Pop Culture Baby

By request

So, the Little Ballerina is all obsessed with Kelly Clarkson. Yes, I know, she's 4. But we never play kids music in the car. So many of my friends fell into that trap and now have to play the Wiggles all day long (not that I don't love the Wiggles. Greg! Call me!).

But I just listen to the radio, and she likes to sing, so now she knows all these songs. And the teachers play the radio sometimes at school, too.

She loves "Breakaway" and one day she's singing and is all "This is Kelly Clarkson Mommy."

And now, every time we get in the car:

Is this Kelly Clarkson?
No honey, that's Madonna.

Is this Kelly Clarkson?
No honey, that's U2.

Is this Kelly Clarkson?
No honey, that's Green Day.

More proof that FOX is an agent of Satan

According to E!:

Arrested Development has a batch of Emmys, a devoted following and, now, an early spring vacation.

The award-winning but ratings-challenged Fox comedy series wraps its season a month early, sitting out the May sweeps (as it did last year) and, at the network's behest, producing fewer than the usual 22 episodes.

Bad signs or no, TV's messed-up Bluth clan have not been handed their walking papers. Yet. Fox has three more months to mull the series' fate before the new fall schedule is announced in May.

I love the 80s

Well, apparently the toy manufacturers do, anyway. Today we learn that Strawberry Shortcake Brand Tops $500 Million in Worldwide Retail Sales in 2004.

The Little Ballerina is equally obsessed with My Little Pony and the Care Bears. Our playroom looks like the set of a VH1 episode. What's odd is that she knew what all these things without any input from me. When we went to buy her "big girl" underwear the first one she wanted was that master of all merchandising, Hello Kitty.

She's reliving my childhood.

Walt Mossberg can't read

At least that's what I can glean from his column today. In a piece in the WSJ about new printers from HP that allow you to print on CDs and DVDs he complains that "millions of home-burned CDs and DVDs are simply labeled with Sharpies, in scrawled handwriting. At a glance, they all look the same, and they don't carry much useful information."

Um, unless you can, you know, read the writing on those DVDs, in which case they provide lots of information and look very different.

Good point

A thoughful post from Anil Dash on Eason Jordan and the whole "fired for blogging" nonsense.

"But this is the direction that we're headed. A blogger can't be held responsible by his employer for his words that he incontrovertibly published on his own site, but a journalist can be held responsible for his alleged words taken out of context. Maybe this will all resolve itself when more bloggers are considered journalists and they're forced to start digging up dirt on themselves. I doubt it."