Several months ago, we got a digital video recorder from our cable provider, Cox Communications. In general, I’ve been very happy with it (mentioned previously here and here).
But yesterday evening, I noticed that it hadn’t recorded any of the series I had scheduled. I went into the series scheduling and discovered that they were all an hour off! We changed to daylight savings time on Sunday morning, and the time on the cable box updated appropriately, but the recording times didn’t update! I had to re-schedule all my series recordings. I’d hate to be a Cox technical service rep this week.

I’ve started a new blog devoted to issues related to personal credit: credit reports, scores, personal debt, bankruptcy, etc. Check it out: Personal Credit Blog

In this post, Friar Tim expresses thoughts I’ve long had:

I don’t like to fight. I once did, back in college. The fundamentalists who strolled my college campus and confronted us fellow Christian students with concerns about our complacency just infuriated me! They projected all of their personal guilt on the rest of the campus and it drove me nutty-bananas. So I loved messing with their sense of authority in others lives and created a nice batch of enemies.
I’m much more mellow now. I am an adult. I have a mortgage and a small child and think more about what things I have in common with those around me than what divides us. It makes for more peaceful living. If I counted the times in each day when I come to an interpersonal fork in the road, one where I have to make a decision about stating honest thoughts on a given subject or give one of those innocuous answers (Hmm. I see. I’ve heard that.) that leave it open on whether or not I agree, I think I would be shocked at how many times I tuck tail and run.
I’ve always said that every person alive chooses a level of hypocrisy they are willing to live with. There are no exceptions. Even homeless people have a system they must learn to operate within that requires certain compromises on their part and a willingness to play along. Part of growing older is giving little pieces of ourselves away that allow us to be a part of community. It’s only in ideal worlds of fiction and sitcom that diversity gets its full due without the cost that always accompanies it.

I particularly like the line: “every person alive chooses a level of hypocrisy they are willing to live with.”

The April issue of National Geographic magazine arrived today. At bedtime, Katie took it with her upstairs, intending to read it in bed before going to sleep. Samuel followed her into the bedroom and saw the cover for the first time. The photo on the cover frightened him terribly: he burst into tears and was inconsolable for a good five minutes. I then tore off the cover and threw it away in hopes of appeasing him.
A little later, Katie tried to show the cover article to Samuel in an attempt to show him that it was nothing to be afraid of. She turned a page, he saw another illustration that frightened him, and we went through the whole thing again!

This morning I went running on the Town Lake hike and bike trail. As usual, there were a lot of people out running, some of whom had their dogs. I always feel sorry for the dogs, especially the water breeds like Labs. I can just hear them saying to their people (not literally hear, as in Eddie-Murphy-as-Dr.-Doolittle hear): You mean we just came down here to run? Excuse me, I’m a water dog and that’s a lake. Lab! Lake! Dog! Water! Ducks in Lake! Must chase ducks!
There was one lucky dog at Auditorium Shores whose person was throwing sticks into the lake and letting the dog retrieve them. The others could only watch and wish.

As a dog person, I can relate to Heather Armstrong’s comment:

I just spent $20 to have my dog’s anal sacs squeezed because he�s been greasing the couch lately. That may seem a bit exorbitant for a little gland squeezing, but it will definitely go down as the best $20 I ever spent: I DON’T HAVE TO SQUEEZE THEM MYSELF.

Unfortunately, cheap trumps disgusting for me.

With the help of my geeky co-workers (and Carolyn, who’s not a geek), I made this valentine for Katie yesterday.
The guy on the end is our graphic designer and a known trickster. He copied my photos, replaced ‘Katie” on the last photo with his wife’s name (and he has the graphics skills to make it look good), and made a valentine for her. He did the same for another coworker (I guess ‘imitation is the highest form of flattery’ should apply).

A recent thread on Ask Metafilter asked members about experiences that changed them. It’s a long, and truly amazing, set of stories. But as a parent, the ones that struck me the most were about children whose lives had been changed by rather mundane careless words and acts by parents and other adults. Here are some of those stories:

12 years old, just beginning to take those “career aptitude inventory” tests they give you, I share with my father my interest in one day becoming a computer engineer. His response, “How the hell are you ever gonna help anybody doing that!?” leads me to completely devalue my own interests and goals for the next four years or so in favor of what I think other people think I should be doing. Later I get my head on straight and realize he was being a complete jerk, but the damage is still done. I still base my feelings of self-worth on the opinions of others (even though I know that’s what I’m doing).

The Bad – I was overweight in middle school and junior high and was teased mercilessly by several other students. I suffered in silence for a year and a half before finally breaking down and telling my parents that I couldn’t take it anymrore. Their response? Ignore it and it will go away. It was bullshit. I knew it. They knew it. I realized then that they weren’t going to help me and I was going to have to deal with it on my own. Which I couldn’t. I became shy and bitter and distrustful. I needed my parents to help me and they refused. It took me a long time to get over that. I’m not really sure I am completely over it, to be frank.

One time when I was 7 or 8 my dad was supposed to pick me up after school. I waited until dark and he never showed up. I knew that he and my mother had forgotten about me. I started walking home when it got dark. While waiting for somebody to come get me I decided that I was alone in the world and couldn’t even trust my parents. I’ve been basically distrustful of people and an introverted loner ever since.

During the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I gained some weight sitting around and making my first webpage (another formative experience!). My mom approached me about the issue, made it feel less like something I should be ashamed of and more like a health issue, and I started exercising and losing the weight. A year or so later, I had returned to a more healthy size. One day, walking through the kitchen, my dad looked me up and down and said “Wow, Bridget, beneath all that weight there’s a pretty girl!” and in one moment destroyed the healthy attitude my mom had tried to give me. My little mind swum with all the implications of what he had said – My mom hadn’t mentioned anything at all about my not being pretty! I didn’t know I had to be pretty for my dad to show me a moment’s worth of genuine affection! Maybe that’s how it is with all men!

These stories make me realize that everything I do as a parent can have profound effects on my children. Sobering.

It’s the Monday after the Super Bowl, and I have yet to overhear a single conversation among the technical staff about football.

The author of Body and Soul expresses my feelings exactly:

Every time I go to Best Buy I resolve never to return. I can’t think straight with a wall of big screen TVs flashing a dozen identical football games at me, while hip hop hits me from the left, and Merle Haggard twangs me from the right. I know that doesn’t bother everybody, but I have this old-fashioned attachment to my brain cells, and I miss them when they go away.
I walked in the front door just as a voice was repeating over a microphone, “Home theater, turn down your volume. Home theater, please turn down your volume.”
If they did, I didn’t notice the difference. My knees go all jellyish and I almost start to cry under the impact of the noise. I would leave if I didn’t need to get a particular, repeatedly (subtly, but repeatedly) requested electronic birthday present before Friday, and if there were any place else in town — any quieter place — to get it.
So I’m stuck in Hell. Or Purgatory anyway, since as soon as I perform my appointed task — please, God, let me find it quickly — I can leave.
I sometimes think the atmosphere in Best Buy serves an effective commercial purpose. I can’t think in that atmosphere. I just want to grab whatever I see that vaguely resembles what I’m looking for, at whatever price they want to charge — really, I’ll pay extra, just let me out of here — and run.
Call me cynical, but I suspect encouraging mindless acquisition is not to the store’s disadvantage.