Beach Volleyball Bitch

The males in my house don't understand why I'm so upset. Every time I see beach volleyball, I rant and rave about the injustice of it all.

Exhibit A: The men's uniform.








Exhibit B: The Women's uniform.








Am I really the only one who can see what's wrong here?! And on top of all the blatant objectification apparently ingrained in this sport the world over, the Olympics even added "cheerleaders" to the volleyball venue:





Sheesh. Guess we haven't come such a long way, have we?

I just LOVE this kid!

My darling, innocent, wide-eyed angel has been building with Legos all morning. Why tell us this on this blog and not the family-friendly, education-oriented blog, you ask? Aren't Legos an unschooler's wet dream?

Well, yes they are. But wait 'til you hear what he was building:

A bar. A BAR! Complete with bartender, drinks, and patrons. I'll have to ask if one of those patrons is Mom... God help us if the bartender's him!

Attention, NBC

Your programming of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing SUCKS ASS. Sure, you posted the schedule of all the fencing matches on your website. You got us all psyched up to watch it live, then you proceeded to broadcast soccer, field hockey and hand-fucking-ball instead.

We didn't complain (much) when you didn't broadcast the women's sabre (even though a homeschooler took the bronze and the US swept the event for the first time ever), because we thought for sure you'd show the men's events. We woke up early because your website said the quarterfinals would take place at 7:10am -- nothin' but handball. OK, we thought, semifinals at 7:20 -- nope, field hockey. Finals at 8am? Hah.

We've given up on you, NBC. You may advertise that you have the most complete coverage ever, but it still sucks. Why can't you, in two-thousand-frickin'-eight, make the events "on demand"? Why can't we go to our TV's menu, select a sport, then watch it? Why is this so difficult? My God, teenagers can download porn right to their phones while they're sitting in class, but do you think we can watch a little fencing?!

What is particularly sad is that your programming in general, NBC, has been on the slide ever since Friends went off the air. From the looks of your fall line-up, there isn't much hope for the near future, either. Your Olympics coverage was the one bright feather left on the Peacock... til you fucked it up.

So is the Peacock now bald... or is it just dead? If the team fencing isn't broadcast, I'm declaring a DNR on the bird and never coming back to the networks.

Six Things Meme

I done been tagged, and I think this one's a good meme. It could keep me writing for hours! ;o) I won't be tagging anyone else, since I don't know too many bloggers, but feel free to jump in!

Steph says I should tell the people 6 things they don't know about me. Just six, Steph?

1) I share Steph's phone phobia. It's not a fear so much as an extreme discomfort. Much like poor money management skills, I believe this phone repulsion is a closeted characteristic with which many people suffer, and it needs to be addressed, publicly, once and for all. We who suffer from it must swallow our embarrassment, raise our keyboards, and SHOUT through the blogoshphere that we will no longer be shamed by our inexplicable avoidance of today's accoutrement of choice.

2) My mother's main goal for my upbringing was for me to graduate high school without becoming pregnant. To that end, she refused to discuss birth control ("You will NOT have sex"), and I ended up with a near miss. Whoever is in charge here knew I couldn't step up to that kind of responsibility, and I had a miscarriage. But I was so woefully undereducated about all things sexual that I had to ask my mother what was happening to me. Oy. That was NOT a fun conversation.

3) I pick. At my kids, my husband, at anyone who disagrees with me. At my nails, at my scabs, at a spot on the wall or a thread on the sofa. Can't just let anything GO.

4) I secretly yearn for an encounter with another man. I have several in mind, none of whom would hold a candle to my own husband, but still... it's my one fantasy.

Want the list? Here goes: Dan from high school (OK, he might actually make a good life partner), Mark the Marine (I'll tell you that story another time), Dan Radcliffe (but only if he's scruffy and his hair is zhoozhed, like on the Details magazine cover), Hunter Parrish (Silas on Weeds... I am LOVING the storyline with him and the neighbor boy's mom!!!), and Drake Bell (holy hell, get me away from children's programming already!).

5) As the above list testifies, I have been experiencing a bit of a mid-life crisis. How long are these things supposed to last, anyway? It's been about six years now, and I'm ready for it to be over. And by over, I mean "twenty-seven again."

6) Back when Jason and I were first living together, we were dirt poor. I know, I know: you'd think that after almost twenty years together, we'd have made some progress. Ah, but we have! Because back then, when we needed cash, we visited the priest at the Catholic church in the city. For forty bucks -- cold, hard cash, straight outta the collection plate -- all Jason had to do was take off his glasses and pretend he was watching Father John masturbate. With some other young guys, since an audience of one was not enough, I guess.

Us girls? We got to eat the cookies leftover from Sunday School. Good deal all around.

Luckily, it's been a LONG time since we've been that poor. But in case gas prices don't come down anymore... Do any of you know of any clergymen with unfulfilled needs?

No, Really!

Nothing like screaming about being "back," then disappearing for a month, eh?

Sorry, folks, just a few technical difficulties. It's called "buying a Toshiba laptop," and it can sink an internet experience faster than you can say "they even had to cut their warranties to just 6 months."

But I'm not bitter.

Luckily, I have many wonderful, generous people in my life. I had several offers for computer donations and am currently blogging from my first-ever iMac.

I'm still not sure in what ways a Mac differs from a PC. So far, I've found the differences to be pretty subtle, along the lines of what you might find when comparing different versions of the same Windows program.

But none -- NONE -- of my software is compatible with this machine. Erg. What we sacrifice for our children, eh? Because you see, we took our friend up on her offer for the Mac because Noah can now download Apple's Garage Band, the music editing software that musicians everywhere claim is da shit. Here's hoping it's all they say it is.

Cheers!

I'm Baaaack...

I've been blogging a LOT, just not here. ;o) I've been trying to log the boys' freeform learning according to school subjects over at Xanga , with a fair amount of regularity. But there are some topics that aren't relevant to that blog or that I don't want my mom reading. ;o) So I've kept this blog very separate, but that meant I didn't get over here much. That's about to change.

I've had many occasions over the last few months on which I'd had a lot of thoughts, but I never put them down. I'm on a mission to change that. I look forward to hearing from anyone who reads this, though I'm guessing my audience will be way low. I hope you all enjoy my ranting.

Cheers!

Video Gaming

We've been struggling with the video game question lately. And by "we" I mean me, of course.

Noah's use of games has always been what I would call educational, and what the media would call edutainment. That is to say, he's always played games that were learning disguised as a game or were games requiring a lot of thought.

But Aengus has really gotten into gaming lately, and not at all the same kind as Noah. Aengus prefers those first-person shooting and destruction games. It totally fits with his personality: the Transformer smashing up cars on the screen might as well be him. And though I see a little "educational value" in such games, I really have a hard time being OK with the hours a day he spends playing them.

There is an excellent post here (http://zajosa.blogspot.com/2008/04/problem-when-parents-think-childs.html), written by an unschooled teen. In it, Zach expresses the difficulty his relationship with his mother faced when she not only limited the amount of time he could spend on his favorite hobby, but also did not share in the excitement of his interest. He also vocalizes (rather succinctly) exactly how I feel about video games: namely, that they are misunderstood and undervalued by older generations.

Just when I felt at peace with a parenting issue, Aengus came along and shook up my views. Something tells me this won't be the last time he does that. ;o)