MetroDad

And now a word from our sponsors!

Recently, a corporate PR firm contacted a few of my all-time favorite female bloggers and sent them free samples of KY Sensual Mist Personal Lubricant.  In exchange, all the women were asked to write a brief review of the product and post it on their sites.  (Search their sites to find the reviews.  They'll have you laughing your collective asses off.  Plus, if you're not already reading these women, you really should be.)

Weirdly enough, I found myself a little envious that my female blogging compatriots were getting some free goodies and I wasn't.  Not that I wanted any KY Mist or anything.  BossLady and I prefer to use PAM Cooking Spray as a sexual lubricant.  It's much cheaper and the smell of artificial butter always gets us in the mood. 

Anyway, in a strange set of coincidences, I was approached a few weeks ago by several PR firms and asked to review various products that were being targeted specifically to men. 

My first reaction was "Awesome!  Free condoms for everyone!"

But surprisingly, these PR firms didn't want to send me condoms.  They wanted to send me camcorders, digital cameras, DVD players, and PDAs.  Holy freaking jackpot, Batman! This was a gadget geek's wet dream.  So,trying to keep my cool, I started conversing with a few of these PR guys.

"So, let me get this straight.  You're going to send me free shit and it's totally my decision whether I want to review it on my site?"

"That's pretty much it."

"You've read my site before, right?  It's not really a product review blog. I usually just tell funny stories about drinking my wife's breast milk, feeding dog food to the baby, and waiting until the 7th inning stretch to change her diaper."

"Yes, we know.  However, we think you have a great audience who would be interested in hearing your opinion about various products aimed at the parenting demographic."

"But what if I think the product sucks donkey ass?  Do I have to write about it?  Can I still keep the stuff?"

"Absolutely."

"Sign me up, sir. I'm in."

At first, I had some moral qualms about accepting free swag.  What would my readers think?  Was there a conflict of interest involved?  Would I be beholden to the swag? 

Then I realized I was being an idiot.  This was not a moral quagmire.  The war in Iraq, the right to abortion, gun control...THOSE are moral quagmires!  This?  This was just free stuff.  Why was I overthinking it? 

Anyway, the first product I received was a DVD camcorder.  It looked very cool and shiny.  However, the product manual was apparently written by the same people who work for Ikea.  In other words, I'm pretty sure that they were translated from Japanese to English by someone who only speaks Swedish.  When I figure out how to use it, I'll consider writing a review. 

However, the next product I received was an Insignia Portable DVD Player sent to me by my new best friend Charlie (Some of you may know Charlie because he's also sent these DVD players to my blogging friends Mir and Lucinda.  He's like the Patron Saint of bloggers.)

Anyway, I'd never heard of Insignia before.  For all I knew, they were the Sony of Eastern Lithuania.  Turns out they're a company based here in the U.S. of A...making their products in China.  So needless to say, I was a bit skeptical when I received the DVD player.  I had visions of the fake "Prata" bags sold down on Canal Street. 

But you know what?  This DVD player is actually pretty cool.  It's nice and slim and has a full swivel screen.  If you let your kids watch DVDs in the car, I'd imagine this one would work out just fine.  It's also light enough for you varsity travelers and corporate sales jockeys to take on long plane rides.  In fact, it even comes with a remote control (if you're too lazy to lift your arm 5" in any given direction.) 

Here's a photo:

I have no idea how this thing compares to any other DVD player on the market in terms of price, quality or reliability.  I'm having fun playing around with it and I haven't had any problems at all. 

And, in all honesty, the greatest thing I love about this DVD player is that it's free!

So...thanks, BestBuy!  Thanks, Insignia!  And most of all, thanks, Charlie!  If you happen to come across any sponsorships from Aston Martin, Johnnie Walker Scotch, or Phillip Morris?  Let me know.  I'm your man!

And readers...what do YOU think?  Have I whored myself out completely?  Will you still respect me in the morning?  What do you think about the fact that marketers are starting to recognize blogs as way to garner press?   Does it change your impression of this (or any other) site?  Should I give all of you Charlie's e-mail address so you can get some swag too? 

Because, now that he's been pimping, MetroDad feels like a Jigga-man, a Pimp-C and a B.U.N.B.   

 

Daddytypes: As brought to you by Slate

Our favorite gadget-obsessed father and erudite man-about-town, Greg of DaddyTypes, has a very funny piece in today's issue of Slate Magazine. Befitting his status as purveyor of all things Daddy-related, Greg's article is (as he calls it), "the first chapter of his dissertation on stroller-buying." Those of you who read daddytypes regularly will appreciate the semi-ironic humor in that phrase.

But go check out Greg's essay. And congratulate him as he joins the ranks of such fellow Slate luminaries as Jacob Weisberg, Ann Hulbert, Mickey Kaus, and Michael Lewis.

Caveat Emptor!

I'm going to take a brief hiatus from writing about parenthood to discuss my absolute love of E-Bay. Because, truth be told, there are very few things I love as much as E-Bay. Here are some brief thoughts on my love for E-Bay...

(1) The absolute weirdness and individuality of it all is just awesome. Truly, more than anything, E-Bay really proves Locke's Theory of Individuality. No matter how weird you think you are, there's always someone out there weirder than you. After all, one man's toe nail clippings are another man's fortune.

(2) I've never been judgmental about the items sold on E-Bay. As long as it's legal, who are we to interfere in commercial transactions between two consenting adults? You want to auction off the name of your baby? Tattoo your forehead? Sell your virginity? Go right ahead, my friends. This is America. Who am I to cast judgment? After all, I live in a city that was bought for $24 in glass beads.

(3) The Virgin Mary on a Grilled Cheese Sandwich! This cracked me up. I thought it was so funny that I actually bid on it. I could not believe my eyes when it ended up going for over $28,000. Other classic E-Bay auctions? Ghost in a jar, Air guitar, Brett Favre's house and an Ex-wife's wedding dress (shown being worn by the jilted husband).

(4) My early fascination with E-Bay led me to become a shareholder in the company. Unfortunately, my investment wasn't large enough for me to retire early, sit on a beach, drink martinis and discuss sports all day with my foodtaster. Nor was it enough for me to pay for the Peanut's college tuition...unless she wants to go to a state school in Guam.

Anyway, I started thinking about my love for E-bay tonight because the BossLady has been selling quite a few items there lately. Every since the Peanut was born, we've been avid E-Bay users. We buy virtually everything for the Peanut off E-bay...toys, books, clothes, everything! For any parents-to-be out there, I highly recommend it.

But tonight, I wasn't searching E-Bay for anything specific. I was just browsing randomly around the site and happened to find a few items that only reaffirmed my love for E-Bay, such as...

The original statue from the movie "Rocky". (How great would it be to place this in your backyard, run laps around it every morning and then swallow a dozen raw eggs?)

A Vampire Killing Kit. (As some of you may know, there are a lot of vampires in New York. You can never be too well-prepared)

Your very own Redneck family. (Growing up in New York, I've always had an anthropological fascination with Rednecks. What's with the fucked-up teeth? Why the banjo? Does possum taste good?)

Santa Claus' Beard Hairs. (Dude, it's Santa!)

And according to this article, starting on Friday, E-Bay will be having an auction to buy a summer romance with Jennifer Aniston. Having never really liked "Friends," I couldn't really care less. But I am interested in buying that Rocky statue. I can't stop thinking about it. It would look great in my apartment. And talk about a conversation starter! Anyone want to lend me a million bucks?

Venus & Mars go car shopping

For those of you who don't live in Manhattan, it must be strange to imagine a city where the vast majority of its citizens don't own a car. On the one hand, people living here are quite proud that most of us aren't polluting the environment with gas-guzzling SUVs, that our public transportation system is by far the best in the country and that, relatively speaking, we don't suffer from massive traffic congestion. But you want to know the real truth? The reason most people don't have cars is because it's so damn expensive!

Do you have any idea how much parking costs in Manhattan? According to a Colliers International survey, the AVERAGE parking spot in NYC costs about $500/month. However, in some prime residential areas, monthly fees have been known to exceed $750. If you own a SUV or a very high-end luxury car, the garages tack on an extra $100. Oh yeah, and by the way? The NYC tax on parking garage fees is 18.5%!

So the pragmatist in me realizes that it doesn't make sense to spend $250 per month on car payments if I'm spending $700/month in parking and $150/month in insurance. No way, man! My mommy didn't raise no dummy (actually, she raised two. But that's another story.)

Since I've been married to the BossLady, we've never entertained the thought of owning a car. Whenever we felt the need to escape the urban jungle for a long weekend or make a quick trip out to Ikea, we've always just rented a car at our local Avis. Sure, we got screwed over a few times but that was just part of the cost of doing business. But after the birth of the Peanut, we decided that we couldn't take the risk of hauling all our crap to the rental agency, only to have them tell us that our car wasn't available (even though we'd confirmed five times already). So we decided to join zip car, a car sharing service that works great in cities like Manhattan.

However, since I need to do quite a bit of travelling for work, my company is going to pay for us to lease a car. All we have to do is pay for the garage. And somehow, the always-enterprising and resourceful BossLady did some research and used her C.S.I.-like skills to locate a garage near our apartment that will rent us a space for under $300/month. This is momentous news in the MetroDad household. Since the Peanut is going to be raised in the city, I want to be able to take her on weekend adventures at a moment's notice. After all, every kid needs some fresh air, right? I have visions of us driving to pick out pumpkins every Halloween, going apple picking in the Fall, taking nature hikes up in Storm King, driving up to Maine during lobster season or just taking long leisurely drives to enjoy the change of seasons.

Now, the problem is finding a car. See, I've always been a car guy and have always driven sports cars my entire life. I realize that fatherhood makes it impractical to buy a 2-seater but, since I haven't had a car in a long time, I was hoping to get something that was still sporty, fast and fun to drive. So with that in mind, BossLady and I went shopping last weekend for cars. Here's where passion and pragmatism collided.

We decided that the smartest solution was to lease a pre-owned car from a certified dealer. This way, we could get more "bang for our buck." At our first stop, we both fell in love. Unfortunately, it was for different cars. I loved this car but she loved this one. Went to another dealership. I loved this but she loved this.

You see a pattern growing here? Everywhere we went, I fell in love with a fast car and BossLady fell in love with a bigger car, like a larger sedan or a station wagon. Her argument is that a sports car or sports coupe is great for right now but what about when L'Enfant Part Deux enters the world as planned in the next few years? Damn! Why does she have to be so damn smart and practical? I knew I should have married someone dumber! (Just kidding, honey.) She's right and we both know it. I mean it's not like we're getting a minivan. You already know how I feel about those.

Anyway, I asked some of my guy friends about this dilemma. Here are some of the answers I got...

"It doesn't matter. Ever since I became a father, I haven't driven over 55 mph."

"I told you to buy a sports car before you got married. But did you listen? No."

"Are you having some sort of mid-life crisis that I should know about?"

"Dude, just shut up and listen to your wife."

I think I'm going to go with that last suggestion. It's always worked out for me in the past. But maybe if I'm lucky, I can get Xzibit and the boys from West Coast Customs to come over and Pimp My Ride. 'Cause nothing looks more badass in New York City than a purple station wagon with flames on it and a custom-built diaper genie inside it.

Does Johnny Walker make a diaper bag?

I hadn't quite realized how intensely Madison Avenue was attempting to co-brand and cross-market every single consumerable product known to mankind until BossLady and I started shopping for the baby. Did you know that you can buy an Eddie Bauer car seat, a Harley Davidson rocking chair, a Kate Spade stroller, or a Jeep Cherokee crib? I even saw a John Deere baby toolkit! Wow...talk about having low expectations for your own child's future. A toolkit for babies? You have to wonder about a parent's motives there, don't you? ("Well, Johnny ain't never gonna be no doctor but maybe he can get one of them union jobs unclogging toilets.")

Anyway...every time we walk into a baby store, I'm always amazed that the cross-marketing or co-branding of baby products could have any possible effect on a parent's decision to purchase what's best for their baby.

Obviously, men and women are genetically programmed in different ways. And no more is this evidenced greater than when purchasing items for their baby. When it comes to women, you're simply not going to fool them with smoke and mirrors. Their nesting instincts will compel them to research any potential product by looking up Consumers Digest reports, discussing it ad nauseum with their friends, reading every post on urbanbaby.com, speaking to their doctors, and cross-referencing the databases of the BBB, FDA, BATF, and OSHA. They'll go to BuyBuyBaby in person, examine the product with a microscope, and then return again every week to bombard the overworked, underpaid, minimum-wage, commission-earning salesman with a list of questions longer than the Federal Budget. When moms finally do make the purchase, they'll usually return it 4 days later because one of the clips didn't close at the proper 38 degree angle. Moms know this because they busted out their Graco protractor and found that the clip measured out only to 35 degrees.

Guys are different. When we're at BuyBuyBaby on a weekend when the Red Sox and Yankees are playing a three-game series and our wives are asking us whether we like their carefully chosen baby product, we really couldn't care less. But we're sensitive to our pregnant spouse's needs so we'll usually just base our judgement on how shiny the product is (the shinier, the better). Sometimes we're not paying attention at all or are completely surprised that our wives have actually asked us for our opinion about a baby product (a rare occasion). In less than a nanosecond, we panic. Our thought process usually goes something like this, "hmm...hold on a sec. she's asking me for my opinion. She never asks me for my opinion. Is this some sort of trick? Did she catch me looking at all these enormous boobs? Quick. What do I think? Shit. Well, let's see. It's made by Eddie Bauer. I really like that flannel shirt I bought there last Christmas. Even though it's a little itchy, it seems to be pretty well made. If this car seats's anywhere near as good as that flannel shirt, I'll probably like it. Quick, dammit, say something." At this point, we usually turn to our wife and say, "I think it's great, honey. I've done a lot of research on this car seat too. We must have been looking at all the same websites. Let's get it. If the clips don't measure out to 38 degrees, we can always come back again next Sunday."

Shit. Maybe those advertising whores on Madison Avenue have me figured out after all.