more about the phone

To reiterate, I'm not one of those Mother Grundies who goes on about the whole phone = zombie thing.
I mean, a second related post in one week doesn't count as going ON does it?

In fact, I loved this meme my sister-in-law posted recently ...

... let's keep some perspective okay?

However, I am more consciously noting in public how many people are busy with their phones. Just noting mind you, not judging.

And maybe I'm being more conscious about pulling out my phone as my default response when waiting, or bored, or when hanging out with friends.

I went partying last Friday night and consciously only took my phone out my bag twice. The first time was to send husband this message:

'Have ditched my lift home. Am officially With The Band. Don't wait up.'

The second was to check his response. It was:

'Rock on.'

This is why I love that man.

I don't have any photos of the evening, no Facebook check-ins or updates, I may even one day (gasp) not remember the evening at all ... but I danced for 4 hours and had some hilarious conversations, face to face.

And only 2 people bumped me on the dance floor because they were texting while dancing ... not judging, just saying.

'app'surd

I recently got a new phone (Samsung Galaxy S3 woot! woot!) and started the process of getting my apps in order.
I spent most of last Friday night upgrading, re-installing and downloading some favourites, exploring some new ones (such a rocker, I know). It's been fun.

As with everything in my life though I haven't found the time to do all I want to do. I still have some standard message notification tones, don't know whether I've gotten an email, a text, a Whats App etc. It pings and I run to it, stroking it's cool, lithe casing (because of course I haven't found the ultimate sleeve yet) and trying to convince myself it's not somewhat ridiculously big (it is really).

But I quite like this two-yearly upgrade. The perfect opportunity to change and refresh my digital life. I haven't installed Google Reader yet, and am really enjoying reading blogs online and actually commenting - remember that? I haven't installed Twitter so only check that when I'm sitting in front of my PC, and as a result only really check the accounts I'm particularly interested in.
I haven't installed Evernote 'cos I'd stopped using it a number of months ago. Trimming the deadwood all round.

There are however some drawbacks, I don't have a proper calendar app yet and twice this week have managed to forget events or double-book myself. Amazing how reliant I'd become on my phone to keep my life in order.
And on that ... another unexpected result is that I've no idea when to expect my next period. I'd left that wholly in the hands of a 'period tracker' app - just clicking on the start and finish tabs and forgetting about it completely in between, until the app told me to expect the next one.
I've stared long and hard at our family (paper) calendar trying to remember when I had my last one but have drawn a total blank. Guess I'll just have to wait and see and maybe tune into my body more closely to let me know when it's imminent. So old-fashioned.

God, talk about a 1st world problem.

okay twitter, I get you now #blacktuesday

Wow.

Today I experienced that thing about Twitter which so many people rave about. I watched, in real time, as history was made - following the hash tag, my home page bumping up every few seconds with another 20 tweets, another 30 tweets, another 60 tweets as the announcement was made.

#BlackTuesday out-trended Thanksgiving for a moment today. Apparently that's huge.

I wish the historical event I was following was a more positive one. I wish I'd been outside Parliament to experience it with my peers, not reading about it once removed - albeit only a few seconds removed.

But Twitter totally came through for me on this one, and I get it now. Fucking marvelous technology.

Not just the real-time connection with the event, but being able to garner all the varied comments - from SA's top newspaper editors to comedians, political commentators, assholes - the voices of reason, of hysteria - to instantly have ones own reaction tempered, inflamed, counter-balanced, validated, refuted. Great stuff.

And instantly those (South Africans) whom I follow fell into two stark categories: those who were talking #blacktuesday and those who weren't. How could anyone really have been tweeting about anything else today?

Twitter, I take it all back. You totally came through for me today.

Even if my government shamefully and horrifyingly didn't.

flash! ahaaaaaaaaaaaa....!

Can I just say how much I love my flash-drive? Truly these are the most wondrous things; so compact, so useful and increasingly, so sexy.

Some beauts:

 http://www.oooms.nl/usb/

And this darling little collection... this site has the most hilarious array.

 http://www.mimoco.com/labimages/fwy-boat-lab.jpg

Anyhoo, I had a realisation about my flash-drive this week.

I was at a meeting on Wednesday where someone asked me if they could use mine to run their PowerPoint presentation off and as I handed it over I suddenly realised it was very likely there was all manner of crap saved on the thing. Some of which would probably be fairly embarrassing if it was inadvertently projected onto a whopping big screen in front of the whole meeting. You see, I think flash-drives are like handbags, and the bigger they are the more crap accumulates. 

I managed to avoid any embarrassing revelations at the meeting but when I got home I checked the contents of my flash-drive and this is a small selection of what I found:

Lol, this guy is hilarious!! Achmed the Dead Terrorist  (Silence! I kill you!) a ventriloquist puppet for the talented Jeff Dunham (www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go). I have NO idea what this was doing on my flash though!

Next..

 I was going to make a card from this for a pregnant (and formerly very skinny) friend. Her baby's due next week. Guess I missed the boat on this one...

This I did use. Inspired by these http://thewrendesign.com/2008/03/11/silhouette-art/ I made some map chickens for my daughter's room (she's big into chickens at the mo). I must remember to post a pic of them soon.

And last but never, ever least. This photo of the chicken-obsessed babakin, saved to my flash to get a copy printed for Ouma.

 

what a sweetie-pie!