Category Archives: It's a Rant

Bizarre Baby Names

Posted on March 21, 2011 | 61 Comments

When I was pregnant, the best decision I made was to tell no one the names I was considering for my uterus-imprisoned twins. I did tell my husband, though, which led to many name debates. For the majority of names we bandied about, we tended to respond with one of the following retorts:

  • “That was the name of one of my exes”
  • “That was the name of one of your exes”
  • “I had an annoying student named that”
  • “Are you freaking crazy?”

Not telling anyone worked for us. Once our babes were born and we did the reveal, few people criticized our chosen names, Vivian and William, at least not to our faces.

There are some soon-to-be parents, however, who would benefit from running the names they’re considering by the Don’t-Beat-Me-Up-at-School, Name-Vetting Organization.

This past week, the province of Alberta released its list of 2010 baby names. The government tracks the names of every baby born in the province and releases this data. The most popular names from 2010 seem to fall into the category of classic-names-that-are-now-trendy.

Here are the top ten girls’ names:

And here are the top ten boys’ names:

These are not too shocking, in my opinion; I know plenty of kids with these names. But then there were the clangers, the one-of-a-kind names that make you wonder whether many of these parents-to-be froze a substantial portion of their brain cells over a series of long Canadian winters.

BIZARRE BOY NAMES

Name: Canada
Makes me ask: Would his parents be that patriotic if they lived in Burkino Faso?

Name: Brik
Makes me ask: As in throw a Brik through your window? As in thick as a Brik?

Name: Boomer
Makes me ask: Was he named after the generation he’ll have to support?

Name: Viktorious
Makes me ask: What if the kid’s not athletic? What if he’s the last one picked for sports teams? Maybe his middle name’s Irony.

BIZARRE GIRL NAMES

Name: Gorgeous
Makes me ask: Have the parents forgotten what it’s like to be in Junior High?

Name: Eclypse
Makes me ask: Did Twilight and New Moon make their short list?

Name: Universe
Makes me ask: Will she suffer from “always expanding” jokes?

Name: Palin
Makes me ask: Will she have a Tea Party for every birthday?

Other names recorded on the 2010 Name List include Diamond, Serenity, Elektra-Lee, Infinity for girls. And Duramax, Thatcher, Santana and Famous for boys.

If you want to know how this compares to last year, you can click here to get to my snarky post from last year.

Now I hand it over to you:

What do you think of bizarre names?

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Destroying Things on International Women’s Day

Posted on March 7, 2011 | 26 Comments

Last year, in honour of International Women’s Day, I destroyed a toy that I believe lowered the glass ceiling for my daughter and didn’t help my son’s view of women. On March 8, 2010, I gave Stripper Barbie a funeral. I’ve reposted the You Tube video below.

If you want to read more about what what prompted me to give Barbie a funeral, check out my post from last year, International Women’s Day, Movies, and Stripper Barbie.

This year, I have nothing so dramatic to destroy on March 8 except for a pair of girls’ red shoes. These shoes are heeled and are no doubt made from the carcinogen family of plastics. For a couple of years now, Vivian (and occasionally William) have paraded around in them, slipping every third step. It’s rather like watching Bambi trying to stand on ice. Generally I toss the shoes back into our dress up box before a trip to the ER is required. Then, a month or so later, I hear the clip clop of uncertain steps again.

It’s not so much the colour of the shoes that bothers me: Dorothy’s red sparkly footwear helped her return to Kansas, and I have my own peep toe pumps that make me stand well over 6’ tall. I’m all for fun footwear.

But I cringe when kids are strapped into heels that cause them to walk as though their feet have been bound since birth. If I cared enough, I’d critique Tom and Katie over their choices in Suri’s footwear, but I don’t. Other people can equip their children how they see fit.

All I really know is that I want my daughter to be able to take confident strides; she’ll need them to climb through the glass ceiling.

Cue the dirge for the funeral procession. Rest in peace, trashy-girl shoes.

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Please comment, or suggest items you’d like to have a funeral for.

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Posted in It's a Rant, Slice of (My Psycho) Life

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Five “Best of 2010″ Toys That Really Suck

Posted on November 22, 2010 | 13 Comments

Black Friday approaches, like an SUV-sized pothole that threatens to eat our credit. Yes, the Friday following American Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year in the U.S., which means bank accounts will be suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder before a single Christmas stocking gets stuffed.

In honor of this retail harbinger of holiday shopping, it’s time for my second annual Toys-That-Suck post.

Here Are the Top 5 Toys of 2010 That Really Suck:

1. Barbie Video Girl Doll

  • Description: Barbie with a video screen on her back and a camera above her breasts
  • Premise: Barbie swallows a camcorder
  • Pitch by product development team: “And we will call her ‘Barbie Video Girl Doll’ because that’s easy to say, especially for a four-year-old.”
  • Favorite excerpt from Amazon.com review: “I HATE THE IDEA [of the doll] AND THINK YOU CAN KICK THE IDEA TO THE CURB.”
  • Snarky commentary: Brilliant invention. Because as a society we need to promote taking off Barbie’s clothes and touching her breasts while filming something. I mean seriously. Just when you think our children are playing creatively with a doll, someone has to go add a screen to it. Plus, what’s with Amazon.com’s pricing? It is $39 for the blond version, $50.99 for the brunette one, and $68.54 for the African American doll.

2. Mattel’s Monster High Doll


  • Description: A long-legged, scary looking doll with heavy make up
  • Premise: Barbie’s Gone Goth, or Bratz on a diet
  • Pitch by product development team: “There’s a hole in the market waiting to be filled. We will create a doll with proportions more extreme than Barbie’s.”
  • Favorite excerpt from Amazon.com review: “I JUST HAD TO MENTION TO ALL THOSE REVIEWERS WHO COMPLAIN ABOUT HAND AND ARMS FALLING OFF THESE DOLLS, IF YOU READ THE DIRECTIONS, THEY ARE MADE TO DO THAT.”
  • Snarky commentary: The Monster High Doll looks like Barbie mated with Jacob from Twilight (evidently Team Edward lost the game of genetic roulette). Moreover, our daughters will benefit from a doll with longer legs because, with all this body image awareness out there, they may be starting to feel like they’re good enough just as they are. And that’s just not good for the multi-billion dollar beauty industry.

3. Fisher Price’s We-Did-It Dora

It's not We-Did-It Dora, but it foreshadows her final adventure

  • Description: Dora, now with longer hair, says “We did it” and does a dance number, which primarily consists of flapping her arms.
  • Premise: Dora, not only yelling, but now repeating the same phrase, and flailing.
  • Pitch by product development team: “We take Dora, rip off the Nike slogan, and add a bit of Dancing with the Stars.”
  • Favorite excerpt from Amazon.com review: “I bought this doll as a birthday present for my niece, and she loves it! I live out of state…” I can think of many toys that I’d rate highly if lived 500 miles from them.
  • Snarky commentary: Like I said in last year’s toy review, I like Dora, because she’s not Barbie in shape or attitude. Granted, Dora yells a lot and should probably be sold with a pair of earplugs (or free shipping out-of-state).  One has to wonder if the We-Did-It Dora flaps her arms so much because she wants to get away.

4. Scrabble Flash

  • Description: A modern version of Scrabble that’s about speed, not vocabulary (or knowing that qi is a word)
  • Premise: Diet Scrabble, or Scrabble Zero
  • Pitch by product development team: “It’ll be perfect for those kids who only know one-syllable words and who have the attention span of a gnat on speed.”
  • Favorite excerpt from Amazon.com review: “Being a middle aged adult though, with no children, I quickly found I needed more of a challange [sic] than this offers.” If this reviewer were a middle aged adult with children, opening the box would be enough of a challenge.
  • Snarky commentary: I like Scrabble. It is one of those things that I enjoy, but don’t actually do much of, like exercising and listening to classical music. With Scrabble Flash, Hasbro has created a version that takes less than two hours, does not require a dictionary, and has three solo features. It’s brilliant because who can sit for two hours anymore? Plus, who actually has time to interact with children?  According to Amazon’s kids-could-die warning, the game is recommended for ages eight and up because kids under eight could choke on the balloon. Wait: there’s a balloon in Scrabble? How many six-year-olds run around with balloons in their mouths? Never mind. I have two in my own house.

5. Smart Cycle Racer Physical Learning Arcade System


  • Description: Primary color stationary bike meets video game.
  • Premise: We are better parents if our kids burn some calories while we plop ‘em in front of a screen.
  • Pitch by product development team: “It’s a Junior-Couch-Potato Training System, complete with a Video Game option. We’ll keep the cup holder option for the next model.”
  • Favorite excerpt from Amazon.com review: “It’s almost impossible to peddle [sic] it very fast…it looks like someone just repackaged some old programming…[it] freezes up, and is a bit difficult to navigate.”
  • Snarky commentary: I think Fisher Price should’ve added more adjectives into the name of this product; after all, there’s only four with smart, physical, learning, and arcade. I suspect Fisher-Price is casting their net wide, aiming for a large audience, from parents who want their kids to learn something, to kids whose adrenalin starts pumping the moment they hear the word arcade. But, seriously, whatever happened to letting your kid run around outside?
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What toys or games will you (or won’t you) be buying this holiday season?
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(Photo courtesy of Mike McCaffrey, used under a (cc) ShareAlike license)

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