More Cell Phone Thoughts

A little addition to the cellphone-in-the-stall question. Writer Momus at Wired News has some thoughts on cellphone/Hell phone usage.

Hell phones encourage a privatization of public space. Whereas once the voices in public places were always directed to other people who were present, a great back-turning seems to have taken place. A voice on a bus is now as likely to be speaking to someone invisible and absent as someone else sitting on the bus.

I hate the conversation Psych-out. This happens when you and a stranger are alone, situated within confortable conversation proximity, like in an elevator, and the stranger starts talking, and you respond. Then you discover your counterpart is not only on a hidden, teeny-tiny cellphone, but is also giving you the evil eye.

How is it that these clods are offended, when they are the ones stealing the public space? Back when only homeless people carried on self-conversations, they were a lot nicer about it.

Doing More with Technology

As someone who spends my entire workday on the Internet, I wasn't too surprised to see the impact that it has on the modern family.

Yahoo and OMD issued the findings from the latest round of their ongoing global research project in 16 countries that involves online surveys and in-person interviews. What they found is that through technology and multitasking families are cramming the equivalent of 43 hours of activity into a 24 hour day. They also found that the Internet (and mobile phones) are a significant part of the fabric of daily family life.

One curious point is that the Internet is the preferred source for most information except Comedy and News, where Television is preferred. I rarely watch television news, I'd rather use the internet and listen to the radio only. On the internet you can see diverse news stories and also read all kinds of opinion and analysis -- instead of the slanted opinion-dressed-as-fact the networks deliver.

Thankfully, something is staying the same:

Nearly three quarters (73 percent) of families with children said it is important to eat dinner together each day. Eight out of 10 adults said they "enjoy spending time with their family." This number increases to nine out of 10 among those married with children.

Yes, even with technology, we still like and love our family -- who would have known....

Vacation-Giddy

I go through a whole weird process when I plan a vacation. First, there is excitement, just thinking of all the places to go until I settle on a destination. Then there is studious research, planning the road trip or finding flights and hotels. After the research comes the distress, and worry about the whole idea of the trip; I get nervous about the cost, time away or danger involved. Eventually, I come to a crossroad where I either dump the whole trip idea or take the plunge and book it.

I booked a trip today for Orlando. It's giddy time, I'm so excited! The 5 day adventure is quite a ways off, but I'm psyched. All the nervousness is gone now that I made the arrangements. This whole nervy process has developed since I began traveling solo or with my daughter. When my father or boyfriend travelling with me, I never did the whole hand wringing thing. Thankfully, I can make my way through the process, or I would never go anywhere.

Potty Chat

Just made a mid-day visit to the restroom. It's the 2nd time in two weeks that someone was in a stall chatting on her phone.

I think that is really weird. Sure, I have snuck into my home potty while on the phone, but never at work. There is no way to muffle the flushes and just is too weird. Plus, I got to hear all about an interview (job interview?) she was planning.

Mr Clean, Gay or Straight?

Check out the picture of Mr. Clean and tell me what you think. While you check out this picture, take a roam around this site. There are so many cool, cool retro things here. Dan Goodsell, the man behind this site is an artist, check out his Mr Toast comics, as well as the artwork on his blog . I'm almost breathless about the collections here, so I will need to revisit and blog some more.

Just Another Soldier

Can you find the real person in this picture?

It seems a devoted fan of the famous Chinese Terra Cotta Soldiers was able to become one briefly. It's kind of a cool Where's Waldo type stunt.

Photo, from Neatorama

Ever Wonder ....

Why is everything priced at weird dollar amounts, like $4.99 instead of $5.00? It's called Irrational Pricing

Irrational pricing is putting the price of items at say 4.99 instead of 5. Obvious as it may seem, apparently "The reason offered for not instead rounding $4.99 to $5.00 is based on memory processing time. Rounding upward involves an additional decision compared with storing the first digits. Furthermore, due to the vast quantity of information available for consumers to process, the information on price must be stored in a very short interval. The cheapest way to do so, in memory and attention terms, is by storing the first digits." Therefore customers perceive to be getting a better deal than they infact are.

I found an answer on this page: A-Z Tricks to Make you Shop. Now I know why escalators are placed back to back instead of side to side (to get you to walk around the store). I guess I could have figured that out, but it was neat reading it here with the lovely British tone and vocab. It's been a while since I shopped the High Street or stopped in at WH Smith.

Ribbon Time

custom magnet at SupportOurRibbons.com

Now that I am getting past 40, I need to remind myself of stuff. Need a personal reminder, check out this site.

You can have real magnets made for your car too!!!

See you in September!

It looks like I took a nice little blogging break. Yes, I enjoyed the lazy days of summer doing less web surfing and more getting out. So I will get back to Schmanzworld and start posting again.

*** Someone thought that since my last post was on quitting (smoking), that I was sending a message about the blog. Nope, just lazy this summer.