Wednesday, January 30, 2008

We're waiting...

I think I told you that we bought an HDTV on Sunday night. Since nobody had the TV we wanted in stock (because we, like everybody else in the New York/New England geographical area, decided to buy a new HDTV the weekend before the Giants play the Pats in the SuperBowl... duh), we ordered it online from Sears to pick it up at the store. The order confirmation gave yesterday as the estimated arrival date, but no TV yet. I called customer service tonight and was told that I have to call the pick up store directly to find out when they expect to have it ready for us.

I hope it gets here before the cable guys do (between 3 and 5pm on Saturday).

Thursday, January 24, 2008

My Brain Hurts

Since we visited my parents over the holidays, John has been bugging me to get an HDTV.

My parents' TV was so old (twenty years old, I think) that the bottom six inches of the picture just disappeared. Dad kept putting off buying a new TV (had to be HD, of course) because he wanted to wait until they sold the house and he could get a bigass one for their new living room. As we all know, the real estate market tanked, so nobody's coming through to look at their house (if you're looking to relocate to Bucks County, PA, email me. my parents have a beautiful home for sale). My brother Ronnie finally shamed my dad into buying a new TV, along with upgrading to HD Cable. After a couple of hours of watching sports in HD, John was convinced.

So back to John and his latest quest. In order to keep him from walking into a random electronics superstore and throwing money down on some TV that we know nothing about, I must do research.

So I've been spending lots of time on cnet and reading Home Theater magazine in a futile effort to absorb everything I need to know about HDTV. In a nutshell: it's going to come down to whose remote and user controls are prettiest.

And then I've been doing all of this comparing between Charter Cable's and at&t Dish's offerings. Because we can't have a high-def TV without high-def cable, obviously. Ugh. I can't even stand to read this post anymore.

Lemon out...

Friday, January 18, 2008

There Goes the Neighborhood

I read some rather shocking and disturbing news on page two in the local paper last week. One of my neighbors was arrested for and pled guilty to possession of child pornography. He was caught when he tried to buy a videotape online that was actually a sting operation. Trial is set for March, but until then he's free on bond. He was arrested in 2006, so why are we just learning this now? What if, God forbid, one of our kids was molested by this guy?

Now, here's something I don't understand. One of the conditions of his bond is that he can't work with or be around children under 18 years of age. So how is he still living at home? I don't know this for certain, but another neighbor told me that the wife is standing by him and strongly suspects that he's still living in the house. The couple has three children under four years old.

And here's something else I don't understand. If buying child porn is what he got busted for, and for what proof exists, what else has this guy done that the authorities can't prove? Disgusting. I hate to wish harm against people, but if he's done worse than view child pornography, he deserves to be put in jail for a nice, long while. I feel bad for the kids.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

No More Martyr Mama

I never understood why stay-at-home moms hired babysitters. To me, it seemed like they were cheating: if you're not working outside the home, why on earth do you need to hire someone to watch your kids?

Of course, at the time, it all made perfect sense to me. I had only one child, and he took a two-hour nap each day. I had a nice, long stretch of time every afternoon to spend however I wished. I could watch Dr. Phil, surf the internet, or - gasp! - do housework. Oh sure, I was drained by the end of the day, but I never felt like I couldn't catch a break until he went to bed.

And then my world changed. We had a second child, our first's naps became more sporadic (and rarely did they coincide with the baby's naptimes). I finally got fed up with wondering whether the oldest would nap and forced him to drop them altogether. That long break I used to have was gone - and was replaced by nighttime feedings, prying a toddler off a crawling baby, and believing that watching only one child was my break.

One year later, I have now come to decide that those moms are geniuses, and I have been a naive, stupid martyr. Tomorrow I am going to make my first phone call to an outside babysitter.

Now please don't think I'm going to start going out to lunch and getting manicures every week (I'm Catholic, I could never hire a babysitter to watch the kids while I do that - the guilt!). I just want someone to come for two or three hours every other week so I can leave the house by myself and come back feeling refreshed and ready to be with my kids again.