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<?xml-stylesheet type="text/xsl" href="http://www.babble.com/CS/utility/FeedStylesheets/rss.xsl" media="screen"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/"><channel><title>Strollerderby : scams</title><link>http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/scams/default.aspx</link><description>Tags: scams</description><dc:language>en</dc:language><generator>CommunityServer 2007.1 (Build: 20910.1126)</generator><item><title>Hello. I Love You. Won't You Tell Me What To Name My Child?</title><link>http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/11/29/hello-i-love-you-won-t-you-tell-me-what-to-name-my-child.aspx</link><pubDate>Thu, 29 Nov 2007 20:08:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">42a08a39-daf3-4129-8a63-8a27b879cc03:55487</guid><dc:creator>makeitadouble</dc:creator><slash:comments>10</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=55487</wfw:commentRss><comments>http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/11/29/hello-i-love-you-won-t-you-tell-me-what-to-name-my-child.aspx#comments</comments><description>&lt;a href="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/PRINCE.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/PRINCE.jpg" alt="" align="right" border="0" height="260" hspace="5" width="217" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;There is a recent &lt;strike&gt;scam &lt;/strike&gt;movement affecting the agonizing plight of parents as they struggle to find the perfect name for their bundle of joy and it is the use of &lt;a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1123/p20s01-ussc.html?page=2"&gt;Baby Name Consultants&lt;/a&gt;. These &lt;strike&gt;crooks &lt;/strike&gt;consultants sometimes charge overwhelmed parents &lt;a href="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/06/27/a-tad-bit-neurotic-about-the-baby-names.aspx"&gt;up to $450&lt;/a&gt; to tell them whether the names they have chosen are too hot, too cold, too hard, too lumpy or just right. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, put those check books away and cancel that $300 half-hour call to that Numerologist you found on Craigslist because I am about to provide you with the down-to-earth honest answers those so-called professional consultants never would for the low low price of FREE!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After conferring with my fellow authors, baby-namers, and &lt;a href="http://www.menwholooklikekennyrogers.com/"&gt;Kenny Rogers enthusiasts&lt;/a&gt; here at Strollerderby I have assembled a simple checklist that will hopefully provide you with the guidance you need to bestow upon your child a fitting name that will not result in a lifetime of ridicule, playground ass-whoopins’or of repeating lines like “No, it’s with two Z’s and a Q. Yes a Q. It’s a silent Q.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Amy wants parents to just stop it with the &amp;quot;ayden&amp;quot; names. Just. Stop. It. Brayden, Cayden Hayden...the trend is OVAH.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Amy also offers the legal angle by suggesting use of the Supreme Court Justice test. “Supreme Court Justice Apple Martin just doesn’t sound right.” &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Put your hands together for another suggestion from Amy called The Stripper Test&amp;nbsp; “If you could picture your child&amp;#39;s name being used by a stripper of either gender it’s back to the drawing board.”&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Karen reminds you to make sure a child&amp;#39;s name can’t be adapted to sound like a bodily function. (See Carter, Martin, Missy, Grommet, Sydney Stone)&amp;nbsp; Also check what your kid&amp;#39;s initials spell “It was too late when I realized my youngest’s name spells EWW.”&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Please Please Please, implores Karen and Madeline splashing Holy Water at a passing school bus, take Kaitlyn away and all her evil incarnations.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Kelly decries lunch and mythology by insisting you do not name your child after a sandwich or a Greek hero who fucked his/her parent to which Karen added “Isn&amp;#39;t a Greek hero also a sandwich” Yes it is Karen so don’t name your child Gyro.&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Rhyming is also a no-no says Kelly so do not give them a name that rhymes with your last name. (See Nathan Gathen) &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;From inside her Hazmat suit Redsy reminded us never to name a child after a major illness or nerve gas “Seriously, I met a girl named Sarin once.” (see also Soman and Tabun)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Jessica discounts vitamin C, swatches and sports figures in one breath, “Fuck the fruit, fabric and professional athlete names” (See Pomegranate, Naugahyde, and Vick)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Make a choice advises Madeline. You only get one fashionable name per child. So, no Emma Ava or Jack Brody or Kaitlyn/Katelyn/Kaytlen Taylor (See number 5) &lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Jim Henson be damned but don’t name your child after famous TV Puppets (See Alf, Kermit and George W. Bush)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Germaphobes beware, kids should never named after a cleaning product (see Pinesol, Mrclean, and Fantastik)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Globally responsible Peace Corp types need not apply, never use a third world country as a name (see Seychelles, Burkina Faso and Canada)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;We know you loved The Matrix Trilogy but avoid naming your baby after a city from a science fiction movie (see Zion)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;You love Sportscenter, that’s fine but don’t select a television network as a name (See Espn, Spice, Lifetime)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Into Gadgets? Cool. Your child is not a gadget. No technology inspired names (see iPhone, Dot Matrix, Blakberri)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Show no emotion when it comes to naming&amp;nbsp; (see Hatred, Apathy, Happiness)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Hey wasn’t the album “…And Justice For All” awesome? Maybe we should name the baby after the band? Maybe you shouldn’t. &lt;a href="http://babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/04/04/swedish-couple-fights-government-to-name-baby-metallica.aspx"&gt;No Rock Bands&lt;/a&gt; (see Metallica, Megadeth, Nirvana)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Shhhh…What’s that sound? Oh we were just calling our son for dinner. No Onomatopoeias (see Buzz, Whack, Crash, Meow, Neigh, Vroom)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;I’d like to buy a vowel and some commonsense Pat? Avoid phonetic spellings of popular names, adding superfluous letters just for shits and giggles or mashing together two names to make one. (See Dylon Micheal, Bretlyn)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;li&gt;Unless you are feminie hygiene product, a candle manufacturer or a crayon rethink using descriptions of nature for a name (see Summer Sky, Autumn Night, Winter Snow, Forest Green, Summer’s Eve)&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hopefully this list will be helpful to you as you are deciding on a name for your baby, but if it for some reason only complicates matters perhaps you should just &lt;a href="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/04/11/baby-names-you-can-t-win-so-stop-trying.aspx"&gt;give up trying&lt;/a&gt; and name the child a symbol or maybe the Child Formerly known as &lt;a href="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/06/26/now-the-mother-of-all-baby-names-is.aspx"&gt;Autumn Sullivan Corbett Fitzsimmons Jeffries Hart Burns Johnson Willard Dempsey Tunney Schmeling Sharkey Carnera Baer Braddock Louis Charles Walcott Marciano Patterson Johansson Liston Clay Frazier Foreman Brown.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.babble.com/CS/aggbug.aspx?PostID=55487" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/baby+names/default.aspx">baby names</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/advice/default.aspx">advice</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/naming+the+baby/default.aspx">naming the baby</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/scams/default.aspx">scams</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/consultants/default.aspx">consultants</category></item><item><title>Creating Better Children Through Chemicals</title><link>http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/09/18/creating-better-children-through-chemicals.aspx</link><pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:46:00 GMT</pubDate><guid isPermaLink="false">42a08a39-daf3-4129-8a63-8a27b879cc03:40672</guid><dc:creator>Karen Murphy</dc:creator><slash:comments>0</slash:comments><wfw:commentRss xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/">http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/rsscomments.aspx?PostID=40672</wfw:commentRss><comments>http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/2007/09/18/creating-better-children-through-chemicals.aspx#comments</comments><description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2007/09/16-22/snake-oil-bottle.jpg"&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/2007/09/16-22/snake-oil-bottle.jpg" title="snake oil" alt="snake oil" align="right" border="0" height="198" hspace="4" width="198" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I love Gmail. Not only do the sponsored links often provide amusement, but I never get any spam.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;[cough]&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That is, most of my spam gets sent directly to Spam Jail, the place I visit occasionally if I have a few extra minutes. For amusement. There are 1124 emails in Spam Jail right now, most of them offering me awesome deals I can&amp;#39;t afford to pass up! I don&amp;#39;t why I don&amp;#39;t just go ahead and get that degree in Crime Scene Investigation, or Get a Free Week of Food, or Regrow My Hair and Regain My Confidence, or Make Dusting Easier, Faster, and More Fun!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But even better than all that is what appeared today. Apparently I have been completely missing my opportunity to Advance My Child&amp;#39;s Brain Power By Three Years!&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, when I click on &lt;a href="http://smarterchildren.deepseamiracles.com/"&gt;the link&lt;/a&gt; to see the video about amazing Omega-3 &lt;strike&gt;snake&lt;/strike&gt; fish oils, it&amp;#39;s nothing but a scheme to collect my email address and hound me forever about joining some MLM that doesn&amp;#39;t even have a proper web site.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But some unsuspecting parents, sincerely wishing the best for their kids, may bite. I mean, who wouldn&amp;#39;t want this?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&amp;quot;. . .The scientists found as they expected, the children’s reading
age improved, the handwriting improving, the concentration improved,
and the memory. . . the one thing that has never been demonstrated
before is they scanned the children’s brains, and the children who had
been on the Omega 3 . . . Their brains, after only 3 months on the
supplement had developed by 3 years . . .&amp;quot;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;p&gt;There is so much pushed at us daily about what&amp;#39;s best/worst/healthy/unhealthy for our kids, and these people are preying on the fears of parents who of course care about their kids and their wellbeing (there&amp;#39;s a sister site for pregnant women, too) yet maybe lack discernment when it comes to sniffing out scams. I&amp;#39;m just sick.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But the mere fact that people will purport that all it takes is a supplement of dubious ingredient and quality to &lt;i&gt;make your kid smarter&lt;/i&gt; is not only misleading but is downright dishonest. I&amp;#39;d like to coat those people in lead paint.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;img src="http://www.babble.com/CS/aggbug.aspx?PostID=40672" width="1" height="1"&gt;</description><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/kids/default.aspx">kids</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/parents/default.aspx">parents</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/MLM/default.aspx">MLM</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/snake+oil/default.aspx">snake oil</category><category domain="http://www.babble.com/CS/blogs/strollerderby/archive/tags/scams/default.aspx">scams</category></item></channel></rss>