Get ouda my face..

I feel it's about time I had a rant about technology and my son's recent "sleep-over" with one of his mates provided a perfect vehicle for it.

Picture the scene, two excited 10 year old boys hyped up on wagon wheels and fresh air and a slightly stressed dad, late home from work, trying to settle them down to watch a James Bond movie on said son's PC, the process flow went something like this:

- Switch on PC, log on as junior.. nope, parental controls kick in you're not allowed to use this PC after 7pm
- Log off, log back on as administrator to fix the parental controls, nope, a new version of parental controls is needed before you can turn it off.
- Downloading new version of parental controls, that progress bar seem awfully slow, the package includes a ton of other crap like Messenger and Video editing software that I just don't want or need, bugger can't stop it now..
- Half way through the download, the Adobe downloader kicks in, apparently I need a new version of Adobe reader, oh no I don't...
- Kill the Adobe downloader and the regular Windows update kicks in and starts downloading a dozen fixes from Microsoft, arghh!
- Threaten to kill son if he doesn't stop using his bed as a trampoline, guest kid is looking decidedly nervous...
- Now it's Apples turn, apparently now is the perfect time for me to get a new version of iTunes and Quicktime, the lights start to dim as the wireless router starts to glow with excess heat..
- 15 minutes on and finally all the downloads finish, the install process starts, 10 minutes later, I can actually reset the parental controls to allow the film to be watched.
- Log off, log on as junior, put film in, sit through the previews (which I'm not allowed to skip... grrr) film starts, hurrah, retire downstairs..

- Two minutes later, son shouts down the stairs, "Dad, it's stopped working", the parental controls have kicked us out... technology, just love it..