So Many Pixels, So Little Time

This evening, I came home and found the younger two downstairs and Ian in his normal spot, upstairs on the computer, watching bizarre videos, based on characters from his video game, narrated by two cheeky English guys.  I told him he could only watch until 7:30 (it was already after 7:00).  He outlined for me all the technical difficulties he had worked through to get the display working - Macromedia Flash obstacles, apparently, by way of arguing, in his law-school-preparatory way, for more time on the computer.  I relented and told him that he could stay on the computer until 8:00, but apparently he misconstrued the terms as being an additional block of time, equivalent to the time between that exchange and 8:00 p.m., with the computer-time-expiration meter running only during that time that he is actually on the computer.

With that misreading of the fine print, he came down and had a little conversation with me - also about computers, but this time about his ambition to make and upload a video of his own dramatic play with small lego-ish props.  I'm his technical consultant - for now, until he inevitably overtakes me  - so he wanted to coordinate that important project.  At the end of our brief, high-level meeting about that video initiative, he asked me how long he had until he had to be off the computer.  I reiterated that he had until 8:00, at which point he realized that he had been laboring under the misunderstanding that any time spent off the computer would be credited to his presumptive time account, and he asked me, eloquently as usual, whether he should have postponed our conversation until after 8:00 so that he could enjoy the precious little video-time that he had:

"Should I have saved this talking 'til then?"

(July 11, 2013)