Brand Recognition

A few years ago, my wife and I read an article about how many brand logos a typical 3 year old is able to recognize.  A simple search for "Child Brand Recognition" will get you there.  Suitably sickened, we decided that we'd at least casually try to avoid over-exposing our kids to marketer brainwashing.

I tend to think we've done pretty well generally, but once in a while it's easy to forget.  At the end of a recent doctor appointment, the kids were able to pick out some knick-knacks to bring home (Spiderman and Dora stickers, etc.).  They opted for some rubber band bracelets from a pharmaceutical company.  It's a wide yellow bracelet with "Axert" featured in blue.

It had been over a week, and Colin was of course still wearing his "cool" bracelet.  It wasn't until last night that we realized what had happened:  

"Yeesh! Y'know, he's been a walking drug company ad for a week!"

"Terrible!  Kids should not be used to advertise drugs!"

"We should at least be aware of what this Axert stuff is..."

"Google to the rescue!"

15 seconds later....

Axert: Migraine Treatment Medication

Well, that seems appropriate.  Nevermind.

What's that smear in the window?

I've posted before about how awesome I think the EyeClops microscope is. This is another opportunity to show it off.

Teri noticed something strange on the screen of our dining room window the other morning. Bird poop maybe? Something strange from the forest?

Much grosser.  It looks like something (a moth?) came by in the night and squeezed it's ovipositor all over our screen.

I tried to take a picture of the screen with a regular camera, but I'm an auto-focus kind of guy, and the camera just wanted to shoot my backyard through the screen.  Imagine a bird poop spread in a 2 inch diameter on your screen.


Anyhow, this was a job for the EyeClops!

100x - the metal weave is the window screen

The scientist in me really wanted to scrape a few off into a mason jar to see how they progressed  That idea of course competed with "Eww, get them off the screen before they find a way to crawl into our house while the window's open."

Since all I have are pictures of the eggs, I do not know what kind of creature this may have become.

If anyone has stronger google-fu than me, or by some luck an entomologist reads this, I'd love to know what they are.

200x - shiny!

400x - I wonder what Stephen Wolfram would think of the pattern

400x - Mmm caviar