Bryce Moore's Blog, page 217

Old School Pay Day: Teaching Kids About Money Since 1975

Staying on the same money topic from my post yesterday (about how ridiculous some studies on money are), today I’m here to discuss a new approach I’m using to teach my kids about money. TRC and DC are both getting earned allowances these days. They’re both required to put half of it into savings, and they’re allowed to choose what to spend the other half on. DC is a pack rat. She saves every penny and puts it all in the bank. TRC? Total spender. He’s buying Minecraft merchandise left and right and just put some cash down on a BB gun. Guns, games, and gear–that’s his motto.

I’ve been glad to see them start having their own experiences with money, and Denisa and I are happy to see them start learning some lessons. But at the same time, I didn’t feel like it was enough. Budgeting is such a tricky thing–what else could we be doing to prepare our kids for living on their own?

So I looked back at my past. What had I done that helped prepare me to be smart with my money? The answer was obvious at once: Pay Day.

Not the modern version. The one Parker Bros churned out that spoiled the whole point of the game (removing the stiff penalties for loans and the incentives for savings, for one thing). I’m talking about old school Pay Day. The one with the dreaded $800 wedding bill. The one with 20% monthly interest on loans (and 10% interest on savings).

Hard knocks Pay Day.

I played that game religiously as a child. Me and my brother and sisters would go for long Pay Day binges. We’d leave the game set up on the floor and come back to it for successive days. We were ahrd core Pay Dayers. And I learned a lot of important lessons back then:

Savings is your friend. 10% every month, just for having the money? Awesome.
Loans are evil. Avoid borrowed money, or lose the whole game in spectacular fashion, and have your siblings mock you for the rest of the week. Sometimes you had to borrow money–bills left you with no choice. But you got out of debt as fast as possible, if you wanted a chance to win the game.
Insurance is awesome. Always.
Town elections and politics is awful. $50 multiple times a month. Ridiculous.
Some deals are worth more than others, but you have to make deals to make money, because your monthly salary sure isn’t going to get it done.
Poker night and betting is a scam. You always lose.
Sundays are awesome, because no bills or mail.
The lottery almost never pays off.
If you really want to get ahead, you better hope you have a lot of rich aunts who are about to die and leave you money.

But it was more than just that. We’d take turns being the banker–handling the money, calculating interest, making exchanges. Pay Day did a ton for my financial acumen.

And then Parker Bros ruined it. They took out the big bills, reduced the loan penalty, and basically made it so that having and accumulating money is easy. What does that teach about money management? Not a darn thing. Avoid the new version like the plague.

Lucky for me, back in 2001 or so, I came across an almost pristine version of original Pay Day in a thrift store. I bought it for $2, and I’ve held on to it since. Last night, I brought it out for the family to play, explaining ahead of time what it was about and what it could teach you. We played a three month game to begin with, and the kids had a blast.

I lost in blaze of glory, getting the $800 bill on my first roll. Denisa won by the skin of her teeth, edging out DC for the victory. The kids had a blast, and they want to play it again soon. Ideally, it’s a game they can play together–no adults needed. We’ll see if I can swing that. But in the meantime, I’m willing to call this initial play a success.

How about you? What do you do to teach your kids about money? Any other Pay Day fans out there? Please share.

It Costs HOW MUCH to Raise a Child?

Warning. I’m irate. Borderline enraged. Granted, it’s a librarian-fueled sort of irate, but my hackles are officially in the upright and raised position. Why, you ask? Because of this article on CNN this morning. In a nutshell, it’s claiming that it costs $245,000 to raise a child from birth to age 18–college not included.

And I am seeing red.

For a variety of reasons. First off, the outlandish claim of the article. According to its math, it will cost me $735,000 to raise my three children, and since my kids were born between 2004 and 2013, (9 years apart, all told), I’ll have to pay that $735,000 off over the course of 27 years. What a relief! That means I only have to come up with $27,222 per year to somehow avoid bankruptcy before my last child is out of the house.

At which point I can start shelling out money for college–with all that savings I haven’t managed to scrounge together, because I was too busy trying to keep my children fed, housed, clothed, and alive.

The big problem I have is that a claim like this is so obviously inflammatory. It’s designed to shock you, and I’d argue it’s designed to convince you that you can’t afford children. After all, if you’re struggling to make ends meet, why would you be so stupid as to add $13,611/year (per child) on top of whatever other expenses you have.

If it were true, that would be one thing. But here’s the rub: I’ve got three children, all of them at home. If you want to look at the math one way, then that means my expenses on my kids alone right now should be $40,833/year. And yet somehow I still find time to make money to pay for food for me and Denisa, pay for my house. It doesn’t add up. Something’s fishy with the study, methinks.

Which brings me to my next complaint: shoddy CNN reporting. Provide a link to the study, CNN. Don’t make me have to go off hunting for it. Learn how to use the internet, chuckleheads.

(The study is here, in case you’re wondering. Done by the US Department of Agriculture. I wonder how much it cost taxpayers to fund it.)

And looking at the study, I quickly go cross-eyed in a sea of numbers and figures. Spending some time on the thing, however, and some clarity begins to come to light. Basically, it’s broken down the cost of raising a child into several categories: housing, food, transportation, clothing, health care, child care/education, and miscellaneous. Let me go through these one by one.

Housing–Accounts for 30% of their listed costs–so $4,083 per child per year, broken down into a more manageable number. How did they reach this number? By comparing costs of single room housing with cost of multi-room housing, in essence. Adjusting some for parents who try to live in houses that have access to better school systems or bigger yards. Right away, I’m seeing some big holes in this study. For one thing, if you have two kids and have them share one room, then the cost to raise both kids goes down dramatically. For another, a lot of this expense depends on the decisions of the parent. Size and condition of a house, house vs. apartment, rent vs. own, size of a lot–30% of that big $245,000 has a whole lot of room for budgeting and common sense. Will that trend continue?

Food–Accounts for 16% of their listed costs. $2,178/year. This is a number I don’t have too many qualms with. It’s clearly an average and varies depending on the family and the location, but $180/month per child? Seems higher than what I would pay, but I haven’t had teenagers yet, so I don’t think I’m in a spot where I can really start to opine.

Transportation–Accounts for 14% of their listed costs. $1,906/year. This seems like a really squishy number. Apparently it was calculated based on a per-capita approach, which (as I understand it) means they compared transportation costs of single person households with those of 2, 3, 4, etc person households to see how much extra people add on to the transportation expenses. Whatever. the study was quick to claim that it’s likely underestimating these costs, since families with children would need bigger cars than people without. Again, seems like a whole ton of room for personal taste, budget, and decision making. If you choose to take your kids on trips or take them to after school activities, that’s a personal call. I don’t think it should be rolled into the base budget of raising a child.

Clothing–Accounts for 6% of their listed costs. $816/year. Seems high to me, but again, I’m teen-free at the moment. (I also don’t spend that much money on clothes.) I’ll let this one slide.

Health Care–Accounts for 8% of their listed costs. $1,089/year. I don’t begin to understand our health care system. I have no idea how accurate this number is, so I’ll just walk on by it.

Child Care/Education–Accounts for 18% of their listed costs. $3,675/year. The study comes right out and says that half of the respondents reported no expenditure in this category. Got that? 50% of people surveyed spend $0 on this. And yet it accounts for 18% of the total. How does this work? Easy. They just assumed that everyone would go for childcare, and added a note that if people decided to not have childcare, they should just adjust the total accordingly. Is that mentioned anywhere in the news articles? Of course not. Easier to just wave that huge number around. $245,000 sounds so much better than $201,0000–right?

Miscellaneous–Accounts for 8% of their listed costs, so another $1,089/year. Another very squishy number that they arrived at using the per capita approach. In this case, they’re just sort of waving in the general direction of “other stuff costs money, too” and arriving at a sort of kind of estimate for that.

All that squishiness adds up. The study is an estimate, and it’s got a whole lot of room for error. I don’t begrudge it this room. It’s trying to come to a conclusion the best way it can, and for a study trying to answer this question, I think they tried their darnedest. What gets my goat is that all of that error will be ignored by everyone in the aftermath of the study. All that’s remembered is that $245,000 figure.

And that figure is just flat out misleading. It’s the same thing that makes me irritated at that “What is a Stay-at-Home Mom Worth” infographic that comes out every year. (Paying the mom $38/hour for 8.3 hours/week as a psychologist? $54/hour for 3.2 hours/week as a CEO? Come on, people. Women work hard. I get it, and I completely agree. But if you’re going to start doing this sort of thing, then try not to use too many gimmicks. Especially when your Stay-at-Home-Dad infographic apparently paints dads as nothing more than lazy slugs when compared to moms. (Stay-at-home-dads work 59.7 hours/week and stay-at-home-moms work 96.5? Where do they come up with these numbers?! A topic for a different post.))

If you’re going to do a study, do the study. But make sure it gets you some sort of data that’s both important, accurate, and real. These squishy studies make for interesting reading and factoids for CNN to catch your eye with, but they don’t amount to a whole lot when you look at them too closely.

Here’s a suggestion for a better study. Instead of trying to look at aggregate data and squeeze what little information you can from it, then churn it through a convoluted process to reach something resembling a conclusion, how about you sit down with actual parents, take time to go over their budget, and come to some conclusions that way? I could easily sit down and take a look at how much I’m spending on my kids each year. I budget. I could separate out the things I spent that were necessities, and what were just wants. I could even estimate how my house preference changed based on the size of family I planned to have, and then we could look at house prices in the area and compare. Do enough of those case studies, and you might actually start getting somewhere with a real conclusion that has meaning.

Just a thought.

But enough of what I thought about it. What did you think?

Spelunking into a Ten Year Old’s Room

A few weeks ago, the edict came down from on high: no TV or video games for TRC until his room was clean. He agreed, acknowledging that his room had gotten out of hand, and Denisa and I settled in, confident that his Minecraft and Doctor Who addictions would bring him to his cleaning senses in a day or two.

What we didn’t anticipate was the fact that he possibly might not have the capacity and understanding of how to clean a room that had gotten that messy. It wasn’t Hoarders status just yet, but it was on its way. Days turned into weeks, and he spent a lot of time in that room cleaning it, but I had no idea if any progress was actually being made. The whole point was to have him do it on his lonesome.

But there comes a time when you just have to go up to the room and see for yourself what was happening. TRC swore he was more than halfway done, so I went up to give it a once over and offer a few pointers on how to finish it off in short order.

When I arrived, I was amazed to find the room actually looked much worse than when he had started. In hindsight, this makes sense. Whenever I have to really clean something that’s gotten too cluttered, it gets a lot messier before it gets to the point where it’s getting straightened. TRC had been giving it the old college try, but it just wasn’t coming together for him.

So I broke down and offered to help him do it.

I’m not sure if this was a good idea or not. It took six hours of me sitting with him in his room, looking at all sorts of knick knacks to decide what could be thrown away and what should be kept. I was as heartless as I could be, reminding him that Happy Meal toy collections that never get played with don’t really have much sentimental value. And we went through everything: drawers, shelves, under the bed. You name it, we decluttered it. In the end, we had two garbage bags full–one of trash, and one of yard sale candidates. The room actually has a floor you can see, and the horizontal surfaces are more or less in order.

I’ve now given him The Talk: I showed him his room, and told him that when Denisa and I told him to clean it, this was the condition we expected it to be brought to. And if we ever saw it in a condition other than what it was in right then, then his video game and TV privileges would be revoked again, this time without me stepping in to help him. Finally, I warned him that at any time, Denisa and I could go to his room with a trash bag and throw away anything we found that wasn’t put away. Items of value could be bought back from us with cash.

I’m hoping I was clear, and I’m hoping I don’t have to do this again.

Still, time will tell. One of the hardest parts about being a parent is that there are times when you just don’t know what the right thing to do is. Leave the boy to flail around on his own, or step in to help him out and show him how it’s done? In the end, you follow your instincts and do the best you can.

For better or worse, the room is cleaned now. Let’s hope it stays that way.

How do you handle room cleanliness for your kids? Got any pointers? Please share.

America: Troubled, Just Like Everywhere Else

I’ve been watching the events in Ferguson unfold, and my jaw has dropped further and further to the ground. That this is happening in 2014 is a reminder to me that no matter how my life might be sheltered from racial tension, it’s a very real thing elsewhere in the country–and not just “the South.”

Of course, I need to throw in my continual disclaimer that I don’t know what actually happened in the original act that set current events in motion. Police tell one story (that Michael Brown was in a physical altercation with an officer, and that he was trying to get the officer’s gun) and witnesses tell another (that police accosted Brown for no good reason, then shot at him when he tried to run, then continued shooting when he tried to surrender.)

This isn’t a post about who was wrong and who was right in this case. Currently there’s no way of knowing until more facts come to light. But what isn’t under dispute is everything that’s happened since. The public protests of the shooting that started non-violent and escalated into riots. The police response to those protests, including rubber bullets, tear gas, arrests, riot gear, and the like. Arresting journalists? For being in McDonald’s? Things are spiraling out of control, and it’s bringing out the worst in some people (police included), as out of control events are wont to do.

You can read about all of that on the news–no need for me to go over all of it here. No, what I wanted to type up today was a thought I had that this situation sparked in me. Often America is insulated from the events happening elsewhere in the world. We read about what’s happening in Egypt or Ukraine or Russia or Iran, and it’s easy to think that those countries are completely out of control. That life in those places is one continuous scene from Black Hawk Down.

Growing up, I was sure–sure–that life behind the Iron Curtain was nonstop drudgery. It was awful, gray, and gloomy, with the secret police waiting around every corner to whisk people off to prison. Every single person over there was unhappy, and they all wished they could be happy capitalists. Imagine my surprise when I lived in East Germany for a few years and met many people who missed the former Communist days. Or when I married Denisa and heard stories about what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain. Yes, there were lines for toilet paper. Yes, there were conversations you couldn’t have. But there was also a lot of regular life going on. School. Sports. Everyday living.

Before I went to Jerusalem for study abroad, I was a bit apprehensive. This was the place where they had riots and suicide bombers, after all. It had to be dangerous on a daily basis, right? But again, once I was there, I saw firsthand how that wasn’t the case. (No comment on the current violence in Israel. There were certainly no rocket attacks when I was there in 2000, so I’m not sure how that compares.) But while I saw a large military presence and plenty of guns, I also saw a lot of people just living life. Palestinians and Jews getting along, going about their business without constant violence.

This is a roundabout way of coming to my topic (sorry). But imagine for a moment (if you’re American) what it must be like for a person outside of the country at the moment, reading about these events. Combine that with all the other pop culture depictions of race relations in America, and it wouldn’t take too long to jump to the assumption that people of color in America are under constant assault. That it’s riots and rubber bullets from sunup to sundown.

Unfortunately, these things do happen. America has a real problem with race, and I’m not sure if it’s a problem that will ever be fixed. But at the same time, these events do not represent what’s happening in the entire country. Ukraine has had a lot of unrest recently, but I imagine most of the people in Ukraine continued living their lives as normal, unaffected by the events beyond how I’m currently affected by the events in Ferguson: they read about it in the news, form an opinion about it, worry about it in an abstract way, and then go back to their life. Again, I’m not trying to dismiss these events. They’re serious–wherever they take place.

But my main point (here at last!) is that America is no better than these other countries. We have our own issues that–when taken in isolation–can lead foreigners to form certain opinions about our country in the same way some Americans like to jump to conclusions about how life is abroad.

Man. After all that build up, maybe my conclusion isn’t all that earth shattering after all. Then again, I imagine there’s a fair number of people who would bristle as soon as they read “America is no better than these other countries.” America is teh best!1!! Freedom. Bald eagles! Rawr!

And I suppose that’s all I have to say about that for the moment.

Heading to the Beach: Which One Should I Go To?

Denisa and I are looking into a family trip to the beach on Saturday. The only question? Which beach to go to? We’ve been to a couple in Maine already: Old Orchard Beach and Popham Beach. And we’re perfectly ready to go back to those beaches, but I thought I might ask the Great Hive Mind to see if there’s a beach out there we’re overlooking. I’ve googled my way through a few recommendations, but I thought I’d see if any of you out there had any pointers.

What sort of a beach are we looking for?

One that’s friendly for kids, with plenty of open space and not crowded. Some place to wash off the sand before we get in the car would be nice. Better yet, something that’s got interesting things to look at between here and there would be a perk, too.

I suppose this might be a bit much to ask from a single day trip, and if that’s the case then that’s fine. But it feels sometimes like we just keep going back to the places we happened to find the first few years we lived here. I’ve been to Camden, Rockport, Bath, Popham, Portland, Freeport, Augusta, Waterville and the like often enough to want to branch out and see other cool things–but I don’t know what other cool things are out there, and most of the online guides just hit the basic Maine touristy places.

So, friends–have at it! Any places you’re really fond of (that aren’t too terribly far away)? For that matter, anything you like to do at a beach? I’m not the beachiest of people. Never have been, and don’t intend to start. But I know some of you who are. I’m all ears. Or eyes, as the case may be.

Goodbye, Robin

Robin Williams was one of my favorite actors in high school. My first memories of him are from Mork and Mindy–a show I only saw snippets of here and there, but which I thought was really cool. (A whole TV show about funny aliens? What’s not to like about that?) But it was Dead Poets Society that really caught my attention when it came out. I was 12, and it was one of the first movies I remember watching for any other reason than simple entertainment. I mean, we’re talking a drama here, people. Part of my interest in studying English can be traced to that film, and how many movies can you say really changed your life?

But it wasn’t just Dead Poets. It was followed up by Awakenings, Hook, Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, and What Dreams May Come. When you’re under 20, you just haven’t had time to watch a whole slew of movies yet. (Well, for my current definition of “whole slew.”) That means each individual film can have a much bigger impact on you as a viewer. See five or six good movies by a single actor, and that actor becomes the bee’s knees. I even sought out less mainstream Robin Williams movies. Toys or FernGully, for example. (FernGully!?!) Heck–I even bought the soundtrack to Toys. That’s the kind of Robin Williams fan I was.

Years have come and gone, and it’s been a while since Williams was in anything I loved loved. I would still return to some of my favorite movies, and having him in the cast was still enough cause to motivate me to see a movie I might not have seen otherwise. I caught up on movies that I’d missed of his: Good Will Hunting, for example. And I enjoyed watching him on talk shows or during live performances. You never knew what was going to come out of his mouth. Some of it would be flat out hilarious, some of it would be baffling, some offensive, but you were going to be entertained by all of it. When Robin was performing, you entered into his stream of consciousness world, where anything might happen at any moment.

Hearing of his death was far more upsetting than I would have anticipated ahead of time, especially when the general circumstances of it came to light. I’m not sure why it’s so sad on such a personal level, other than his films have been a part of my life for so long and he was still so young that I hadn’t seen this coming at all.

I don’t really have much to add to anything that’s been said elsewhere, but I wanted to take a moment on my blog to thank Robin Williams for the influence he had on my life and for the entertainment he brought into it. He will be missed.

A Report Back on Harry Potter

A few weeks ago, I asked you all for insights on what made Harry Potter work for you. I’m in the middle of prepping for a substantial revision to my latest work in progress, a prequel of sorts to GET CUPID that takes place at a school for magical delinquents. After reading through my first draft, I decided that I was doing a pretty good job getting the criminal aspects of the book right, but I was failing spectacularly at getting the “school” bit down. It just felt like too much to handle easily–have all the school bits and the main plot and make it all work together.

Harry Potter handled it okay, though. Right? So I reread Sorcerer’s Stone to find out what was up.

A few things became clear right away. First off was the fact that a lot of the complexity to the series doesn’t show up in the first book at all. Rowling spends a bit of time on a few issues that get elaborated on much later in the series (Ministry of Magic anyone?), doesn’t even mention others (house elves come to mind), and instead spends the majority of the book on Harry discovering this whole new world and understanding how it all works. So that’s one key to the book’s success: keeping it simple whenever possible. If she’d tried to dump all sorts of backstory out to explain everything that’s going on, it would have been confusing and–worse–boring. But if you just rattle off a few references to a bigger, deeper world, you can explore those references in later books, and still bring a sense of depth and reality to the world as you’re describing it in the moment.

She also did a great job of spacing out the character introductions. By the end of the book, there’s quite the cast of characters on hand, but because we meet them a few at a time, it never seems too overwhelming. When it is overwhelming (right when Harry gets to Hogwarts, for example), it’s that way on purpose–we can be overwhelmed, because Harry is overwhelmed. And then it all evens out over the course of the novel as Harry figures out who matters (and we do too).

Add to this the fact that most of the characters are nothing more than caricatures at first, so remembering who they all are is much easier than it would be otherwise. Draco is that awful jerk of a human being. Ron’s the kind of clumsy, friendly one. Hermione’s the know it all. Neville’s the forgetful one. Through the course of the book, only a few actually start doing anything complex, and even then it’s stuff that isn’t very “deep.” Rowling saves that sort of thing for later on in the series, as well.

How does this all relate to my current book? As I read Harry Potter, I noticed how empty my school was. There are the main characters, and then some nameless other characters. The ones who don’t matter don’t get any attention at all. Same for the teachers. So I realized I definitely need to fill out some of the student population. Not that they all start having starring roles or anything, but there’s a need for the school to feel lived in. To have upperclassmen, and minor teachers. Groundskeepers. People. It’s not a change that will require thousands of more words added to the manuscript. More like filling out scenes here and there with some background noise.

Another surprise for me was how few scenes there were with students in class. You’ve got a bit of potions class, a dose of transformations, and that’s about it. Everything else is put in as students are talking and worrying about class, without actually being in it. Homework assignments they’re working on while they’re doing other things. Exams they’re studying for. I had assumed I needed to add in some big “class” scenes to bring the school feel to the novel. It doesn’t look like I’ll have to, which is a big relief. But I definitely need to be looking at what’s going on around the main action–which actually is easier than it sounds, I hope. A lot of the time, I’ll have scenes where the main characters need to discuss something. Typically, that’s something that works better if the characters are doing something else at the same time, so that they’re not just talking heads. Now I know what I can stick into those scenes to act as the “something else.”

Finally, I had to face something: I hadn’t really put much thought into how my school operated. What the semesters or trimesters were like. How many students were there. How many classes a semester. I had tried to ignore as much of that as I could, and I think the book suffered as a result. So the past few days I’ve been spending my writing time coming up with that sort of information. It helps that I’ve been in education for so long, though since so much of that is college-based, it’s harder for me to remember what the big differences between high school and college are.

Challenges challenges.

In any case, it was an interesting activity and one that was well worth my while. I’m very much looking forward to getting back into the writing stage so I can start putting some of these lessons to work. Wish me luck!

Fillet o’ Fish

Went off fishing with the kiddos again yesterday on another gorgeous, serene, completely empty Maine pond. A lovely evening–storm clouds all around us, but they kept skirting the horizon instead of coming over to dump rain on our pond. We saw a few loons and a bald eagle, and I managed to get through the whole evening without a single mosquito bite.

I must be doing something good.

We were after white perch, a fish that has no catch limit in Maine. And we caught many. How many? I stopped counting. 50? 60? It wasn’t as many as we’ve caught before at that pond, but then again, they were bigger than we usually catch there, too. We caught plenty, and none had to be thrown back for being too small. Great fun to see the kids having such a grand time.

It’s a well-established fact that I am not a fish eater. I love catching the things, but give me cow any day of the week when it comes eating time. So I didn’t bring many of our haul back to the house for us to consume–we sent them off with our guide for the evening. But I did take six. When he was driving off, I asked him if I should just clean these fish like normal, and he said he typically fillets them, but that cleaning them like normal would work okay, too.

I was all set to go the normal route, but Denisa thought we should fillet them if that’s what the experts do.

Quick, Robin! To the YouTubes!

It seemed pretty straightforward. I mean, I didn’t have a real filleting knife, but I could probably MacGuyver my way through that.

Fish number one? A complete disaster. The fish was so much tougher to cut through than it looked like on the video. I couldn’t figure out from the feel of it where the spine was and where exactly the ribs went. On the first side of the fish, I left a ton of meat on there, and I was feeling pretty discouraged. Enough that I was considering just abandoning the idea and gutting the fish the way God intended.

Denisa pep talked me into try try trying again, though, so try try try I did.

And naturally it became easier with practice. It’s surprising how easy it is to forget that simple principle: acquired skills are called that for a reason. You can’t start off being awesome at everything. By the sixth fish, I knew how much pressure I could use to slice off the skin, where to cut best to get the meat that’s all the way toward the tail–I was just better at it. Go figure. I’m still not an expert by any means, but it was a fun way to spend a half hour or so, despite the frustrations at the beginning. (Though I do wish I hadn’t started with the biggest fish. Feels like I wasted the most meat that way. The meat that I’m not going to eat. Hmm . . . )

Anyway. Check that off my bucket list. A big plus about filleting the fish was that there weren’t guts everywhere to clean up, so a big thumbs up on that account. A minus? I’m pretty sure I missed a few bones, so Denisa’s going to have some surprises when she eats the fish. The good news is she was right there next to me when I was doing it, so she’s aware of what lies in store.

And that’s the report for today. Have a great weekend, all!

HBO and Netflix: Please Stop Pornifying Good Shows

I get it, HBO. You’ve got a good thing going in the whole TV series gig. People are flocking to watch your offerings, and I can’t blame them. You consistently produce some really fine television, filled with gripping plots, complex characters, intriguing settings,

and porn.

Not porn porn, I’m sure you’ll explain. But when you have to start offering disclaimers that involve the word “penetration” anywhere in them, then I think we can all agree that you’re splitting hairs by that point. The fact is you show graphic sex so much in your shows that pop culture came up with a whole new word, just for you: sexposition. (For a funny, but somewhat tawdry, explanation of this, check out SNL’s spoof it.)

Looking over the history of HBO’s shows, it’s pretty easy to see how they arrived at the present state. Sure, they started with tennis, Fraggle Rock, and Encyclopedia Brown, but then they moved over to add some late night programming like Tales from the Crypt or just blatant adult fare like Real Sex. But where they started having success was with Sex and the City, followed up by the Sopranos. Follow along for The Wire, Deadwood, Rome, Big Love, True Blood, and end up with Game of Thrones. Bit by bit, the envelope was pushed. I’m not an expert on all of these shows, but the trajectory seems clear to me.

Netflix is using HBO as a jumping off point, going straight for the gratuitous nudity in Orange is the New Black, or House of Cards. (This whole complaint really crystallized in my head when Denisa and I wanted to check out a new show. I’d heard good things about Orange, but apparently hadn’t done enough home work. My bad. Or is it Netflix’s?)

The pattern seems clear these days: have compelling television, but make sure not to miss out on the sex and nudity and profanity–and if you can add in some extra gore, all the better.

I don’t think of myself as a prude. Yes, I’m conservative. Yes, I’m Mormon. But I’m pretty open minded when it comes to my media (a topic for another post, please). But as I see this trajectory, I can’t help but wonder why it has to be this way. There have been tons of awesome, incredible movies and TV shows made without a single f-bomb, nipple, or exploding chest cavity to be seen. I would argue that the addition of graphic sex, violence, and profanity generally makes a show or movie worse, not better.

Take a look over IMDB’s top 250 list. Yes, you have plenty of R-rated fare on this list. Violence, sex, and profanity are present. But you name any of those movies, and I can easily play the HBO game and tell you what HBO or Netflix would throw in to make the movie or show “more successful.” After all, how in the world could Shawshank Redemption manage to get by without actually showing the prison rape on screen? I’m sure Coppola can’t sleep at night, knowing how much better The Godfather would have been if most of the dialogue scenes were set in a strip club with writhing women all over.

But still, it’s hard to argue with success. Game of Thrones is doing wonders. House of Cards is talked about everywhere. Orange is the New Black is the buzz of the entertainment industry.

I just wish that producers wouldn’t be looking at these shows and deciding that what’s drawing everyone to the table must be the boobs. Granted, I suppose I should be happy they’re noticing the high production values, writing, acting, and the like. But where do we go from here? At what point do we just give up altogether and have the entire cast be naked for the whole series. (Oh wait . . .)

Yes, I realize there’s the ever present “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it” argument to be made, and that’s certainly valid. But in a society that’s decided to throw porn up all across the internet, for free, is it really necessary to throw it into everything else? Even the awesome Batttlestar Galactica couldn’t resist dipping its toes into as edgy territory as Syfy would let them.

I don’t have a solution here. Just a complaint. As long as the shows continue to be popular, I don’t think the equation is going to change at all. Such is life. But a guy can still yearn for the old days where a little propriety went a long way. Sooner or later, I have to assume some sort of line will be crossed where people just refuse to go further. After all, if movies had the same content HBO and Netflix television shows splash on the screen, there’s no way they’d pass by with a simple R rating.

Can’t we just decide as a society that R is about as edgy as anything focused simply on telling good stories needs to get? Why are more people not speaking out against this trend? Is it because they don’t care? Or they’re staying quiet because they don’t want to admit they’ve seen the shows? Or am I really just a prude and should keep my big trap shut? Feel free to sound off in the comments and let me know what you think.

How Can We Fix the Password System?

So the news of the day (when you’re not freaking out over Ebola) is that 1.2 billion passwords have been stolen by a Russian criminal group. What have these nefarious masterminds been doing with all of this illicit information?

Sending weight-loss pill spam.

Boo yah.

Of course, it stops being funny and starts being alarming when you take a minute to think about with a few key passwords. Those passwords can lead people to more sensitive accounts, from which they can continue their merry way into who knows where.

I read stories like this, and I shake my head, but really, I’m beginning to wonder if something’s going to have to be done soon to fix the way passwords are handled. Somehow. Because it seems like every other day that a new major company is having to admit that their password database got hacked. If we all switched our passwords as often as they asked us to, we’d be changing them every month or two, which is just–

What we’re supposed to do, from a security standpoint.

The problem is there needs to somehow be a balance between ease of use and actual security. People are inherently lazy when it comes to things they don’t perceive as an immediate threat. And hackers? Not an immediate threat. So why come up with an involved password system when you can just type in 12345 each time you have to do something online? Especially when you know that your elaborate, secure password will have to be changed in 180 days or something.

And don’t get me started on all the various password flavors out there. Some need capital letters. Some can’t have them. Some need numbers or symbols. Some can’t have them. It’s like all of these sites assume users have no other security needs than that one site.

It’s just not sustainable.

So fellow techies out there, a bit of help please. I know about password management software and sites, and I’ve looked into them some, but haven’t really committed at this point. Have any of you used them? Are they more secure? Any pointers you’d like to offer, or insight you can give?

Because at this point, I’m really close to just throwing my hands up in the air and not caring anymore. And I know that’s not a good place to be in. (I also know that if I’m close to there, then a whole ton of people are already well past it . . .)

If only all our hacking problems could be solved by typing “cookie.”