Armchair Kid Nation

It looks like reality may strike close to home. Mrs. Alt (the lovely wife of our own BrianAlt), along with her sister, has her eye on the Amazing Race. Maybe Marji and Mike should do an Armchair Amazing Race. Either way, we know for whom we will be cheering!

Watch the video: [click here to watch]

Download the video: TheAmazingAlt.avi

When ol’ step-dutch-uncle Tim Henson asks for submissions to a creepy contest … we can’t resist.

Today Gabrielle learns about:

• Acting
• Diddling
• What Tim Henson from Distorted View does
• Kid Touching (the inappropriate type)
• What she can tell her Mother
• Stepfathers (and creepy stepfathers)
• Virginity
• Cleveland Steamers (actually she doesn’t learn about it in the end)
• Pornography (perfectly OK for adults)
• Audio Editing
• What doesn’t satisfy a woman

You can hear Tim’s entire show at the Distorted View web site (click here for the actual show entry - Distorted View 6/18/2008) .

 

 08.06.27 - Recording A Distorted View Contest Entry [17:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Gabrielle is watching her grand parents dog with Marji so Mike and Nicholas have a boy’s night. As they come home, it’s time for a snack (or in Mike’s case, a drink) a little lesson learning and then it’s time for Nick to hit the hay. Things learned:

• How to spell stuff
• Rules of engagement of Brumski (yes, Keith Malley from KaTG “Brumski”) including YOU CAN’T BRUMSKI YOUR FATHER
• Proper (clinical) word for balls
• How Aunt Christine pissed off Uncle Jerry with silverware
• Pus Pudding (and pus in general)
• Why we shake our penis and where the wet spot shows up
• Not much man-on-man love in kids movies
• Women were not full class citizens (they were kind of like property)
• We’d like a president with a brain — and who rocks
• Definition: Inbreeding
• Fanny burps (of course, they’re boys)

Also, thank you very much to Keith and The Girl for all of the love on their world record breaking 72 hour podcast.

 

 08.06.20 - Boys Will Be Boys (oh boy!) [31:00m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Now it’s Gabrielle’s turn to visit the dead people storage space. Today she learns:

• No smelly flowers at Mike’s funeral (but cooking meat is good)
• Luxury graves sales
• Seeing dead people is good
• Hemoroids
• Ego and death
• The praying hands in styrofoam
• Stepping on your loved ones
• Norm Augustinus (grave yard video)
• Guilt and funerals
• Pre-planning
• Staying thin to fit into a tomb
• Peanuts for the dead
• Dead people don’t mind the smell of dead people
• Corpse storage technology

Previous episode: Nicholas’ turn to visit the grave yard.

Podcaster Lesson
See how small the wind screen is on Nicholas’ mic? Between recording him and Gabrielle, we lost the wind screen and had to resort to using a bigger, but much better wind screen. If you listen really carefully in stereo, you can hear Mike’s mic is always wind-noisy, Nicholas’ mic is always wind-noisy but Gabrielle’s mic is not nearly so wind noisy. If we had only known then what we know now!

 

 08.06.13 - Death Yard For Kids (Part 2 - Gabrielle) [27:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

There are only two things that are for-sure in this life and those are Taxes and Death. If you have a septic tank, there are three — your septic tank will back up at least once. To keep the kids ignorant of the aspects of death — on of life’s two guarantees — is simply irresponsible. To this end, the kids and Mike got on the motor scooter and went to visit the local grave yard. This episode, Nicholas learns about:

• Bunk beds for dead people
• Ordering side by side final resting places
• Dead people can’t hear you knocking
• Burned up people fit in small places
• The lake in the grave yard is not really a place where dead people pee
• Mausoleums for the big egos
• Dead people can call adults “kids”
• How to tell who isn’t dead yet

Knock, knock –oh yeah, dead people can’t hear you knockin’

Next episode: Gabrielle’s turn to visit the grave yard.

Podcaster Lesson
See how small the wind screen is on Nicholas’ mic? Between recording him and Gabrielle, we lost the wind screen and had to resort to using a bigger, but much better wind screen. If you listen really carefully in stereo, you can hear Mike’s mic is always wind-noisy, Nicholas’ mic is always wind-noisy but Gabrielle’s mic is not nearly so wind noisy. If we had only known then what we know now!

 

 08.06.06 - Death Yard For Kids (Part 1 - Nicholas) [31:20m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Today Gabrielle’s school had their mini-Relay for Life to raise money for the American Cancer Society so she asked Mike to come to school and walk with her during her shift. Of course, they wanted to take all of you along on the walk with them so Mike mic’ed up Gabrielle and himself and off the went. Among the lessons learned today they discussed:

• Mike’s size compared to the Goodyear Blimp
• Proper naming etiquette
• How to keep kids from doing stuff
• Lawrence Welk and old people
• Random babies
• Childhood impressions (especially stink)
• Cancer for people who litter (probably influenced by Keith Malley’s “One strike and you’re dead” rules)
• Kids who can’t curse properly

Despite Mike and Gabrielle’s goofy crap, the American Cancer Society can use your help and the whole Carrino family will be involved in another Relay For Life June 7-8, 2008 along with John and Joannie Z (yup, the same one the Hskr’s helped bowl for). If you’d like to participate, see Joannie Z’s American Cancer Society Relay for Life page (tell ‘em Gabrielle sent you so they’ll release her Webkins).

 

 08.05.30 - Relay For Life Schoolin' [27:08m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Since CBS hasn’t yet given us another season of Kid Nation to discuss, we had to resort to some family time with a parents magazine. After reading a bazillion Dr. Seuss books and Disney books and even going a few rounds with the Bible, it was about time to let the kids see things from the parents point of view so we read a story (an article) from Wonder Time magazine (http://wondertime.com). The article that caught the kids’ eyes was one called “Potty Talk” by Pete Nelson. Compared to our household, Pete Nelson seems a lot closer to Ozzy and Harriet Nelson than a modern parent but that’s OK — he gave us a lot to discuss.

READ ALONG: If you’d like to follow along with us, just click here.

While we were reading this lovely article, we found an ad for a couple of furry friends: Pee and Poo. If you don’t believe us, check it out for yourself at http://peeandpoo.com. Be careful, though, because there is a dissimilar web site at a similar URL (http://peeandpoop.com). Just guessing, but the “lovely” Melinda from Pee And Poop.com was probably not the progenitor of the cuddly little critters on the Pee and Poo site, though, she does offer to you a custom interpretation of them of her own making.

Melinda from PeeAndPoop.com

 

 08.05.20 - What Is Brown And Sounds Like A Bell? [35:35m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

It’s the Kid Nation season finale and what have learned? A lot. But how much of this can Gabrielle use in the next 10 years? Oh well — there is always next season.

In the mean time, there were still things to discuss:

• You have to learn spelling along with the adult stuff
• It’s OK to ride the short bus for a few days
• “Broad” = “Woman” and the broad, bitch, cunt continuum
• Looting (NYC blackout, Katrina, South Central LA, etc.)
• Why parents like “Kid Nation” — You’ve been warned
• Translating Armchair Kid Nation for decent people
• The pretty chickens — The “popular” kids
• People don’t like mean and ugly
• “Polygamy” and “Player”
• Shooting yourself vs Shooting your eye out
• Parents: talk to your kid normally

Thank you to some of the podcasts that helped us have a great first season including Keith and The Girl, Tim Henson’s Distorted View, Feast of Fools, Brother Love and Viewer Nation. Also, we love our blog commenters! Thank you all so much for your support.

 

 07.12.12 - Kid Nation Season 1 - I've Known What A Bitch Was [33:40m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download