Oh-fer-cripes-sake...

Ya know...I KNOW my boy is smart.

I know this.

I know how he is. I know that he is one of those almost-savant types when it comes to Things Technological.

So why...WHY IN GOD'S NAME...did it not occur to me that handing him my new Android tablet so he could play some games as a reward for getting his 'good day' stickers at school, would INEVITABLY lead to him a) discovering where the Android market was kept and b) cheerfully downloading 42,000 new games, at $0.99 to $3.99 apiece?!

GAH!!!!!!

...sigh...

Well, I suppose I'm actually very lucky...the damage was actually only $15. It could have been a LOT worse. And now I know that Google, FOR MY CONVENIENCE, OF COURSE, auto-links the billing information I have on file for my domain registrations and document storage to the marketplace.

So now, for our combined inconvenience, I've deleted my (ahem) BUSINESS DEBIT CARD from their system. No more automatic renewals. No more paperless stuff. No more "it just happens and none of us have to fiddle with it."

This "feature" that is in place "for my convenience" is going to end up being very INconvenient, Google, for both of us.

But of course, I'd rather be inconvenienced a bit a few times a year than end up with hundreds of bucks in hopping spaghetti marshmallow monster apps every time The Boy gets his paws on my tablet.

(Dang, that kid is smart...)

(It's an Archos 10.1 internet tablet - no carrier, 10" screen, fairly robust hardware, and now running Android 2.2, which, funny story there...these retail for around $349. This one was on sale for $180 - because out of the box, it had the 1.9 operating system. This meant that, before it was fully up and running, I had to do a bunch of download / install / reboot / reboot / reboot...download / install / reboot reboot reboot. I also had to run it through its onboard diagnostics about five times, to recalibrate the screen and motion sensors. It did take me about two to three hours altogether, but at the same time, it wasn't hard. In fact, IT did most of the work...all I had to do was get it onto our home wireless system, and it pretty much took it from there. But apparently, the process of tapping "OK" a few times, doing some hard reboots here and there, and then figuring out how to navigate when the 'menu' side of the screen suddenly died (OK, that WAS a little challenging), was soooooo hard for people that the retailer figured it was better to sell them at nearly 50% off and get rid of them than to either provide the necessary support to walk people through it [can't blame them there...I've done support, and have the mental scars to prove it], or to open up the boxes themselves and do all the running around FOR people [at which point, they go, "OHMYGAH, the box is open! I demand 50% off, IMMEDIATELY, because it is OBVIOUSLY a broken machine and NOT factory-fresh!"]. And I love it. It is light, fast, easy to use, I have a little case with an external keyboard for it that makes it easy to use for email and writing and such, it has a big, crisp screen and when I say that it is light, I mean, barely a hair over one measly pound. And now, it even has a whack of cool games on it! AWESOME!!!)

(Ya, except they're ALL 'physics and motion' kinds of games, because that's what The Boy likes...games where you balance THIS on THAT and how many LITTLE blocks can you stack on the BIG blocks and maaaaaaaaan! Why couldn't he have downloaded something more D&D-ish?!)