When they were younger, I'd tell them the cable's out, and change the code to the TV so as to cut screen time. I've been known to hide the plug to the Wi-Fi on occasion as well. So when the cable company which provides both the internet and television streaming on demand cut out, my children naturally presumed the culprit to be me.
One thought the reason for the "cable outage" was exam week. "You just want us to study."
Well yes, but no, I didn't do this, I promise.
Another two thought, "This is just a ruse to get us to read or exercise more."
"No, but it's not a bad idea. After all, you can't do anything else." They went to stare at the box, in hopes maintaining a vigil would entice the cable gods to relent.
Not that some of them didn't try. One sought to play his DS, but without the link up to his friends DS games, it wasn't much fun. Another watched a DVD and for a time, entertained the masses with movies, but most of our movies now are digital, and they've grown accustomed to On Demand for any show, so not being able to access a show, vexes more than one might think it should.
The older ones ran for the comfort of Netflix, but that doesn't work on a computer when the internet is out. To prove it wasn't me, I spent an hour on the phone with the cable man convincing him that yes indeed, we did have a problem which couldn't be solved merely by turning the machine on and off or replacing the batteries in the remote. The cable guy is coming sometime on Thursday between eight in the morning and eight in the evening. He's said he'll call. In the meantime, we're old school in all things.
Come Friday, there will be channels again. By coincidence, exams will be over. I promise I didn't do it...but I may have to send my cable company a thank you note once the report cards are in, and file away the idea of having a seasonal outage whenever test taking rolls around.
It's just, for the record, this time, it wasn't me.
Showing posts with label cable. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cable. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 30, 2017
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Jack Bauer vs. Moms of America
Because the series "24" is coming to an end, this piece will lose it's humor shortly after the show loses its shelf life. As such, it is time for a rerun because these babies will never be found on a best of DVD.
The running gag/conceit on “24” is that Jack Bauer never gets to do anything to maintain himself, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, showering. He's always on the go.
Big deal.
Moms have been enduring this sort of relentless timed to the second hard press scheduling for years. Every fall, if you just look at the mini-vans lined up after school you’ll find not one but multiple examples of women talking on their cell phone while writing in a calendar, skimming and signing papers and providing two or more minors with the specialized equipment they’ll need for their afternoon activities, along with a snack. That’s all in the fifteen minutes they’re stuck in the slug line waiting to drive away from the school.
Jack Bauer searches through a myriad of places to find the stash of weapons or suspect or bomb he needs to find with mere moments to spare.
Yawn.
Try finding three pairs of clean white socks from the laundry for children who forgot to lay out their stuff the night before, while fixing five lunches, making sure each gets their breakfast and has their backpacks, lunches, diorama’s, permission slips and gym clothing for the day all before 7:30 am. Also, please remember to take out the garbage, remove the two bikes from the driveway and the car’s on E.
Jack Bauer sometimes resorts to unethical methods of getting information.
Hah! Like we mothers didn’t see that one coming. In the afternoon, after casually offering to charge the eldest’s cell phone, we check the numbers in and out. Moms specialize in benevolence that masks other motives. “I noticed you put your hair back yesterday in a pony tail, it looked nice.” Is mom code for “Your hair looks like the body of an emu, please find a brush and attack it at once!”
Intrigue and espionage? Please, moms invented it. Most mothers usually have more than one child who is a good mole for kid information, both about school and domestic issues. Some have been known to switch the baby monitor to other rooms, helpfully hidden under a pile of laundry, the ultimate camouflage. We conduct unauthorized search and seizure raids to evict illegal television watchers during homework time, and have special vice units (Dads) for serial offenders.
Jack Bauer doesn’t recognize proper authorities in some situations. He often deals with apparently cataclysmic explosions. He uses his wits to survive.
The parents of adolescents everywhere are nodding their heads at this one. We cope with unexpected emotional teen age equivalent of land mines at any waking moment, and must disarm them without so much as a paperclip or a welding rod. We do not recognize opening a locked door within our own home as breaking and entering, we monitor incoming and outgoing email, phone conversations and do background checks on all personal contacts. The HSA has nothing on us!
Jack Bauer has never been known to sleep or use the facilities in the course of a vigorous 24 hours. Parents do this on a regular basis, or irregular, depending upon your meaning. As an aside, all our 24 hours are vigorous, or at the very least, exhausting.
Jack Bauer still hasn’t eaten.
While abstaining from food might help with never getting to use a public restroom, most parents, even Jack's find it isn’t a healthy habit. Just as surely as Jack gets terrorists to spill the beans, we could make Jack eat them. Moms and Dads everywhere, say it with me, “You sit down and you’re not moving until everything on that plate is gone!”
The running gag/conceit on “24” is that Jack Bauer never gets to do anything to maintain himself, eating, sleeping, using the bathroom, showering. He's always on the go.
Big deal.
Moms have been enduring this sort of relentless timed to the second hard press scheduling for years. Every fall, if you just look at the mini-vans lined up after school you’ll find not one but multiple examples of women talking on their cell phone while writing in a calendar, skimming and signing papers and providing two or more minors with the specialized equipment they’ll need for their afternoon activities, along with a snack. That’s all in the fifteen minutes they’re stuck in the slug line waiting to drive away from the school.
Jack Bauer searches through a myriad of places to find the stash of weapons or suspect or bomb he needs to find with mere moments to spare.
Yawn.
Try finding three pairs of clean white socks from the laundry for children who forgot to lay out their stuff the night before, while fixing five lunches, making sure each gets their breakfast and has their backpacks, lunches, diorama’s, permission slips and gym clothing for the day all before 7:30 am. Also, please remember to take out the garbage, remove the two bikes from the driveway and the car’s on E.
Jack Bauer sometimes resorts to unethical methods of getting information.
Hah! Like we mothers didn’t see that one coming. In the afternoon, after casually offering to charge the eldest’s cell phone, we check the numbers in and out. Moms specialize in benevolence that masks other motives. “I noticed you put your hair back yesterday in a pony tail, it looked nice.” Is mom code for “Your hair looks like the body of an emu, please find a brush and attack it at once!”
Intrigue and espionage? Please, moms invented it. Most mothers usually have more than one child who is a good mole for kid information, both about school and domestic issues. Some have been known to switch the baby monitor to other rooms, helpfully hidden under a pile of laundry, the ultimate camouflage. We conduct unauthorized search and seizure raids to evict illegal television watchers during homework time, and have special vice units (Dads) for serial offenders.
Jack Bauer doesn’t recognize proper authorities in some situations. He often deals with apparently cataclysmic explosions. He uses his wits to survive.
The parents of adolescents everywhere are nodding their heads at this one. We cope with unexpected emotional teen age equivalent of land mines at any waking moment, and must disarm them without so much as a paperclip or a welding rod. We do not recognize opening a locked door within our own home as breaking and entering, we monitor incoming and outgoing email, phone conversations and do background checks on all personal contacts. The HSA has nothing on us!
Jack Bauer has never been known to sleep or use the facilities in the course of a vigorous 24 hours. Parents do this on a regular basis, or irregular, depending upon your meaning. As an aside, all our 24 hours are vigorous, or at the very least, exhausting.
Jack Bauer still hasn’t eaten.
While abstaining from food might help with never getting to use a public restroom, most parents, even Jack's find it isn’t a healthy habit. Just as surely as Jack gets terrorists to spill the beans, we could make Jack eat them. Moms and Dads everywhere, say it with me, “You sit down and you’re not moving until everything on that plate is gone!”
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
And That's Why They Watch TV
"I don't believe in a no win scenario." --James T. Kirk.
Captain Kirk never was a Mom. --me.
My children can tell when I'm in one of these moods, when all screens are evil. I'll announce that I've changed the pass codes to all the televisions and disconnected the Wi-Fi except to my own laptop which has a password none of them know. In my zealous madness, I hide the remotes and batteries separately and have been known to unplug all the machines as well so that there is defense in depth against children getting to vegetate before a TV, computer or video game.
"Outside! or Homework! or Practice!" A choice of three very different hells born of boredom awaits my offspring. The older ones groan and take their pick, usually opting to get the school stuff out of the way, hoping to pacify my need to crack down with dutifulness. It's been known to work. Middles try to extract bargains. These get shot down but it does give them more stall time on starting their assignments.
Mom's dictatorial ruthless outlawing of all things on Cable, DVD's, Wii and DS never lasts long. It would be even shorter lived if those kids paid attention to the ones calling all the shots, the toddlers.
It was a warm winter day, the kind made for bike riding, for discovering the outdoors when there are no bugs and it isn't so unpleasant that you need gloves. Unloading from school, the olders scurried in for snacks but the 2nd, K and younger set pulled out the scooter and the trikes and the bikes and started drawing a road for traffic patterns.
Pleased as I unloaded the baby that they were using their imaginations and exercising and being outdoors, I smiled, filled with the pseudo virtue that comes from being a Mom, catching your kids doing something good, and having had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Inside the house, I started fixing snack. I wouldn't call them in I decided, I didn't want to interrupt the fun. That would be mean.
I fed the baby. I heard a few sounds of happy laughter. Silly laughter. By this point, my mom radar should have registered “check,” but I was still trying to pretend I was offhanded and relaxed, to bask in the coolness of having four kids outside playing, four inside doing homework, and a happy 15 month old working on solid foods.
Thwack! Slurp. It sounded like something was thrown. It sounded like something mushy hit something. More giggles. Thwack! Thwack! Slump. SLump. SLump. "WOW!" "MOMMMMM."
Racing and already knowing I'm too late, my son comes in, his white shirt doing a splendid imitation of a Dalmatian. He is covered, speckled with mud. His two sisters come after him, happy and semi-horrified respectively. They too are caked from the knees down. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. My van is also spackled with mud balls.
A child is still playing. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I try to just have volume, not irritation. It isn't very convincing.
"I'm making mud soup. Just like in that book." She explains. She is forking a giant puddle of mud with a large stick, stirring it to make even more.
"You're a mess."
"Oh. Does this mean I have to come inside?"
Three showers, a carwash and four loads of laundry later, exhausted, I handed my daughter the remote. "Dora the Explorer is on, channel 56. The code is 1441."
Captain Kirk never was a Mom. --me.
My children can tell when I'm in one of these moods, when all screens are evil. I'll announce that I've changed the pass codes to all the televisions and disconnected the Wi-Fi except to my own laptop which has a password none of them know. In my zealous madness, I hide the remotes and batteries separately and have been known to unplug all the machines as well so that there is defense in depth against children getting to vegetate before a TV, computer or video game.
"Outside! or Homework! or Practice!" A choice of three very different hells born of boredom awaits my offspring. The older ones groan and take their pick, usually opting to get the school stuff out of the way, hoping to pacify my need to crack down with dutifulness. It's been known to work. Middles try to extract bargains. These get shot down but it does give them more stall time on starting their assignments.
Mom's dictatorial ruthless outlawing of all things on Cable, DVD's, Wii and DS never lasts long. It would be even shorter lived if those kids paid attention to the ones calling all the shots, the toddlers.
It was a warm winter day, the kind made for bike riding, for discovering the outdoors when there are no bugs and it isn't so unpleasant that you need gloves. Unloading from school, the olders scurried in for snacks but the 2nd, K and younger set pulled out the scooter and the trikes and the bikes and started drawing a road for traffic patterns.
Pleased as I unloaded the baby that they were using their imaginations and exercising and being outdoors, I smiled, filled with the pseudo virtue that comes from being a Mom, catching your kids doing something good, and having had nothing to do with it whatsoever. Inside the house, I started fixing snack. I wouldn't call them in I decided, I didn't want to interrupt the fun. That would be mean.
I fed the baby. I heard a few sounds of happy laughter. Silly laughter. By this point, my mom radar should have registered “check,” but I was still trying to pretend I was offhanded and relaxed, to bask in the coolness of having four kids outside playing, four inside doing homework, and a happy 15 month old working on solid foods.
Thwack! Slurp. It sounded like something was thrown. It sounded like something mushy hit something. More giggles. Thwack! Thwack! Slump. SLump. SLump. "WOW!" "MOMMMMM."
Racing and already knowing I'm too late, my son comes in, his white shirt doing a splendid imitation of a Dalmatian. He is covered, speckled with mud. His two sisters come after him, happy and semi-horrified respectively. They too are caked from the knees down. Squelch. Squelch. Squelch. My van is also spackled with mud balls.
A child is still playing. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" I try to just have volume, not irritation. It isn't very convincing.
"I'm making mud soup. Just like in that book." She explains. She is forking a giant puddle of mud with a large stick, stirring it to make even more.
"You're a mess."
"Oh. Does this mean I have to come inside?"
Three showers, a carwash and four loads of laundry later, exhausted, I handed my daughter the remote. "Dora the Explorer is on, channel 56. The code is 1441."
Monday, June 22, 2009
What's On TV?
Nothing, if you know what's good for you.
We just got cable. There are now 800 channels to annoy the Mom on two televisions. I didn't think it would be much of a problem. My kids had always agreed to the reasonable one hour of starring at a screen Mon-Thurs and lax standards on the weekend rule. Even the youngest kids understood, if you are staring at a rectangle, and the rectangle is in some way electronically powered, it counted towards your hour. They also knew that abuse of the hour rule was tolerated within reason.
Not anymore.
With so many opportunities to watch, a certain lack of discrimination overpowered their otherwise reasonably intact child intellects and wisdom. What's more, the opiate of the masses* did mean that I could have hours of semi-silence in my house at the price of their brains. After a week of saying to myself, we just got cable, it is just a time of adjustment, they'll get bored of it soon, I decided I was bored with my family. They weren't doing anything sans incentive. Even eating had turned into a listless speedy affair designed to acquire the necessary calories as quickly as posssible so as to return to the stupor of TV land.
Like Odysseus, I had come to the land of the Lotus Eaters.
So I pulled the nuclear option.** I locked every channel, even the previews, as one crafty child had figured out she could watch anything using the preview option. I now pay a monthly service fee for the priviledge of having nothing to watch.
I part with the money happily to see them walk around wondering what to do, but the cure has already had an effect. One child read her first assigned book of the summer. Another is doing the dishes. A third even helped move the toddlers through shower time.
So I'm thinking about changing all the passwords to lock them out of the Wii and the computers because, there's laundry that needs to be folded and dishes to do and my main floor needs a mopping.
*Oldest son has issued an edict that if I ever leave him to babysit again without unlocking the opiate of the masses, he will become a rebellious teenager and make my life a living hell.
**Second oldest wants credit for her idea as long as the other children don't read this.
***In the interest of fairness, I too need to have my computer shut down during the day in order to get stuff done, so the apple does not fall far.
We just got cable. There are now 800 channels to annoy the Mom on two televisions. I didn't think it would be much of a problem. My kids had always agreed to the reasonable one hour of starring at a screen Mon-Thurs and lax standards on the weekend rule. Even the youngest kids understood, if you are staring at a rectangle, and the rectangle is in some way electronically powered, it counted towards your hour. They also knew that abuse of the hour rule was tolerated within reason.
Not anymore.
With so many opportunities to watch, a certain lack of discrimination overpowered their otherwise reasonably intact child intellects and wisdom. What's more, the opiate of the masses* did mean that I could have hours of semi-silence in my house at the price of their brains. After a week of saying to myself, we just got cable, it is just a time of adjustment, they'll get bored of it soon, I decided I was bored with my family. They weren't doing anything sans incentive. Even eating had turned into a listless speedy affair designed to acquire the necessary calories as quickly as posssible so as to return to the stupor of TV land.
Like Odysseus, I had come to the land of the Lotus Eaters.
So I pulled the nuclear option.** I locked every channel, even the previews, as one crafty child had figured out she could watch anything using the preview option. I now pay a monthly service fee for the priviledge of having nothing to watch.
I part with the money happily to see them walk around wondering what to do, but the cure has already had an effect. One child read her first assigned book of the summer. Another is doing the dishes. A third even helped move the toddlers through shower time.
So I'm thinking about changing all the passwords to lock them out of the Wii and the computers because, there's laundry that needs to be folded and dishes to do and my main floor needs a mopping.
*Oldest son has issued an edict that if I ever leave him to babysit again without unlocking the opiate of the masses, he will become a rebellious teenager and make my life a living hell.
**Second oldest wants credit for her idea as long as the other children don't read this.
***In the interest of fairness, I too need to have my computer shut down during the day in order to get stuff done, so the apple does not fall far.
Friday, January 11, 2008
Not Named Jeffy's Sports Page Picks
You know how that Family Circus guy lets his comic get taken over by his kids?
Well now it’s Not Named Jeffy’s turn on Mom’s blog!
unedited and unproofd. (obviously)
Being a guy, naturally, I gravitate towards writing about sports.
Specifically, football.
Why?
It’s the most male sport there is. Two hours of eating bad for you food and watching other guys hit each other at great speeds. A perfect world experience for any fourteen year old, or any guy who has ever been fourteen.
As the playoffs draw nearer to Super Bowl (Insert some weird Roman numeral here), Not Named Jeffy makes playoff picks.
Get ready to call your Vegas bookie.
First up: Seattle vs. Green Bay: The Seahawks are losing to The Packers with their quarterback from …what? The late 60’s maybe early 70’s? This is pathetic!
MEMO from Me: to Seattle guys, you are losing to a guy nearly twice your age! That’s just sad.
San Diego vs. Indianapolis: The Chargers and the Colts, who really cares?
We all know Manning is motivated by one of two things: Being a really good quarterback, making a lot of commercials. The question is, can he hock enough products to merit his own channel? The All Manning, All the Time Channel? AMATC for short. At least sponsorship wouldn’t be an issue. Not Named Jeffy’s Picks: Rooting for the Colts on the pseudo perception that they are a purer motivated football team en masse. Can’t name a one.
New York vs. Dallas: The Giants and the Cowboys, you know what I going to pick the Giants, so Eli can get his ring. It will also secure his retirement, as he can then go endorse hokey products that don’t work, following in his brother’s footsteps –like sprint phone, OXY cleaning 123, and other things that can be found easily at either the dollar store or QVC. Maybe Payton will let him do a guest spot on AMATC in the early morning hours.
Finally the New England Patriots and… does it really matter what I say? If Tom Brady broke his leg, the Patriots cover the spread and win. If Brady and Moss break legs they win. If Tom, Randy, and the Defensive line all break their legs, Bill Bellicheck will come in and we are back to square one. Patriots win big.
Now if Bellicheck, the defensive line, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and some obscure backup quarterback aching for some playing time all break their legs, everyone plays with broken limbs, but the Patriots find out (insert Running Back’s name here) can actually run. Jacksonville is left in full body casts, as Bill beats a healthy player to death for getting his cast wet with Gatorade.
Not Named Jeffy? This is not Bill Keane. Why can't you write like this for your English class?
Umm.....Tune in next time when Not Named Jeffy tries to find his way home on the metro. You can trace the detours and chuckle softly for no apparent reason!
Well now it’s Not Named Jeffy’s turn on Mom’s blog!
unedited and unproofd. (obviously)
Being a guy, naturally, I gravitate towards writing about sports.
Specifically, football.
Why?
It’s the most male sport there is. Two hours of eating bad for you food and watching other guys hit each other at great speeds. A perfect world experience for any fourteen year old, or any guy who has ever been fourteen.
As the playoffs draw nearer to Super Bowl (Insert some weird Roman numeral here), Not Named Jeffy makes playoff picks.
Get ready to call your Vegas bookie.
First up: Seattle vs. Green Bay: The Seahawks are losing to The Packers with their quarterback from …what? The late 60’s maybe early 70’s? This is pathetic!
MEMO from Me: to Seattle guys, you are losing to a guy nearly twice your age! That’s just sad.
San Diego vs. Indianapolis: The Chargers and the Colts, who really cares?
We all know Manning is motivated by one of two things: Being a really good quarterback, making a lot of commercials. The question is, can he hock enough products to merit his own channel? The All Manning, All the Time Channel? AMATC for short. At least sponsorship wouldn’t be an issue. Not Named Jeffy’s Picks: Rooting for the Colts on the pseudo perception that they are a purer motivated football team en masse. Can’t name a one.
New York vs. Dallas: The Giants and the Cowboys, you know what I going to pick the Giants, so Eli can get his ring. It will also secure his retirement, as he can then go endorse hokey products that don’t work, following in his brother’s footsteps –like sprint phone, OXY cleaning 123, and other things that can be found easily at either the dollar store or QVC. Maybe Payton will let him do a guest spot on AMATC in the early morning hours.
Finally the New England Patriots and… does it really matter what I say? If Tom Brady broke his leg, the Patriots cover the spread and win. If Brady and Moss break legs they win. If Tom, Randy, and the Defensive line all break their legs, Bill Bellicheck will come in and we are back to square one. Patriots win big.
Now if Bellicheck, the defensive line, Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and some obscure backup quarterback aching for some playing time all break their legs, everyone plays with broken limbs, but the Patriots find out (insert Running Back’s name here) can actually run. Jacksonville is left in full body casts, as Bill beats a healthy player to death for getting his cast wet with Gatorade.
Not Named Jeffy? This is not Bill Keane. Why can't you write like this for your English class?
Umm.....Tune in next time when Not Named Jeffy tries to find his way home on the metro. You can trace the detours and chuckle softly for no apparent reason!
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