Day 21 NaBloPoMo: Play the “Get the Parent” game!

Although I’m not a parent, I know my friends have been through mobile phone wars with their kids- some of it ongoing. The girl next door did $450 worth of text messages in a week when she was first given her phone for scheduling car pick-up from school. It was the usual story of kids putting the phone on “Silent” and SMS-ing each other in class. Everyone has similar stories- eventually parents find a solution that works, although some not before having to pay an enormous bill! It’s just disgraceful it can occur- we need some responsible set-up rules for phone companies with teen clients.

 

OK- so that’s all old news now, but the TV sprung a new one on me this morning! Apparently there are several iPhone/iPad game apps that are free or very cheap (like 99 cents), but within the game the players can buy extra stuff that helps them go faster or give them more privileges etc. Although most [trusting, naive] parents would think the same way the presenter did- that the internal transactions of the game would be with “Play Money” as they are in Facebook Games like “Cafe World” etc., IN FACT these things are paid for in REAL MONEY through the online iTunes account- the kids have the password so they can use the phone!

The presenter on the show was in shock when this was revealed..”You mean when my kids play that penguin game and buy scarves to keep their penguins warm, they are using my credit card??”. Yep said the tame geek. “But I thought they were only Penguin Dollars”, surely they’re not real??”- Have a look at your credit card statement was the reply…

 

This sounded like a real shocker to me, so we had a look on Spotrick’s iPhone, finding the “Smurf Village” game which they had also mentioned- sure enough, when you bought strawberries or whatever for the little Smurfs and Smurfettes, the money was the genuine article!! There was a small statement near where the app. could be downloaded for free- but what parent has ever seen it? Kid yells from the bedroom- “Mum…can I download this free Smurf’s game to play on the iPad?”- “You’re sure it’s free?”- “Yeah Mum-look”… “OK!”. $600 credit card bill later…OMG!!!!! *&77%%$#$

Not a good look. I think this is a pretty sneaky practice and BAD PUBLICITY for iPhone. Who’s betting the apps or the real money parts are pulled back shortly?

Day 21 NaBloPoMo: iPhone “Get the Parent” game

Although I’m not a parent, I know my friends have been through mobile phone wars with their kids- some of it ongoing. The girl next door did $450 worth of text messages in a week when she was first given her phone for scheduling car pick-up from school. It was the usual story of kids putting the phone on “Silent” and SMS-ing each other in class. Everyone has similar stories- eventually parents find a solution that works, although some not before having to pay an enormous bill! It’s just disgraceful it can occur- we need some responsible set-up rules for phone companies with teen clients.

OK- so that’s all old news now, but the TV sprung a new one on me this morning! Apparently there are several iPhone/iPad game apps that are free or very cheap (like 99 cents), but within the game the players can buy extra stuff that helps them go faster or give them more privileges etc. Although most [trusting, naive] parents would think the same way the presenter did- that the internal transactions of the game would be with “Play Money” as they are in Facebook Games like “Cafe World” etc., IN FACT these things are paid for in REAL MONEY through the online iTunes account- the kids have the password so they can use the phone!

The presenter on the show was in shock when this was revealed..”You mean when my kids play that penguin game and buy scarves to keep their penguins warm, they are using my credit card??”. Yep said the tame geek. “But I thought they were only Penguin Dollars”, surely they’re not real??”- Have a look at your credit card statement was the reply…

This sounded like a real shocker to me, so we had a look on Spotrick’s iPhone, finding the “Smurf Village” game which they had also mentioned- sure enough, when you bought strawberries or whatever for the little Smurfs and Smurfettes, the money was the genuine article!! There was a small statement near where the app. could be downloaded for free- but what parent has ever seen it? Kid yells from the bedroom- “Mum…can I download this free Smurf’s game to play on the iPad?”- “You’re sure it’s free?”- “Yeah Mum-look”… “OK!“. $600 credit card bill later…OMG!!!!! *&77%%$#$

Not a good look. I think this is a pretty sneaky practice and BAD PUBLICITY for iPhone. Who’s betting the apps or the real money parts are pulled back shortly?

Another dream, another toad…

I just awoke from this dream as Evangeline opened the front door, so some of it has been shocked into the subconscious!

The dream started somewhere I can’t remember, but the first bit I can remember is when I was getting into a single bed (rather like my cousin Beth’s bed when we were kids and I stayed with her parents). As I pulled the blankets up to settle down, there was a little twig-like thing on the edge, so I pulled it out and chucked it on the floor. Then some bloke came in to say goodnight (not my Uncle Alan, but a stranger) and was telling me about a slight “pest” problem they’d been having- a few mice and rats in the roof. Then he spotted the “twig” I’d tossed out and pounced on it, saying “Oh no- we must have a bird problem as well… that’s a little, shriveled bird foot!” I wasn’t too alarmed as IRL our cats are always abandoning little birds’ feet about the yard.
So off I went to sleep, unconcerned. The next morning I was in the city with some other people working for some government office. We had to get some lunch and travel to some other site for a meeting, so one of them went off to get some take-away stuff for us to eat on the train. I ordered a hamburger and chips and a soft drink and this guy went off to get everyone’s order. When he came back he had got various hamburgers, chicken, sandwiches and chips, but handed me a barbecue chicken in a bag. I was a bit miffed, but took my bag onto the train and tried to settle down. However, a heap of people got on and crowded us out of our spot near a window- there were several small children, a few older ones and a few extra adults- the little kids just stomped on most of the food- a Macca’s burger went all splatto across the seat, which put me right off!
A while later I got settled elsewhere in the train and opened my chicken bag- BUT-inside covering the whole upper side of the nicely browned chicken was a huge floppy toad, looking quite slimy and stunned! Eeeergghhh!!! I slapped the bag shut as it moved a bit!
I went back to my friends sitting with the kids to show them, but when I got there, one of the toddlers had just got another, smaller, darker toad jump onto his front and everyone was trying to get it off him, while he shrieked! A man who seemed to be the same one as had been saying good night before, said he was the child’s father and that he had been receiving some of these animals in mailed packages for some weeks.
The scene moved then to a stairwell- maybe in a station and I was walking up- as I rounded a corner, a pale green thing wound around a steel brace- it looked rather like a snake! (How Freudian!!!). As it looked rather sluggish as well, I grabbed it behind the head and held on tight, taking it out into a corridor. This turned out to be the corridor of a laboratory building or university. I ran with the “snake” (it seemed to have some rudimentary dinosaur-looking pale green legs at times) into a lab with benches and yelled- “Someone get me a container for this thing!”. Everyone started to scatter and run away- I let go of the now writhing and jerking thing and it hurtled across benches and floor towards the windows. I yelled at everyone to get to the other side of the room and out the door- some hardy types (blokes in lab coats mostly), immediately went to have a closer look at the thing. Somehow I knew it was not particularly harmful or venomous and wasn’t panicked, although I didn’t want it to bite me anyway. A guy came along from another department and said it was the Pale Green Jungle Python from Ethiopia (??!!).
Without much ado, I was back with my colleagues from the train, going to our meeting. We got off the train onto a bus and set off in the rain; (it had been sunny before and overcast). We got off the bus at what seemed like the long boring stretch of Ayliffe’s Road, before it descends past the Shepherd’s Hill Reserve. There seemed to be nothing there except a tall thin Asian man with a briefcase standing beside the road.
Meanwhile it got quite dark, and we’re walking along the road- which now seemed to be in a fairly level suburb with lots of peak hour traffic, rain and traffic lights. As we rounded a corner on foot I noticed that a heap of large gravel was piled up with lots scattered across the lefthand turn lane. Then I looked out into the intersection and noticed that a car seemed to have fallen into a big sinkhole in the road! It was full of people- 8 of them in fact, and had filled with water up to road level! I looked them over and got out my mobile phone to call an ambulance and police- meanwhile one of the passengers stood up (it was a large convertible with top down, in the rain!), and started pressing 000 on her mobile as well. Other passengers didn’t seem able to move or get out so I moved in front of the car to direct traffic/make it stop or whatever, while a colleague attended to the passengers. Suddenly all the street lights and traffic lights went off and it was a bit hairy standing out there in front of the oncoming traffic! However, the cars still had their headlights and I figured my hands would look white in the lights and people would see me waving them about and not hit me!
As we waited for the ambulance and police to turn up, suddenly someone I had seen earlier in the dream in a shocking pink suit, turned up. She had been sent out by some government minister to personally investigate claims that the transport department was letting things go to the dogs, and here she was right on top of a supporting incident! We seemed to know who she was, so we grabbed her and started making her write down our sad tale about the accident, the road condition and the disorganised trains and buses we had been travelling on. Then the front door opened and I was awakened- no more dream!
What the?? Figure this one out!!