Other People's Kids

Happy Birthday and Explaining Things to "Josie"

Today was "Angel's" fourth birthday. I don't think she understood exactly what we were all so excited about, but she got the hang of opening presents real quick. Toys, puzzles, and [drum roll] A Brand Spanking New Bike (With Training Wheels)!

Of course, after seeing her on it, it's too small and we're going to have to return it for a bigger model, but it was a hit. I don't EVER want to hear someone complain to me about how foster parents "just do it for the money". I figure I'm behind by many hundreds of dollars since I started this crap.

Of course, I wouldn't trade it for anything...but people are just so obtuse sometimes.

Anyway, she got the kind of birthday that every little one should have every year for at least the first 10 or 12 years of their life, and she loved it. Of course, the real party isn't until Saturday. That's when grandma and grandpa, most of the neighbors and some other people are coming over to barbeque, eat cake, and spoil her with more presents.

But on to a more interesting phenomenon...teenage stupidity. It knows no bounds. A further example of this smacked me upside the head tonight. You see, I had let "Josie" know in no uncertain terms over the past few months that she is NOT to download LimeWire and start downloading and sharing songs on my computer. You see, I have no desire to give all my money to a recording company and spend the next few years wondering (or finding out) if my cellmate likes men. Therefore, I frown on anything someone does that might put me in that position.

Tonight she came home all excited, because she had found out about a new program (Bear Share or something like that) that she could use to download the song. Get it? It's illegal to download songs with that bad, nasty LimeWire, but downloading the same song is perfectly okay with this other program. And it's perfectly legal, her friend even told her so.

Sigh.

So I had another try at explaining copyright laws to her. She pointed out to me that I had lots of music on my hard drive. I pointed out to her that I probably spent a couple thousand dollars over the years on the CDs, and then tried to cram the idea of "fair use" into her brain with limited results.

It was a disheartening evening. The third-most disheartening thing was that "Angel" had a relapse and gave us a pretty good screaming fit before falling asleep.

The second-most disheartening thing was that I caught the "Behind the Music" for Pantera. What a depressing story.

And the most disheartening thing that happened to me tonight was that while trying to educate "Josie" on how to keep herself (and me) out of prison, she referred to my music collection as "a bunch of oldies". Now, granted, 95% of my collection was recorded before 1991, but still. Everyone knows it isn't really an oldie until you go back before 1980. My friend even told me so.

posted by Dan @ 7:58 PM