Barbie’s Teeth

A new collection of games on the Mattel web site allow kids to “try out” (sort of) various careers. While picking up crayons may not be the essence of teaching, the games are original and the themes are appealing. If you start on the “games” page (link below), the advertising is minimal. You can create an account and enter secret codes to unlock extra pets or extra dentist tools, but they’re not as imperative as they seem.

If you’ve ever dreamed of brushing Barbie’s teeth, now’s your chance.

Barbie’s Career Games

Mattel has also streamlined their general games portal, which gives relatively easy access to American Girl, Polly Pocket, Barbie, and other games for various ages. Visit them at Mattel Games

Pen vs. Sword

It’s true, the pen is mightier than the sword.

About a year ago, Tumblr had a service which allows you to compare trends – the popularity of keywords across all their tumblogs. I can’t find the service today, but thought I’d post this graph I created last year. As you can see, the pen (green) was clearly mightier than the sword (blue) in this sample from July 22 – August 5, 2009. Another search (not shown) revealed that the iPhone outstripped both pen and sword.

Since no units are marked to expres the difference, it’s impossible to tell whether thousands of tumblr-using bloggers prefer the pen to the sword, or if it’s only a handful.