Ben is addicted to Minecraft. Worse than that, he is addicted to Minecraft YouTube videos.
You see, I refuse to buy the full copy for Xbox. A major reason is exactly what the conversation between ben and his Grandfather pointed out.
Granddaddy: "So, what's the point of this Mindcraft game?"
Ben: "There is no point to it."
BINGO! Regardless, it's entertainment so normally I wouldn't mind a bit. My frustration comes from the obsession of watching hours upon hours of videos of people playing the game. Not even playing the game, just WATCHING people play the game.
I'm running Windows 8 and thank God it doesn't want to run properly. I would fight with it and get it to work except for the fact he keeps making me angry to the point I hate the game.
This evening he watched videos for three hours. THE WIFE had mercy on him and allowed him computer time even though he had no cleaned his room as he was told. At the end of three hours I told the kids it was time to start getting ready for bed and they needed to straighten up the living room. Ben took his nightly medicine and I told him to log off the computer and began to re-enforce the evening procedure. I was calm and matter-of-fact, but Ben became infuriated.
The transition to bedtime and looming school year seem to be taking their toll on him as this is a pretty volitile time anyway. Any parent of an Autistic kid will tell you transitioning is a very difficult process for the kids. The fact Ben has developed bad habits about staying up late and sleeping in only add to the problem.
When Ben became agitated I asked if we needed to go through who is the parent and who is not again. Ben made the statement he was going to go to the computer and watch a few more video. I explained he was not and him telling me he was going to made sure he absolutely would not.
It took one more, "Yes, I am." I then walked over to the computer and unplugged it to make sure it went down without the need to have a physical confrontation over the shutdown. He stormed off to his room and slammed the door.
We've tried to explain when we get yelled at and treated disrespectfully we aren't going to reward him with what he wants. He also fails to see anything other than total agreement with what he wants as unreasonable.
I guess I will have something to bring up at the next meeting with his psychologist. Being a NT sucks sometimes.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
I Am So Old
How old am I?
Old enough that I have spent all week griping about having to do testing with a MAC.
Yes, you read that right. The little Apple machine grandmas and every yuppie or college student HAS to have because they are soooo easy has been a pain in my butt all week.
I know enough about Linux to know Apple has put a pretty little shell over the top of Linux and run it on their hardware. Obviously it works well, but for a PC only guy it drives me NUTS. I miss my right-click capability. WAH!
I guess things might have been different if I had been introduced to them when I was fighting with Windows 95 or 98 (maybe even XP) I would be a lot more receptive. I work with Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 and beyond now. I deal with Exchange, Outlook, Active Directory, IIS etc... The MAC just seems like a clumsy fit when having to integrate in with these things.
Of course, to be fair, if I dealt with MACs more I might not be as harsh, but to plop down a wad of cash for something that doesn't work the way I want it to is not much incentive.
I shall remain, a PC (at least for now).
Old enough that I have spent all week griping about having to do testing with a MAC.
Yes, you read that right. The little Apple machine grandmas and every yuppie or college student HAS to have because they are soooo easy has been a pain in my butt all week.
I know enough about Linux to know Apple has put a pretty little shell over the top of Linux and run it on their hardware. Obviously it works well, but for a PC only guy it drives me NUTS. I miss my right-click capability. WAH!
I guess things might have been different if I had been introduced to them when I was fighting with Windows 95 or 98 (maybe even XP) I would be a lot more receptive. I work with Windows 7, 8 and Server 2008 and beyond now. I deal with Exchange, Outlook, Active Directory, IIS etc... The MAC just seems like a clumsy fit when having to integrate in with these things.
Of course, to be fair, if I dealt with MACs more I might not be as harsh, but to plop down a wad of cash for something that doesn't work the way I want it to is not much incentive.
I shall remain, a PC (at least for now).
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Sunday, August 05, 2012
American Exceptionalism
Cardigan over at I Own the World put up a post titled "When Being an American Meant Being an American". They went into the WayBack machine referencing the 1980 Olympic hockey team and the "Miracle on Ice". Specifically the line from the coach, "Beat those commie bastards."
The point of the post was, the line would never work now. Political correctness has deemed that too offensive to say now, and even if it was said, many people wouldn't understand the phrase.
My kids and many people in America don't understand what life before 1989 was like. They've never seen 'The Day After" and even if they did, they couldn't understand it. They couldn't imagine what it was like knowing that there was a country halfway around the world which hated us just because of who we were. Living each day wondering if it would be our last. Wondering if the Russians would start a nuclear war with us. They have no idea what the "Cold War" was.
Or maybe they would... in a way. We have a faceless enemy now called terrorists.
The big difference is we now think we did something to deserve their hate. That we robbed and pillaged people halfway around the world, taking what they had and then leaving them poor and penniless. We believe this because misguided people who wallow in their guilt tell us this.
They tell us we really are the Great Satan.
They seem to forget how the Middle East became rich from the oil we (Great and Little Satans alike) helped them find, export and get rich from. They blame us for the brutal thugs ruling over them.
It's true we've backed some rotten SOB's, but take a look at how wonderful the "Arab Spring". The people of the uprising threw out one set of brutal thugs for another set of brutal thugs. The difference is now countries like Egypt now have brutal thugs who may very well start up wars which the old brutal thugs probably wouldn't have.
I remember watching television and seeing the Berlin Wall being pulled down while people danced on top of it in celebration.
The day before they would have been shot dead for even getting near it.
I remember hearing/reading/watching stories about how people tried and died to escape communism. I spent one afternoon with a dear friend who told me the story of how he and a friend of his escaped from communist Romania. How his father was brought in afterward and interrogated and threatened because of him.
His father didn't fear, he was old and he knew his son had escaped to freedom. He had nothing to lose.
When the wall fell, little did I know that losing the fear we held against Russia and communism would cause us to become the fat, lazy people we were always accused of being. (At least many of us that is.)
When there is no longer a common foe, then we begin bickering and infighting. We have been set up perfectly by socialists and communists. People have forgotten in less that 25 years the true horrors of communism and fascism.
I (and many other) sat by while Bush allowed us to be set up to lose our freedoms. I was naive (for the record I think he was too). America isn't perfect, no country is. No country ever has been and never will be. America will always be flawed, but we strive to be prefect. It isn't the acheivement of perfection that makes us great, but the fact we do strive for perfection.
Hating ourselves for mistakes of the past will not make us better people. It took me a while after I became a Christian to understand that. I hated myself for the mistakes I made and listened to the little voice in my head that told me I wan't good enough; that I was too bad to ever deserve love.
It wasn't true. I understand that now, even though sometimes I falter in my journey. My faith helps me to understand that we are only bad when we give up. When we spend all of our time looking back at our mistakes rather than learning from them and making sure they never happened again.
America doesn't need fundamental trasformation; even now. Even after four years of a bad president. We need to learn from our mistakes and move on. Rubbing salt in the wounds of our past will never change those things, they only prevent us from moving forward. Rather than looking at where we are and where we are going, we are allowing ourselves to be fooled by people into continuing to do nothing. We must stop apologizing for our mistakes and do what we can to make the world a better place. We as individuals must do this, not the government. Trillions of dollars are wasted each year by the government trying to do what we as citizens must do.
I overheard two gentlemen who were discussing Europe and Germany in particular. They were discussing Germany taking loans from China. I made a comment along the lines of I hated to see Germany make the same mistakes we were making. He replied, "What else can you do? If someone needs help, who will help them."
"We should," I said.
The individual is who needs to help people in need out. Government is a poor substitute for human kindness.
Whatever happens in November will be God's plan. I don't worry, but I'm not necessarily looking forward to it.
The point of the post was, the line would never work now. Political correctness has deemed that too offensive to say now, and even if it was said, many people wouldn't understand the phrase.
My kids and many people in America don't understand what life before 1989 was like. They've never seen 'The Day After" and even if they did, they couldn't understand it. They couldn't imagine what it was like knowing that there was a country halfway around the world which hated us just because of who we were. Living each day wondering if it would be our last. Wondering if the Russians would start a nuclear war with us. They have no idea what the "Cold War" was.
Or maybe they would... in a way. We have a faceless enemy now called terrorists.
The big difference is we now think we did something to deserve their hate. That we robbed and pillaged people halfway around the world, taking what they had and then leaving them poor and penniless. We believe this because misguided people who wallow in their guilt tell us this.
They tell us we really are the Great Satan.
They seem to forget how the Middle East became rich from the oil we (Great and Little Satans alike) helped them find, export and get rich from. They blame us for the brutal thugs ruling over them.
It's true we've backed some rotten SOB's, but take a look at how wonderful the "Arab Spring". The people of the uprising threw out one set of brutal thugs for another set of brutal thugs. The difference is now countries like Egypt now have brutal thugs who may very well start up wars which the old brutal thugs probably wouldn't have.
I remember watching television and seeing the Berlin Wall being pulled down while people danced on top of it in celebration.
The day before they would have been shot dead for even getting near it.
I remember hearing/reading/watching stories about how people tried and died to escape communism. I spent one afternoon with a dear friend who told me the story of how he and a friend of his escaped from communist Romania. How his father was brought in afterward and interrogated and threatened because of him.
His father didn't fear, he was old and he knew his son had escaped to freedom. He had nothing to lose.
When the wall fell, little did I know that losing the fear we held against Russia and communism would cause us to become the fat, lazy people we were always accused of being. (At least many of us that is.)
When there is no longer a common foe, then we begin bickering and infighting. We have been set up perfectly by socialists and communists. People have forgotten in less that 25 years the true horrors of communism and fascism.
I (and many other) sat by while Bush allowed us to be set up to lose our freedoms. I was naive (for the record I think he was too). America isn't perfect, no country is. No country ever has been and never will be. America will always be flawed, but we strive to be prefect. It isn't the acheivement of perfection that makes us great, but the fact we do strive for perfection.
Hating ourselves for mistakes of the past will not make us better people. It took me a while after I became a Christian to understand that. I hated myself for the mistakes I made and listened to the little voice in my head that told me I wan't good enough; that I was too bad to ever deserve love.
It wasn't true. I understand that now, even though sometimes I falter in my journey. My faith helps me to understand that we are only bad when we give up. When we spend all of our time looking back at our mistakes rather than learning from them and making sure they never happened again.
America doesn't need fundamental trasformation; even now. Even after four years of a bad president. We need to learn from our mistakes and move on. Rubbing salt in the wounds of our past will never change those things, they only prevent us from moving forward. Rather than looking at where we are and where we are going, we are allowing ourselves to be fooled by people into continuing to do nothing. We must stop apologizing for our mistakes and do what we can to make the world a better place. We as individuals must do this, not the government. Trillions of dollars are wasted each year by the government trying to do what we as citizens must do.
I overheard two gentlemen who were discussing Europe and Germany in particular. They were discussing Germany taking loans from China. I made a comment along the lines of I hated to see Germany make the same mistakes we were making. He replied, "What else can you do? If someone needs help, who will help them."
"We should," I said.
The individual is who needs to help people in need out. Government is a poor substitute for human kindness.
Whatever happens in November will be God's plan. I don't worry, but I'm not necessarily looking forward to it.
Friday, August 03, 2012
Why You No Haz Jobs?
I think I have sat on the remarks of Obama long enough, so I am going to throw my two cents worth or ridicule at him.
Let's have his quote "In context" as Bob Beckel loves to throw out and say it does refer to infrastructure. This photo sums it up well:
I'll leave it at that.
Let's have his quote "In context" as Bob Beckel loves to throw out and say it does refer to infrastructure. This photo sums it up well:
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| Y U No Has Buziness? |
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
Am I Alive?
In short, yes I am.
If that's all you're looking for you need not read anymore. If you are interested in what's happening in La Casa De Tots, well then.
The last month has been a spiritual struggle. THE WIFE and I have struggled to meet our commitments to God through obstacles the enemy put in our way. It's amazing how people don't realize the little things that are thrown our way to sidetrack us from the important things in life. Car breaking down, illness, fights with loved ones. All little things that keep us from the important fight.
I think I am being directed to put together a book on spiritual warfare. I've had an interest in it so I have read several books on it and listened to an excellent Podcast series from Mars Hill church, so I may give it a go. Lulu.com can always hold the book for me if there isn't any interest.
Everyone is doing well otherwise. Ben is set to go back to school after his medication nightmare this last year, so pray for us for that one.
Oh, and THE WIFE is teaching Lucie to play drums. Life is good.
If that's all you're looking for you need not read anymore. If you are interested in what's happening in La Casa De Tots, well then.
The last month has been a spiritual struggle. THE WIFE and I have struggled to meet our commitments to God through obstacles the enemy put in our way. It's amazing how people don't realize the little things that are thrown our way to sidetrack us from the important things in life. Car breaking down, illness, fights with loved ones. All little things that keep us from the important fight.
I think I am being directed to put together a book on spiritual warfare. I've had an interest in it so I have read several books on it and listened to an excellent Podcast series from Mars Hill church, so I may give it a go. Lulu.com can always hold the book for me if there isn't any interest.
Everyone is doing well otherwise. Ben is set to go back to school after his medication nightmare this last year, so pray for us for that one.
Oh, and THE WIFE is teaching Lucie to play drums. Life is good.
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| Rock on my Purple Princess! |
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