So here’s a new twist on that timeless image of Dad sitting on the living room floor on Christmas morning trying to cob together a bicycle with all the wrong tools and two left thumbs. <\/p>\n
My son, Nicholas, plays a hugely complicated computer game in which the player is a Great Leader, guiding a civilization from the stone age right through to the development of interstellar starships.<\/p>\n
One of his presents was an “upgrade” program that allows new technologies, new strategies, and other thinga-ma-jigs which are apparently a must-have evolution of the game.<\/p>\n
But when we tried to load the New-and-Improved content, the computer balked. Incompatible, it said. Then it shut the whole program down entirely. <\/p>\n
No advice, no suggestions, just — dark. Game over. <\/p>\n
I imagined Hal 2000’s glowing red eye staring at me. Sorry, Dad. Why not take a stress pill and lie down?<\/p>\n
Naturally, calls to the tech support center went unanswered. While Nicholas wrung his hands, I floated in on-hold limbo, treated to vast amounts of 70s cheese whiz pop music.<\/p>\n
The game’s tech-support website, meanwhile, proved about as helpful as a tablet of Mayan hieroglyphs.<\/p>\n
Out of frustration, I set off into a maze of fan-supported chat rooms, where hordes of 12-year-old boys trade strategies, gossip and (lucky for me) some incredibly helpful advice.<\/p>\n
Following their instructions, I surfed around until I found two separate “patches” for the computer program, which I managed somehow to download.<\/p>\n
(Confident the entire time that I was introducing a digital virus on par with Ebola, but we appear to have dodged that particular fate.)<\/p>\n
When we finally popped the new game disc back in — voila. It started up with all the modern, glossy zip that Nicholas had been hoping for.<\/p>\n
Now he’s hard at work leading his civilization into the history books. And like all Dads before me, I’m milking my small victory for all its worth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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