Manic Pixie Dream Girls...

This was an interesting discussion on NPR...

"The Manic Pixie is, in his words, 'that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.'"

What do y'all think, especially Wileyman?

USB Closure (James Fallows)

http://jamesfallows.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/10/i_dont_quite_believe_this_but.php

WALL-E

It's a little bit late to be seing it for the first time, but we're cheapskates. So we went to go see WALL-E tonight and A. really loved it. She has been talking about the robot for months now and she is really glad to have seen it.

James Fallows Continued USB Drama

Here's and update on the little USB Drive he brought back from the grave - twice. It feels as though the fate of my Bluetooth earpiece hangs in the balance.

Hipster PDA

I was at a meeting today, and I noticed that one of the facilitators had a Hipster PDA, which consists of a few 3x5 index cards binder clipped together. I can't tell you how valuable a thing that this is, and how it has helped me remember things that otherwise would have fallen through the cracks. It is one of those dumb (dorky) ideas that just work and that I am absolutely sold on.

An Existential Dilema

A man engaged me in some brief conversation on Aisle 10, as I was walking through the store. After a little bit of chit-chat he asked me, "Do you ever think about the hereafter?"

Taken a little aback by the question, but remembering that I was South of the Gnat Line where you tend to have more evangelical believers, I answered hesitantly... "Yes. I think about it."

"So do I," he replied, "at my age by the time you get down the grocery aisle, you have to think 'what is it that I'm here after!?'"

Two Other Helpful Tools

There are two tools that we use on a daily basis at our house that have been invaluable to us.

First, our Roomba. For those of you unfamiliar with a Roomba, it is a little vacuum cleaner robot that goes around the house and cleans your floors for you. Ours isn't a very high-end model (it only sweeps and does not return to its docking station to recharge) but does a surprisingly wonderful job of keeping your floors clean. We originally got one second hand (for free) and got to try it out for about a month before it died. We were so impressed with the test drive that we saved up to buy one when it went on sale at Target. I always thought that this type of thing was something you would buy at Sharper Image or Sky Mall magazine, but it actually works!

The other cool thing we use is the Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner by SC Johnson. While it doesn't completely replace the occasional scrub down, it does a good job of applying daily maintenance and smells great! You just press the button and after 15 seconds it shoots out cleaner, covering your entire shower. Works especially well if, like us, you use body wash and self-contained HBAs in your shower.

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Gallon of WD-40

Here's another product that has become absolutely invaluable! It's an online backup service called Carbonite. if you're like us, we have a lot of digital photos, music, etc that are one hard drive crash away from destruction. Just this week, I woke up and tried to turn my laptop on and it would not load. I had to do a factory restore, which ordinarily would scare me to death, but this handy little service works in the background all the time, so I didn't worry at all about losing anything.

The only downside is that the initial backup takes about a week, and can make some of your online activities slow down. After that though, Carbonite just works. At a price of only $50 a year, I would recommend it to anyone. Let me know if you want to try it and I can refer you (it gets me free months added to my subscription).

Two Important Podcasts about the Economy

I recently listened to two podcasts from This American Life that did a great job explaining all the mayhem about the economy.

Here's the most recent, and this is the initial one that describes the housing market.it's worth a listen if you get a chance.

What Ross Douthat said...

"McCain is almost certainly going to lose this election. He can go down trying to talk about the issues that voters actually care about, and trying to make some headway in the debates that are going to dominate our politics for the next few years, or he can go down trying to change the subject. I really don't see any percentage in the latter."

Amen.

I'm looking for the pine tar...

My new assignment has put me further south of the gnat line here in Georgia, and it can present its own challenges. Just the other day I had an older gentleman stop me to ask "where do you keep pine tar?"

"Pine tar?"

"yes."

"Pine tar? hmmm... let me see if I can find out for you."

So I went and grabbed the nearest manager and asked "have you ever heard of us carrying pine tar?"

"PINE TAR??? no, we've never had pine tar."

"Hmmmm..."

(finding someone else in the store to ask...)

"Hey, you've got to help me. There's a gentleman out here and he is insisting that we have pine tar and he wants me to show him where it is, and I have no idea why he would expect us to have pine tar!"

She goes out with me and asks the guy again...

"Sir, can I help you?"

The gentleman answers, indicating what he is looking for...

"Oh," she says, "yes sir, pint jars are right over here on aisle 10."

And Ira Glass found my missing CD...

This summer we returned to the beach house we went to last year for a week of much needed vacation. I was chilling in my room after getting too much sun outside, and decided to fire up a This American Life podcast while kicking back. For those of you who may not be familiar with TAL, the show takes a subject and typically breaks it up into three parts, which are three different stories about people touched by the topic.

This time the theme was "Break-ups," and the first story focused on a woman who had recently broken up with her boyfriend. Their relationship was heavy on listening to the venerated Phil Collins, the former lead singer of Genesis who now tours solo. Phil even made an appearance on that edition of TAL.

Well, I finished listening to the story and walked into the main room of the house, where, strangely enough, there was Phil Collins cd jewel case sitting on top of the entertainment center that I had failed to notice before. Curious now about listening to some more Phil Collins, I flipped open the case and found a CD on the inside that read Life Aquatic Studio Sessions (Seu Jorge). It was the CD that I had unwittingly left in that house one year ago, never to be reunited, except that Ira Glass wanted to discuss breaking up.

James Fallows saved my Earpiece

A few months ago I bought a Motorola Bluetooth headset for my phone. I had it a couple of weeks before I absent-mindedly put it through an entire wash cycle in the pocket of my blue jeans. For a few months, I set it aside in its original packaging as I thought it was hopelessly defunct.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when James Fallows, a writer for the Atlantic Magazine, and renowned technophile, wrote an web article about sending his USB Drive through a complete wash and dry cycle. After some advice from a friend, he procured some WD-40 and bathed the drive in the liquid. The result -- the drive came back to life!

So I thought it would be worth a try myself. I pulled the earpiece out and sprayed it in WD-40 and left it to air dry for a day while I was at work. The next day I came in and plugged it in and -voila - it started to charge! (after months of not working!!!) After it charged I turned it on, and bing, it connected to my phone, and I am now happily using my earpiece. Just goes to show that reading the Atlantic will not only make you more cultured, better informed, but also a safer driver.