What do dads and grads have in common, other than, er, rhyming? High-tech toys, of course! That's why the annual Father's Day and Graduation Buyers Guide was launched, with tons of techie stuff dad can play with while he hangs out with the little ones at the park. Many of these gifts are designed to introduce convenience through technology to everyday tasks, thereby necessitating an additional twenty minutes to come up with a shopping list, while papa fiddles with the stylus and pushes forty different buttons.
Many of these little devices are pretty cool (make your iPod into a recording studio! Soon our iPods will be calling us "Dave"...) but the guide is a short on the kind of information many dads would need. Like, "Does this thing malfunction if half a cup of baby drool gets into it when my infant uses it for a teether?" Or, "Can it survive a fall from a play structure?" And especially, "Will my partner kill me for playing with this for three hours when I could be cleaning/cooking/taking care of the kids/bringing home a paycheck?" And I have to say, some of it just misses the psychology of the gift-giver. For example, the Ferrari 1000 notebook computer, while it may serve as a nice stand-in penis for those too geeky for a sports car, is a little too pricey for a Hallmark holiday. The gift guide counters that with "if you're looking for a distinctive small and light notebook that will
definitely impress your dad or grad, you have to consider this great
Acer product." Um, impress? We don't worry about impressing dads. Once they've heard the animal noises you make in labor or just spent some time with you after five weeks of sleep deprivation, that ship has sailed.
