of “fun uncle.”  For instance, “In a rockstar voice, repeat the words WET RAIN and DRY LEAVES until the timer runs out.”  Perfect opportunity to elicit some giggles from my ten- and six-year-old nieces with my AC/DC and Metallica impressions.  Or how about pretending your two big toes are named Gus and Earl and you need to make them have a conversation about potato chips.  Fun Uncle GOLD.  But wait, then we get this card: “Close your eyes and have all the players line up in front of you.  Identify each player using only your sense of smell.”

(AGH! AGH! AGH!)

(WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!)

I’m sorry, but if my female niece, who stands perched precisely on the threshold of puberty and adolescence, goes home and tells her mom that “Uncle Brian was smelling me,” I’m guessing there won’t be any more sleepovers at the Hodges house.

Still, barring a couple cards that, while most definitely cute and harmless when played exclusively amongst 6- to 12-year-old girls, but which are borderline we-may-have-to-send-Dateline-to-check-out-this-guy’s-computer-history once you get a 30-year-old involved, it really is a fun game.

Especially for kids with the world’s funnest uncle.

**Excluding, of course, any and all uncles under the age of thirty who drive a convertible and are still in the amusing early stages of full blown alcoholism.

Jesse clearly has trouble with his hearing since, ya know, we have to tell him like ten times to go put on his pajamas and yet thirty minutes later he’s still just finally getting around to taking his socks off.  Yet somehow that boy’s ears can hone in on the precise frequency of a Mellow Yellow bottle opening on the other side of the house and it sets him off running: “Daddy, c’I haf some SO-DA???”  Wonder if that’s some kind of selective X-Man superpower?

I should come clean right off the bat.  I freakin’ LOVE Miley Cyrus.  I think her music is catchy.  I think her TV show is pretty damn hilarious.  I think she’s a cute kid and, if her performance a few weeks back on Dancing with the Stars is anything to go by, she’s going to be a smokin’ hot woman.  So I’m clearly coming from a bit of a biased standpoint here, but…

I can’t help but crack up at people who make fun of Miley Cyrus.  Well, let me clarify.  I kind of get people busting on her for her silly personal life trials, her controversial photo shoots, and that Twitter rap she did which embarrassed even ME vicariously.  But when it comes to her MUSIC, what is there to make fun of?  First of all, you’d really have to be made of stone not to AT LEAST tap your foot to the bubblegum pop beats of at least some of her songs.  (I’m looking at you “Ice Cream Freeze“).  But beyond that, guess what grownups, THESE SONGS AREN’T INTENDED FOR YOU!  Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Miley tends to get most of her airplay on a little station called Radio Disney.  Her target market is tweenage girls who are still too young to have discovered how to be musically pretentious.  So to mock and belittle the “overproduced, mindlessly peppy” music (which, by the way is earning her MILLIONS) is kind of like that loser sixth grader who made fun of Kindergartners for watching “Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.”  Of COURSE you think it’s stupid.  It’s intended for people HALF YOUR AGE!!!

So please, for the love of your own dignity, if you’re over the age of 25, leave Miley alone. LEAVE HER ALONE!!!