Entertaining Small Children

This evening my wife and I have 4 of our 5 grandchildren spending the night. The youngest is just a hair too young to join the party and so he is sleeping in his own bed across the valley. The children are asleep now and I am free to share some of the wisdom I have gained from the experience.

The first order of business this evening included feeding the children. Anyone with kids between the ages of 3 and 7 know they are the meanest of food critics. Furthermore it is difficult to find a common meal they can all agree upon. Fortunately I had the foresight to know we had two choices: macaroni and cheese or pizza. We decided on a family-size pizza that is half cheese and half pepperoni. The kids loved it. For dessert we made a run to the nearby doughnut shop and picked out a dozen colored with different Holiday sprinkles. Kids loved them.

Next the kids had to decide between a number of different evening activities. Ultimately it boiled down to decorating gingerbread houses or watching a movie. The downside of gluing candy to fake buildings with nasty frosting is the candy. Children like to eat more of it than they place on the tiny structures making it nearly impossible to fall asleep at the end of the evening. I breathed a sigh of relief when they unanimously agreed upon the movie. Now the only decision laid in which movie to watch. My oldest grandson has seen "Home Alone 2" no less than 4 times this Holiday season and his dad is getting tired of watching it. He suggested this movie to his sister and cousins who immediately rejected the idea. He came to me almost in tears and I explained that he needed to do a better job of selling the movie and not trying to force his choice on anyone. It only took 30 seconds for the kids come to agreement and support my grandson's choice. He probably has a role in sales in his future.

We all sat down in front of the television and started the movie complete with popcorn and water bottles. My grandson loves the movie not for the talent of the actors but for the 20 minutes of the criminals getting the snot kicked out them by the young protagonist. My other grandchildren loved the slapstick comedy as well. Unfortunately this left everyone a little slap-happy and not wanting to go to sleep. There is also the effects that blue light has and keeping people awake when you really want them to go to sleep. I solved that with 30 minutes of light acoustic guitar practice to help calm everyone down. For the most part, it worked.

Should you find yourself trying to get cousins to try and sleep at the end of a fun day, remember to feed, entertain, and use music. Now I hope they stay asleep for the remainder of the night.

Favorite Streaming Christmas Movies

This evening my wife and I sat down to watch a movie and it is only fitting we should watch a Christmas movie as it is that time of the year. We first went into our Disney+ account and saw what they had there. We saw the usual favorites like "Home Alone", "I'll be Home for Christmas", and "The Santa Clause." We felt like we have seen those too many times and looked for something we haven't seen. Ultimately we settled on a 48-minute short called "The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special." It is very light hearted and funny. If you are looking for a great way to keep young kids entertained, I recommend it. If you want something a little more meaningful, skip it.

As the show we picked didn't take too long we looked some more. We have always enjoyed "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" and we also briefly looked at the animated version of "A Christmas Carol." Ultimately we headed over to Amazon Prime to see if they had anything interesting and new to watch.

There are a lot of Christmas movies on Amazon Prime. Unfortunately most of them fail to entice me to watch them. We have seen a few interesting movies such as "Guess Who is Coming to Christmas" which is totally cheezy but also fun to watch. Ultimately we ended up turning off the television and doing other things.

So what are your favorite Christmas movies to watch this time of year? I love "Die Hard (edited for television)" but while it takes place at Christmas, doesn't really put you in the Christmas mood. There is always "It's a Wonderful Life", "White Christmas", and "A Christmas Story". Last week we watched "Jingle All the Way" for the first time and I don't think my wife will forgive me. I have no desire to watch "Elf" but understand a lot of people love that movie. So what is your favorite Christmas movie? I am always looking for something fun to watch.

How to Shelter in Place

Yesterday I got the news that all of my coworkers in the Bay Area are being asked to shelter in place because of COVID-19. I have been working in Salt Lake for the past week with indications that this might happen. Fortunately I don't have the same restrictions and so I can still leave my home. There is not much to do as all of the public places are closing down, including the ski resorts. I do have the option of backcountry skiing where I can hike up a mountain and then ski down it. I did that this morning before work and it is helping save my sanity.

I looked into what it means to shelter in place and discovered that you can still take your dog on a walk or go for a hike. There is a restriction to stay 6 feet away from anyone else while you hike but you are not stuck in the house for the next 3 weeks. It kind of cracks me up because you will need your spouse to leave the house and then you can follow at 6 feet or be subject to a misdemeanor infraction. Never mind that you are welcome to sleep in the same bed once at home. At least it is not like France where they have banned family get togethers.

So how can you pass the time during the shelter-in-place restrictions? Well I work for a video game company and am hoping that a lot of people will resort to playing video games. Who knew that being a nerd is the perfect solution to this difficult time in world history? Just remember to buy them online instead of from a physical store. If you prefer to own the disk for the game, you can always order online. It is my understanding that shipping company employees are exempt from the shelter-in-place restrictions.

Ok moving past the shameless plug for video games, what else can one do? I just got an e-mail from one of the national movie theater chains letting me know they are shutting down all theaters across the country. Fortunately NBC/Universal announced that they are making all of their upcoming movies available on a number of streaming services. Personally I would much rather view a new movie in the comfort of my own home instead of at a movie theater where I always seem to get the seat in front of a kid that insists on kicking mine throughout the entire movie. Sure it will cost something like $20 instead of the usual $5, but as long as you have someone to watch it with, that beats the cost of movie tickets. You also can pop your own popcorn, assuming you have any.

If you are having trouble coming up with ways to spend your time at home, just think about doing your taxes. My daughter has been busy with work at the ski resort. Since the resort is shut down, she got on the computer this afternoon and got taxes taken care of. It seemed that a lot of things got in the way of her filing her taxes and the loss of her job gave enough of a nudge to get it taken care of.

How you spend the next 3 weeks is completely up to you. I plan to spend more time with my wife, practice guitar, and hike up mountains to ski down as long as I can.

Killing Time at LAX

Today I flew back to the United States from Japan. That makes for a very long day as I crossed the International Date Line. So instead of a 24-hour day, today will be more like 48. This is especially true since I worked a full day at the office in Tokyo before getting on a plane and I have been working in the airport lounge since I arrived in Los Angeles. Throw in a couple of conference calls this evening as soon as I land and it makes for a really long day. I think I am going to take tomorrow off. Oh wait, I have a conference call at 11am.

In any event, I find myself in an airport lounge killing time while waiting for my next flight. I had a 4-hour layover, which allowed for plenty of time to get through customs and immigration. In a rare stroke of luck, my flight actually left Japan early and we arrived in Los Angeles an hour early. Throw in my Global Entry privilege and I practically walked off the plane and through re-entry into the US. So how to best use that time?

Naturally I attacked e-mail and knocked that out pretty quickly. During the course of going through my messages, I worked with my team in San Mateo to upgrade one of our servers. I also put together a survey for a workshop I helped organize in Tokyo this last week. With all that completed, I had some free time. While there is probably more work I could do, I am in a public place and can't do too much research work. I couldn't think of any B-Movies I wanted to watch on YouTube, but I did think about that. I had one movie that a colleague from work loaded onto my computer a few weeks ago. I started watching that earlier and finally finished it in the lounge. The only downside with that is I have been on a plane with access to a large movie library and so I am sort of movied-out. I listened to a few favorite songs but I am really looking for something else to do.

It feels like I have been working on electronic devices for the past 36 hours and so I think I am going to leave the lounge early and walk around the airport a bit. I may just need some exercise and it will be good for me.

Bad Weather

Scandinavian countries have a saying, "There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing." My youngest daughter works for an outdoor clothing retail store and she loves to use that saying on days like today where it is wet and cold outside. A lot of people chuckle and think she is just trying to sell really good snow jackets. Sometimes it even works.

I love wet and cold days like today for several reasons. It means there is snow in the mountains and this year we need a lot more snow. This morning I got up and was pleasantly surprised by 6-inches of fresh snow for my morning skiing. I also didn't feel guilty about seeing a movie in the middle of the day. Bad weather just makes it easier to stay inside. Now I am back from the movie and about to begin a nice long video-game session.

Sometimes a cold-wet day can be a bit of a drag, but not today. Instead of being sad because I can't go outside, I am using it as an excuse to stay inside and do all of those fun things that one does when the days are short and the nights long. Hopefully you are enjoying the weather where you are too, no matter the conditions outside. And remember that if you have to be outside, there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.

Disk or Digital Download

This evening I watched the movie Cars 3 using a digital streaming service. This brought up a conversation about purchasing disks on movies or streaming them. My personal preference is to purchase disks and my oldest daughter echoed that sentiment when she pointed out that she tried to watch Cool Runnings on a streaming service but it is no longer available. When you own the disk, you never have to worry about that problem.

At the office we have similar discussion going on: are disks better than digital downloads for games. Once again my preference is a physical disk. I do see how a digital download can be better though. I travel between Utah and California weekly. When I play a video game from a disk, I have to carry that disk with me back and forth. If I purchased the game as a digital download, I would just need to download it to my console in California and my console in Utah but only purchase it once. Then I wouldn't need to carry a disk back and forth.

The reason we watched tonight's movie as a digital download is that nobody felt like going to a store to purchase a disk copy. I just turned on my TV and ordered it through one of my online services. I also had a free coupon so I didn't even have to pay for the viewing this evening. Ultimately I will be going to get the movie on disk as it is one I want to keep in my video library. That way when the grand kids show up, I can just pull out the disk.

What would be nice is a service that lets you buy the movie or game online. Then they ship you the disk so you can have a copy later. That is the best of both worlds.

My Halloween Movie List

I love this time of year as it means that ski season is just around the corner. It also means that we get to start the extended Holiday season that includes Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. It also means it is time to start watching Halloween movies. Now I am not a big fan of scary movies and so when I think about Halloween movies, I think about fun ones. So with that preface, here is my list of Halloween movies that I enjoy.

Hocus Pocus - This is more of a fun movie than a scary one. Yes there are 3 witches that run around terrorizing a small New England town, but it is more comedic than horror.

Ghostbusters - I prefer the original as it brings back fond memories of my youth. Once again, this is more comedy than terror.

Casper - I used to come home from school and watch the old Casper cartoons. The movie is much better done and is a good way to celebrate Halloween.

Pirates of the Carribean - The original film got released in the summer of 2003, not even close to Halloween. However it is a very well done ghost story that ties into one of the classic rides in Disneyland. That makes it a good addition to my list.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - This film's original release date happened after Halloween but ultimately is a movie about witches and wizards. In my opinion, that makes it a great Halloween movie. It has a few scary parts but is mostly good entertainment.

Looking at this list, I realize that most of these movies are for children. I guess that makes me a big kid and I'm fine with that.

Investing in a Video Game

Recently I finished playing a video game after about 40 hours of total game play time. I have to admit that I was sad when the game ended. It is not that the game had a bad ending. In fact, the ending made perfect sense and perfectly matched the game. After 40 hours of game play, I felt connected to the character I was playing. He was a part of me in that the choices made during the game were mine. I felt very invested in the character as well as the entire video game.

Once finished with the game, I started to think about where else I felt such a connection with a fictitious person. I love watching movies but they are usually only a few hours long. Sure there are sequels and prequels, but The Lord of the Rings trilogy maxes out at 9 hours, while the Harry Potter movies total around 19 hours.

Thinking about Harry Potter reminds me that the story started as a book series. My children grew up with me reading them the books at bedtime. The time it took to read those books easily surpasses the 40 hours of game play, yet I still don't feel invested in the characters the same way I do with those in my recently completed video game. With a book, all you can do is read about choices the author makes for the characters. My kids would often scream at the stupid choices certain characters in the book would make. With a video game, you get to make your own choices. As a result, you are much more invested in your character.

I am now ready to start my next video game adventure and picked up a dozen games at a recent clearance sale. I set aside 3 different games that came highly recommended and have them stashed by my video game console on my boat where I spend most of my weeknight evenings. Sure I could relax and read a good book or watch a few movies. Instead I plan to get wrapped up in another video game character and chart my own story. I'll let you know how it goes.

Stupid Technology

Last week I was riding from the office back to my sailboat when I passed a fellow cyclist on the bike path. As I rode past him, I noticed he had earphones on and a mobile phone mount on his handle bars. As he was on a bike path, I didn't fault him too much for the earphones. Then I noticed he was watching a movie as he rode down the bike path. At that point I was extremely glad to get around him. What kind of moron rides his bike in public and watches a movie at the same time?

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching a movie and riding a bike. In fact it is the only way to get through a workout on my indoor-stationary bike. When I am on a real bike and I am out in public, I feel it is critical to my health to devote 100% of my attention to my surroundings. It keeps me from getting hit and hitting other things. I'm sure this guy justified his actions because he was on a bike trail. The problem is that the bike trail is used by people walking, runners, rollerbladers, and other cyclists.  It is not a question of if someone will get hurt, it is a question of when.

Computers and technology have a place in our lives. Let's be sure to use them appropriately and not to create any unnecessary hazards.

Free Content - Part 2

My last posting provided a little history about how we went from software pirates to music pirates and now to movie pirates. Congress has proposed legislation to help curb this piracy, but is has been put on hold for the time being. This brings up the question: Is legislation the answer? In a nutshell, no.

If you look at the software and music industries, enacting new laws didn't really help. A combination of enforcing existing laws coupled with simple technological advances like software licensing keys had the largest success for the software industry. As for music, piracy just went underground. The same will happen with movies.

Talking with one of my co-workers exposed a mindset of the younger generation that was new to me. He expressed that teenagers and young adults expect certain things to be free. If you look at the software industry, open source is a large movement that gains more and more projects every day. The same thing is happening with music. If you look at iTunes, they constantly have the free song of the week. There are also bands that make their music freely available from their websites. One would think this would kill innovation. I personally believe it has the opposite effect. If you are a commercial software company and put out a sub-standard product, there is an open source project that your customers can replace you with. That means your product had better be good enough that people will pay money for it. I see the same thing happening with music.

So what is the solution for Hollywood? My suggestion would be to embrace the Internet and don't try to litigate or legislate it. Use it as a new medium for distributing your products. While fewer people are interested in actually buying DVDs, more people are interested in streaming movies from places like Netflix. Think about it. If you don't have to create a DVD and ship it somewhere, you shouldn't have to charge nearly as much, but still be able to make the same amount of profit.

Unfortunately movies are not the end of free content. Today I saw a prototype of a new electronics device created on a 3D printer. It is only a matter of time before you will be able to download plans from the Internet and create your own Ferrari. Let's see Congress try to figure out how to legislate that one.

Free Content - Part 1

I recently had a conversation with several coworkers and we talked about the new anti-piracy legislation that seems to have been put on hold by Congress. On one hand, Hollywood wants to protect their movies, and on the other, Silicon Valley doesn't want censorship, which is what they felt was happening. This brought up a very interesting discussion.

When computers first came out, there was little to keep friends and family from sharing software with each other. If you had a program your friend wanted, simply make a copy of it and he had it too. Then software companies came up with anti-piracy methods to keep this from happening. After all, why should software developers miss out on lost revenue from software pirates.

Then the Compact Disk or CD was developed. The deterrent that kept people from copying and sharing music was the massive size of one single song. Twenty years ago, 75 megabytes was huge and that only got you a single song. Back then, a 100 megabyte hard drive was considered massive. Eventually better compression techniques were created and the size of disk drives increased. Gigabyte hard drives emerged and MP3s shrunk the size of a song to around 5 megabytes. Then the same problem the software industry faced years earlier, plagued music companies. Their solution was to litigate. Sites like Napster were shut down and several high-profile offenders were slapped with huge fines and threats of jail. Unfortunately the music companies were not nearly as effective as software companies and stolen music continues to be a problem.

Now we face the same issue with movies and Hollywood isn't too happy with the music industry's success. Hard drives have continued to increase capacity to the point where countless movies can be stored on even the most basic laptop. The movie industry has enough trouble making profitable films and they don't want to loose any potential revenue. So what is their solution? Lobby Congress to enact tougher laws regarding copyrighted material. This includes creating a new police force, which is made up of Internet service providers (ISPs). Furthermore, anyone can claim a copyright which could force ISPs to suspend service to anyone with a false claim against them. If you don't like the content found on a website, claim it is yours and force the ISP to remove it. Then wait for the court system to churn through all of the false claims, which takes a lot of time.

So that is how we got to this point. What do we do now?

Foreign Languages

Yesterday I watched a World War II movie on Hulu. During the course of the action, several US soldiers took refuge in a French farmhouse. The woman is there all alone with her daughter and thankful to have the Allied protection. Naturally she only speaks French and tries to communicate with the guys that only speak English. It was fun for me to watch because I speak both languages fluently. It didn't occur to me that there weren't any subtitles until after I was done with the film. I imagine that it must be a different experience for those that only speak English.

Right now I am in the process of learning Morse code (and have been for quite a while). While it isn't a different language, it fells like it sometimes. I am using a program called "Morse" to help me. As I sit and listen to the dits and the dahs, it makes me wonder what is being said in the movies that have bits of Morse code. I understand that most of the time, the code is nothing at all. However every once and a while, it is real and there is a message hidden in there. The original movie about the Titanic called, "A Night to Remember" used the actual code sent from the fateful ship. If you understand Morse, I'll bet that would add to the experience.

Going back to the WWII movie I saw last night, there was also something else worthy of note. One of the German soldiers was my roommate when I lived in Strasbourg, France. He was able to help me learn French and so I had to laugh when I saw him in the German uniform. It is a good thing he didn't have a speaking part as I'm sure it would have come out with a French accent.