Pater Familias … because I'm your FATHER!

Be a lumberjack and be okay, ecoweenie-wise. Little dude (8-inch bar) cuts better than you’d think, with no emissions ‘cause it’s powered by 18-volt rechargeable batt pack compatible with other B&D cordless tools. Quiet, too. Only thing loud is the screaming orange color. Still jonesing for real deal — snarly gas engine, fumes, risk of self-maiming — but this is all the chainsaw Pater needs for yard trim. You too, probably.

Details, demo at B&D. Buy for about $88.

Mama goes Eww when you're a dork, just like chicks used to when you were single, with same result -- catastrophic loss of your sex appeal. This compendium of Eww by snark queens Ellen Rakieten and Anne Coyle, shows everything not to do -- like, say, wearing Crocs,  sideways baseball caps, dad jeans, or sagging and flashing butt crack. Lose the Segway and pet snake, too. Read and learn. Pater, who has been married since the Bronze Age, picked up a couple pointers and -- swear it's true -- got a little extra admiration from Minerva last weekend. Big yucks from bitchy words and pics of guys gone wrong. Gift anybody, either gender.  Paperback, 181 pages, from Villard Books, imprint of Random House. Undateable website. Ten bucks from Amazon.com, where trollish reader/reviewers took the thing way too seriously. 

Start Junior out in business in bright, beguiling, educational iPhone ver of game that simulates fish breeding and sales in your very own fish store. Gamer propogates and cross breeds pretty tropicals, prices them for sale in store, uses cash flow to replenish stock and cover necessities like food, meds for sick fish (which can die, like the real thing), extra tanks. Ultimate goal is to get fantastically valuable Magic Fish. Young gamer does numbers work, grasps basic laws of genetics and supply and demand. Overpriced fishies don't sell, underpriced fly out the door but sacrifice $$$. Girl Child divides her iPhone time (my phone not hers) between Lady Gaga tunes and this. $1, on special, at iPhone App Store. Get details and/or $10 PC game at Fish Tycoon® site. 

Supertoy lives up to hype on box, jazzes Dad and kids. Monster rocket measures 7 feet, tail to tip, blasts off skyward in spectacular wet whoosh of compressed air and water. Ours went up 100 feet, at least, in repeated launches at the park, ran into trouble only after Pater gave in to Girl Child and launched in back yard. After a couple months way up in a maple tree our Titan Blast came down fine. Speaks well of durability of inflatable main tube. Cool all around, with techy pump-up fuel tank, pressure gauge and leveling on launch pad. Your own Canaveral, Pops. Wows your own kid and others. Just writing this, I'm feelin' the need. Blast off this weekend! Buy $35-ish at Amazon.com Hype and good how-to at  Titan site. Screamy15-second commercial.