The Water Cooler

June 18th, 2010

This Week’s Topics…

  •  
    Parenting
    The public radio station in San Francisco gives local residents a chance to air their own…
  •  
    Sports
    Not enough goals in the World Cup for you? Not sure you like the players’ attitude?…
  •  
    Movies
    In the run-up to this weekend's release of Toy Story 3, Pixar has painstakingly recreated…
  •  
    Technology
    Interested in the World Cup? Of course, there are apps to help you navigate all those…
  •  
    Thinking
    Psychologist Philip Zimbardo lectures on the six different ways people perceive time.…
  •  
    Stories
    His dad wrote books because he loved stories. So, when his will specified his kids…
Parenting

Learning from Dad

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by Mark Basnage
The public radio station in San Francisco gives local residents a chance to air their own views, featuring them in daily, minute-long "Perspectives." Today's entry is from an architect recalling the life lessons he learned from his father while helping him fix the kitchen garbage disposal:

"I consciously use what my father taught me that night every day of my life. Method. Care. Persistence. Curiosity. Every so often it allows me to solve some intractable problem I have no business solving. When that happens people look at me strangely and ask where I learned my arcane skills. I smile and tell them, 'My father taught me.'"


What lessons did you learn from your dad by just watching him? How much are we as dads teaching our kids by example now? Are kids even available to stand around and watch their dads anymore, or are they too over-scheduled or distracted (the same question could be asked of the dads, too).

Read or listen to it all:

Sports

Finally, The World Cup Gets Exciting

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by Tom Walsh
Not enough goals in the World Cup for you? Not sure you like the players’ attitude? This solves both problems: it’s all goals, & the players are all made of Legos!

Watch it all...

Movies

Funny, He Doesn't Seem Like Evil Incarnate

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by Rebecca Cusey
In the run-up to this weekend's release of Toy Story 3, Pixar has painstakingly recreated an early 80s commercial that may or may not be based on Care Bears. It's so real you'll swear you had the toy. In the film (which is excellent, see the review), Lots-o-Huggin' Bear is evil incarnate. Funny, he doesn't SEEM evil in the commercial.

Watch it all...

Technology

The World Cup... There's an App for That

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by Jean Yih Kingston
Interested in the World Cup? Of course, there are apps to help you navigate all those important games!

Read a review of the choices...

Thinking

Time for All of Us

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by Nancy French
Psychologist Philip Zimbardo lectures on the six different ways people perceive time. Depending on your time orientation, it might seem to take far longer, or seem to rush by. Is the way you perceive time dependent on how close you live to the equator?

Watch it all...

Stories

Building His Father's Coffin

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by Nancy French
His dad wrote books because he loved stories.

So, when his will specified his kids would build his coffin, it gave his kids one final story!

This -- and more! -- in this week's Water Cooler.

They didn't even have woodworking tools.

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