Mr. Nice Guy of The Blogfathers doesn’t know quite what to make of the whole ‘tattoo’ thing…but he thinks about it long and hard in a recent post, prompted by the publication of a new book, Mommy Has Tattoos, and its companion piece, The Tattoo Coloring Book…which, he’s convinced, “encourages your 5-year-old to get a head start in considering which tattoo would be best for her: angel-slut wings on her shoulder blades or some Maori symbol, the meaning of which she will never quite get straight, on the inside of her ankle.”  He may not be far wrong: The Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology reports that about 24 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 50 have at least one tattoo, up from about 15 percent in 2003, and 36 percent of those between 18 and 29 have a tattoo.

Is he pro or con tatts?  He admits, he’s not quite sure.  But he does seem to recall an excellent Life in Hell cartoon: “Two old fogies are sitting in a nursing home looking at each other. They’re heavily inked and pierced. One says to the other, ‘So I see you were stupid in the ‘90’s too.’”

ThisNexters have already started to put together amazing lists about unexpected things … like the best way to carry a baby. There’s a movement afoot to find the healthiest, safest, and most comfortable way to carry babies, and you can find it under a variety of tags already: baby wearing, baby carriers, and baby sling (among others), and the products range from a simple (and surprisingly useful) length of cloth to a high-tech cross-country carrier that can last a lifetime.

...continued: Slings, Carriers, Wearing – it’s all about the baby!

Doggerelblogger of Canada is a lover of widgets – little bits of downloadable code that can do cool things on your Mac OS X dashboard. You can get daily astronomical photographs, complete with notations by leading astronomers. You can get the entire upcoming NFL 2006 season with automatically updating results. You can even get your very own Chi Pet that grows its green fur every two days…but only if you remember to water it. Now that’s e-life.

Daddy Types, the weblog for new Daddys, has plenty to say and much advice to offer…including a recent nod towards the Maclaren East Traveler Car Seat Carrier Stoller (as well as good words on many other strollers). Hey, it even has an optional drink holder; it must be good.

It all started for Danny of Dad Gone Mad at a theme park.  He was there with his son the Champ, waiting in line for a ride that everybody was excited to try, when a voice came over the loudspeaker and announced that the ride had broken…and the Champ through the “greatest tantrum of all time. The spontaneous collapse. The whining. The mortified father who seriously regretted leaving our tazer gun at home. “  As his son lay on the ground screaming, Danny turned to his fellow blogger Fruit Cup Dave, a psychologist who has worked extensively with children, and begged. “Help me. What should I do? Is it time to send him to Siberia?”  Dave suggested a book called 3-2-1 Magic: Effective Discipline for Children 2-12 by Thomas W. Phelan…and after much “hemming and hawing” and some tough self-examination, Danny read it, applied it, and admits to this day: “It works.” 

Beth of So the Fish Said… is a busy blogger, with a new baby and another on the way, but that doesn’t keep her from reading – particularly books that define and enrich her life as a thoughtful parent (and human in general).  Here’s a snapshot of her current bedside stack,   The titles are Life in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anne Lamott’s bird by bird: some instructions and writing and life, Where I’m Calling From by Raymond Carver, Hey, Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland, Jay Rayner’s Eating Crow, On Writing from Stephen King, Garcia’s Sign with your Baby, James W. Nichol’s Midnight Cab, Phillip Levine’s What Work Is, and Everyday Blessing: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting by Myla and John Kabat-Zinn.  What a list!

Matthew is a husband, a father, and – surprise! – has a life as well. Included in his list of passions: card games, particularly RPG and “battle” card games. So when you visit his wonderfully named blog, Defective Yeti, you’ll find – sprinkled among the proud-dad stories, wry observations, and movie-reviews – recommendations and referrals on some of the best new card games around, including this one: Colossal Arena from Avalon Hill. “Despite the RPG trappings,” Matthew says, “it’s a traditional card and gambling game, albeit an exceptionally clever one.”

Just stumbled upon the Bytesector, making sense of technology, site which has this article that was for Father’s Day on Tech Gadgets & Toys for Dad —- and even though Father’s Day has come and gone, there is always a need for random gifts to have in mind! Be it for birthdays, anniversaries, etc.  On their list are LCD Panel TVS, Panasonic Home Theater Systems, the ultimate massage chair, and even the best LCD projector they could find! Many ThisNext worthy picks on this list.

Okay, maybe not all bloggers, but Papa of Papa Rocks is the mega-patriarch of a whole string of folks who’s make excellent blogs (some of which ThisNext has already spotlighted). “Dad to Heather (One Woman’s World),” he tells us, “Kathryn (Daring Young Mom), and 3 kick-butt non-blogging kids, whose real identities are top-secret.”

He’s also put together a terrific personal blog of his own, including a recent entry that is ThisNext’s philosophy personified: “Our houses are full of things that others might call ‘stuff’,” he says, “but to us are priceless treasures because of what they represent, the memories they invoke, the feelings that they awaken inside of us. They are not ‘just stuff’. Because they make us happy, remind us of where we came from, who we are and maybe even who or what we would like to become” We couldn’t’ have said it better ourselves.

Parents: if you ever wonder what’s really going thorugh the head of that child care professional who keeps your child close while you’re away at work…take heart.  It’s Not All Mary Poppins is a wonderful window into the mind of a Canadian day care owner who really speaks for all those heroic women (and men!) who have taken on this strange and challenging new career.  “A childcare provider is expected to be a superhuman mix of the Madonna and Mary Poppins,” she says, “ever-patient, loving, kind, always delighting in the sweetness of her charges. I don’t do such a bad job, all in all, and it’s far more likely the parents than the children who strain my sanity most days. But I’m here to tell you: It Ain’t ALL Mary Poppins.”   Check in on this charming, funny and occasionally wicked blog every now and then. You’ll realize you’re not alone in all your questions, anxieties, and OMGs…and that these child care folks really are something special.

The blogger behind I Obsess describes herself, far too modestly, as “A work-at-home mom to one son,with a filthy house and a dog who sheds a pound of hair a day, just in case I didn’t have a filthy house already.” She’s also a great list-maker of the things that matter in her life (another natural-born ThisNexter). One of the recent and best is a great list of children’s books that changed her life, and are in the process of changing her son’s, including works by Beverly Cleary, Roald Dahl, and others. And other entries cover everything from food to film. It’s a simple, smart, charming place to spend a few.

Everybody here at thisnext.com is all about lists. Lives are defined, delineated, enriched and expanded by lsits: of things, things to do, places to go: the eternal stack-and-sort of a mindful life.

MetroDad is a mid-thirties NY-based blogger building a day-by-day chronicle of the struggle of raising a daughter in the middle of the City. And he describes himself by his lists. “It’s safe to say,” he tells us, ” that we’d probably get along if you can truly appreciate the real beauty in…a good Peking duck, Sunday’s NYT crossword, nice manners, Scrabble, Law & Order, spontaneous travel, Otoro, Jim Jarmusch, Tabasco sauce, Morrissey, Haruki Murakami, Peets coffee, Radiohead, listening to baseball games on the radio, Thievery Corporation, X-Men comics, fresh powder, Southern BBQ, Christopher Hitchens, bloomin’ onions, mid-century design, the warmth of a good scotch, a great day spent fishing where you didn’t catch a damn thing…

“And on a related note, I’d like to believe that I probably have absolutely nothing in common with another human being who really loves any of the following: pro bass fishing on tv, NASCAR, low carb Cabernet, Kathey Griffin, Microsoft, the Olsens, Applebees, Jessica Simpson, romance novels, tofu bacon, Pamela Anderson, ballet, “Survivor” or HUMMERs”

Now HERE is a blogger we understand!