In case you missed when President Barack Obama dropped 8BD’s favorite “f-bomb” (fatherhood) about two-thirds of the way through his State of The Union Speech last week Tuesday, here’s the segment:

“[W]e’ll work to strengthen families by…doing more to encourage fatherhood – because what makes you a man isn’t the ability to conceive a child; it’s having the courage to raise one.”

Later last week in Chicago, President Obama was again talking about parenthood (in a variety of forms) and specifically fatherhood as a hedge against many of America’s social ills. The President appears to be “ramping up the rhetoric” in the best kind of way.

During the State of The Union speech, President Obama connected fatherhood with stronger families and stronger communities, appealing to the common-sense economic benefits of having both parents involved in supervising and mentoring children. In Chicago, President Obama implied that involved fathers could help in reducing the large amount of gun violence that plagues one of the most dangerous cities in the United States for gun murder.

This isn’t the first time Barack Obama has highlighted fatherhood. In 2011, the President said that fathers needed to “step up”. In 2012, he defended the time he carved out on weekends to spend with his family, instead of “schmoozing” with powerful people in Washington. 8BitDad.com has also covered President Obama on fatherhood a number of times.

Say what you like about the President, but he is obviously a family man and a superb spokesperson for fatherhood who clearly recognizes the benefits of involved dads. I hope he keeps this pace of promoting fatherhood up!

Along the same line of scumbag dad who shot up his daughter’s laptop to “discipline” her, we have a new story of a dad who used a recently purchased AK-47 to settle an argument between he and his daughter about her academic performance.

The high points of the daughter’s complaint, taken by a social worker at her school the day after the argument, are that the dad had recently purchased the AK-47 in the midst of recent gun controversy in the USA and widespread fear of assault weapons gun bans, and that he used that gun to threaten his daughter and her mother, who he also reportedly threw to the ground.

This scumbag of a parent is exactly the kind of person for which we have both gun control laws and child abuse laws. Of course there is more to be said about a culture that allows, and does not abhor, the use of gun in solving problems, but for now I have to suffice for pointing my sternest ridicule in this loser’s direction.

Taken 2 – Bryan Mills (played by Liam Neeson) is a dad “with a particular set of skills” who, in the prequel film (2008), rescued his daughter from an Albanian human-trafficking syndicate, using the unconventional tactic of applying his experience as expert CIA operative in a merciless rampage across Europe.

In this year’s sequel, Bryan is still trying to get close to his daughter Kim (played by Maggie Grace), while working off-and-on as a high-profile personal security consultant. When he finds out that his ex-wife Lenore (played by the stunning Famke Janssen) is having a rough time at home with an estranged husband, Bryan invites Kim and Lenore to visit him in Istanbul after his next assignment for a few days vacation.

Meanwhile, in Albania, trafficking kingpin Murad Krasniqi (played by Rade Serbedzija) plots revenge against Bryan, and travels with his goons into Istanbul just in time to catch the family reuniting for their vacation. During one outing, Bryan and Lenore seem to be reigniting an old flame just as Murad’s goons barge in with orders to take Bryan alive. Needless to say, a series of kidnapping attempts against Bryan, Lenore, and even Kim ensues, while Bryan spends much of the movie performing his signature vicious rampage.

But you already knew that, didn’t you? Check out the rest of the review after the button…

Fans of the first movie will enjoy the laconic dialog and the brutality of Bryan as he breaks Albanian bones and points his pistol into the eye sockets of his adversaries. I myself was waiting to see more of this in Taken 2, although I definitely remember hooting aloud several more times during the original feature saying things like: “Goddam! Did you see that? He killed him with his ELBOW!”

Other reviews out there on the internets are making a big to-do about how Bryan is able to contact his daughter Kim to help bail him out during his first escape from the Albanian goons, who – honestly – generally appear in every scene as inept, distracted, or too bored to be bothered with avenging their brethren or even too bored to even be bothered to look back at who might have opened the gate behind them and is getting ready to strangle them until they are dead, dead, dead. I’m going to personally give Bryan a B- for judgement on that one. Not only does he have options (or rather, he SHOULD have options) other than bringing his daughter into the fight armed with a map and three grenades that she is instructed to detonate on the rooftops of Istanbul.

Plenty of suspension of disbelief is required to watch this film with a straight face. Those grenades are only the tip of the iceberg. The film generally suffers from plot holes, continuity gaps, and anomalies like Bryan’s unlimited ammo cheat code.

Any sequel is inevitably going to have to deal with comparisons. Sorry, folks, that’s just the deal. The bummer for me in this movie really was Bryan’s different approaches in handling the different kidnapping scenarios. In the first film, Bryan not only had to rampage through ascending echelons of kidnappers, but he also had to extract information along the way. This led him to be a little more intimidating and fearsome in the first film, whereas in the second film, it really is a lot of pistol-whipping and analysis stuff that can only really happen inside Bryan’s head. There’s no real scene to compare to the epic electrocution interrogation Bryan has in the first film, and that’s just too bad as Bryan loses a lot of desperation and emotion.

I will remark on one particular dimension of the film, which is kind of a Dad vs. Dad moment where Bryan explains why he had to do what he did to the Albanian kingpin Murad’s daughter-kidnapping son (remember that electrocution scene?). In the same scene, Murad explains why he must now have revenge against Bryan. It’s a very compelling and honest dialogue where both dads just lay it out there, no matter how absurd it sounds to rational people. And that’s really the thing, isn’t it? When you start talking about messing with a father’s children, it really isn’t a rational situation anymore, is it?

So Taken 2 is the #1 movie in theaters this week, and that’s good. It’s grossed about $50 million so it’s on track to be considered a successful movie, and definitely a successful sequel. If you enjoyed the first movie, you’ll like seeing Bryan do his thing all over again. Even if you didn’t catch the first movie (like my wife who I dragged along with me), it is still accessible and enjoyable. In fact, I think you might even like it more if you haven’t seen the prequel. I give you a 3.5 star review, which is half a star more than I came into this review with, but that was before I knew we could give half-increments in the rating scale, but this movie honestly deserves what I give it.

Hell, go see it. Truthfully, it’s probably going to be the best thing in the theater until the holidays.

We’ve all done the same thing as this dad, but only one of us was clever enough to make such a rad video out of it.

Dig it!

Very soon, I’ll be returning home from Afghanistan, where I’ve been deployed away from my family for nearly a year. Let me tell you that I am absolutely thrilled to see my wife and kiddos, and I bet they are stoked to have me home as well.

I’m fortunate that this is only my first deployment, and also that it will likely be my last for some time. For a lot of American military families, this is not the case, and some military members with multiple deployments have been away for three, four, even FIVE years of their childrens’ lives.

The sweetest part of a military deployment is probably the homecoming, where we reunite with the people in our lives that we love most. Amidst the countdowns and preparations, a lot is built up around having the family intact again. Military parents make plans just as much as I am sure the children do. I’ve got some plans of my own that I thought I would like to share at 8BD. So here’s a list of the 5 things I can’t wait to do with my kids once I get home from Afghanistan.

5. Catch Up On My (Bed Time Story) Reading

A lot can change in a year. For example, when I left for my deployment in Afghanistan, I would spend time reading books like The Night Pirates (awesome read-aloud bed time story, btw), and maybe a few poems by Shel Silverstein or Dr. Seuss. Well, the other day, my oldest tells me that he’s just finished Diary of a Wimpy Kid, as well as several volumes from the Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka (author of The Stinky Cheese Man – yeah, you guys probably remember that one). I swear to high heaven, if I don’t get home soon, the kid is going to be halfway through the lifetime works of Twain and Faulkner!

Here’s another example of what happens when you leave daily life with your kids for an extended length of time. A week ago, I asked my middlest kiddo to count to five for me online. It was something we were working on before I left. The little weirdo proceeds to count off to me fast as heck: “one, two, three, four…etc…FIFTY!!!”

The point is, these kids grow up quick, and I’ve got a LOT of catching up to do. Not just so we’re on the same page during bed-time stories (you see what I did there?), but just so I can compensate for the time warp that’s happened while my oldest began a reading marathon, my middlest learned to count 10x his previous high score, and my littlest learned to walk and talk.

4. Hug the Kids, But NOW IN 3-D!!!

Fun Fact: I freaking LOVE hugs! I especially love hugging my kids. Your kids give the best hugs, I’m not even joking.

So you can imagine how frustrating is how every time I see my kids, it’s through a pinhole-sized camera hole at the top of their computer screen. Two-dimensional face time (you see what I did there?) is cool, and it’s better than nothing, but it makes getting, and giving, hugs to my kiddos extremely frustrating.

So far the workaround has been, you guessed it, imitating a hug through the wonderful magic of the internet. This basically involves giving my laptop a hug every time I want to say good night to my weirdos. Nobody has caught me yet, but I’m pretty sure it’s only a matter of time before somebody walks in on me and questions my sanity. Meanwhile, on the other end, I’ve got my middlest climbing up on my desk at home and putting his arms around the household computer. The pucker factor increases somewhat if he loses his balance and wobbles on the desk, or when he clenches onto the computer to catch his balance.

So I’m definitely looking forward to ACTUALLY hugging my kids, and now that 3-D is the emerging trend in entertainment, I figure it’s also a pretty fashionable thing to do at the same time.

After trying CrossFit at the beginning of last year, I wrote about how CrossFit dads turn their kids into beasts, using daily Workout of the Day (WOD) exercises from CrossFit and CrossFit Kids. I’ve been off-and-on with my own CrossFit exercise routine, but I check in regularly to the “main site” and keep a log with my wife, who holds me accountable and I appreciate that.

The CrossFit main site usually features a cool image of an athlete performing some awesome feat of strength from the CrossFit repertoire, but lately I’ve noticed lots of images creeping into the mix of men with their children, who are also attempting some similar exercise as their daddy. I thought it was pretty cool, and began saving a few of the images to show here on 8BitDad:

A few of these came up at the main site, but the rest I culled off the internets, where I also bumped into this cool dad’s blog: CrossFit Dad’s Blog. I’ve even bumped into one creative CrossFitter who has designed WOD toys that are fun and safe for budding athletes three years old and older.

Are you a CrossFit dad? If so, holler back at us, or feel free to send us a photo of you doing epic feats of strength with your kids. We’ll post it here at 8BitDad.

In probably the first time “cervix” and “trash can” have ever been used in a rap freestyle (probably not, actually), Air Force Staff Sergeant Charles McDaniel had his wife giggling during a delivery room freestyle.

McDaniel heard a rhythm in the beeping of the baby’s fetal heart monitor, and attempted his rap using only his observations in the room, words from lamaze exercises, and probably a LOT of delirium from lack of rest. Most of my dad out there know the deal.

Puff Daddy, watch yo’ back!

“HeeHeeHooHoo”, by youngcholy1 (McDaniel’s Youtube Page)

Boy, howdy! Did that video of a father shooting up his daughter’s laptop for mouthing off on Facebook get around the internet quickly or what? It almost happened so quick we didn’t see the point in covering it outside of the 24-hour meme-cycle of the internet. But we did want to go ahead and put it up on 8BitDad.com for those of you who have either been doing something productive with the last day or so, or those of you who deeply rely on our expert fatherly opinions (trust us, we’re a doctor…well, one of us is).

First a little background. The video you are about to see is of the father of a teenage girl named “Hannah.” Recently, Hannah put her parents on blast, using Facebook to vent three paragraphs of her teenage frustrations about chores. She was able to conceal the post from her parents using Facebook security settings, but Hannah’s father discovered the post during some expensive “software upgrades” that he performed on her laptop. With a lot of agitation, Hannah’s father reads the post aloud on video, and then shoots up Hannah’s laptop with his .45 pistol. He promises to post the video on Hannah’s Facebook immediately before grounding her for the rest of her childhood.

So what we’ve just seen here was somebody who was really upset and frustrated with a member of their own family. Instead of approaching their family member directly in a mature fashion, they overreacted by posting some inappropriate and probably hurtful material on Facebook. If you think I’m talking about Hannah, you’re absolutely right. If you think that I’m talking about Hannah’s father…you’re absolutely right.

It seems very clear to me where Hannah learned how to react in such a passive-aggressive manner towards her parents. She seems to be emulating the type of behavior that she has been shown by her father. Her original Facebook post, and his video response, are mirror images of the same type of behavior. This shouldn’t be any sort of surprise to parents. I noticed that my children emulated my behavior as well, when I discovered that my little ones were more physical with each other, and hitting each other, the more I gave them spankings in front of one another. You show your children that a particular behavior is okay, and they repeat it.

Discipline is probably the hardest part of parenting, and my approach has always been to tailor any acts of discipline to the situation and the likely response of a child. For example, it would be impossible to have a rational discussion with my toddler about electrical sockets, so when she gets too curious about them, I’ll clap my hands loudly behind her to surprise her, and forcibly remove her hand. She understands this. If you’re dealing with a teenager, this technique would be silly and unnecessary. With a teenager, you have an opportunity to reason with them, and you no longer have to resort to violent beatings or forced sword duels for discipline and punishment techniques. You certainly don’t have to resort to shooting up your daughter’s laptop with .45 exploding hollow-point rounds. Your teenager should be old enough to understand you when you use your words.

Parenting teens is probably the second largest challenge that parents face. At that age in their life, teens are emotional, self-centered, narcissistic, and rebellious. They will tend to lash out when they feel like their parents are being too tough on them. They are even likely to make embarrassing posts on Facebook, in order to achieve a cathartic moment. I am not excusing Hannah for her misbehavior. I am simply saying that this exactly the kind of thing that teens do. It can be expected, and it can be dealt with maturely.

Can you guess who we should NOT expect this type of emotionally-charged misbehavior from? That’s right, grown-ups! In these instances, it is important to demonstrate maturity, not only to resolve the conflict between teen and parent, but to demonstrate mature methods of dealing with disagreements or displeasure. At the least, I think we can agree that once you’ve brought a high-caliber pistol to the parenting process, you have lost the moral high ground, and a great deal of your credibility.

A lot of Hannah’s father’s follow-up remarks to this incident have shown a much more rational response. Perhaps the kind of response and explanation that he should have given Hannah face-to-face, instead of responding to her behavior in-kind. He has portrayed Hannah’s response to the video as light-hearted and somewhat apologetic. But, of course, I would attempt to be as light-hearted and apologetic as possible too, if my father had just demonstrated the intent to use lethal force in the discipline process.

All in all, I rate this guy as a childish prig, and will add my sternest label of “parenting FAIL.” Gunfire in a rural neighborhood and parenting just don’t mix.