Sharing and Making Memories of "Yesterday" with Paul McCartney

Whenever people ask me what Fandads is about I always answer: "It's Gil and myself writing about sharing our love for all things geeky with our kids." There is no limit on what the geeky things can be. We share with our children our love for comic books, handheld games and even music. We never force anything onto them: if they like it, they like it, if not, no big deal. 

Listen to the HALO 5 :Guardians Soundtrack

Right now for a limited time fans can listen to the entire HALO 5: GUARDIANS soundtrack. Sit back and listen to these tracks, composed by Kazuma Jinnouchi, as you imagine yourself running through ruins or driving a warthog through canyons and taking out whatever enemy comes at you.

T-Shirt Thursday "I'm hooked on a feeling..."

With the big announcement about the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack being released on cassette later this year, I felt that this shirt is appropriate for today.

This shirt came in through our friends at NerdBlock.  I can picture this as a commercial that comes on in the middle of the night trying to get us to buy this soundtrack.  Maybe in the commercial there are two guys at a party talking about all the great songs in an overly animated voice.

Better than seeing these two guys peddle the cassette on late night television Marvel has released a trailer announcing the upcoming release of the soundtrack on cassette.  I hoping I'll be able to find one in store when they are released, but first I have to find my old Sony Sport Walkman that I used to have.

Check out the trailer below.


            

The many faces of my little girl.

My little girl is a character.  She makes me laugh, cry and feel incredibly happy all within a matter of minutes.  One thing that she likes doing, sometimes, is taking pictures.

The Dads do Baby Loves Disco

Saturday October 19, the Fandads along with dads from the Chicago Meet Up group got together to dance the afternoon away with our kids at Lincoln Hall for the Baby Loves Disco party.  Never been to a Baby Loves Disco event. Well hopefully our recap will make you feel like you were there and you will join us at the next one in November.

T-Shirt Thursday!

Today's shirt is a shirt I picked up a few years ago at Wizard World Chicago and like the Walking Dead/Star Wars shirt we showcased a few weeks ago, it also combines two of my favorite things: Star Wars and Records.

Your Music is Wookity Wack!

Can you imagine requesting a wack song from this DJ? I think you better keep your request to yourself before he tears your arms out their sockets.  This shirt is available on the Stylin website, you know the huge T-shirt booths at mostly every comic convention you go to.  If you like the shirt, click on their link and pick one up for yourself today.

Sol Republic Headphones Giveaway!

                                     

Fandads has teamed up with A Blogger and a Father and a few other dad blogs to give all our readers a chance at winning a pair of Sol Republic Headphones.  We figured this would be a great way to promote the giveaway on more than one site and hopefully introduce our readers to other great dad blogs that are out there.  

Happy Thanksgiving from Us!

Happy Thanksgiving from the Fandads.  We are very thankful for the exciting past few months.  We saw our first sponsored giveaway from Rockabye Baby and from the Chicago Toy & Game Fair.  We also want to say thanks to all our friends and family that have supported the site.  We have a couple of interesting stories coming soon, including my mini adventure with the Chevy Sonic I was given for three days through Klout.  Thank you all very much and enjoy your Thanksgiving with your families today.

Your Friends,
Gil & Vic
The Fandads

Vote Gil for Mayor!

Most of my friends hated checking in. It sucked. It's summer, you're out with your friends, maybe biking in the park, or playing baseball and all of a sudden it's noon. Maybe it's four or six, it didn't matter, but you had to check in. If you were lucky there was a phone nearby or a friend's house. If not you had to jump back on your BMX bike and race home. Totally necessary, I'm not going to argue that, but it was an inconvenience at times.

Who would have thought that twenty years later we'd all be checking in for fun. I believe there are quite a few social networks or apps out there that you can use to check in, but the two that I'm most familiar with are Yelp and Foursquare.

Some people have argued that they can be dangerous, people can use them to figure out when you're out and where you are. You can be stalked by someone or your house could get broken into. Like anything, you have to use them with moderation and common sense. I've seen people use their homes as Foursquare locations, I'm not sure that's too bright. It's also cheating! Sort of.

There's a "competitive" aspect to Foursquare, you can become the Mayor of a location and you can collect badges for visiting locations or for accomplishments. Of course you can friend people, and you can also discover new places to visit. People can leave tips and businesses can have offers posted. Yelp is very similar, you can be a "regular" at locations, and you can also friend people there as well.

Both sites have apps which can be used to check in, my problem is that half the time I forget to check in! I'm going to have to write myself a reminder and stick it in my wallet or something. It's not that big of a deal, but the "competitive" aspect can be fun. I was the Mayor of my favorite bar for a while and I want my title back. The downside is that sometimes it can feel like a job of sorts. Like I said I forget at times, and when I do remember, checking in can feel like punching in. Especially on trips with multiple stops.

Overall, they're cool sites/apps to play with, and worth checking out. There's no cost, you can always delete them, and you might end up liking them.

-Gil 

PS - Lots of new music out. New Roots, Eminem, Wu-Tang, Chemical Brothers, and more.
PPS - I need money!

Music Review - Rise Up

Wow what a coincidence! It's April 20th and both the new Cypress Hill CD and Cheech and Chong DVD dropped today! Amazing. That's right, the new Cypress Hill CD, Rise Up, hit shelves today. Being a long time fan of the Hill, I immediately picked it up. It's been a few years and I was looking forward to giving it a listen.

Let me start by saying that a lot of the songs had a "lo-fi" feel to them. It works on some songs, on others, not so much. There are a lot of great guest artists on the album. Tom Morello, Mike Shinoda, Everlast, Mark Anthony, and Pitbull just to name a few. I wasn't aware that Evidence and the Alchemist were also on the record and I was pleasantly surprised to see them on the fourth track, "Pass the Dutch". If you're not familiar with them, stop reading this and pick up some Dilated Peoples records, right now.

Yes, there are references to marijuana on this record. There are also sketches by Cheech and Chong. If you've heard a Cypress Hill album before you know what you're getting yourself into. The Morello songs are good ("Rise Up" and "Shut 'Em Down") but nothing special, it's like they really wanted them to be these epic, kick ass songs, but they kind of just fall flat. Besides they've done it before on Skull and Bones, and they did it better.

"Carry Me Away" is one of the better tracks on the album, it works. "Armanda Latina" seemed like a bad idea at first. It's the song that's been playing on the radio, so you may have heard it. Marc Anthony, really? Well, it might be the best song on the album. B-Real flows on it, the hook works, and it's catchy. A bit pop-ish, sure, but Cypress Hill has always been right on the edge.

I'm not a music critic by any means, so take this all with a grain of salt. I'm also a little bias as Cypress Hill is one of my favorite bands, so I'm going to have to give it...wait a minute. Stars won't work, that's played out and it's not the Fandad way.

So, as much as it pains me, I'm going to give Rise Up, 2 four sided dice out of 4.

-G. Real