Our power was out for a good portion of the day yesterday, which was actually kind of nice. I had gone out to lunch with a friend from my old job and when I got home I couldn't do anything really productive around the house so I sat outside and painted for a little bit, which I probably wouldn't have done if I could have been vacuuming, or on the computer...etc. I have made it a rule that since being unemployed I can only watch a maximum of 2 hours of TV a day, otherwise I would probably be sitting there all day. (but I don't count movies, I can't let my Netflix go to waste!) When I was a kid my Mom used to let us watch 2 hours of television a day and my sister and I would use the TV page that came in the paper on Sundays to choose very carefully, sometimes I would use a blue pen to circle what I wanted to watch. I remember that I never watched cartoons when I got home from school because if I wasted my hours in the afternoon I would miss out on Happy Days or Laverne and Shirley or, god forbid, Charlie's Angels. I used to love that show even though I don't think that I ever stayed awake during an entire episode, I guess I just wanted to fit in. I was reading the paper this morning and saw something about this product to let you monitor how much time your kid is spending on the computer or TV. I'm a little unclear on this though, I mean couldn't you just tell them to turn it off? And do you need to get one of these units for each appliance that your child might abuse? I think that it's a pretty good tool for kids that are home by themselves a lot, but it makes me a little sad to think that parents have to turn to these gadgets instead of a mutual relationship of trust and respect with thier children. I also think that the cartoon on the website is a little creepy, and the motto "it's hard to argue with a box"... no doubt, but don't you think that the kids will still argue with the parents who control the box? I don't have any kids, so I suppose I shouldn't pass judgement, but I remember "the look" from my Mom would work wonders, no gadget needed.
While I'm on the subject of TV I'm just going to get this out of the way now... I love reality TV. It's a secret (not so much so now) shame of mine. There was a point when I would watch every reality show that came on, at least the first episode, to see if it was any good. But thankfully I'm past that stage and I've narrowed it down to few. I must admit that I did watch Meet My Folks the other night. It's terrible. The best thing about that show is the lie detector guy who shows up in the last 15 minutes. The lie detector test itself is lame, but the dude who runs the machine totally rocks my world. He has a killer comb-over and he laughs at not only the bad questions but will frequently chuckle when someone lies. I hope that someday he busts out into a hardy guffaw. But more than that I hope that I'm never driven to watch that show again.... it's really bad.