The Most Thumb-derful Time Of The Year

My daughter's birthday falls in December, so between that and Hanukkah and Christmas, you'd might as well move the toy store here.

The problem is she plays with them all. Everything is opened and fully diagnosed. Nothing gets re-gifted. And I am obliged, between events and on little sleep, to assemble everything. It's not an armoire or anything, but it does take some effort.

And there is no procrastination allowed - you can't just do it tomorrow. Tomorrow is a flight or a conference call or a million other things. So I'm stuck with these moderately intricate directions, and a 6-year old peering over my shoulder ready to pounce.

Whether it's a multi-level Barbie House or a customized Hello Kitty headband-maker, these are mentally challenging exercises.

Even the Monster High and Bratz dolls are so accessorized, that even if you manage to get through the plastic shell, there are a million tight bands and tie wraps to cut your way through before you can extricate Frankie Stein from the box.

Video games are tough too, because the directions, rules and controller functions don't fall on the kid but the dad. The Monster High Skultimate Rollermaze on Wii is fairly simple, and thus is kind of a waste of time to play. Tangled and Brave are much more intelligent and strategic if I'm going to play video games with my daughter.

Just an observation: boys' video games are all about racing and competition. Girls' video games  are more about teamwork and task completion. We can learn a lot about society from this. Except if you're playing Monster High Skultimate Rollermaze, which isn't really about either.

But you'll never really know until you get it out of the box and put it all together.

Backtime's De-Evolution is Complete

It says it in the Backtime profile: dime store observer on all things. When I started blogging over 4 years ago, I never thought I'd envision the day that a video game review would ever be posted.

Despite having an Atari and the handheld pioneer Coleco Quarterback as a child, and dumping several hundred quarters into Tetris throughout my college years, I never considered my youth misspent on video games. I certainly didn't waste my time with them as an adult. Until now.

The kids love their Wii, and I have been sucked in. And despite the reputation, video games do have some redeeming qualities.




Kids with delayed development in motor skills gain eye-hand coordination. Kids with autism learn to use their imagination to think in the abstract and find shortcuts.

Of course there's the problem of obsession that all kids have whether it's with TV or computer time. A balance needs to be struck.

The 8-year old guy loves his car races whether it be Cars 2 or Mario Kart. The 5-year old girl loves Tangled, a role-play game based on the Disney movie. It's actually pretty exciting to play as Rapunzel (her) and Flynn Rider (me) - they need to partner up to work together to accomplish tasks.

She's a little young to master the car races but the perfect blend has been found in SpongeBob's Boating Bash. Not only does it have the characters that she knows and loves (and could watch endlessly), but the game's main thread is boating school.

The premise is that our friend SpongeBob has failed his boating test at Mrs. Puff's Boating School 78 times in a row and is hopeless. At least until shady shyster Seymour Scales enters the game. He offers SpongeBob the opportunity to take his D.R.I.V.E. classes.

D.R.I.V.E. stands for Destruction, Recklessness, Impairment, Velocity, and Escape. The challenges are a cross-mix of boat races and demolition derby.

The controls are fairly intricate - there are two separate brakes: one to drift to a stop, and a hand brake to make hairpin turns.

But most importantly in Boating Bash whether you're a kid or a novice gamer dad, it's OK to crash - often.