everyone should do this

if you've got cool phones that let you record your own ring tone ...


http://lifehacker.com/software/cell-phones/the-inconspicuous-cell-phone-ring-194312.php

funny nuns

Near Mercy Medical Center, they have these cardboard photo cutouts of various Sisters of Mercy ( these sisters, not these), welcoming patients to the hospital. I'm willing to start a betting pool on when the first act of vandalism will occur.

But also: are these nuns lifesize, or have they been blown up to greater heights?

revelation

A transcript of a recent e-mail conversation I had with my sister, after trying to reach her for a few days:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: dancing monkey <dmonkey@elefkay.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 6:37 PM
Subject: older niece's birthday party?
To: Anne-Anne <anneanne@bigsis.com >

can u confirm it will be sat., sept 22?


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anne-Anne < anneanne@bigsis.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 10:50 PM
Subject: Kayla's party
To: dancing monkey < dmonkey@elefkay.com>


It was supposed to be that day but niece's dad changed it.  Don't know what the new day is yet.
Sent from my iPhone

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: dancing monkey <dmonkey@elefkay.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Kayla's party
To: Anne-Anne <anneanne@bigsis.com>

Since when do you have an iPhone?!?!

(furious dialing)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: dancing monkey <dmonkey@elefkay.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: Kayla's party
To: Anne-Anne <anneanne@bigsis.com >

Is that why your voice mail is not set up yet?!

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anne-Anne < anneanne@bigsis.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 10:58 PM
Subject: Re: Kayla's party
To: dancing monkey <dmonkey@elefkay.com>

call me back

Sent from my iPhone

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Anne-Anne <anneanne@bigsis.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 10:59 PM
Subject: Re: Kayla's party
To: dancing monkey <dmonkey@elefkay.com>

yes

Sent from my iPhone

(furious dialing)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: dancing monkey <dmonkey@elefkay.com>
Date: Aug 23, 2007 11:06 PM
Subject: Re: Kayla's party
To: Anne-Anne <anneanne@bigsis.com>

you know, if you were getting a new phone, you should have at least gotten one that you can hear when it rings.





The backstory: her Blackberry Pearl was stolen, she was still under contract so it would have cost more than $400 to replace it, so she figured she'd just get the iPhone. The funny thing: she couldn't hear it when the Pearl rang, and she still can't hear the iPhone either. And, as a result, she can look forward to bills that are 64 pages long.

Read a Book, addendum

P.S. I'm sure many sports reporters would object to D'mite's instruction to put down the sports section ... I mean, that's a gateway medium, right?

Read a Book

Fellow METPRO graduate Sufiya Abdur-Rahman writes about "Read a Book" by Bomani "D'mite" Armah ... check it out!

traffic ticket myths

From Bankrate.com, via Consumerist: Don't believe these myths about traffic tickets.

is conspicuous consumption worse

when it takes place in a country with a greater disparity between the rich and the poor? Or a larger population of poor? Or is it just easy to turn up one's Western nose at people in developing nations who espouse the same zest for material goods as we do?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article2199285.ece

From The Sunday Times

August 5, 2007

My big fat Indian birthday party

Dean Nelson, Delhi

Two-year-old Ishan is too young to remember the extravagant party his parents threw to celebrate his second birthday, but the hungry young beggars outside the tall wrought-iron gates of their Delhi farmhouse will never forget it.

Ishan was dressed in his favourite Noddy outfit to match the theme and to welcome his 100 guests to a party that had set his parents back £4,500.

The guests would barely have noticed the traffic light beggars pleading for coins as they drove their 4x4s through Delhi's exclusive Chattarpur suburb.

They were taking part in a ritual that is becoming a booming business among the city's elite: the big fat Indian kids' birthday party is now starting to rival the country's all-consuming wedding industry. According to industry insiders, it is now worth around £10m a year in Delhi alone, and it is growing fast.

Driving the phenomenon is a ruthless competitiveness among India's largely Hindu upper-middle classes, whose wealth has grown enormously over the past 15 years.

As their fortunes have soared, their children's weddings, and now birthdays, have become opportunities to display their new riches and social contacts. At little Ishan's party, no detail was overlooked in his parents' campaign to impress their friends and acquaintances.

The guests arrived through a specially commissioned Noddy gateway (£300), onto the sweeping lawns and swimming pool of their mansion. There were 20,000 balloons in Noddy's colours, and thousands more bearing his face and name, costing £750. There were 40 Noddy car models and statuettes dotted around the garden (£150), and four specially built Noddy bars for popcorn, chocolates and sweets (£150). A Noddy clown wandered among the children as they toyed with their Noddy-car goodie bags (100 at £12.50 each – £1,250).

And then there were the fairground rides: A "Columbus" swinging ship, three 40ft bouncy castles, a merry-go-round and a mini-train ride. The games and rides alone cost another £1,100.

There was a running buffet of pizza, burgers and sandwiches, all laid out on tables with matching Noddy glasses, napkins and plates.

The family could have laid on elephants at £25 each for garden rides (a herd is kept by the banks of Delhi's Yamuna River, and hired out for events), or camels at £15 per beast, but these animals are increasingly seen as the pass? preserve of lower-scale parties, according to one party planner. "One Indian family last month asked me to lay on live lions and tigers," he said.

Rakesh Gupta, of the Gift Palace toy and party store in Delhi's exclusive Khan Market, said over the past 15 years, his party business has grown to at least 60 a month, more than 40 of which are staged at five-star hotels, and cost up to £5,000.

"In the early days it was a family affair, but now children's parties are more of a social gathering, more like business parties," he said. Of the 100 or so guests attending most birthday parties, 60 will be business contacts of the parents.

The competitiveness of Delhi's new rich is not limited to the scale of the parties they throw, the social standing of the guests or the choice of exotic rides. It also extends to the goodie bags for guests to take home. According to Gupta, these now include expensive electronic toys such as Xbox game consoles, iPod nanos and Game Boy Advance pocket computer games.

As Ishan's guests boarded their Land Cruisers, they passed the Chattarpur Mandir temple complex, where barely dressed children as young as six paint their faces, sport Hanuman mon-key-god tails and tap on the tinted windows, begging for small change.

According to Pavan K Varma of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, the discrepancy in wealth will have passed the party-goers by.

"There is a new class in India with more money than ever before. There's no reticence among them about flaunting it. It's glaring in terms of the unacceptable poverty still around us," he said.

"The more invitation cards we send, the more our status and that of our children is assured. It's about hierarchy. The point isn't to celebrate a birthday, but for people to know how you celebrated it."

You think you've got it rough?

Over the last few months, I've realized that things aren't so bad. There have been quite a few changes, but it really could be worse. Like when you find out you're suddenly working nights but then come to appreciate that at least you have two consecutive days off. That's a good thing. Or if you get a schedule you expect to dislike but it lets you see your nocturnal significant other more frequently.

Or when your back paws don't work and there's no way you can leap or pounce, maybe you can figure something else out.

In the center of the rainbow

So I'm spending a few days in south Florida at the Asian American Journalists Association's annual convention.

I made it down here despite a delay that afforded me enough time to enjoy a paraffin manicure. FYI: it's kind of like getting a hand sculptures at the state fair, only not as much fun.

But! Perhaps if the flight were on time, I would not have seen from the plane my first "full-circle" rainbow -- the entire circle, rather than just the bows we kept stumbling upon in Hawaii last summer and in February. Gorgeous.

It reminds me of one of those moments that reinforces the fact that yes, I am getting old. During a tour through Scotland while studying abroad in Stockton-on-Tees at Durham University I was struck by the beautiful scenery, then struck by an entirely alarming thought: I must be an adult.

Because if I were still eight years old, I'd say, yeah, this scenery is nice, but Disneyland is nicer.

Okay, off to bed before a rousing day of workshops and big-picture thinking ...

bad reality tv

I stumbled on Instant Beauty Pageant on the Style Network one night and regret that I can never get that hour of my life back again ... five women randomly approached in a mall and given three hours to prepare for a beauty pageant, complete with gratuitous product placements.

The highlight of the episode I saw: when contestants almost came to blows in the bar of a chain restaurant while preparing (read: doing shots) before the big event.

It was like a bad car accident -- couldn't look away.

Just when you think your life is difficult

stories like this put everything into perspective:

Wide awake, Costa ready to fish again

By Candus Thomson

Sun reporter

July 18, 2007

It took persistence and medicine, but Tim Costa no longer sleeps with the fishes.

Today, unencumbered by two sleeping disorders that forced him from professional bass fishing six years ago, Costa begins his long comeback on the Potomac River in the Stren Series Northern Division competition, a part of FLW Outdoors.

"It's an amazing change. I was so tired all the time for so long that I didn't realize you weren't supposed to feel that way," says the Erie, Pa., native.

Obstructive sleep apnea and narcolepsy - a one-two punch that caused him to fall asleep without warning - made it impossible for Costa to drive his boat or car. He could barely stay awake at his construction job in Plano, Texas, and was a frequent no-show at family activities.

"It was a toxic-type sleepiness," says Costa, 36. "I was living my whole life exhausted, feeling worse when I woke up than when I went to sleep."

Costa admits he was crushed to walk away from his fledgling career in 2001, having worked his way up to 26th place in the Wal-Mart Bass Fishing League. But he insists he could never risk harming others.

This made me happy

When I first opened the box (I get a lot of hopeful promotional items in My Line of Work) I was convinced it's was the ugliest teddy bear I'd ever seen, or as the Redhead said, like it shouldn't be fed after midnight. Now, after consultations with others, I realize it's a sheep, though it could be a lamb. Symbolism works either way, I suppose. Lined in rabbit's fur, though?

Perhaps I should have a Holy Ghost party someday ...

okay, now I'm impressed

Most of the plastic-bag reuse projects I've encountered are heavy on virtue but low on style, except for these plastic bag chickens fashioned by South African crafters. Really gorgeous.

Yup, this makes me go ew.

So, I've been roaming the craft-er sites lately, looking for directions for all kinds of projects I probably won't finish anytime soon. There's some interesting recycling-reclaiming projects out there, with people knitting iPod covers out of cassette tape and fusing plastic bags into raincoats .

But this one really made me want to hurl, and I don't know why, because I've been known to wear an animal product or two, certainly lamb's wool or sheep's wool ... why not cat?

Make felt from pets

parking

So this black girl reads posted about hunting for premium parking spots yesterday.

I'm definitely in one of the first two categories, lot laissez-faire or parking pragmatist. Whenever I find myself hunting for a close spot I think about how I have these perfectly functional legs that might not be so functional someday. When or if that happens, I'll hunt for a good parking spot. Until then, I'll hoof it from the back or the top level ... leaving the closer spaces for the not-so-mobile.

I do believe in parking karma, however. That finding a perfect space without trying indicates that the universe is telling you that you were meant to be in this place, at this time.

As primarily a street parker, however, I have to say that if I could chose a super power, I want the ability to shove cars that are rudely parked in the middle of two parking spaces out of the way to make room for my vehicle.

Many times I travel through my Mount Vernon neighborhood cursing my fellow residents who carelessly stopped their vehicles about a half-car's length away from the no-stopping sign at the end of the block, or some other misanthropic move. I fantasize about leaving notes on the dashboards of mean parkers and others praising the considerate ones.

Can you see me now, eyes clouding over like Storm, as I whirl around and create gusts of wind that gently-but-quickly realigns cars on the street? It would be so great.

The functional-legs consideration also comes into play when debating stairs-vs.-elevator. Some day, I may long for the time when I could dash up a flight of stairs because I can't.

the Enzyme theory of relationships

Apologies in advance for mangling scientific theories for my own personal use.

So let's pretend humans are like atoms, bouncing around in the universe.

Most atoms are at a higher "energy state" when they haven't formed a bond with other atoms. They're kind of tooling around faster, trying to get in the right position so they can share electrons with another atom. Then they kind of 'relax' because they're at a lower energy state. (Are the parallels clear so far?)

But it's hard for atoms to just randomly orient themselves near other atoms in a way for those bonds to form on their own. Most reactions require a certain amount of extra energy, called activation energy, to take place. You do that by adding things like heat, for example.

What enzymes do is reduce the activation energy needed for a reaction to take place by moving atoms and/or molecules close to each other, in the correct orientation for bonds form. Think of atoms like jigsaw puzzle-like pieces that two atoms in a hypothetical reaction would fit into.

"Enzymes" could be anything that helps two people (or more, if you're into that kind of thing) in the situations where they can get to know each other better. Enzymes could be mutual friends, or cooking classes, or social sports leagues, or random parties. Even elevators could be enzymes! You just kind of have to be open to the experience.

There are several addenda to this theory, including one about breakups that parallels one of Newton's first Law of Motion, the one about inertia --- every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it.

I swear I came up with this while taking general science classes a decade ago, but I just found this much more detailed similar theory with visual aids.

Won't you take me to

Funkstown?

A Prairie Home Companion

I have to say that although I'm a self-avowed NPR addict, I could be persuaded to change stations instead of listening to all the news from Lake Woebegone. But I can't live without Garrison Keillor's columns. Here's a great excerpt from this week's column:

"Unrestricted immigration is a dangerous thing - look at what happened to the Iroquois. They failed to impose border controls and before they knew it, they were dying of infectious diseases they had no names for. In the case of California, however, it was Spanish before it was English and now it's simply tending back that way."

financial survival

The NYT has published a sequel to its 2006 column advising young people to lay off the lattes and instead put the money that would buy fancy coffee in a piggy bank (read: IRA) that will allow you to survive until you die.

Survival, it should be noted, is what we're talking about here --- not necessarily living a life enhanced by pleasures that Americans often purchase regardless of their ability to pay. Don't eat out, don't buy new things, and maybe you'll be able to take a cab to the doctor's office when you're old, instead of waiting in the rain for the bus. And, if you start being miserly now, you'll be accustomed to that lifestyle by the time you're old.

Thankfully, I'm already doing a lot of what Damon Darlin recommends. I've been saving for retirement in various ways and am debt-free. As mentioned here before, as the Child of Immigrants I have witnessed firsthand the way the frugal methods my parents followed to save the money to establish themselves in this country and grown to appreciate how they instilled those values in me. Today, however, they have the means to live more comfortably but can hardly bear to spend money on themselves.

I would like to use my money for things that are truly important to me. Better writers have said this more eloquently than I do, but money buys safety, security, peace of mind. You also can use money to support your interests, but lately I'm struck by how much money I spend to support my goals indirectly.

Why did I pay others to prepare and serve at least a dozen of my meals in the last week, when I could cook similar food better myself? Why did I go places and struggle to get the attention of someone who could pour me an alcoholic beverage?

Mostly, it's because no one (more or less) lives in my house but me, and it's easier to meet a group of people at a restaurant or bar than to try to organize a gathering. So, I'm paying for convenience --- and like it or not, getting what I pay for.

Then there's the separate issue of missing the big picture. Why do I drive miles out of the way to save a few dollars on groceries and then waste larger sums paying late fees or parking tickets?

My goal this month: to determine the true reasons behind my spending and see whether it's really worth it.

Say it ain't so

Rochester, N.Y. makes the NYT's most-e-mailed list, but wish it weren't for this reason.

Two Failures Do Not End Dreams of a Rochester-to-Toronto Ferry

By FERNANDA SANTOS

ROCHESTER, N.Y., May 23 — Two years ago, this city of 190,000 people — with more per-capita murders, high school dropouts and children living in poverty than any other in the state — paid $32 million for a high-speed ferry. It was considered a way to help revive the local economy by shuttling thousands of passengers a day to and from Canada, across Lake Ontario.

The idea was not a new one, and a recent, short-lived attempt gave cause for concern about the city's venture. In the summer of 2004, two private investors had launched a ferry that took two and a half hours to journey between Rochester and Toronto. But they went out of business after just 11 weeks when low ridership, unexpected breakdowns and rising fuel prices left them unable to shoulder the costs of the operation.

The investors' 770-passenger vessel, the Spirit of Ontario, was seized by creditors and remained moored in the ferry terminal here for months. After no one stepped forward to take over the service, the city bought the vessel in February 2005 and got into the ferry business itself, offering three round trips a day. But the city did no better than the investors, and by the end of 2005, the operation was $10 million in the red.

When a new mayor took office in January 2006, he put the boat on the market. "I had to stop the bleeding," the mayor, Robert J. Duffy, said in an interview.

In many ways, Baltimore is kind of like Rochester squared, but while Charm City always seems to disdain the nearby American capital, the Flower City has tried to capitalize on its proximity to Canada's Gotham. So it's sad to see the fast ferry die ... the Redhead and I took one round trip and didn't think it was that bad. Wasn't amazing, but still.