Two things

1) IM chatting with your kid is weird. I mean, not *your* kid, but ‘one’s own kid’. Discovering that the kid has a wicked sense of humour in print is pretty awesome, but realising that the chat conversation you’re having with an eleven year old is pretty much exactly the same as the chat conversation you have with your peers is somewhat unsettling.  I don’t know what that says about the way in which I converse with my peers, but let’s just go with: my children are brilliant and witty and charming. Yeah. Let’s stick with that.

Here’s a transcript from the chat The Captain and I had tonight (“Ironman” is The Captain chatting on his Da’s chat profile. Also, “Poe” is the Bad Cat.):

(4:52:45 PM) cenobyte: “another main characters” doesn’t make sense. It either has to be “another OF THE main characters” OR it has to be “another main character” – no S.

(4:53:08 PM) Ironman  is it possible to use white out??

(4:53:17 PM) cenobyte It’s possible, sure. I don’t have any, though.

(4:53:32 PM) Ironman I have some at skool

(4:53:38 PM) cenobyte …

(4:53:39 PM) cenobyte …

(4:53:43 PM) cenobyte SKOOL?

(4:53:50 PM) cenobyte !!!SKOOOL!!!!?

(4:54:00 PM) cenobyte ess-kay-oh-oh-ell?

(4:54:01 PM) Ironman  sorry

(4:54:04 PM) cenobyte SKOOL!!?!?

(4:54:06 PM) cenobyte *head explodes*

(4:54:14 PM) Ironman  LOL

(4:54:22 PM) cenobyte Hey. Where’d you learn LOL?

(4:54:34 PM) Ironman  you

(4:54:41 PM) cenobyte Anyway, if you prove to your teacher that you have done some proofreading, that’ll probably be a Good Thing.

(4:54:48 PM) cenobyte :-P

(4:54:57 PM) Ironman  O K thx

(4:55:02 PM) cenobyte thx!?

(4:55:04 PM) cenobyte THX!?

(4:55:08 PM) Ironman  thnks

(4:55:09 PM) cenobyte Tee Aitch Exx?

(4:55:18 PM) Ironman thanks

(4:55:21 PM) cenobyte *eye twitching*

(4:55:26 PM) cenobyte Ahhh. Phew. That’s better.

(4:55:38 PM) cenobyte I thought for a minute there you were going to do something like: KTHX BAI!

(4:55:53 PM) cenobyte ANYWAY.

(4:55:57 PM) Ironman  am I evil mom or am I nce

(4:56:02 PM) cenobyte Erm.

(4:56:04 PM) cenobyte You are evil mom.

(4:56:09 PM) cenobyte I getta be nice mom.

(4:56:14 PM) Ironman  again LOL

(4:56:38 PM) cenobyte Dude, I’m not going to lie to you. This is kind of weird.

(4:56:46 PM) Ironman  tis keyboard isn’t working very well

(4:57:00 PM) cenobyte Maybe it’s YOU who’s not working very well. YEAH! HA! ZING! WOHOOO!

(4:57:16 PM) Ironman  sorry h isn’t working

(4:57:27 PM) cenobyte Kay. Well. Stupid h.

(4:57:30 PM) cenobyte I’m going to come home now.

(4:57:37 PM) cenobyte D’you guys want anything?

(4:57:51 PM) Ironman  c u in a little wile

(4:57:56 PM) cenobyte :-O

(4:58:08 PM) Ironman  cud u get mdonald?

(4:58:18 PM) cenobyte Not if you’re going to spell like that.

(4:58:23 PM) Ironman  mcdonalds

(4:58:30 PM) cenobyte cud?

(4:58:32 PM) cenobyte cud u?

(4:58:42 PM) Ironman could

(4:58:45 PM) cenobyte Do you see why I don’t want you to have a cell phone and with the texting all the time?

(4:58:46 PM) Ironman  you

(4:58:53 PM) cenobyte And why I want you to learn to type properly?

(4:58:56 PM) cenobyte JEEZ you.

(4:58:59 PM) cenobyte :-!

(4:59:05 PM) Ironman yeah

(4:59:17 PM) Ironman  JEEZ me

(4:59:40 PM) Ironman dad says we still need brad

(4:59:56 PM) cenobyte Brad?

(5:00:01 PM) cenobyte Like, Brad Wall?

(5:00:03 PM) cenobyte Our Premier?

(5:00:11 PM) cenobyte I think he’s probably busy, but I can ask him if he’d like to come over.

(5:00:15 PM) cenobyte For supper.

(5:00:24 PM) cenobyte He’d be all, “I’m the PREMIER. I’m the BOSS OF YOUR PROVINCE.”

(5:00:37 PM) cenobyte And I’d be all, “Well, that’s nice and all, but The Captain wanted me to pick you up on the way home.”

(5:00:47 PM) cenobyte And he’d be all, “What do you mean ‘pick me up on the way home’?”

(5:01:00 PM) cenobyte And I’d be all, “You know, like, you wanna be my Saskatchewan Politics boyfriend?”

(5:01:04 PM) cenobyte And he’d be all, “Dude.”

(5:01:07 PM) Ironman mom I said BREAD

(5:01:08 PM) cenobyte And I’d be all, “Dude. I dunno.”

(5:01:10 PM) cenobyte Oh.

(5:01:13 PM) cenobyte Oh, bread.

(5:01:14 PM) cenobyte Oh.

(5:01:17 PM) cenobyte Well.

(5:01:20 PM) cenobyte That’s much less exciting.

(5:01:26 PM) cenobyte You sure you don’t want Brad Wall?

(5:01:41 PM) Ironman  SORRY TO SPOIL YOUR FUN

(5:01:48 PM) cenobyte You don’t have to shout.

(5:01:54 PM) Ironman BUT I AM HUNGRY

(5:02:00 PM) cenobyte Okay Poe

(5:02:08 PM) Ironman I LIKE SHOUTING

(5:02:15 PM) cenobyte oh, dude. I know.

(5:02:21 PM) Ironman  IT IS FUN

(5:02:51 PM) cenobyte THAT’S FINE BUT I’M GOING BLIND FROM ALL THE SHOUTING.

2) I don’t understand why a company that makes really cool things that people want have to be such douches about the stuff they make. Recently, I purchased a used iPhone (I may have mentioned it to you before) and was told it would be impossible for me to ‘unlock’ it so that I can use it as my primary cell phone. I was told I’d have to ‘jailbreak’ it (eff around with the software to make it run with a carrier other than the carrier it was working with before). This really picks my arse.

First, I *get* planned obsolescence, but I disagree with it on a fundamental level. How bloody wasteful do you have to be to make it so that the phones you make can only work on one carrier (ie. can never be reused)? What happens if I want to upgrade to a new gadget? I can’t resell my old gadget unless the schmo (that’d be Yours Truly, incidentally) who buys it wants to use the same phone company I did. It just…it pisses me off because I’m into reusing things and buying used and not consuming more than I really should (well, I *try*. In actual fact, I’m sure I consume a shocking amount of crap I don’t need), and the only answer I get from the Apple folks is “just buy a new one”. I don’t effing WANT a new one. I want the perfectly good USED one that I purchased, and I want it to work with the phone carrier that *I* want to give my money to. And now, apparently, the only way I can make it do that is to find someone with a chip from the carrier that the original owner had, activate the phone using that chip, and then eff around with the software and run the risk that once we do this, the phone will never be able to be ‘unlocked’ again.

So if something happens in the future and I have to restore the phone’s software, I won’t be able to reactivate it/restore it without an effing chip from an effing company I don’t effing want to give my money to. It’s just…GAH. It makes me mad.

Anyway, I have to go. I have to go pick Brad Wall up for supper.