You're Never Too Old For Technology

Blame the computer geek I'm married to, but I have always had one strong, unwavering belief about electronics.

If you can't figure out how to use them, run - don't walk - them back to the store.
If you don't want to learn; you don't deserve the taste of technology.

Don't get me wrong, beginners can - and should - apply. But you have to walk up to it like a rookie to the Major Leagues, with a thrilling thirst for the adventure.

The phrase "I'm too old for this," doesn't apply if you'll just give it a chance.
It's just a computer . . . a camera . . . a DVD player. If you aren't willing to play with it, then honey, you are missing out.

So you'll excuse me if I call you on my cell phone and you can't hear a word.

Excuse me if I hang up on you when I should be answering your call.

I'm still learning . . . and playing.

And I'll cop to feeling old when I watch a teenager, thumbs a flying, texting their best friend, flipping the phone and seemlessly answering a call from Mom.

Especially when I find out Mom texts.

That's what life in a no man's land of cellular service will do to you. It will let you fall behind the times because there seems little point in an upgrade that won't, well, really upgrade.

But now it's here. A cell phone with speaker phone. With texting. With a camera.

With everything that makes me go huh, and makes me hungry to test it out.

Another confession - there's been a little blue icon of a cell phone with an arrow beside it on my phone for days. I can't figure out how to get rid of it, but it isn't for lack of trying.

I've checked my texts, my e-mails, my drafts folder, my voice mails. I've done the visual voice mail, so the entire world has heard my father-in-law asking where we were, MADE calls.

There's just one thing I won't do.

I'm not calling in the computer geek I married to fix my phone. I'm going to figure this one out myself, sometime before the next mobile upgrade.

Flickr photo by C y r i l l i c u s

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Pancake People Vs. Crepe People

There are classic anti-theses in this world. 
 
Yankees and Red Sox. 

North and South. 

Tom-ay-to and To-mah-to. 

And then there are the pancake people. 

Who you cannot confuse with the crepe people. 

Keep Reading AFTER the Jump

Facebook: Putting Them Down Easy

If there was ever a way to let somebody down easy, it's on Facebook.

A "friend request" lands in your e-mail inbox, and you follow the link where you can "confirm" or "ignore."

Do the former, and you're opening up your life for the other to see --they can take a gander at your photos of your child ripping through Christmas presents and the embarrassing high school era photos people you haven't seen in two decades have so kindly added to the web.

Do the latter, and nothing happens.

They don't see your life. You aren't forced to read their status updates on their dog's bowel movements and their kid's poopy diapers.

But there's no flashing red light overhead that yells "loser, loser."
It's completely anonymous.

Facebook may be the place we relive high school, but it's not high school. You don't have to hide in the girls room after being dissed by the popular crowd.

No one ever has to know.

If only it were easier to let people down easier.

Because there are the repeat offenders on Facebook. They're the people who barely wait half an hour after you've hit "ignore" to send you yet another request to be their friend.

And with each "ignore," comes another request, a poke in the eye that says "you can't ignore me, I'm here!"

They're the people who are begging for a Facebook put down. Might I suggest a message by the principal over the PA system?

If it sounds like I'm kicking a sweet little puppy dog who just wants to be my buddy, might I note that the bulk of these requests come from complete strangers?

I know their names tangentially, know, in fact, that they also live in Sullivan County. And it seems they know who I am.

But I don't, in fact, know them.

I don't know them well enough to let them look at pictures of my daughter in her PJs on Christmas morning.

Or to let them see my status updates that let my friends know when I'm going to the mall, the pizza place or on that rarest of rare occasions, on a bona fide vacation.

Facebook has returned the word "friend" to the meaning we used as 4-year-olds - all it took was some face-to-face contact in the grocery store line and you were planning playdates. But even my 4-year-old is learning that no means no.

Can you?

Photo from Facebook


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