Haato-chan's Concert

Haato-chan's Concert
Originally uploaded by the_constructivist18

Here's another Haato-chan story from onechan.

***

Onechan: Ummm, Haato-chan is playing the violin and then she wanted ice cream. And then she said, "I want to eat dinner." And then I said, "Not yet, Haato-chan." And then she said, "I want you to read a book." And then she said, " Why did you love me?" And then she said, "Why are we here?" And then I said, "That's why, to keep us safe."

Me: Is the story over?

Onechan: Yup.

***

Now it's imoto's turn to type:

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,bnbbbbb由良らせせせせせせせせせせせせせせせせせの野の野の野の野の野の野の野の乗る気めけ毛毛家くけ毛家なくここここここここ個々氏とちママ区規定スイス巣喚起かすはひかすすいてなんのすいかくきはしとししまみみそささききはしは

***

Now it's onechan's turn to type:

くのに桃身ひねね桃みみみみひよこまりまみき

どれみ
ももこ

Hello America

Hello America
Originally uploaded by the_constructivist18

Onechan wants to tell the story of how Haato-chan came to live with us.

***

Onechan: She was a very little bear. Sparky-chan picked her up in the store.

Me: What happened next?

Onechan: Haato-chan went to school, and was in a play, and that's how she got sick. No, no, no, not sick. She wanted ice cream. Why does that say, "No, no, no"? I didn't say that.

Me: Yes, you did.

Onechan: And that's how she fell asleep.

Imoto: Dat's how she falled sleep.

Onechan: And that's why she likes onechan.

***

We'll have more Haato-chan stories for Uncle Bill soon! Onechan can't wait to tell the story of how she got sick.

Sparkychan in GrandpaLand: Doggie Finds a Toy

Sparkychan was alone in Grandma and Grandpa's house, and she was scared. It had been hours since onechan and imoto had left with their parents and Gojochan to go back to Dunkirk, and she still didn't know why they had left her behind. She was busy hiding under their dada's old bed when, all of a sudden, she heard the phone ring. Maybe it was onechan and imoto! But Sparkychan was disappointed to hear Grandpa say, "Well, hello, Alyak!" She wanted to hear from her girls, not their cousins. But then she heard Grandpa say, "Sure, I'll tell you another Doggie story!" Sparkychan loved stories. So she tiptoed carefully to the door of dada's old room, the better to hear the story that Grandpa told Alyak.

***

Doggie Finds a Toy
By
Grandpa Bob

One day, Doggie went for a walk. He was looking for some fun. But, at first, he did not find fun.

When he turned a corner, he didn’t see a big puddle and fell in. He got all wet! Then he shook himself to get dry and splashed a squirrel! The squirrel got mad and threw a nut at him. Doggie ran away!

Then Doggie saw a cookie. He wanted to eat it. But it belonged to a little boy. The little boy wouldn’t give Doggie any of the cookie. Doggie ran away again!

Then Doggie saw another dog. He asked the other dog to play. But it wasn’t a friendly dog. It told Doggie to go away. Doggie ran away. He was sad. He had no one to play with.

But then he saw a toy lying in the street. It was a pretty doll in a red dress. Doggie loved it. He pretended it was a puppy and he was the daddy. He had fun playing with the toy doll.

Then he thought that maybe the toy was lost. Maybe it belonged to someone else. He decided to find the real owner.

But how would Doggie find the real owner? He thought Aki might know. So he went to Aki's house! Guess what! The toy was Aki's. Aki said, ”That is Sparky! I dropped her when I went for a walk.”

Aki and Aya were glad to see Sparky. They thanked Doggie. Mommy and Daddy gave Doggie, Aki, and Aya cookies. Doggie was very happy. He had had fun after all! He even slept over at Aki's house!

***

Even before Grandpa got off the phone with Alyak, Sparkychan felt much better. If Sparky could be found, so could Sparkychan. Until that happened, she should try to make new friends at Grandma and Grandpa's house. And maybe have an adventure or three....

There's an article in the NYTimes today about virtual life for kids:

Some excerpts:

Worlds like Webkinz, where children care for stuffed animals that come to life, have become some of the Web’s fastest-growing businesses. More than six million unique visitors logged on to Webkinz in November, up 342 percent from November 2006, according to ComScore Media Metrix, a research firm.

Club Penguin, where members pay $5.95 a month to dress and groom penguin characters and play games with them, attracts seven times more traffic than Second Life. In one sign of the times, Electric Sheep, a software developer that helps companies market their brands in virtual worlds like Second Life and There.com, last week laid off 22 people, about a third of its staff.

By contrast, Disney last month introduced a “Pirates of the Caribbean” world aimed at children 10 and older, and it has worlds on the way for “Cars” and Tinker Bell, among others. Nickelodeon, already home to Neopets, is spending $100 million to develop a string of worlds. Coming soon from Warner Brothers Entertainment, part of Time Warner: a cluster of worlds based on its Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera and D. C. comics properties.

. . . .

But more is at stake than cultivating new revenue streams. For nearly 50 years, since the start of Saturday morning cartoons, the television set has served as the front door to the children’s entertainment business. A child encounters Mickey Mouse on the Disney Channel or Buzz Lightyear on a DVD and before long seeks out related merchandise and yearns to visit Walt Disney World.

Now the proliferation of broadband Internet access is forcing players to rethink the ways they reach young people. “Kids are starting to go to the Internet first,” Mr. Wadsworth said.

. . . .

The power of the virtual worlds business was shown recently when Vivendi announced a plan to buy Activision, a publisher of video games for consoles like the Sony PlayStation 3. Vivendi owns World of Warcraft, a virtual world for adults with more than nine million members and revenue of more than $1 billion.

Still, the long-term appetite for the youth-oriented sites is unclear. Fads have always whipsawed the children’s toy market, and Web sites are no different, analysts warn. Parents could tire of paying the fees, while intense competition threatens to undercut the novelty. There are now at least 10 virtual worlds that involve caring for virtual pets.

Privacy and safety are a growing concern, particularly as companies aim at younger children. Some virtual worlds are now meant to appeal to preschoolers, using pictures to control actions so that reading is not required.

So I'm thinking about a re-working of Lord of the Flies in which the main action takes place in an adult-free virtual world and the growing chaos there threatens to spread beyond that particular virtual world and take down the whole net. Until, that is, the Power Puff Girls come to the rescue.

Super Happy Birthday, Onechan

From Sparkychan:



And Gojochan:



Please, may we have tea and ice cream? Yum!

Red Green and Vines

Coming Attractions

Kong, Jumper, and the Green Pavilion:



Have they heard about the rescue of Gojochan and Sparkychan? Do they know about the League of Pretty Good Amazons, aka the LPGA? Do Coco and Yaya have the Right Stuff to join the LPGA? What's the Green Pavilion?

So many mysteries.