WHAT IS XBOX THINKING ABOUT?

Team Chaos Live
Originally uploaded by salendron

The kids have an Xbox 360. I assume this is the case for many kids. You create yourself an avatar - a virtual you - that you use to represent you when you are playing in the house or online against school friends.
Marcel created the first avatar of course because he's 12. That meant that the other kids also wanted an avatar. First Lots tried to make one. You chose between pre-defined bodies, hair, clothes, colouring etc. Charlotte's problem with her (not -out-of-the-ordinary-for-a-nine-year-old) waist length hair is that the avatars can't have hair longer than shoulder length, despite there being four or five pages of hairdos to choose from. So Charlotte's avatar doesn't look like her.
Of course, no sooner had Lots made one than Pudge and Bits wanted one each too. Pudge wasn't an issue - you can do wee boys, but Anna encountered a new problem. All the female avatars have boobs! I know Anna is a bit young for Xbox, but kids happily play on them from five upwards. How many five year old girls have short hair and boobs?
Given my kids also have a wii, where making a child avatar is simple, I wonder what Xbox is thinking about?

LUDICROUS!

Thomas and I decided to go for a walk in town yesterday afternoon (have I ever mentioned how nice it is to work for yourself, instead of all that 9-5 nonsense?!)
Of course any trip into town means a compulsory ten minutes in TK MAXX, Thomas's favourite (for some bizarre reason) shop. They had reduced age 4 Timberland jackets for kids. I'm not one for designer kiddie clothes - they grow too quickly and I'm paying no one for a label, however Léon's jacket is too short so I picked one up to check, given it's a discount store. It was nice and warm, better quality than his current jacket and reduced from £100 to a mere £35. £35, however is twice the price of Mothercare or ASDA so it didn't stand a chance. I was more than gobsmacked when I checked the lining though. Inside the left hand side of the jacket was a mobile phone pocket. I know this because it had a picture of a phone on it. I know it's 2009 but do 4 year olds ever have mobiles and if so what for? To let their parents know where they are if they are out alone? To ring for a lift to save them walking home from the station alone? To text their mates? Maybe so they can sit on mobile MSN to their girlfriend all night? I ask you...

ESPRESSO MACHINES

Thomas and I have owned two different espresso/cappuccino machines over the years. Brita and Peter have now just bought a beautiful model over in Italy too.
Can anyone explain to me why the steamer arm of these machines is always so short and in an awkward position?
You have to hold your jug with the milk at a funny angle to steam it and then when you try to take it back out half of it spills out because of the angle. They all seem to be like that.
Odd.
Talking of espresso machines though, I found this in Italy last week (it's a much darker red in the flesh) and was soooo pissed off I didn't have the 169Euros it cost. Wouldn't it just have looked superb in my kitchen?!

WHEN TECHNOLOGY WENT TOO FAR

I know I usually sing my car's praises whenever I mention it. I like the sliding doors that mean the kids aren't constantly knocking them against walls or other cars. I appreciate the way the windscreen wipers come on when it starts to rain and the lights come on at dusk. The one thing I am not happy about this week is the interior motion sensor alarm. In this heat I want to leave all the windows open while I sit in my garden because I am in and out all day and have no desire to step into a furnace on wheels and wait for the air conditioning to combat the melting dashboard. Of course when I leave the windows open but lock the car, anything bigger than a midge flying in through the open window sets off the alarm over and over again. After various attempts at cooling it down I am now giving up - it is simply impossible to leave its windows open. :-(

KIDS AND TECHNOLOGY

I wasn't surprised in the slightest when the new G phone arrived today that Marcel picked it up and instinctively seemed to know better than me where to find functionality without consulting a manual. At nearly 12 he is always attached to his own phone and has all sorts of music blasting out of it and constantly mentions different deals, chat functions and other things I just never use. What surprised me however was that Charlotte, who at 9 has not yet reached phone dependency stage did the same. Charlotte has my dad's old phone which she takes with her on overnights with her dad. If I text anything, she always replies with a simple yes, no or ok. I figured she hadn't got the hang of phones yet. She picked up my G phone and within 2 minutes asked which keyboard I preferred. Emmm - well I had found one that flipped out from behind the screen but that was it. She looked at me like I was stupid and showed me an on-screen touch keyboard she'd found (and I hadn't despite playing with it for 15 minutes before her.) She then commented on how nice my mouse was for correcting typing errors. I smiled and made a mental note to search for my mouse as soon as she handed it back. How do kids know these things? Maybe retiral age should simply be brought forward to 41, and we oldies should hand over business to the next generation now, even before they are issued with their national insurance numbers.

DVDS

Léon on the coffee table
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I have just remembered the real reason DVDs were invented...
All week our satellite system has been down. We have also been plagued off and on with monsoon weather so I had to come up with something to replace Léon's daily dose of the Night Garden. I usually let him watch that while getting Anna and I dressed in the morning. I went to look out a DVD only to realize that because my oldest child is 10, all my kiddie movies are on video, not DVD. I thought Léon might like Toy Story, so dug it out. He thought it was great and asked to watch a bit of it each morning. This morning, the same happened. I turned on the video and got the message ERROR 03 running across the screen. The video recorder is 15 years old, I don't have the manual any more. What is an error 03? Well apparently after a 15 minute investigation an error 03 is the current video being jammed in alongside two Simpsons DVDs. It is all coming back to me - the little video locks you used to have to buy to keep the little people from using the video recorder as a toaster or a bin.
And when I got everything out and turned to Léon, he was standing holding the video by a handle he'd made by pulling out a bit of the tape - AAARG! Surprisingly both the video and the video recorder still seem to be working.

KIDS ARE GROWING UP TOO FAST

06-10 240
Originally uploaded by PhylB

What seems like about 3 weeks ago last Tuesday, Marcel was this cute, pudgy faced 5 year old obsessed with dinosaurs and constantly running around in a Power Rangers suit. Yesterday morning however he announced he thought it was about time he got a BlackBerry! I was stunned he'd even heard of BlackBerries - what does he think he is? A bloody company director or what? I mean he's only 10! What next?