My wired house, kids and puters, reality tv

I have mentioned many times how my house is “wired” Here is a rough layout of my home network and all devices that are connected to it, at last count I have 8 devices on the network which all talk out on the internet. Here is a diagram.

Recently I did some maintenance for a work associate of my wife. He has issues with the computers on his home network, specifically his kids computers being infested with spyware. I used Spybot to kill most of it. Some I had to remove manually. The 11 or 12 year old daughter’s PC had over 400 items classified as spyware. Some of it was the sort that popped up porn in browser windows, really, really bad stuff. All of these kids have aol buddy lists numbering at 100+ members. These kids have no idea of what they are doing when they install stuff like comet cursor, weatherbug or any of the other junk that comes up when you use many of the popular file sharing programs. It’s easy money for me to come in every month or so and clean up the junk but it’s disturbing to see adult material popping up on a little girl’s computer. If I have a kid I would think twice about allowing them to have their own computer in their bedroom.

After a long hiatus, my tivo(s) have been working overtime snagging the reality tv stuff I am currently watching. For whatever reason, once my mom moved out I got hooked into a bunch all at once. When my mom was here, I spent most of my spare time in the evenings doing stuff on my computer. (is that any better?) Currently I have season passes for My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance, Average Joe Hawaii, Celebrity Mole, The Apprentice, & American Idol. Survivor All-Stars premieres after the Super Bowl so add that to the list. Having these programs on the tivo allows us to watch them in third less amount of time of watching it live so that is a small consolation. I am not sure how I exactly got pulled back into it so heavy. However I do have to laugh at people that scoff at reality tv that when asked what they watch, come back with Friends, ER, Queer Eye etc… To me, TV is TV regardless if you are watching sports, soaps, sitcoms, movies or documentaries. It’s entertainment, plain and simple. Now if you tell me instead of watching tv you are reading a book, going to the gym, studying or doing a hobby you have one up on me. If you are simply on a different channel, I don’t think you have a leg to stand on. Do most of us need to watch less TV? Sure. It’s a big part of the overall problem our society has with health & fitness. We eat the wrong stuff and way too much of it and then pile into the couch while we rest our full bellies and stare at the tv for hours each night. Not a prescription for health. This could lead into all sorts of other thoughts I have on the subject but suffice it to say we are in trouble , as we reap what we sow, the problem will snowball into all areas of society. So anyway, once these shows are over, I will again vow to cut back my viewing to minimums, honest, I will, I hope….. My name is shawn and I am a TV addict.