Corrosive Gecko Climbs a Fence — or, in most entries, dies trying…

Do you hear that sound? Yes, it’s the tiny, high-pitched screaming of our dear little hero Corrosive Gecko dying a thousand deaths on his march up the fence. And as much as I hate rewarding Will Etienne with another $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate, he submitted the ONLY correct solution to this week’s puzzle. Most of you ripped CG limb from limb, violating rule #5 below and spewing poor Gecko’s acidic guts across the fence.

And here I was thinking it was an easy week…

My trick was to scroll the gecko diagonally, spin him, and then switch diagonal directions. Of course, this was WAY too involved, and Will’s trick was to simply split CG’s legs out one to the right and the other to the left and then sequentially climb the little bugger straight up the fence.

For those of you who missed it, our friend Corrosive Gecko was in dire need of guidance up a fairly basic fence and must move according to the following rules:

1. Each turn, Corrosive Gecko must move exactly one leg or arm. You pick which.

2. He can grab either horizontal or vertical sections of fence, but never at the junctions.

3. Each turn, Corrosive Gecko slides his appendage along the fence wire exactly the distance of one side of a grid box. This means that if Corrosive Gecko is holding a vertical wire, he may move his appendage straight up to the next box’s vertical wire (1), or may move his appendage up and then right (2), or up and then left (3). If C.G. is holding a horizontal wire, he may only move right and up (4), or left and up (5).

4. Being a rather corrosive gecko, anything he touches disintegrates the instant his appendage leaves it. Once he uses a spot, our acidic friend may not use it again.

5. He is not one of those window-sticking stretchy geckos. At any given time, CG’s appendages must stay within four “moves” of every other appendage. If not, he is ripped apart and squirts gecko guts across the fence, dissolving the entire lattice in one pump of a dying gecko’s heart (you get the point).

6. No more than two appendages may be in a vertical or horizontal line at any given moment.

7. Once CG reaches one hand or foot to the top wire, he wins. (And you may not do anything sneaky like removing an appendage for a move, jumping, or other intuitively forbidden folderol.)

So GEEK UP you slackers. Next week I very much imagine Corrosive Gecko will be back, and this time he’ll be mad (and maybe on a different fence).

For those of you NOT named Will Etienne, use the following code to get $10.00 of an order of $50.00 or more at ThinkGeek: GEEKDAD93SF. As our puzzler Dave G astutely pointed out last week, they don’t carry cheese but they have a whole lot of other awesome things.

Of course, there are some rules:

1. Each turn, Corrosive Gecko must move exactly one leg or arm. You pick which.

2. He can grab either horizontal or vertical sections of fence, but never at the junctions.

3. Each turn, Corrosive Gecko slides his appendage along the fence wire exactly the distance of one side of a grid box. This means that if Corrosive Gecko is holding a vertical wire, he may move his appendage straight up to the next box’s vertical wire (1), or may move his appendage up and then right (2), or up and then left (3). If C.G. is holding a horizontal wire, he may only move right and up (4), or left and up (5).

4. Being a rather corrosive gecko, anything he touches disintegrates the instant his appendage leaves it. Once he uses a spot, our acidic friend may not use it again.

5. He is not one of those window-sticking stretchy geckos. At any given time, CG’s appendages must stay within four “moves” of every other appendage. If not, he is ripped apart and squirts gecko guts across the fence, dissolving the entire lattice in one pump of a dying gecko’s heart (you get the point).

6. No more than two appendages may be in a vertical or horizontal line at any given moment.

7. Once CG reaches one hand or foot to the top wire, he wins. (And you may not do anything sneaky like removing an appendage for a move, jumping, or other intuitively forbidden folderol.)

8. If anyone is able to create and submit an accurate animation of Corrosive Gecko’s path up the fence, I will enter your name thrice in Friday’s drawing for a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate. Otherwise, find some other creative way to demonstrate CG’s path up the fence. Mail your answer to GeekDad Puzzle Central by Friday afternoon for your chance at the $50 in riches from ThinkGeek.

* This is not a difficult puzzle, but consider learning to move Corrosive Gecko, because I’m sorely tempted to stick him on a more challenging fence two Mondays from now.

Here, without further ado and in stunning illustrative detail, is Corrosive Gecko and his fence-climbing conundrum:

Flickr user Slack Pics, cc license

After getting a box of goodies at a garage sale, I spent 30 minutes trying unsuccessfully to explain the difference between Optimus Prime and Voltron to my five-year old. And then I found myself supremely challenged to metamorphasize the new-school Transformers. In other words, my ego (or “geek-go”) is bruised and battered. What do I do when my self image is threatened? I turn to Lego, which is much more than you needed to know about the following puzzle:

With the following standard Lego pieces, how can you form a regular hexahedron, aka a cube?

12 of the following: brick 2×4’s

8 of the following: brick 2×3’s

8 of the following: brick 2×2’s

The correct answer must use all the pieces and, like a good cube, the answer must have six, defined, planar faces all of equal dimensions.

Send your answer to GeekDad Puzzle Central, preferably in picture or diagram form, by the end of the day on Friday and you could win a $50.00 ThinkGeek gift certificate!

Flickr user Timtak, CC license

It’s just past two o’clock in the morning and fortunately your kids are asleep. Unfortunately, you are not. There you stand under the twinkling stars, shivering in your boxer shorts, holding a leash and contemplating the veracity of the phrase man’s best friend. It wouldn’t perhaps be possible for your dog to, you know, just do its thing so you could stumble back to bed, rather than endlessly wandering the perfect semicircle allowed by its 10-foot leash to find the *perfect* spot, would it?

No.

Instead, this is how it goes down: you stand on a straight sidewalk with your hand at your waist, three feet from the ground and exactly at the sidewalk’s edge. At the other end of the 10-foot leash is your dog, whose collar is one foot from the ground. The dog has an equiprobable chance of, you know, doing its thing anywhere within the leash’s reach and in fact adds 30 inches to the leash’s reach due to the K9 ability to “hang it,” with neck pointing toward you and back end facing outward into the dark, dark night.

And somewhere out there is your neighbors prize orchid. (Why — you may ask — did your neighbor plant a prize orchid along the side of a public sidewalk? Never mind. It’s two in the morning and you shouldn’t be asking questions like that.) Here’s the thing about the orchid: its roots draw nutrients from 16 inches in each direction, but near its stalk is a 4-inch square kill zone.

Considering your dog’s you-know-what as a point source, what is the probability your erstwhile best friend will fertilize the orchid’s roots without killing the plant itself? (Discount the kill potential of all that wandering that precedes, well, you know.)

Submit the solution to the GeekDad I Want To Win Gift Certificate Mailbox by the end of the day on Friday and you’ll have a chance to win a $50.00 ThinkGeek Gift Certificate!

Image Courtesy of Disney Consumer Products and LEGO

If your in the area of Long Island New York you could take place in a Toy Story LEGO build. The Roosevelt Field Mall LEGO Store is having a grand opening celebration this weekend. There will be a LEGO Master Builder there building an 8 Foot tall Buzz Lightyear and anyone who shows up is welcome to help with the build. There will also be a chance to win a $50 LEGO Gift Card for more information and grand opening deals check out the Official Lego Grand Opening Announcement.

Hope to see you there ! I’ll be the one with the GeekDad T-shirt …. well hopefully I won’t be the only one. You do have a GeekDad T-shirt?

Location:
Roosevelt Field Mall
630 Old Country Road
Garden City, NY 11530
North Court

When:
Friday, April 9th: 11:00 am – 7:00 pm
Saturday, April 10th: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm
Sunday, April 11th: 11:00 am – 6:00 pm

A few weeks after my wife’s pregnancy was confirmed I took the opportunity to dust off the list of names that we had compiled when we were expecting our son. By no means was it an exhaustive list, as I had a strong preference for a boy’s name while my wife had a strong preference for a girl’s name.

At the 18 week ultrasound where we learned we were having a boy half of that list immediately became irrelevant. Additionally, I dropped certain boy’s names that I had on there to torment my wife, specifically Fergus and Maximus. My wife wasn’t totally in favor of my favorite boy’s name, but she quickly warmed to it with the news we were having a son.

It should be noted this warming came with absolutely no pressure from me. Had we been expecting a girl I would have agreed to my wife’s favorite because I knew how important the name was to her, plus I did like it.

Of course we have all read horror stories about families being at odds with each other over the naming of the child. My personal opinion is that the choice of a child’s name rests solely with that child’s parents. If a family member, no matter how far removed, wants to give input on what your child’s name should be they can only do so after 1.) delivering the child themselves and/or 2.) establishing a trust fund sizable enough to pay for college and graduate school.

If there is a family tradition, then it should be up to the spouse with said tradition to voice his or her preference in that regard and for the other spouse to give the tradition its proper consideration. For instance, my middle name is Joseph, which I share with my father and grandfather.

To me it was important that our son share my middle name and we took this into consideration. Thankfully my wife was totally on board, but did make a few requests with regards to what we chose for a first name to avoid any unfortunate combinations of initials.

Over the past month or so we’ve had a few casual conversations about name ideas and many of those that were on our original list are still in play for our second child. Our 20 week ultrasound is Monday, so we will soon find out what we are having, which means we should have the baby’s name picked out well in advance.

Still, naming a child is probably one of the most important decisions aside from committing to start a family. These are just a few things we took into consideration when choosing a name:

• Family heritage on both sides
• How the first name matches up with the family name
• If using a middle name, does it flow with the first and last name
• What the child’s full name will sound like when yelled out at full volume
• What the child’s initials might spell out, and
• The inevitable school ground derivations they will have to endure

No matter what name we end up choosing the only thing I can guarantee is that it won’t be chosen 1.) by using an iPhone app, 2.) with careful consideration of the expense of necessary therapy for said child and 3.) that we will work together to reach a consensus for the sake of our immediate family.

How did you handle the naming process with your child/children?

Image via Wikipedia

With Super Bowl XLIV just a few days away I’ve been trying to think of things to do to spice up my game experience. This will be the first time in years that my fraternity brothers and I didn’t all get together for the big game, nor will I be making my famous Super Bowl braised short ribs.

As I was racking my brain with ideas of what to do I saw that Barry Sanders was auctioning himself off to join you at your Super Bowl party, plus he’d bring the food and drinks!

At the time of this post the pleasure of Barry’s company was going to run me a little more than fourteen large. With a baby on the way and a toddler that needs a big boy bed, the discretionary income just isn’t there for something like that.

Instead, I’ll be spicing up my game time snacks with a little help from the California Raisins.

The other day I received a gift box filled with everything I needed to make the California Raisins Five-Spice Popcorn Mix, which was being offered as a healthy alternative to standard party fare. Yesterday my wife was off from work, so while our little man napped we took the opportunity to catch up on our very full DVR and test out the recipe.

Not only was it very easy to make, but it was a nice departure from plain old popcorn. The different spices were nice and the raisins provided a good balance of sweet against the more savory ingredients.

The thing I liked the most about it is that it would have been easy for me to replicate because even though I was sent everything I needed to make the popcorn mix, I already had all buttwo ingredients on hand in then pantry – clearly my Penzeys addiction became more apparent.

It certainly wasn’t a combination I would have come up with on my own, but now that I’ve tried it I will certainly be testing out a few different variations. If you are looking for something different, and better for you, at your Super Bowl party, then give this a try.

California Raisins Five-Spice Popcorn Snack Mix

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 3 to 5 minutes
Makes 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

1 bag (97% fat-free) microwave popcorn, popped
1/4 cup sesame sticks
1/2 teaspoons each: garlic and onion powder
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon dried cilantro leaves
1 teaspoon Chinese 5-spice powder
1/2 cup crispy chow mein noodles
Olive oil cooking spray
1 cup California raisins

Directions

Stir together all ingredients except raisins in a large bowl. Spray mixture liberally with cooking spray and toss with your hands, repeating until popcorn is well coated with spices; stir in raisins.

Nutritional information (per serving)

Calories: 190, Fat: 5g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Trans Fat: 0g, Cholesterol: 0mg, Sodium: 200mg, Potassium: 237mg, Carbohydrates: 37g, Fiber: 2g, Sugar: 19g, Protein: 2g, Vitamin A: 2%, Vitamin C: 2%, Calcium: 4%, Iron: 8%, 23.6% calories from fat

Why California Raisins are a wise choice for game day snacking:

• Just 1/4 cup of raisins equals a service of fruit for adults
• California Raisins are fat and cholesterol free
• Raisins deliver important health components, such as fiber, potassium and antioxidants

It must be something about this time of year, but I’ve been doing a fair share of ranting here these past few weeks. From my thoughts on naming advice to grocery store etiquette, I’ve been quick to temper more than usual.

In keeping with that theme, you know what else really grinds my gears? People who turn into the wrong lane when there are two turn lanes that go in the same direction. That drives me absolutely bonkers.

If you are in the left turning lane is it really that hard to point your car to the corresponding left lane? Over the last few weeks I’ve nearly been run off the road by idiots that are too stupid or lazy to turn into the proper lane. It makes me want to equip the suburban assault vehicle with armor plating and missiles. (Who am I kidding, I want to do that anyway!)

As a service to the people of Charlotte, I’ve prepared some instructional materials:

Also, if you’re thinking of making a right on red, you should actually respect the oncoming traffic:

</rant>

OK, raise of hands, who watched the Replacement Bowl? I’ll admit that I did, but only for the commercials.

One of the funniest things I’ve heard about Apple’s new iPad is how confusing it is going to be listening to people with a thick Boston accent talk about it:

“So, what you got there?”
“It’s a wicked awesome iPaahd”
“Oh, that’s pretty big for an mp3 player”
“No, you retahd it’s an iPaahd”

(Tip o’ the cap to Weaselmomma, and if you’re from Boston, relax, I’m from there too)

About a month ago I wrote a post about the new supergroup Them Crooked Vultures, which features Dave Grohl and former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. Ever since I’ve been getting at least three pharmaceutical product spam trackbacks a day. Coincidence?

For some reason my two week stretch of being called “Pa” appears to be over. Even though little man knows that every letter makes a sound and that “P” says “Puh”, sadly I’m back to being called “Mum”

Recently I installed a widget on the blog that tells me where readers are coming from and what they are reading. The best that I can tell from what I see first thing in the morning is that I’m a huge hit in the Netherlands. So, to all my Dutch speaking readers, bedankt!

title='Original Link: http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://www.realmendriveminivans.com/huge-netherlands/&title=I’m+huge+in+the+Netherlands&srcURL=http://www.realmendriveminivans.com' href="http://dadtrends.com/?aM3FyVIH" rel="nofollow"> src="http://www.realmendriveminivans.com/wp-content/plugins/google-buzz-button/images/google-buzz.png" alt="Google Buzz" />

An apple a day… gives the media lots to talk about.  This week both the tech news and so called “mainstream media” was all abuzz about the long rumored, finally revealed, “tablet” device from Steve Jobs and his team at Apple.  When all the dust settled, as expected, everyone’s attention turned to the “core” of the Apple iPad, and the heated comparisons and complaints began in force.  While many have compared and contrasted the iPad to the Amazon Kindle, other tablet PC’s and Netbooks, there is one comparison that I haven’t seen, and one that is most suited for Dad-O-Matic readers: The iPad vs. the iDad!

The iDad: Why EVERY Home Should Have One!

There is a readily available interactive device that beats the pants off the iPad (and it even wears pants!)  Yes, the iDad is the one device that every household with kids should have, and it has standard features that clearly put the iPad to shame, including cameras, multitasking, expandability, and even a significantly longer battery life.  Yes, the iDad is the groundbreaking computing device that is clearly well positioned to take a bite out of the Apple iPad’s potential market.

Here is a simple comparison:

Which does your household need more, an iPad or an iDad?

Jeff Sass is the proud dad of ZEO (Zach, 21, Ethan, 19 and Olivia, 18).  He is also a seasoned entertainment and technology exec and active social media enthusiast.  You can see more of Jeff’s writing at Sassholes! and Social Networking Rehab.

Related posts:

1. What is a DADvocate? Shortly after the iPad was released Jeff Sass wrote a…
2. Cast of Dads Episode 5: Guys Love Gadgets! The Cast of Dads are at it again.  Last…
3. Cast of Dads Episode 6: Keep On Truckin’! No, we didn’t take to the road this week, but…

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It’s been a while since I’ve gotten all random, mostly because my randomness was feeling a little scripted and not terribly interesting. However, now that the football season is waning, my mind was free to go on a bit of a walkabout.

Having absolutely zero interest in the AFC Championship Game, I spent my Sunday afternoon cooking instead. I made my wife her lunch for the week and turned 45 pounds of pork shoulder into 32 pounds of mild Italian sausage because my local mega mart had a killer sale.

While surfing the inter-webs I read that the Pope wants clergy to become more web savvy, including using blogs to spread their message. I’ve decided I need to get in on this, so I’m going to register the domains innomedelpadre.com and tuspiritusancti.com and auction them off on eBay.

So, Brett Favre threw an interception in his last pass of the season. Hmm, where have we seen that one before? Oh yeah, the 2007 NFC Championship Game. I wonder what the Wrangler man has planned for his future? Favretirement Watch 2010 anyone? Maybe I should register that domain too.

The stroller conundrum that has vexed us for the past few weeks finally appears to be at a resolution. After a great deal of thought, and some helpful input, we’ve decided not to bother with a tandem stroller. With two kids we’re never leaving the house anyway.

Our son has invented a new sport called Greco Roman teeth brushing that has made bed time much more interesting than it needs to be. We’ve been tempted to not fight him so much, but since whipped cream has become a condiment in our household, it is regrettably necessary.

If any more of the NFL’s star players back out of the Pro Bowl this weekend they’re going to need to rename it. It’s safe to say the NFL’s decision to move the game out of Hawaii and to the Sunday before the Super Bowl is a complete failure before the game is even played.

Finally, here’s proof that Neil Young (or at least someone pretending to be Neil Young) can make anything sound better: