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Warehouse Roulette – Lemmings
May 24, 2012 5:30 am | by
I’ve been bugged by Jenn and others to write posts on the blog for a long time, but I didn’t want to have to figure out what to write about while staying somewhat on topic. So the obvious solution was to write about random things in the warehouse. Warehouse Roulette! To make it fun and very random, I put all of the warehouse locations in a box, mixed it up and drew a location.
 
 
No fun pranks in the warehouse this week, but we did have the uber popular dollar diaper sale last Saturday at the retail stores! Did you score any cheap diapers? I wasn’t able to make it to the store because I had to go to a Jump training meeting. What’s Jump? It’s the craziest, most amazing kids summer camp week ever! If you’re in the St. Louis area, you should sign your kids up. They can’t not have a good time. Really. Two water parks, field games, crafts, a really well done play and sno cones! We served 40,000 sno cones to the kiddos last year. Check out the video. We didn’t have summer camps like this growing up.
 
This week’s drawing isn’t nearly as exciting as last week’s broken coffee mug. This week I drew the Skip Hop Bento Ultimate Diaper Bag. I’ve always seen diaper bags as rebranded purses. There are a few targeted at us guys, but for the most part, they are giant purses filled with everything you’ll never really need while out and about with your little munchkin.
 
Is it worse to be caught with an obvious baby-y diaper bag, or a less conspicuous diaper bag? If it looks like a diaper bag, and your caught out alone, you get the look of “he’s a little odd carrying a bag like that with no baby in sight”.
 
And you try to pass back “Really, it’s a diaper bag”.
 
“For my baby….”
 
“Who’s somewhere other than here….”
 
“…. right now… somewhere… else…”
 
“Really! It’s a diaper bag! I’m not a freak!”
 
If it doesn’t look like a diaper bag, then it looks like giant man purse and you still get the look of “heh, nice purse buddy”.
 
“It’s not a purse! It’s a diaper bag! It just looks like a man’s bag… and not a diaper bag. But it is a diaper bag!”
 
It’s a no-win situation and the bigger the bag, the more stuff is stuffed in. You would think it would be easier to find things in a bigger bag, but, no. The density of the crap stays constant, there is just more of it in a bigger bag.
 
Purses are like houses. You buy a bigger one and end up filling it with stuff you’ll never see again, but it’s in there somewhere. Have you ever seen a car filled up with crap? I’m not talking about normal, we-have-kids-and-I-don’t-know-what-color-the-carpet-is crap. I’m talking about an episode of Hoarders filmed in the Walmart parking lot where they used the vacuum on the parking lot vacuum truck to clean out the car. Can you imaging the smell? Yuck…. Our minivan stinks if a bowel of cereal or a sippy cup is forgotten and left to create a new universe of life forms. All of those QuickTrip cups and Taco Bell wrappers have to be growing something smelly and interesting. And you can’t possibly have that much stuff in the car without at least one pair of dirty underwear and 5 dirty socks. I think that’s mandatory, like rolling a d20 to attack a warforged.
I was never into Dungeons and Dragons. I played plenty of games, but I got bored too easily with DnD. It’s like a fancy game of War:
 
My 56 whack on the head beat your 23 helmet.
 
I win.
 
Next.
 
Except when playing DnD, it isn’t that simple. You have to describe in intimate detail the whack and how the gold teeth flew out of your head. Then describe the drain the teeth fell into and the skillz required to retrieve the gold teeth. Which of course you decide to do, because when you retrieve them, you can buy fancy stealth slippers to sneak past the dragon. But, you have to roll a 17 on the d20 and the Sage won’t take a check because there’s a chance the serpent of the deep wandered into town to get a drink and could be on his way back to sea through the drain pipe. So you roll and roll and roll and roll because you want those teeth damnit. In the meantime, the other geeks, err players, are off saving Lemmings and playing Wing Commander.
 
Lemmings was a great game. I still have the original (PC) version on a floppy somewhere (yeah, I know, the Amiga version had better music). I should try to find it and load it up in DosBox. The boys would love it, if I let them have a chance to play.
 
When I signed up to write these blog posts, I had no idea I would end up reading the Dungeons and Dragons v3.5 FAQ. Did you know it’s 116 pages of small type?
 
Here’s a sampling:
 
Do warforged have a scent?
 
The rules are silent on whether constructs (and by extension living constructs such as the warforged) interact any differently than other creatures with the scent special quality. For ease of play, the Sage recommends that warforged be treated as having a scent just like any other creature.
 
If the Sage were an oenophile, he might describe this scent as woody, with a hint of warm, rain-spattered iron, and a pleasant gravelly finish.
 
Thankfully, he isn’t, so he won’t.
 
Probably because he is underaged and Bud Light is as fancy as it gets.
 
While the Skip Hop Bento may not help with handling the serpent of the deep, it’ll probably handle everything else. It has an insulated lunch bag with little food containers and an ice pack to keep them cool. It has side pockets, a big inner pocket for all of the crap and Skip Hop’s patented fancy clips for hanging the bag on the back of the stroller. The Bento also has a nice shoulder strap for carrying it like a messenger bag when you’re not pushing the baby limo.
 
Being a geek, the first thing I thought of when I saw the name Bento was the Filemaker database program Bento. It’s a pretty slick database application for those that don’t like SQL and programming.
The Skip Hop Bento is made form heavy duty canvas on the sides with a heavier canvas on the bottom to fend off the wear and tear of being drug across the driveway by a helpful two year old. Elsie (our three year old) did that to one of our brand new swim bags made with a lighter weight material and now we have a permanent white circle imprinted on the side. A quality outer material is essential for the long life of an abused diaper bag. We over stuff them, toss them in the car, drag them across the driveway and up the stairs just in case we have to change a diaper when we’re at Grandma’s house for two hours.
 
The Bento feels pretty heavy. I didn’t want to cut the plastic ties holding all the pieces together to weigh the food part, but I’m sure it’s contributing to the weight. It also has two bottoms reinforced with plastic – an inner one separating the main cavity from the bottom food cavity and the actual bottom of the bag.
 
Looking at the pictures on the bag’s tag, the eight piece mealtime kit looks really exciting. The dude is really enjoying putting the containers in the insulated bag, even in the awkward pose with main bag in his way. It has to be awesome, right? Calling it an eight piece mealtime kit is marketing getting a little too carried away. Yes, technically there are eight pieces, but that’s counting the lids, the bag and the ice pack. If a three piece suite included the buttons, I’d be a little disappointed.
 
What’s an episode of Warehouse Roulette without looking at the warning label? I learned something new with this one too. It says to throw away the product at the first sign of damage or weakness. That seems pretty drastic for a heavy duty diaper bag. It also says to not store it in direct sunlight, as it might damage the product. This actually makes some sense, since the sun will fade the material and in theory damage the plastics. And remember to check the temperature of the food before feeding. Getting a case of the runs because of warm hotdogs is not a good time.
The Skip Hop Bento is a well made diaper bag that really has everything and can be carried any way – handle, shoulder strap or attached to the stroller, which is really convenient when battling the serpent of the sea.
 
C’mon 16! Daddy needs a new pair of stealth slippers!
 
D’oh!
 
Chomp
 
— Jimmy
 
P.S. Yes, I somehow managed to forget to take a picture of the warehouse location. Whoops.
 
“Keep smiling, it makes everyone wonder what you’re up to.”
 
 
copyright 2012 Cotton Babies, Inc – Lemmings

About the Author

Jimmy Labit is a full-time dad and has a lot of experience with cloth diapers. He takes care of the technical side of Cotton Babies when he isn't trying to juggle four kids. He is the male voice of Beyond The Diaper and brings a unique and quirky sense of humor to our blog.

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