My nephew, who as has been previously stated, is two, is terribly into Bob the Builder. Bob the Builder is a little stop-motion foreign homunculus who you can imagine crawling around your house and assaulting you with a tiny crescent wrench in the middle of the night. He hangs out with talking bulldozers and scarecrows and various other possibly psychotropically inspired chums. All that is, of course, just fine.

Bob the Builder and anything featuring large earth-moving machinery drives him into what can only be described as near-religious ecstasy, of the type experienced by the saints, or monks who have been at the sacrament wine.

I was driving to work today and was minorly delayed by a giant crane type doohickey spelunking in the road for no apparently good reason. I watched the giant maw of the beast descend to the asphalt and pick out big chunks, belching pollution into the already non-pristine air of Orange County, and I thought to myself "My nephew is right. Giant digging and destruction machines are great!"

Of course, my more rational side demanded I retract that statement. After all, I rail against pollution, SUVs, jetskis. You name it, I'll rail against it. But I have to admit, the sight of these giant metal beasts lifting thousands of pounds, is just freaking cool.

So I guess it's OK for the little guy to be into all the polluting, dehumanizing technology, but I figure I'll balance him out. I'll get him a Koyaanisqatsi "Life Out of Balance" Playset for Christmas this year. Sure, he can watch videos of buildings falling down and tungsten-carbide drills hollowing out the Earth, but he can follow it up with some conceptual dioramas of little ant-like drones enslaved by the soul-killing bulldozers that lift man too high, too high, always too high.

And if you press a button, you get choral music.