Tech talk

Crazy that Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are dating. Total downgrade for Gwen.

Anyway, here's an observation for you: my life can fit into two duffle bags, but my computer is practically popping its buttons. I actually had to PAY to download software that helps me locate useless/old/duplicate files and delete them. Such is the life for us Macbook Air owners. But I can't be mad. My computer is slightly thicker than my thumbnail (and slightly thinner than my toenail)! With the amount of warped-face Photobooth selfies clogging up its arteries, I'm surprised it's lasted this long at all.

Speaking of Apple products, Andy's had one heck of a struggle getting his iPhone up and running. Carrier/unlocking problems. In fact, after three days of phone calls, a trip to the Apple store and a brand new phone, it's still not working. Tomorrow he'll do what he should have done in the first place: go to a sketchy tech repair place and ask the guy to work his magic.

Wouldn't life be easier if we all still had bedazzled Sidekicks?

Image by Wireimage via Popsugar

Today was one of the prettiest sunsets we've had here on Alki so far. Yellow, then pink, then orange, and then an even better orange. Andy, Barbie and I ate ice cream sandwiches on the beach and played catch with a baseball (no gloves - ouch!). At one point, three ferry boats glided (glid?) by in different directions. Seattle was really showing off.

Now I'm tired and my head hurts from the single, weak vodka soda I drank four hours ago. Best get my arse in bed.

So long,
Margaret

I've gone over to the dark side

I did it.

I bought an iPhone.

MuHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAAA.

So long peaceful, voluntary isolation.

Goodbye smiling at strangers in the Starbucks line. 

Sayonara leaving 'what-was-the-name-of-that-band'-type questions unanswered.

Hello buzzing on my nightstand just as I drift asleep. 

Howdy trying to stop myself from reading emails at red lights.

Welcome urge to preserve everything cute/cool/artsy in my life on Instagram. 

IT IS WHAT IT IS. 

I've had my reservations for a long time. And I'll certainly miss my dumbphone. But I don't want to be a luddite. I'm embarrassed that I'm so bad at touch-screens. 

It was time. I'll be fine. I won't let it change who I am. 

Your old friend,

Margaret

P.S. RHOBH reunion tomorrow night. Kyle R. says it's the most intense reunion of all five seasons. To say I'm looking forward to it = major understatement. I'm shite-ing myself. 

P.P.S. OK, you're on to me. I never smiled at strangers in the Starbucks line. I stare at the rubbery croissants and contemplate buying one.

Things our kids won't have to deal with

Here we go, here we go, here we go again! Another guest blog post for your reading pleasure, and tonight it's from Kenmore's resident kidney expert, Francie Louise Fitzpatrick!!!

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Things our kids won't have to deal with

1. Passwords. By the time our kiddos are grown, all logins will require face recognition or a fingerprint for access. No more forgetting and having to reset that dang Apple ID password.

2. Driving their own car. What a treat it’ll be to sit back, nap and arrive at a destination refreshed and ready to go.

3. The Internet cutting out or going slow. Why oh why do I still have to hold the reset button down on our modem/router every few months? This is unacceptable.

4. Cable TV. OK, I know people are already cutting this out of their lives, but what about live sports? How do you do that? I can’t live without access to Zag/Mariners’ games!

5. Laundry. Fingers crossed for this one, as I haven't quite figured out how it’s going to work. Perhaps everyone will have their own robot who will wash/dry/fold laundry?

Image by amboo who? via Flickr

6. Phone calls. This is particularly exciting when you think our kids won't have to allot the 20 minutes I just spent booking in our car for a service, calling the vet about a refill on our dog's thyroid medication, and talking to the Group Health consulting nurse about the rash my daughters have. The phone call is almost already completely gone. Even now we already know who's calling us so we can decide if we want to answer or not. Remember when caller ID first came out? That was wi-ld. I think it’s good that we'll be able to book everything online, but bad that my hour-long conversations with my cousin Maria will probably slip by the wayside, as we'll be too out of practice to keep the convo up for that long.

7. Thinking, in general. This is also pretty much gone. Even Keeley, my 3½-year-old, who’s basketball-playing abilities were discussed in yesterday’s post, is already starting to realize this. Here’s a snippet from last night’s discussion about the moon (something we talk about at least 10 times a day): "

"What's the moon made of?"— Keeley.

"Ummm rocks and dirt and…stuff…I don't really know..." I trailed off.

"Just look it up, Mom." — Keeley, completely unaccepting of my lame response and exasperated that I hadn't thought of Google already. 

Or, here’s an idea—it’s possible that our kids will have to think even more to set themselves apart from the masses. Everyone will have access to all the Googling they’ve ever desired (plus Internet search methods yet to come), so creative and unique answers will be highly rewarded. 


Obviously, most of these are just little luxuries that I think our kids will get to enjoy. Let's hope the world works first on bigger problems, like maybe war/guns/poverty, but after we overcome those, let’s agree to move on to the list above (preferably starting with laundry). 

OK, this turned out a lot whinier than I planned, but in true Madgespace style, I’m not going to change it. I will attempt to leave things on a high note though (pun intended). Here’s a video from my sister Anna’s birthday party a few nights ago where we set off a Thai lantern. Stick with it and you’ll catch some talk about the moon (ahem, Keeley), a certain dog going to the bathroom on the beach (ahem, Dessie) and lots and lots of tips for getting the lantern to launch (ahem, everybody).

 

Cherrio! 

Francie

Baby you can drive my car

OK, stop refreshing the E Online Oscars page hoping that the live red carpet feed will start and read this instead.

It's blustery as the dickens here in Edinburgh. As I type this I'm looking out the window at a woman desperately trying to hold her umbrella in a way so that it doesn't flip inside out. Hey lady, it's never going to work! Accept defeat, bin that brolly and embrace the icy breeze. Quit fretting over that £2 parasol, put your hood up and sprint!

The cold weather dries out my skin twice over. First, the lack of air moisture sucks the life out of them. Then all those hot showers I'm forced to take to warm up only exacerbates things. My hands are so dehydrated that they don't even feel like mine anymore. Touching one set of fingers with the other feels like petting a corpse. GAWD, these hands are parched! PARCHED.

But that's not what I came here to discuss.

Today I'd like to talk about driverless cars.

Apparently they'll be here before we know it, and I say, bring them on! Less traffic. Fewer car crashes. Not so much pollution. Also, imagine being able to watch last night's episode of RHOBH during your commute to work. The dream!

Image via Mark Doliner via Wikimedia Commons

Need convincing? Listen to this piece of audio from back in 2009 when I damned near almost fell asleep at the wheel. I could have seriously used a driverless car back then. Also, after listening to this, it's amazing that there was ever a time when I didn't know the term "vocal fry".



But what about road trips? What about going where the wind blows? What about the joys of navigating the wide open highway, thumbs tapping on the steering wheel to a sweet country jam on the FM radio?

I don't think we'll lose that. In fact, road trips will become even more romantic and aspirational in an era of driverless cars. So accustomed to sitting in our vroom-vroom-robot-pods, old school human-driven cars will be super classy and vintage. Sure, our driving skills will be hellza rusty, but that doesn't matter out on those empty country freeways.

Oh my god my HANDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I must go get the lotion.

Happy trails,
Margaret

P.S. In the UK they don't say "lotion". They say "moisturiser".

Must put duct tape over my webcam

I watched the Edward Snowden documentary 'Citizenfour' last night with Andy.

When the Snowden stuff first leaked, I knew that I should be outraged, but it was so much easier to be apathetic. I knew that the stuff the government was doing was unjust, but ignoring it felt better than caring. If I cared about it, I might feel compelled to do something about it. And that never works. Protesting? Campaigning? Please. Haters gonna hate, bankers gonna bank and spies gonna spy, lie, spy, lie, spy. There's no stopping them and we're all doomed.

Plus, the sheer scope of surveillance, the high-tech tools involved and, I'll admit it, even the "but terrorism" argument, clouded the conversation for me. With the latest episode of 'Real Housewives' streaming the next tab over, the choice was easy: read nothing else about it and hope for the best.

But the documentary forced my head out of the sand. As the extent of the NSA's spying was revealed, I kept thinking about Watergate. What Nixon did was minuscule potatoes compared to the NSA and he was forced to resign just two years after the break-in. This June it will be two years since Snowden's big reveal—will there be any retribution for the government officials involved?

So, now I have this belated outrage and have no clue what to do about it. Is there something I can sign? Is there someone I can vote for? Would eating another oatmeal chocolate chip cookie help? Because if it would, I'm happy to do it. They're right here in this tupperware next to me, so it's no inconvenience at all. I'll eat as many as it takes.

Anyway, I'll conclude with two suggestions:

1. Watch the movie if/when it's screening in your city. 
It's so interesting that I actually said, aloud, during the middle of it, "This is interesting!"

2. Put duct tape over your webcam.
Do this if, like me, you like to use your laptop whilst sitting on the toilet before getting in the shower (naked as a jay bird). Nowhere in the film does it mention the NSA hacking into people's webcams, but now I'm paranoid.

Good luck comrades,
Margaret

99 problems, but a smartphone ain't one

Or is it, 'Got 99 problems, but a smartphone is one' or 'but a dumbphone ain't one?' I never did understand that lyric.

Anyway, the point is: I don't have a smartphone. Can you believe it? I—digital marketer, blogger extraordinaire, voice of a generation—cannot access the Internet via my phone. I can't take or receive photos or videos either. I don't even think I can download ringtones.

When I walk places, I get lost. When I forget who sings a certain song, I agonise over it for hours. When I encounter something amusing in real life, I try to remember it so that I can tell people about it later, but then I actually just forget it. Such is the life of someone with a Samsung E1050.

"Hi Taylor, what's up?
Hahaha, no waaay!
Harry actually said that?
Oh my god.
Crazy."

In a world where practically everyone has a smartphone, including both of my parents, what on earth would stop me from obtaining such an objectively useful piece of technology? A few reasons:

1) Laziness — A huge part of my no-iPhone situation comes down to laziness. Getting one would mean walking to a shop, or scrolling through loads of options online. I would have to cancel my current contract, get a new one, set up billing, transfer across my contacts—UGH, I'm stressed out already.

2) Cheapness —My current phone cost £9.99 and it does the job just fine. I'm not sure, but something tells me iPhones cost more than that.

3) Fear of commitment — I never planned to stay in Edinburgh for that long, let alone make a lifelong vow to a filthy Redcoat named Andy. The thought of signing a two-year contract with a British mobile phone company puts me on edge (I'm currently on a rolling monthly contract). What would the Founding Fathers think of me then? Live free or die, etc.

4) Fear of who I would become — You know that person who, mid conversation, grabs his phone from his pocket and begins scrolling, purely out of habit and without even realising what he's doing? That would be me. You know that person who shares a photo of every beautiful sunset, cute baby, delicious meal and hilarious A-frame restaurant sign she comes across? That would be me.

Smartphones have been around a while, but smartphone etiquette is in its infancy. Society still hasn't grasped the dos and don'ts. If I had one, I would be the worst offender of all. My laptop alone causes me to enter a trance-like state, designing budget logos on PowerPoint for hours, yet thinking only five minutes has passed. I don't think I could be trusted with something as addicting and accessible as a smartphone.

It's not that I think smartphones are bad. In fact, the reason I refuse to get one is because I know they are so, so GOOD! I know I would end up liking it too much. It's like heroin or Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme. Why start?

You ol' gal,
Margaret

P.S. I charge my phone once a month.