An Evening Without Internet

Last night I lost my Internet service at the house. I first noticed it when my wife tried to look up an address on her smartphone so she could go get us a Christmas ham. Her phone had been having problems all day and so she thought it related to the mobile device. Fortunately my daughter mentioned that she also had connection problems on her laptop. I suggested that my wife turn WiFi off on her phone and see if she could get directions. Sure enough it worked and we now have a massive ham to celebrate the birth of someone that wouldn't have eaten ham. Anyways . . .

Spending an evening without Internet service is a bit tough in today's day and age. It really surprised me at how much I rely on my computers being able to connect to many others out there. I started with my PlayStation 5. I finished all of the tasks in Astro's Playroom and wanted to see what trophies I still needed to complete. PlayStation's trophy service requires being able to access the Internet.

Next I wanted to look up some potential investments. I have decided that it is time for me to get back into the stock market. For the past decade or so, I have relied on the expert of others to manage my investments. Back in my 30's I really enjoyed following individual companies and have opened an online trading account. I'll keep you posted if I do well or not but ultimately I couldn't do any research last night because of the lack of Internet. Too bad I don't get a copy the Wall Street Journal as I could have looked through that.

I thought about watching a Christmas movie but this year I have already seen the ones I have on DVD and Blu-ray. No Internet means no streaming video services and so I looked for other ways to kick off the first evening of my Holiday break. As the night wore on, I pulled out my guitar and Rocksmith only to be reminded that all of the extra songs I have purchased are not playable without a connection to the Internet to verify that I have the paid to play them. Sure Rocksmith comes with 60 songs but I wanted to rock out to all my Christmas ones. Instead I ended up playing my acoustic guitar with my songbook full of Christmas music.

Eventually my service provider got the Internet working again. I checked my e-mail and during the time that the Internet was down, I only received 2 messages which goes to show it wasn't down that long. However it still felt like an eternity.

To show how important the Internet is in our daily lives, I have the day off and here I am back on the Internet. Sure I got up and went skiing this morning at Snowbird. We got 16-inches of new snow last night and I had one spectacular run in untracked snow before the crowds destroyed any hopes of a repeat. When I got home, I did a few chores but have spent the past 2 hours utilizing my home Internet connection. I am done though and will be heading off to do things that don't require a computer . . . oh wait, I may continue one of my video games. Scratch that.

Playing Video Games with a 3 Year Old

A few days ago my 3-year-old grandson came over and wanted to play video games with me. He loves cars and so I gave him a PS3 controller while I played a racing game on the PS4. He didn't know that he wasn't really controlling the car on the TV and enjoyed our short time together playing the game. I would tell him to hold one of the triggers down to make the car go faster. Then I would look at what he did and made sure to match his actions. We both cheered when we won the game and received a trophy for our accomplishment.

A few days later he came over and wanted to play a new game on the PS5. I sat him on my lap and gave him a 2nd controller while I controlled the game. Every so often I would tell him to press the square button and then matched his movement to coincide. The game requires the player to move the controller around and it makes me smile as my grandson mimics my actions. We gather coins and collected PlayStation artifacts in "Astro's Playroom." Since we play as a robot, my grandson calls it "the robot game." Now every time he comes over he wants to play the robot game.

"Astro's Playroom" is the free game included with all PlayStation 5 consoles. I have to say that I enjoy playing it with him. While I could easily finish the game, I wait for him to come over before trying new areas in the game. He is also getting pretty good at hitting the square button to punch the bad robots and pressing the X button to jump. I have to pay close attention to him but if I do it right, he really thinks he is playing. My favorite is when a bad robot jumps out and surprises him. He gets excited and squeals anxiously.

Unfortunately it won't take my grandson long to figure out he isn't controlling the video game and he will want to play for real. My hope is that I have given him enough training so that he will be able to pick up the game movements and not get frustrated. Until then we are having fun playing games together and plan to do a lot of that during the Thanksgiving holiday. I imagine he will take over and be better than me by Christmas.