Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Get out and play, Excelsior

The third annual Sunday Streets Excelsior event, in collaboration with the Excelsior Festival, is this weekend! The Sunday Streets route includes Mission St between Theresa/Avalon and Geneva Ave.

Sunday, September 21, 2014

a child-safe Pandora

My daughter and I were listening to "Let It Go" (from the Disney movie Frozen, which every preschooler I know is obsessed with right now) radio on Pandora this morning, and the music paused for an ad. I was appalled when that ad was to combat "muggers", "rapists" and other "creeps" with some special phone feature. My daughter didn't seem to notice. The music played on. When the ad played a second time, and I couldn't find a button to give it a thumbs down, I sent an email to Pandora. In their defense, they sent this response within a few hours:


Stations that have the word (Children's) in the title will automatically have explicit content filtered out, but you can also restrict Pandora from playing songs or displaying ads with explicit language. To do that you need to sign into your account on a computer.

Once you're signed in, click your email address (or name) in the top right corner and select Settings.

Select "No. Do not allow explicit content." To protect this setting with a PIN, choose a password and an email address to send it to in case you forget the PIN.

Click the Save Changes button when finished.

Enabling this filter will limit Pandora to playing music that could play on daytime broadcast radio. Note that this can only be applied to the entire account and NOT specific stations. Once set, this will restrict explicit content for that account on all devices, as well.


Maybe it's the mommy hormones talking, but I don't want to hear fear-mongering ads like that EVER.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Movies for a preschoolers that grown ups will love too



A few weeks ago, my daughter and I spent an exhausted Friday night watching Frozen for the second time. We like it: or rather... I like it, and she loves it. The evening gave me an idea. We should do a movie night every (exhausted) Friday night. So, I asked my friends for suggestions. Here is the list.

A Bug's Life
Annie
Cars
Elmo in Grouchland
Finding Nemo
Frozen
Gnomeo and Juliet
Kiki's Delivery Service
Kung Fu Panda
Magic School Bus (series)
Mary Poppins
Mulan
Muppets
My Neighbor Totoro
Nacho Libre
Planes (the around the world one is really cute)
Ponyo
Rattatouie
Shawn the Sheep
Shelley Duvall's Bedtime Stories
The Lego Movie
The Sound of Music
Toy Story
Wallace and Grommit
Willy Wonka

Thursday, September 4, 2014

Rain -- Blue -- Bear

The Rain Train by Elena De Roo -- such gorgeous artwork (by Brian Lovelock)
Red Cat Blue Cat by Jenni Desmond -- we love the colors of the cats and the fun they have getting to be friends. Especially the yellow cat.
Otto the Book Bear by Katie Cleminson -- cute story about a bear born from a book and his adventures, a unique and clever plot.