The World According to Josh

Ever notice how TV commercials seem to be much louder than the normal programming? Well, it’s not your imagination. Not only is it very annoying to many, it is also not an accident. Those advertisers pay big bucks to get their 30 seconds of face time with you, and they don’t really care about the volume the programming, but want to make sure their ad is at maximum volume (”But this goes to eleven”).

I am thrilled to see that a member of congress is actually taking this seriously by introducing a bill to make the FCC fix this problem. I hope it passes, although I don’t want the enforcement to get so costly to TV stations that they end up having to make even more ads to make up for the lost money. That would be bad for us consumers.

Of course, we could also simply fast forward through the commercials. Tivo does indeed rule, especially when hacked and the 30-second skip is enabled. I get the feeling advertisers don’t really like that either.

Government, TV bill, commerical, fcc, loud, TV

I started a fire today. It was neccessary. The stupid thing was asking for it. For days now, this thing has brought nothing but sorrow and pestilence to our household. It made the strongest of my children shriek with terror when she felt the chilling effects of this unwanted beast.

My patient wife spent the days biding her time, waiting for me to burn the monster that was terrorizing our family. Today was finally the day.

I armed myself and made it cautiously into the attic. I could feel its presence. I flipped on the light. I slowly turned my head and it was right there in my face breathing a foul stench right on my face. I remained calm, as I knew it couldn’t do anything to me unless directly provoked.

I leaned closer toward it, the smell growing stronger. I readied my torch and slowly made my way around the menace. While in its blind spot, I leaned in and thrust my torch into it’s belly. Nothing. I missed the sweet spot. I regrouped, wiped the sweat from my forehead, took a deep breath of sweltering air, held it and this time slowly advanced my weapon. FWOOOSH! Gotcha. The beast knew I was there now, and I had only seconds to get out before I was burned along with it.

I clumsily sealed the opening I had made, put out my torch, rose to my feet, and…silence. There was one more thing to be done, to assure the beasts demise. I needed to increase the size of the small flame I had just started. I reached down to the foot of the monster and turned the dial. KA-FWOOOOM! This noise and the new light shining in the attic was proof enough that my job was done.

There were shouts of joy and praise in the house upon my return. Never before had they seen such an act of heroism or bravery.

I re-lit the water heater.

Family, Personal tame the beast

For those of you who thought we were crazy to move to the Houston area, I give you this:

Houston made #1 on the list of the best cities to live, work and play in.

So……nyah nyah!

Uncategorized

Here’s a time-lapse video of the room somehow magically cleaning itself, since I never do it. It’s really just stage 1, as there is still much yet to be done. Trying to work my way out of being grounded.

Uncategorized

My wife just grounded me. Seriously. My office has become SUCH a mess that it has come to this unprecedented need for discipline. “You can’t buy anything, like, ever again until you clean up this office.” she said. To tell you the truth, I’m relieved. It means she might be OK with me buying something ever again! Alrighty then! No problemo! All-a-sudden cleaning my room became fun.

But first, I need to find some cool stop-motion or time lapse software to take periodic photos of the whole operation and make a cool time-lapse video of the room getting clean. Yeah, so now I’m still sitting here, looking for that, while the room is still a mess. See what I’m up against? I am easily distracted. Wish me luck.

Personal, Tech grounded, messy, room

Family

I guess there never really is a good time to bring this up, so now will have to do.

When we, as a family, moved to the Houston area a few years ago, we decided to employ the talents of a realtor agency, even though we were only looking to rent a home at the time. Our mood as caregivers to our then 3 children was past excited and more of a desperate, bordering, panicky in our home search. We waited patiently at a very nice, air-conditioned, quiet office while our 60-something new friend (aka realtor) was looking things up for us: matching criteria, numbers of potties, er toilets, square footage and so forth.

Our kids, especially the 2 boys, were having a hard time keeping still and being quiet, as we really needed them to be in this tense situation. I was horrified when I caught them playing with bouncy balls (you know the super bouncy ones that bounce REALLY far and are noisy and kinda hard?) I tried to keep my “ix-nay on the oise-nay” on the down-low, since it was so quiet and we were trying to give a good impression. They reluctantly complied and put their playthings in their pockets.

Moments later, the older of the two boys slid up to me, with the gravest of faces, staring at the floor and gently complained: “Daddy, why can’t we take our balls out and play with them?”

Uncontrollable laughter ensued.

And darn it if he didn’t lighten the mood instantly. Way to go, spawn of mine.

Family darndest, kids, parenting, say, the, things