Entry 644: Is It Really 2023 Already?

Happy New Year, readers.

It's hard to believe that it's 2023 already (this blog is almost a teenager), but here we are. We went over to some friends' house to celebrate last night. It was one of those adults upstairs, kids downstairs type of parties. So, every 15 minutes or so, a kid would come up crying and then an adult, or multiple adults, would have to intervene and figure out what's going on. It's was all boys (nine of them), and things were going along fairly smoothly until they started playing dodge ball in the basement. This led to several fights, and we had to split them up into two groups. The younger brothers, who were the primary instigators, had to go upstairs, and the older brothers had to stay downstairs.

The older kids just watched a movie, but the younger kids played chess. A few of Lil' S2's friends are in chess club, so I thought him how to play. He's not bad. The main problem is that he's also not good, and I'm worried he will get discouraged and quit. I don't want to push my kids into things that they don't want to do, but I also don't want them to give up on things right away because they aren't instantly awesome at them. There's a chess club he can join at school as part of his aftercare program, so I'll see if he wants to do that. It'd be cool if he got into chess, as I'm kind of a fan of the game, even though I've never been a particularly strong player. I did crush Lil' S2's friend, who's the best of their little crew, but he's only in second grade.

We didn't make it until midnight, none of the families did. We did a mass exodus around 11:00. S and Lil' S2 went to sleep pretty shortly after we got home, but Lil' S1 really wanted to stay up to watch the ball drop, so I stayed up with him until midnight, but we didn't actually watch the ball drop. I was watching the Georgia-Ohio State game, and it came right down to the final play. Ohio State was setting up for a make-or-break, last-second field goal, and it looked like they were going to snap it at 11:59, just in time to watch the ball drop, but then Georgia called timeout -- so annoying! (That's what you call foreshadowing, by the way.) I looked over at Lil' S1, and he was totally absorbed in his Kindle, so I made an on-the-spot decision to watch the final kick, knowing full well it would mean we would miss the ball drop. I watched the Ohio State kicker shank it badly, and then I immediately flipped over and saw the crowd in Times Square in after-midnight revelry.

"Shoot, we missed the ball drop," said Lil' S1.

"Oh, oops, guess we weren't paying attention," I replied.

I feel good about my decision. Lil' S1 wasn't just wanted to stay up late. The ball drop was just the excuse. He didn't really care that he missed it.

The PS5 has been much less of a headache this week, which is good. My brother-in-law gave me some good advice to get a Plus Extra subscription, which gives us access to a bunch of games, and the kids have been playing a few of them. Figuring out all the parental controls is still super annoying. I had to change Lil' S2's profile so that he could play a Ben 10 game. It's, like, c'mon, man, it's Ben 10 -- it's specifically for kids! Also, I can't figure out how to get Minecraft working on-line. They can play locally, but they can't play with their cousin in Washington State. I tried a bunch of different things, but can't figure it out. Again, it's some sort of permissions issue, only it's even more confusing because you have to go through Microsoft for some reason, so everything is designed to easily work for an X-Box, not a PS. Whatever. I can now send them off to play video games for a half-hour, and they won't bother me, which is the entire purpose of getting a high-priced console in the first place.

And it's good that the PS hasn't been annoying me because plenty of other things have. Here's a rundown.

• There's currently a pile of leaves at the curb in front of our house, which is very annoying when trying to park. We have a lawn service that does a bunch of houses in our neighborhood. They're cheap and easy, but we never know exactly when they're going to come. (They also have only billed us once in the three years we've been here. So, we didn't pay anything and then suddenly got an invoice for almost $1,000.) They did a good job gathering all the leaves and piling them at the curb, but they did so after the city had made its second (and last) leaf collection in our neighborhood. At least, I think that's the case. I can't really tell online. I tried to report a "Leaf Collection Missed" to 311 -- because that's what the website tells me to do -- but when I go to do so, that isn't even an option. So, now, we just have these leaves sitting out in front of our house for who knows how long. We can't even get a private company to come pick them up right now because they're so backlogged.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  [Where's leaf collection?]
  
  
  
• In other city related annoyances, take a close look at the schedule below and tell me if you think this means that we will have our trash collected tomorrow (Monday is our usual day) or not. I would have said no, but they did come last Monday, despite it saying they will slide to Tuesday for Christmas. At least, I think that's what it says. The main problem is that December 26 and January 2 are not Tuesdays, as the graphic would have you believe. (Some of the other dates are Tuesdays and some aren't.)
  
  
  
  
  
• Lil' S1 lost his Kindle a few months ago, so we bought him a new one for Christmas. (It's as much a gift to us as to him.) But then his old Kindle turned up, so, since I've been wanting a new Kindle for a while, I just took the one we got him for Christmas. It's a kids' Kindle, which doesn't really matter because you can pretty easily turn off kid mode and just use it like a normal Kindle. But I did have to accept a free year of this kids' subscription service, which I obviously will never use (and we already have it for Lil' S1 through S's account). So, I went to make sure that I don't renew the service when the free period elapses, but there's no way to do that. You have to cancel it, but you can't cancel it when it's free. I asked a customer service rep how you can avoid being charged, and they told me you can't. You have wait to be charged, cancel, and then request a refund. Now that's annoying!

Until next time...