Book Reviews and Money Saving Tips

I know another “be careful on the Internet” article. The Internet is somewhat like Las Vegas, it has beauty, glitz, shiny lights, fabulous shows and as long as you stay on the main drag in the well known places you are safe. If you wander off onto side streets, just like in any major city, you may find things you really didn’t want to see. You can caution older kids and revoke Internet privileges if they ignore your cautions. Pre-school and primary grade children are an entirely different situation. Older kids may wander into nefarious activity intentionally; the younger ones generally get into questionable areas quite unintentionally. This isn’t a new problem, an article in the NY Times six years ago pointed out that kids searching for something like Disney and misspelling it, ended up in places they shouldn’t have been. I point this out because these very young children seem quite adept on the computer. There are a wealth of sites that have mentally challenging g...

I Like To Whine by William G. Bentrim is now available for purchase at Blurb . Personally, I probably whine too much but this is my book for kids on whining and it’s consequences. It is my first attempt at selling a book. I have books I give away at http://www.bentrim.info/ under free books. A long time desire to actually publish something is the motivating factor on putting I Like to Whine on Blurb . If nothing else check it out and let me know what you think. Of course, if you want to buy a copy, WHOOHOO!

Ok, Bakugan Battle Brawler s is another extraordinarily overpriced TV show promoted kids game. If you kids watches TV cartoons, they are exposed to a continuous stream of thinly veiled infomercials. These are not cartoons like Tom & Jerry, they are the Pokemon version of extended commercials. Bakugan Battle Brawlers are another example of the despicable lengths our enlightened corporations go to market to kids. If the toys were reasonably priced then you might be able to justify the marketing ploys. Bakugan Battle Brawlers look like they should be found in Crackerjack boxes, remember the free toys in Crackerjack? These preteen infomercials create a market, promote an erroneous perception of value by alluding to the collector value of the toy (yeah right) and instigate conflict over the purchase of these questionable toys. If you refuse to succumb to the pleas to purchase, you are a horrible parent and obviously don’t love your kid. Short of banning TV, I don’t know what a parent ...

Sex in the 70’s was less stressful since the STD acronym hadn’t been coined yet. Unprotected sex didn’t kill you, it made you go for treatment but you lived and successfully procreated years later. Today unprotected sex seem like it leads to sure death and destruction. Kids today have more choices and face far more consequences than those of us who somewhat aimlessly floundered through puberty and beyond. Advertising has sexualized our children younger and younger. I buy clothes for my granddaughter and some of the stuff I see is just sleazy, totally inappropriate for a toddler and it gets worse as they get to the preteen years. In the 70’s, children were pretty much left to be children without a lot of pressure to be the next Brittney Hilton . The free sex of the 70’s frightened the establishment so much they came up with the abstinence only plan, forgoing education on practicing safe sex and we have more disease, unwanted pregnancies and problems than ever. Porno was on the big sc...

First you need a Wii then you add the Zapper. I am a Wii fan and I don’t even own one. My boys have Wii and I have a ball playing games with my grandchildren on the Wii. Since my kids had the first cybercafé in the area, I got to experiment with a lot of the cool kid related stuff. So for all you old Atari gamers out there, the Wii is a whole different level. I can bowl or play tennis with my 4 year old grandchild and race cars with my 10 year old. The Zapper adds the ability to point and shoot. It comes with software that has some strange looking skeletal creatures that you can shoot as they crawl out of the sand or even stranger looking ones that conveniently put targets on their chest. The price is right, $20.00 in many places. It works very well, you put the remote in the Zapper and it becomes you ticket to all sorts of shooting games. Yes, you shoot things. When I was a kid I had all kinds of toy guns and I have yet to succumb to any kind of mindless shooting spree. I tried to lim...