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The Poop Investigates!
Girl Scout cookies on EBay?!?
Considering that we basically declared in a post a couple of weeks ago that Girl Scouts are slackers, the ensuing comments produced a surprisingly constructive discussion about the current state of cookie sales. Since then, I've seen several groups of actual Girl Scouts selling cookies outside of local stores -- with only minimal help from their parents. I even thought about making a mea culpa.
shopgirlscouts.com
Even the Trefoils are selling above retail.
While investigating rumors of a Thin Mint shortage in the East Bay, I ran across couple of people selling cookies on Craigslist, and literally hundreds on EBay. Many of the cookies were selling at a set $3.50 rate (equal to the street value), which I don't have a huge problem with, even though the Girl Scouts apparently have a rule against selling on the Internet. I suppose there might be a Samoa addict in the remote Alaska wilderness who doesn't have a Girl Scout troop nearby and is relying on a kindly bush pilot to deliver a crate.
But some of the sellers were encouraging competitive bidding, with sales going several dollars above face value. (As of late Sunday morning, this three-box package of Thin Mints was selling for $18.02 plus shipping, well above its $10.50 value.) Even though the bidding wars haven't exactly hit Hannah Montana proportions, no doubt as the Girl Scouts and their cookies disappear, these prices are likely to rise.
A few thoughts ... Read More 'Girl Scout cookies on EBay?!?' »
| March 17 2008 at 08:32 AM
Girl Scout cookies are here! A few thoughts ...
The Girl Scout cookies arrived this week, and our household couldn't be happier. My wife brought home two boxes of Thin Mints and some Tagalongs, and a colleague gave me a box of Samoas that had been sent to the newsroom as some kind of free sample. This will last us until tomorrow at noon.
Too much empty space.
I don't want to dwell on the negative, as pretty much everybody loves Girl Scouts. But after seeing the sales efforts this year and sampling the product, there are some things I need to get off my chest.
A few thoughts ...
Girl Scouts are getting lazy: That's right. I said it. And while I'm willing to acknowledge that your little Girl Scout may be a modern-day Willie Loman, a great number of them have become extremely soft. After I posted my last GS item on The Poop, no less than four adults who work at the Chronicle newsroom e-mailed asking if I wanted to buy something from their daughter. But not one actual Girl Scout showed up in person with the little order form. Let me tell you, they would have cleaned up, too. I'm a freaking addict. But even if it's a close friend, I don't buy cookies from parents.
Read More 'Girl Scout cookies are here! A few thoughts ...' »| February 28 2008 at 09:02 AM
Golden Gate Park children's playground not ready for grand opening
New play structure features slides, swings and bulldozers
The Poop
11:10 a.m., July 2, 2007: The big opening of the playground at the Koret Children's Quarter in Golden Gate Park. Notice lack of kids, safe entry to playground.
It said so right on the Web site: "Starting Monday July 2 through the opening on July 14, the playground will be open daily between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m."
But as a large group of anxious kids and parents queued outside the chain link fence at the appointed hour... Nothing.
After a few minutes of standing around and glancing at their watches while workers inside casually swept and wandered aimlessly, the parents got the least surprising news ever: The playground wasn't ready to open. It would be another hour, maybe two, but judging by all the loose debris and heavy machinery scattered inside maybe not today or even this week. Some kids actually broke down in tears.
"Thanks a lot!" yelled one mom at the people on the other side of the fence, with more than a hint of sarcasm in her voice. She may have even flipped them the bird, marking the mob if not angry then at least irate.
An "official" opening event is scheduled for Saturday, July 14, at 10:45 a.m. Just don't let your little ones get their hopes up too high. This is why people move to Walnut Creek.
UPDATE: One of the workers at the playground was kind enough to provide us with the details of the delay from behind the fence. So after the jump we give you another side of the story. Literally. Read More 'Golden Gate Park children's playground not ready for grand opening' »
| July 02 2007 at 11:20 AM
Nannygate! New blog narcs out child care providers
(Chronicle parenting reporter Ilene Lelchuk returns from the Lawrence Welk Resort and turns in another great post.)
Overweight, overbearing, Ho Ho eating, neglectful nannies beware. Someone is watching you.
Maybe your employer installed a nanny cam, secreted away in an plush teddy or fern, to keep an eye on you while you watch their precious little ones.
www.wikipedia.en
"I saw your nanny wearing prim dress, carrying umbrella and claiming to have magical powers. She takes the Banks children on dangerous rooftop rendezvous with a chimney sweep of questionable background, forces medicine down children's throats, and probably taking hallucinogens since she claims to dance with cartoon penguins and lambs."
But consider this: The whole world also is watching, and blogging about you, when you're outside the house. When you drag your ward to Starbucks and yell "f---" because your $200 shoes got wet in the rain. When you gab with your pals at the playground while the little boy you are supposed to be watching shoves woodchips in his mouth. When you sit on a bench and feed your child, gasp, a Ho Ho.
It's all out there, on isawyournanny.blogspot.com, created by an anonymous New York woman who has no children but worked as a nanny for a decade.
She invites the public to send in sightings of inappropriate behavior, a photo, anything that helps identify the nanny so parents can learn about the situation.
The site is part public service, part gossip rag, to the creator's chagrin. I admit I'm hooked. Anonymous posters criticize everything from the nanny's weight and shopping habits to the more serious stuff of ignoring, pinching and berating kids.
It's pretty New York centric, but I've seen some from the Bay Area, including Piedmont and Walnut Creek (where someone's nanny is a very crappy driver, apparently.) Read More 'Nannygate! New blog narcs out child care providers' »
| October 19 2006 at 08:30 AM
Thomas Exposed! Tank Engine Uses Performance Enhancers!
(Chronicle transportation reporter Michael Cabanatuan sent us this dispatch from a recent visit to the Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton. We've been holding off on guest contributions, but this one was just too shocking to pass on. --Peter)
Thomas is a fake, but the kids love him anyway.
After an exhaustive (and exhausting) all-day investigation in the Santa Cruz Mountains, I have distressing news to report: Thomas the Tank Engine, hero to many tykes and toddlers, and a few of those parents who get a little too involved in their kids' interests, is a fake.
Thomas, it turns out, is not a "Very Useful Engine," as his books and his master, Sir Topham Hatt, proudly proclaim. In fact, he's not an engine at all. And he's actually pretty helpless.
Oh, Thomas looks like the real deal all right -- shiny blue paint job, steam puffing out of his stack, a whistle that goes "Peep-peeeeeeeeeeeeep," and a big smile on his face -- just like in the books and videos.
But the Thomas appearing at the Roaring Camp Railroads in Felton through this weekend as part of the national Day Out with Thomas tour, is just a fancy facade, a simulated tank engine that looks like the real thing but can't pull his best pals, passenger cars Annie and Clarabell, or anything else around.
Instead, Thomas sits at the end of a long string of open-air railroad cars, and is pulled and pushed by a locomotive surreptitiously attached to the rear. As if that's not enough of an indignity for Engine No. 1, that locomotive is -- gasp! -- a diesel. Read More 'Thomas Exposed! Tank Engine Uses Performance Enhancers!' »
| August 03 2006 at 02:15 PM
KIDS' CONSPIRACY CORNER: ARE "VOICES" COMMUNICATING WITH YOUR KID FROM "THE OTHER SIDE" OF THE BABY MONITOR?
For a second, I thought my 7-month old son's first words were: "This is the Best Damn Sports Show Period."
That's what I heard coming through the baby monitor set up in his room the other night, where I left him alone.
At least I thought he was alone.
The baby monitor "base" unit. Note ominous shadow
Imagine how freaky I felt when instead of hearing my boy working on his newly found giggle, I instead heard the laughter and voices of Rob Dibble, John Salley and Larry The Cable Guy. The first two dudes mentioned I could deal with as babysitters, but Larry The My-Name-Is-Already-Taken-By-Someone-Who-Is-Actually-Funny Guy is simply not welcome in our home.
Since none were invited, I went to investigate.
Upon entering my son's room I found just the snoring baby. I couldn't blame Lame-o the Cable Guy's bad jokes for putting him to sleep, because those "Best Damn" voices weren't audible in his room. The one weird thing was that the baby monitor's base unit (which picks up sound in the baby's room) was turned off.
A logical explanation came from my wife who said she had just turned off the baby monitor since she was going to be in the room for his next feeding.
| July 20 2006 at 02:00 AM
ARE S.F. PLAYGROUNDS HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH?
Fun with arsenic, asphalt and strangulationRemember when you thought diving into the pit at a Jane's Addiction show was living dangerously? Well, now all you have to do get that rush is take your toddler down to the local playground, where all kinds of extreme thrills await.
Earlier this year, the Chronicle published an article that detailed a survey of San Francisco's playgrounds. Out of 130 examined almost half received a grade of C or lower.
What the city parks lack in marks they make up for with cool hazards such as outdated pieces of equipment that pose strangulation risks, hard asphalt surfaces and, best of all, older wooden structures that contain arsenic and other toxic materials.
While several playgrounds in hoity-toity neighborhoods such as the newly reopened Alta Plaza in the Upper Fillmore and Julius Kahn in Pacific Heights were updated with the latest in child-friendly gear, many others in less well-to-do neighborhoods such as Glen Park, Potrero Hill and even the Inner Richmond's popular Mountain Lake Park are still getting by on dodgy old-school gear. Why? Because it's funnier when poor people get hurt.
Activities that are not unlike playing in a sandbox in San Francisco:
Street luging, sniffing glue, mainlining DDT, naked rugby, white water rafting (without a raft)
What the scientists said:
"Pressure-treated wood can be especially hazardous when wooden posts erode with age and the embedded arsenic rises to the surface or sheds to the sand. Since children spend a fair amount of time in playgrounds, they are most vulnerable to the arsenic exposure. Through lab testing of the sand and 'wipe' tests of the wooden posts, the San Francisco Health Department determined that both the wooden play structures and the sand are the main sources of arsenic exposure...
Where have all the children gone? To a city with working swings.
Related links:
2006 San Francisco Playground Report Card (.pdf)
And that's why there are more dogs than children in San Franciso - not that the dogs have it any better.
| July 14 2006 at 12:01 AM
DIAPER BAGGIE SCANDAL: THE POOP INVESTIGATES!
It is perhaps the greatest dilemma any new parent has to face: Should I buy the diaper baggies with the cute little duck dispenser, or save a little money and purchase equally functional bags that are meant for dogs?
Peter Hartlaub/Chronicle
Our hidden camera photo reveals ... a bargain!
The Poop has investigated further, and the results may shock you. Not only are the meant-for-humans baggies at major retail superstores nearly identical to the ones in the pet section, but they can cost more than twice as much money. (Plus the doggy baggies have a nice sandlewood scent that most daddies will find superior to the flowery scent on the baby baggies.)
It's the scandal that the diaper baggie industry doesn't want you to know about. Here are our findings:
1. At Target, the for-humans baggies cost $2.99 for a duck dispenser and 24 baggies -- a unit cost of more than 12 cents. The replacement baggies are $2.99 for 36, about 8 cents per unit.
2. The dog baggies cost $2.99 for 50 bags, and have refills priced at $6.99 for 150, which is 4.5 cents per unit. Read More 'DIAPER BAGGIE SCANDAL: THE POOP INVESTIGATES!' »
| July 06 2006 at 01:00 AM
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