Attention wives/partners of the world! If you’re looking for something to pick up for the Old Man for the holidays, this is it: Donkey Kong Jenga.

$25 at Amazon.

We’re at a loss for words. Just sit back and bask in the awesome.

My better half was surfing around looking for Christmas deals the other day, and for some reason she ended up on SkyMall’s website, of all places. I was actually pretty surprised, because she seemed to find a genuine Christmas section on their website. Then she clicked the link and realized…SkyMall has a different understanding of Christmas than the rest of us, one that includes Elephant Yard Sculptures, Picket Fences and an anti-vandalism StoreMore Mailbox. I think my daughter will love her new Double-Sided Clock-Thermometer!

This convincing article seems to think so.

Established game publishers such as Sega Corp. and Id Software Inc. are devoting more resources to Apple’s devices while start-ups dedicated to making iPhone games have sprung up. Already, there are nearly 2,000 iPhone games available.

Developers are being lured by Apple’s online method for delivering games, which has lowered distribution costs and made it possible to profit on games that sell for just a few dollars or are given away with advertising.

Apple keeps 30% of the proceeds of software sales through its App Store clearinghouse. But even with that split, “games sold via the App Store are the most profitable in terms of any of the formats we work on,” said Simon Jeffery, the U.S. president of Sega.

The app store is such a brilliant and fairly welcoming platform that it’s made some gaming entrepreneurs successful almost overnight.

Fun fact: although I do have an iPhone and love the thing, I have yet to use it to play video games. It’s not for lack of interest or lack of games or pricing (as these articles insinuate, pretty much everything is fairly cheap) — I just haven’t gotten around to it. There are so many games available at this point, it would take some serious research just to figure out which ones to try.

That’s really the thing, I guess. Even though the iPhone is already a viable gaming “system,” I would argue what it really needs is that one killer app everybody hears about and everybody wants to play to really take off.

Something like this, perhaps!:

It’s a pretty sad photo, but I think it manages to get across the weirdness of these slightly creepy hair things. I couldn’t bring myself to put them in my daughter’s hair, even for a laugh - they just kind of freaked me out as I was looking at them.

Here’s our first true Nerd Dad Awesome Deal Alert - Toys R Us, or at least the TRU I was at yesterday, is blowing out the $200 Robopanda for $40 right now. Do I need one? Of course I do not. Did I grab one yesterday anyhow? You’re damn skippy I did! Look at this thing!

Attention parents of girls: Times Square’s Hello Kitty store is revamped and back in business. And selling…upscale luxury items…? It’s an interesting retail choice in these times, to say the least. But hey, who are we to question the motives of a company that’s been wildly successful for almost 50 years, I guess.

The store, which was reopened two weeks ago, is the company’s first Sanrio Luxe boutique, which includes collections of clothing and accessories from well-known international designers, as well as a hodgepodge of collectibles from Japan. The company chose Times Square to test its latest retail strategy because of the range of young and old New Yorkers and tourists who troll the street with money to spend.

Full disclosure: despite living in NYC for nearly 10 years, I have actually never been in this store. So, I’m sorry I have no idea what you can expect to find there — most likely something like the below item, which I hope is buried in a time capsule somewhere so that it can completely confound future humans.

Anyway, I fully expect to make my first visit to the Sanrio store in the next few years when The Squirt™ reaches early consumer maturity. We’ll see how that goes.

As if we all needed another reason to detest the risible No Child Left Behind Act — apparently the $6 billion Reading First program, mandated under the NCLB, is a total bust.

“It is a program that needs to be improved,” said Grover J. “Russ” Whitehurst, director of the Institute of Education Sciences, the department’s research arm. “I don’t think anyone should be celebrating that the federal government has spent $6 billion on a reading program that has had no impact on reading comprehension.”

Also:

Reading First, though popular with educators, has been tarnished by allegations of conflicts of interest and mismanagement in recent years. Federal investigators have found that some people who helped oversee the program had financial ties to the publishers of Reading First materials.

Awesome!

I was presented with this handful of childproofing electrical outlet caps by a very happy and proud of herself little girl yesterday. Apparently she figured out how to pop and pry these from the wall with amazing ease and just couldn’t wait to share this news with daddy. Considering these were the only outlet caps I could ever find that were worth a damn, I’m guessing it’s time to figure out how to explain to a not-yet-3 year old that shoving forks in the wall sockets is probably a pretty bad idea.

We were strolling through the local Ross store the other day, a place that insists upon remaining that vintage ghetto feel and decor despite being i the center of Alhambra, which has undergone a massive revitalization over the last decade or so. Still, they tend to get some rather nifty items are pretty unbeatable prices from time to time, so we make it a point to stop in whenever we think about it, just to check things out. Nothing too fantastic this past visit, except for a few pairs of sneakers.

First, I stumbled across ridiculously awesome pair of Kool Aid sneakers in the girl’s section. Unfortunately for The Kid™, they only had one pair left and while I’m into buying things she can gro into, she’s got a few years before she fits into a size 7 shoe. Sadly, they remained on the rack for some other lucky soul.

A little bit later, over in the men’s shoe section, I came across this nearly perfect pair of Keds. Indeed, the only reason I couldn’t bring myself to buy them was the fact that, despite the undeniable awesomeness of a pair of sneakers covered in Galaga aliens, the decision to print them on a white shoe instead of a field of black was flat out the wrong one. I mean, seriously - these could have been amazing, but instead it looks like someone threw up confetti on their feet. It made me sad to leave them behind, but I could not bring myself to wear them.

So, we ended up skipping the show at El Capitan - $26 a person, including the little one was just a bit more than my wallet could bear this weekend. Instead, we trucked on over to the local, but still nice, stadium seating theater one town over. Sure, the adult matinee price was $9, but The Kid™ is still free, and we smuggled in some of her favorite treats so she chowed down on trail mix instead of Sno-Caps™ and soda.

Things started off a bit hairy when she decided she didn’t want to even enter the theater. We’ve hit the stage where things that didn’t frighten her one day scare her spitless 24 hours later for no apparent reason, and for a minute the theater going experience seemed to have ended up on that particular hit list. Luckily, she calmed down as soon as we got to the seats and the previews lit across the screen. After seeing the trailer twice now, I’ve duly noted that she’s pretty completely enamored with the Blob from the “Monster vs Aliens” flick they’ve been advertising, but I’m not sure she could handle the fighting the movie seems to promise.

As for “Bolt,” she pretty much loved it and The Wife™ and I both enjoyed it quite a bit. It’s not quite a Pixar-level movie, but the gap has definitely been closed betwixt Disney and their step-sibling studio. Frankly, the best parts of the movie were the snippets of the TV show Bolt is the star of. I’m sincerely hoping that Disney has a primetime cartoon in the works that would expand upon this aspect of the movie, but after the ridiculously low opening weekend, I’m not holding out any kind of hope for such a franchise expansion.

For the most part, my daughter loved the show. She was pretty much sucked into it as soon as the opening scene started, and she didn’t really squirm that much fr the next 90 minutes or so. There were a few times she ended up in Mommy’s lap - when Bolt is separated from Penny early on and in the scary portion of the last act, she was a bit overwhelmed and needed some maternal comforting. She was able to compose herself and get back to enjoying the show quickly enough both times, though, and she even danced in her seat a bit during the obligatory montage sequence.

All in all, it was a highly recommended way to spend a Sunday morning with the family. As much as “Madagascar 2” was an enjoyable romp, “Bolt” surpasses it in terms of quality, outright entertainment value and Grown-Up-Watchability. We’lle defintely end up with both on DVD at some point, but I’ll be much happier when the dog is in the player.

Interesting bit of trivia - “even though there’s a complete soundtrack available for “Bolt,” only three songs were listed in the end credits. And one of them, Motorhead’s “Dog-Faced Boy,” doesn’t even appear on the CD.