Boo! Boo! Boo!

As a reward for playing "Morning" and a few other piano tunes, Madison and Daddy got to go to Paradise Falls tonight.  Of course, we weren't off on a plane to South America.  We were playing an old X-box game, "Up."

This is based on the movie, obviously.  It was a cheap game Daddy picked up - only $10.  But it is just the thing to keep us occupied until Christmas, at least, as a motivational tool for getting piano practice covered.  What we like about this game is the cooperation that needs to take place in order to get to the next level.  The game itself seems like it is pretty quick and easy, so we probably will have it done before the end of the month.  But that's the time where there is so much else going on anyway, so this in itself is just a nice diversion until that time.

Today was a big work day for Daddy, but it was also Friday, so we were able to spend some family time together tonight.  Mommy has been working with Madison, reading stories in books and using fashion plates to make new fashion designs.  One in particular was cracking Daddy up:  a well-dressed fashion model, screaming out in word bubbles:  "Boo!  Boo!  Boo!"

She's trying to scare off the other fashion models, I think?  Or maybe it is a political commentary on the start-up of the nationalized healthcare system.  We've been holding our tongues here, but things have been inauspicious to say the least.

This morning when we woke up, Madison saw something that delighted her:  Periwinkle and Jack Frost had visited early this morning!  Yes, there was frost on the ground, and on Daddy's car too.  We're not exactly sure how the work is divided up, but they both did a thorough job of covering the grass, roofs and cars left out overnight.

World news isn't pretty today - a terrifying typhoon struck the Philippines, one that Madison, Mommy and Daddy have been praying about.  On a much lesser scale, Mommy read the news that the western black rhinoceros was officially declared extinct.  Although it's not as horrifying as what may be going on in the Pacific, the news about the rhino is pretty tragic.  Poachers are vile, are they not?

Also declared extinct this week:  Blockbuster Video.  They faded away into irrelevance this decade, unable to keep up with the changing technology.  If only Madison could have seen the height of the video store rental era.  Blockbuster was king - even Daddy spent some time working there early on.  We all dressed in beige pants with light blue, long sleeved shirts.  One time Daddy hid inside the movie return drop box, growling and shaking whenever someone would drop a movie in - funny, but probably a slightly risky sort of thing in retrospect.  I remember working there, signing up people for accounts as if they were setting up a bank account.  Movies were pricy to rent, and you always had to rewind them.  And they wore down over time too, these VHS movies.  We'll keep a VCR around the house to watch the leftover VHS movies we have in our collection.  Some movies have never made the leap to DVD, believe it or not.

Anyway, Daddy remembers the first VHS movie - imagine getting to watch a movie at home!  You pick the movie, and you can plug it in when you want to watch it, whenever that is.  What technology! We rented "The Empire Strikes Back," and I remember thinking, "Why can't we own this?"  The answer:  the price tag for a new VHS movie back then was around $100 or something like that, which was somewhat prohibitive.  Daddy also remembers when the first DVDs came along, how we had to sort all those new-fangled disc movies with the video tapes.  That took a little bit to catch on, and now folks have even moved past that, going straight to Blu-Ray.  Madison missed all this.  She missed the movement from records to audio tapes to CDs to formats playable on a computer.  In retrospect, audio tapes were the worst, weren't they?  They were like VHS, getting tangled easily, dragging along and not convenient for scanning for chapters.  And you always had to be kind and rewind.

Nowadays, people have squillions of movies in their homes - or on their computers.  Yes, this is what happened to Blockbuster.  Why bother driving to a place to get even a DVD, when you can get it online so much faster?  People gave up that common experience of walking around a video rental store, checking out the latest releases, or categorized older ones.  And now, we look through menus at home:  it's cheaper, it's faster, and it's more convenient.  Not many people miss having to rewind a movie, or paying a late fee.  But we will miss that common meeting ground, where everyone gathered to pick up a movie to bring home that night.  The video rental place is going away, just like the record store, and Madison will have no idea what that's like.  I'll have to go looking online to see if there are any left, but I doubt it.  We had so many just a few years ago, in White County and Habersham County, and of course in Hall County.  Now they are gone, just like the film developing places.  Wow, there's something else Madison will have no idea about - waiting an hour to find out what your pictures will look like.  Remember conserving your shots, because you only had 24 on a roll of film?  And being careful not to expose it to light?  We sure have come a long way, haven't we?  Technology is really making things more convenient.

Well, except for the nationalized healthcare thing.