Tuesday Top 10: Animated Kid Movies that are Really Funny for Adults

10. The Incredibles
(LMAO moment: Jack-Jack's attack, the baby turns into a demon monster)


9. Space Jam
(LMAO moment: Bill Murray looks down the hole where MJ disappeared...flashback to Caddyshack)  



8. Finding Nemo 
(LMAO moment: every time that Dory called Nemo by the wrong name)


7. Toy Story (including sequels)
(LMAO moment: Mr. Potato Head's Picasso line)


6. Despicable Me (including sequel)
(LMAO moment: the Minons sing "I Swear" in Despicable Me 2...I cried tears of joy)



5. Madagascar (including sequels)
(LMAO moment: "I Like to Move It" of course...did you even have to ask?)


4. Ice Age (including sequels)
(LMAO moment: anything with Scrat...ANYTHING)



3. Over the Hedge
(LMAO moment: Hammy the Squirrel chugs an energy drink and slows down time)


2. WALL-E
(LMAO moment: M-O in freak out mode after WALL-E gets tread on his face)


1. The LEGO Movie
(LMAO moment: there are almost too many to mention because this movie is seriously that funny but my two favorites are below

New Parent Panic: Waking Up to a Nightmare

Cluelessness is not an unusual feeling for new parents, especially first time dads. But the frequency of not knowing what to do doesn't make it any easier to deal with. As a man, you have this innate fixation on fixing everything. If you can't solve a problem, deep down it makes you feel inadequate, maybe even emasculate you a little. Dad is always supposed to save the day.

Waking Up to a Nightmare

Early this morning, my realist experience with new parent panic began. My seven-month-old daughter woke up at 12:15 a.m. screaming. While Anlee waking up in the middle of the night isn't anything new, normally she's not wailing like a cat giving birth.

The first thought is always hunger, so Jesse and I tried giving her a bottle. She just shrieked louder. Maybe she needed a diaper change? Cleaned the toosh, put on a fresh diaper, checked for diaper rash...no luck, still bawling. We used the go-to move of playing some soothing Jack Johnson music while carrying her. Even his angelic voice couldn't tame the beast.

Fifteen minutes went by, then 30, an hour....every tried and true method undefeated for seven months failed time after time. She was just crying louder and louder inconsolably. My wife called her mother at 1:30 a.m. for advice. We tried it all.

My little girl was in pain and it hurt me so bad that I didn't know what was wrong. I searched all over her body for signs of bruising or a rash...nothing. My wife looked up symptoms online of everything from croup to ear infection, went through mom online message boards and we began to fear the worst of all situations.

My wife thought about taking her to the ER and I was really close to starting the car. Then Jesse remembered that our pediatrician's office had a number you could call 24/7. Jesse was forwarded to the MyNurse hotline. After going through a checklist of our baby's symptoms, the superhero on the other end of the phone suggested that we get a cold, wet washcloth and let Anlee bite on it. Sure enough...our screaming baby quieted down to a whimper within the first three seconds of the rag hitting her gums. She was teething.

It never really occurred to us that Anlee would be in so much pain due to teething because she already had two bottom teeth come in without any trouble. She slobbered like a hungry Saint Bernard in a pizzeria, but she didn't fuss all that much with the first little white chiclets. Turns out this morning that the pacifier and bottle nipple we kept trying to use to soothe her weren't helping at all, they were actually aggravating the area where her new teeth were coming in. After using some Orajel, a really cold bottle of formula and a bigger pacifier, Anlee went back to sleep like nothing happened.

                   

Oh, what a relief it was to finally know what was wrong and what to do now! But still I felt like a failure. After two hours of my baby sobbing uncontrollably despite my best attempts to console her, I was left incompetent, destitute and broken as a father. Why couldn't I fix it? Why couldn't I come up with the solution? Why couldn't I save the day?

Teamwork

Like most men, I'm independent to a fault. I hate asking for directions, I don't like requesting help opening a jar and I'm definitely never sharing a foot long sandwich. But as a father, I have to accept the fact that I need help sometimes...and that's ok.

I'm so glad I have a great wife who's also a great mother. As we go through this journey of first time parenthood, many times feeling helpless by ourselves, we become stronger together. And this morning was proof of that.

While my manhood still took a hit, I'm proud of the team. We took on new parent panic and didn't turn on each other. We didn't throw blame around or yell obscenities at our child, we grew up. We managed to turn a nightmare situation into a learning experience. Instead of collapsing into a pile of self-doubt and isolating ourselves in contempt, we built each other up. Despite the cluelessness and scared worry at the time, we're now better equipped to take on future battles.    

I may not always be able to wield by super dad powers and save the day, but I know I can rely on her: us: we. And that's more than ok, that's a being a family.

The Problem with Asking for Advice - from Jeff Goins

I found another great blog post from Jeff Goins today, about why asking for advice is really just you looking for validation or affirmation of a choice already made. I just had to share it because it really hits home with me.

I want to make all these changes, talk about making all these changes, asking others how can I make these changes but how often do I really follow through?

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When someone asks another person’s advice, they’re usually asking two questions:

1. “What am I doing wrong?”
2. “What are you doing that I’m not doing?”

Sometimes, you get the same answer to both questions, and that can certainly be enlightening. But that’s not the hard part of the process.

The hard part comes when you have to do something, when you have to change your habits or adjust your attitude. When you have to get up at 5 a.m. or stop eating junk food.

For whatever reason, we resist this part. We ignore the hard work, hiding behind programs and fads that promise instantaneous results. No wonder we’re so jaded about living our dreams and finding work that matters. And no wonder these efforts so easily fail.

We don’t really want advice. We want to be right.

I don’t know why we think the rules of physics don’t apply to us or why we avoid the discomfort of change, but we do. This is why we beg mentors for “tricks” and gurus to share their “secrets.” We want help solving problems we already know the solutions to. And we want the answers to be easy.

Incidentally, this is also why sages of old are often found out in the desert, tucked away from society and technology and the distractions of the world.

They learned long ago that there is a big difference between talking about changing your life and actually doing it.

When it comes to solving our own problems, we usually know what must be done. Often, it’s the very thing we’re avoiding, the hard choice we’re simply afraid to make. And what’s required of us is that one choice we almost always refuse to make: We have to change.

In light of this, I’d like to propose a new question to ask ourselves before asking someone else’s advice. It’s a simple requisite that, I think, would change the conversation entirely.

Instead of asking what you should do, ask yourself this question first:

Am I willing to change what I’ve been doing to get different results?

If the answer is no, then the other questions don’t matter. You have your answer.

If everyone did this, the only advice given would be taken seriously. And what a wonderful world that would be where we wouldn’t have to waste each other’s time, talking about things we never had any intention of doing.

Holding a Sleeping Baby

As new parents, life is a literal blur. There's little sleep, a lot of crying (baby and adults), your chaotic life outside the home, plus the heavy responsibility of this new human that needs you to survive. So much to do and never enough time for it all.

Your mind races 24/7. Your to-do list grows with each passing second because you can't keep up. You remember stuff you forgot and forget stuff you should have remembered. It really is like losing your mind.

People may tell you to take a break. "A break! Who's got time for that?"

YOU HAVE TIME FOR A BREAK.

There's little moments all around you that can put things in perspective. You just have to see them for what they are.

Look closer the next time you change a diaper. Not at what's in the diaper, but at the face up above the stinky mess. Enjoy the smile, forget the laundry.

Look closer the next time you feed her a bottle. It may be startling how much liquid this tiny primate can suck down, but enjoy the little squeaks, forget the dishes.

Look closer the next time you hold your sleeping baby. Enjoy the peace, forget the rest of the "important tasks."

Worrying about the future will do you no good in the present. And a sleeping baby is a precious gift...don't shake it or awake it.

Force yourself to clear out the mind clutter and enjoy the moment for what it is. Remember that you will never get this moment back, so savor it while you can. The whirlwind of life will slow down if you allow it to.

25 Common Words That You’ve Got Wrong...Literally

I found this post on Lifehack and just had to share it. Although it has nothing to do with parenting, it could learn you a thing or two...so you could then teach your kids to talk good. Did that previous sentence make sense? If so, you need to read this NOW.

Everybody talks a lot. It’s one of the most frequent things we as human beings do. We need it to communicate. People do it for entertainment. Just because we all do it all the time doesn’t mean we have perfected the craft. Here are a bunch of common words everyone uses but most use incorrectly.

1. Irony

What you think it means: Something that is funny.
What it really means: Contrary to what you are expecting.

This is a famous one because so many people get this wrong so often. It’s also kind of hard to explain, so we’ll use an example. The Titanic was boasted about as being 100% unsinkable and then in 1912 it was sunk anyway. That is what is called cosmic irony. When a starving vegetarian eats a pepperoni pizza, that is what is called situational irony. There are other kinds too, such as dramatic irony and Socratic irony. Believe it or not, sarcasm is actually irony. When you say something sarcastically, your tone and your words mean two opposite things. That is ironic. Irony can be funny but not everything funny is irony.

2. Travesty

What you think it means: A tragedy or something unfortunate.
What it really means: A mockery or parody.

This is another one that people have wrong fairly frequently. You’ve heard people call 9/11 a travesty. Truth be told 9/11 was a tragedy. A travesty is actually a mockery or a parody. One might say that a Weird Al Yankovic album is a travesty. With how often this word is associated with tragedy, we wouldn’t be shocked if that definition were eventually added as an acceptable meaning. Until then, it doesn’t mean anything bad happened.

3. Ultimate

What you think it means: The one, the only. The best.
What it really means: The last item of a list.

Some people do actually use this one properly. You may see someone list off a bunch of things and hear them say, “Okay, at the store we need eggs, milk, juice, and ultimately, butter.” That is actually the proper use of ultimate. There is no other context or added context. It simply means the last one.

4. Conversate

What you think it means: To have a conversation.
What it really means: Nothing.

Conversate actually doesn’t exist and I’ll prove it to you. Go into a program that underlines words with red if they’re spelled wrong. Now type out conversate. Did you see the red line? Conversate was meant to be a mixture of conversation and converse and be used as a verb. However, converse is a verb and there really isn’t a need for a second verb to describe the same action.

5. Peruse

What you think it means: To skim or browse.
What it really means: To observe in depth.

When you peruse something, you are actually taking a very close look at it. When you’re at a record store (remember those?) and you’re just running through a stack of records, you are just browsing. If you pick up a record and look at the artist, track list, and additional information on the back, then your are perusing.

6. Bemused

What you think it means: Amused.
What it really means: Confused.

This is one of the many words on this list that will make you strongly dislike the English language. Despite looking all but identical to the word amused, bemused doesn’t even come close to meaning the same thing. If you are bemused then you are actually confused.

7. Compelled

What you think it means: To do something voluntarily by choice.
What it really means: To be forced or obligated to doing something.

This is one that people get wrong and it’s rather understandable. The real definition is very close to the definition people generally use. The difference is the motivation. When people say compelled, they think the person wants to perform the action. In fact, they are forced to do it regardless of their personal feelings. Here’s an example. When you’re in court, you are compelled to give honest testimony. You may not want to, but it doesn’t matter because you have to.

8. Nauseous

What you think it means: To feel ill.
What it really means: To cause feelings of illness.

This is another understandable mishap that a lot of people make. If you actually feel sick then you are nauseated. The object that made you feel ill is nauseous. Here’s how this works. If you’re at an amusement park and you’re sitting next to a full trash can, the fumes from the trash may make you feel ill. That means the fumes from the trash can are nauseous because they are making you feel nauseated.

9. Redundant

What you think it means: Repetitive.
What it really means: Unnecessarily excessive.

This one is tough because you can use it wrong but unintentionally use it right. When you repeat something a bunch of times, it can become redundant, but redundant expands far beyond just repeating things over and over. A popular thing companies are doing now is firing people but instead of calling it “getting fired,” they call it “eliminating redundancies.” The premise being that the employee they’re firing is unnecessary and excessive and they are thus eliminating them. In pretty much any scenario where there is simply too much of something, it is redundant.

10. Enormity

What you think it means: Huge, enormous.
What it really means: Profoundly immoral or evil.

Don’t beat yourself up over this one because no one knows this one off the top of their head. Enormity sounds like enormous and as with many of our other examples, here we expect words that sound alike to have similar meanings. Enormity simply means really evil. An example of how to use it is the following: “The enormity of the crimes committed by the Nazis in World War II.” It doesn’t mean the enormous crimes, it means the heinous crimes.

11. Terrific

What you think it means: Fantastic, good.
What it really means: Horrific, to inspire fear.

This is another one that we expect will be changed in the dictionary eventually because barely anyone uses the real meaning anymore. When people say they feel terrific, they mean to say they feel fantastic. An example of something terrific is King Kong. You see a giant monster and it inspires fear. We’re going to loop awesome in with this one too. Awesome simply means to inspire awe and people often use it to describe something really good.

12. Effect

What you may think it means: To cause something to change.
What it really means: An event that causes a change.

A lot of people staunchly defend the wrong definition of this and it’s understandable. When action A causes a change in object B, action A affected object B and object B has been affected. Effect is an event that causes a change. In our prior example, action A is, in and of itself, an effect because it affects things. It’s admittedly confusing to explain but easy to remember. If it’s a noun, it’s an effect. If it’s a verb, it’s an affect.

13. Disinterested

What you think it means: Bored.
What it really means: Neutral.

A good way to remember this one is that there is a word that means bored and it’s uninterested. If you’re uninterested, you’re bored. Being disinterested is the long-form equivalent of stating that you don’t care about something.

14. Irregardless

What you think it means: Without regard.
What it really means: Nothing.

Like conversate above, irregardless isn’t actually a word. When people say irregardless, they actually mean to say regardless. Regardless means without regard. Irregardless has been used so often that it actually is in the dictionary now and that’s kind of sad. Even though it is technically there, there are a large number of people who don’t consider it a word. You can save yourself a couple of keystrokes and a tongue lashing by just using regardless.

15. Chronic

What you think it means: Severe.
What it really means: Over the course of a long time.

This is definitely one that people ought to know better. When you have severe pain, it is just severe pain. If you have chronic pain, you have been in pain for a long, long time. Chronic conditions and diseases are called chronic because they won’t go away and not because they’re overly severe.

16. i.e.

What you think it means: For example.
What it really means: In other words.

This is one among a number of shortened words that confuse people. Here’s a quick guide on how to use them. Et cetera is etc., example is ex. or e.g., and in other words is i.e. When you use i.e. you’re essentially putting it there to let people know that you’re going to be stating the same information in different words. Here’s how it really works. It’s June and I moved into my new apartment in April, i.e., two months ago.

17. Decimate

What you think it means: To destroy or annihilate
What it really means: To destroy ten percent.

This one is really goofy and one day this won’t be true. For the time being, decimate actually means removing only ten percent of something. If you know a little bit about words it’s not difficult to figure out. The prefix “dec” means ten. However, the traditional definition of this word is antiquated and it’ll probably be changed eventually. Until then, it’s technically correct to use a word like exterminate or annihilate instead.

18. Panacea

What you think it means: A cure.
What it really means: A cure for a lot of things.

This one is easy to confuse because the explanation is virtually the same even if the definitions are vastly different. A panacea is something that cures a lot of things all at once. For instance, penicillin is a panacea. It cures a bunch of diseases. The flu vaccine is not a panacea because it only protects against the flu.

19. Fortuitous

What you think it means: Lucky.
What it really means: By chance.

There is a difference between luck and chance. Unfortunately, people use the two interchangeably, so much so that it’s difficult to explain the differences anymore. Lucky is an event that happens by chance that can be described as fortunate. Winning the lottery is lucky. Fortuitous means simply by chance. For instance if you drop your basketball and it bounces into the road and gets hit by a car, that’s a fortuitous instance. It’s neutral, so it can be good or bad things that happen by chance.

20. Plethora

What you think it means: A lot of something.
What it really means: More than is needed.

This is one I use incorrectly all the time. In fact, I almost used it a couple of times in this very article. Plethora simply means that there is more of something than is needed. For instance, you may think that 5,000 people is a plethora of people. However, when you put them into a hockey arena that seats 13,000 people, it’s actually less than half capacity and therefore not a plethora. If you had 13,500 people in that same arena, that would be a plethora of people.

21. Total

Total means exactly what you think it means but total is used unnecessarily on a frequent basis. When there is a total of 50 people who do something, the total is 50 whether or not you use the word “total.” Or you might hear someone say that they were totally surprised. Surprise is not a conditional emotion. You were either surprised or not. The use of total didn’t add anything of value to the sentence. In most cases, the definition is correct but using the word is repetitive when put in context with the rest of the sentence.

22. Literally

What you think it means: Figuratively.
What it really means: Actually.

This is something that has come about relatively recently and my generation may have helped propagate this one. Literally means actually. When something is literally true, it is actually true. If I haven’t seen my friend in literally five years then I actually haven’t seen them in five years. People use literally along with hyperbole to show an emotion: “I haven’t had Chinese food in literally a million years.” This is meant to denote that the person hasn’t had Chinese food in a while. The word those people actually want is figuratively. They figuratively haven’t had Chinese food in a million years. They probably literally hadn’t had it in a few days or weeks.

23. Can

What you think it means: What is permissible.
What it really means: What is possible.

This is one you have to nip in the bud in childhood because it’s much harder to correct in adulthood. When you can do something, you have capacity within you to perform that action regardless of whether or not you actually do it. I can bang my head into my desk but I absolutely will not do it. When people use can incorrectly it is because they mean to use the word “may.” When you ask someone if they can open the door, you did not ask them to open the door. You asked them if they were capable of opening the door. If you wish for them to perform the task, you should ask if they will open the door. When you ask if you can have something, you’re not asking someone to give it to you. You’re asking if you have the capacity to own it. If you need something, ask if you may have it.

24. Defective

What you think it means: That something is broken or missing pieces.
What it really means: Simply that it’s broken.

You’ll see this one a lot in Amazon reviews. People will say that their unit came defective because it was missing a screw or pieces in the box. That’s actually incorrect. What they mean to say is that their product is deficient. It’s missing pieces, it is not actually broken. The machine may work perfectly fine once the missing pieces have been re-added, which means that it actually isn’t defective at all.

25. Obsolete

What you think it means: Old, out of date.
What it really means: Not produced, used, or needed.

You’ll see this one in the tech industry a lot. People in tech article comments will comment that a phone is obsolete when they really mean that it’s out of date. The literal definition of obsolete is an item that it isn’t produced, needed, or used anymore. An example of this is is the steam engine. It’s largely inefficient compared to today’s combustion engine and even more inefficient than the emerging electric engines. Thus, steam engines are not used, produced, or needed anymore. Yes, they are also old and out of date, but obsolete is kind of the next step after old and out of date.

Wrap up

The English language is a finicky one but it’s also ever changing. Words are updated and definitions change. New words are added every year and some are retired. Very few people will ever master the entire language and the rest of us will just have to do the best we can!