Roku

Last year, after having no TV and then a 13 inch TV for a long while, I got Michael a fancy flat screen. Soon later followed 'the dish' with basic cable. Surprisingly our TV watching didn't increase dramatically, but we will admit to watching old Seinfelds, Sex in the City, and ridiculous cooking and design shows. The TIVO ability to pause live TV is great when you have kids.

Our newest TV addition is ROKU. Roku is on-demand, instant Netflix. (If you don't know what netflix is, stop reading this blog and go join the 21st century.) You queue the movies up on your computer and then...magic...they appear on your TV screen. You can select movies, pause them, skip through them. It's like having hundreds of DVD ready at your fingertips.

Which is good. And bad. We've been watching a lot of "The Office" from several years ago and I've also watched some silly movies that I wouldn't necessary pay to watch, but if they are there, why not. It's kinda like when a good movie that you've seen a hundred times comes on regular TV. You just sort of feel obligated to watch it.

Another nice benefit of Roku is that there are lots of kids choices. Our kids have only watched the books on DVD and some LeapFrog videos, so they are pretty damn excited about it. The one they like best is called Pengu. It's penguin claymation. All three of them laugh out loud when watching.

As a related note, Parker has started taking gibberish. Not his normal gibberish, but silly sounds that make no sense. It cracks him up and he's actually pretty good at it. Then I realized that he is imitating Pengu. All the characters talk in this gibberish that is half way between swedish and nonsense with a splash of chipmunk talk. When I finally put it together, I asked Parker, "Are you talking like the penguins?" "alkjafgaklgulaaflelksdg!" with a big smile was his response.