Episode 038: Professional Tools

This week’s episode covers the following stories on 8BitDad.com and around the internets for the week leading up to July 24th, 2012: Dad Is Most Embarrassing Parent, Says British Survey / A Family Restaurant, If You’re A Traditional Family / Batman Rises and the Colorado Shootings: Hollywood Should be Ashamed

We often don’t take the time on 8BitDad to talk about celebrity deaths, but we wanted to take a minute to think about Andy Griffith’s passing, and how it is especially relevant to us because of his most famous role: Andy Taylor in The Andy Griffith Show.

Griffith’s character of Andy Taylor was a widower, raising a son (Opie, played by Ron Howard) on his own. In a time when television was obsessed with westerns and variety shows, The Andy Griffith Show stood as a family program that offered down-home country values…and genuine, honest fatherhood.

Episode 030: Super Sallan Show

SPECIAL GUEST: BRUCE SALLAN. This week’s episode covers the following stories on 8BitDad.com for the week leading up to May 22nd, 2012: Circle of Moms: Friendly Man Equals Child Predator / Bad Dadvertising: Oscar Mayer and McGarryBowen / Is GLEE Gay / #DadChat / and more…!

Bruce Sallan, an ex-Vice President at ABC, a fatherhood writer and a friend (and neighbor!) of 8BitDad, published a piece in the Huntington News about social media and parents. Sallan says if mom and dad aren’t using social media, they’re not being the best parents that they could be.

Sallan points to Twitter and Facebook as tools to stay current and be a part of your kids’ lives. He says parents need to ditch the point of view that new technologies are bad, along with their VCRs and landline phones. He learns things more quickly than other people his age because he’s involved on Twitter. For example, he learned of Steve Jobs’ death minutes after it hit the news – while in a meeting about social media.

In any event, it’s a quick read, and we’re not just linking to it because Bruce pays us in gum to link to his articles. Bruce gets it – effective dads immerse themselves in the same places that their kids are. Not just to be the old dude on The Facebook, but to be the father whose kids know that they can get a hold of their dad in a casual way. Not every communication needs to be a phone call – and these days, kids don’t want to call their parents just to say hello. Sometimes it helps kids stay in contact just to throw a “hey dude” up on their wall.

So, check out Sallan’s article and if you don’t yet understand Twitter, maybe it’s time to check it out. If you’ve got any kind of home business, it’s a benefit – and regardless, you might find some like-minded people to follow.

Also, the best part about the article is that obviously the Huntington News is *ahem* a little behind on their coding and every time a link was supposed to be inserted, the word “HYPERLINK” appears before the URL. As a nice drinking game, every time you see “HYPERLINK” in their article, shout the word and take a shot.

Read it and get blotto, sauced below.