Self-help Books on iTunes... a Shrink on an iPod

I did a search on Limewire (don't judge me... I still buy CDs all the time) for "audiobooks". I was about to take a road trip home and was hoping for an audio version of Harry Potter or a Narnia book. Instead, I came across several Anthony Robbins books and a few copies of "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus." You can imagine my surprise. So, I did what anyone would do in a situation like this. I downloaded them. I then spent the next two of the four hours in the car on my way home listening to why men an women need to change their views of each other in order to get along. I have never felt more sad in all my life.

Books-on-iTunes, as I like to call them, are a kind of digital narrative that has put a caring yet somewhat famous (Hello, Anthony Robbins) in your pocket, care of your iPod. I sat in my car that day with my iPod-car converter plugged in, listening to the high-pitched voice of a middle-aged man telling me that we women have the wrong picture of men. We see them like us, yet they are extremely different. Though most of the two hours it was on was spent with the volume all the way down while I talked on the phone, I thought to myself for a moment, "Who the hell really listens to this? When would you listen to this?" I pictured a 30something spinster at work with her headphones in. Someone would walk in and say "Hey, whatcha listening to?" She would then hurry to think of a song she had heard on the radio while slyly edge her iPod closer to her so the intruder could not see the screen.

Thought to be a fad of the 80s and 90s, self-help books have come back with a vengeance. Don't have room in your purse for that Chicken Soup book? No problem. Just load it up on your iPod, and some lady or man will read it to you as you feed the cats.

Video "for the next couple of days:"
Okay so this one was a little sooner than "a couple of days." This show was one of my favorites. It was on the Disney Channel before it came on regular cable. For the few of us who were priveleged with the "exclusive Disney Channel" days... this one is for you. :)

Digital Video... Or Another Way that I Waste too Much Time

In case you haven't read a word from this blog the entire semester, I'm kind of a fan of digital video. I have seen almost every "talked about" Youtube video, plus some. Every time I want to see an old music video, I look it up on Youtube. If I missed a show on TV, I watch it on the network's website. Even better than TiVo, being able to watch any number of ABC shows on their website from any computer (that has the right plug ins and enough RAM) makes it extremely easy to watch TV.

I have a thing for old TV shows. Call it an extreme version of nostalgia, I like all things 80s/early 90s. To think that things that I used to watch when I was little are now considered "old" is pretty funny to me.

Digital video, while it can be very useful to people like me that can never commit to sitting in front of a TV at the same time every week, can also be detrimental. Bootleg movies, for instance, is a form of piracy that has lost the movie industry millions of dollars in ticket revenues. There are a number of sites with hundreds of titles that can be seen without paying any kind of fee. This not only takes revenue away from box office sales, but DVD sales as well.

The Youtube phenomenon has changed the face of Web 2.0 dramatically. The whole point of Web 2.0 was that it is more participatory, and what could be more participatory than Youtube? Not only can you easily give your opinion on any video posted on the site, but you can even load a video yourself. You can make your own show with "webisodes" without answering to anyone. You are the director, the creator, the actor, and the boss.

In the spirit of digital video, here goes the video "for the next couple of days:"

This one was an 80's classic that has been brought back several times. But no matter how hard they try, it'll never be as big as it was in the 80s. Children's mentality just isn't the same. Enjoy the video!

Editing Texts Electronically

After reading a little on editing texts electronically, I still don't have that firm of a grasp on it. However, I think, from what I gathered, that what I've done in my workshop classes is a type of electronic editing. As an alternative to the red pen to paper method, I like to use the "comments" function on Word when I review my peers' drafts. It's a neat little innovation that allows me to put a little bubble next to something I want to comment on. For example, I can put next to the 23rd repeat of the word excellent "You might want to use your thesaurus after the 15th time you use this word, as great of a word it might be." I might also make comments of a somewhat more professional tone.

That's pretty much the extent of my experience with electronic editing. The only other editing I do is when I modify my Facebook profile, which is hardly a sophisticated work of creative nonfiction. The extent of my editing usually reaches to changing one of my interests from "cheap wine" to "good wine," or finding a new witty line for my "About Me" section such as "I always wear more than the minimum amount of flair," or "I specialize in one-liners, so don't hold the bar too high for the second line." I guess that could be a different kind of editing in itself, almost like an electronic editing of myself? Wow... deep for a class-related blog. :)

For the video "of the next couple of days," I thought I'd put another old Nickelodeon show. This one was so ahead of its time, it needs no introduction. Enjoy.

Mobile Technology-- or Why I Can't Survive Without the Internet

Wireless Internet and I have a rocky relationship. I liken it a lot to the relationship between a druggie and his or her fix of choice. It has spoiled me into thinking that I can be connected to the Internet, and when I can't be-- there are problems. There is nothing more disappointing to me than lugging my laptop around, only to find that I can't be connected to some wireless network at my chosen location. There are few things more disheartening in life than seeing the phrase "no wireless network detected."

Why have I and-- more importantly-- everyone become so dependent on being connected to other people?

With the sudden onslaught of smartphones such as the Palm and the Blackberry, searching for a wireless network is no longer a problem. You are the wireless network. While I have yet to give in to "the Blackberry craze," (I'm about to, as soon as my current wireless contract is over so I can get a cheap one.) it seems that everyone around me has. No longer just a tool for businessmen and women on the go, the smartphone has become a mainstay of anyone and everyone. Why did it somehow become a need to be connected 24 hours a day? Do you really need to check your e-mail on the bus on the way to class? Not really.

It's as if we have become more social in the electronic world and less social in the real world. Here's some advice. Next time you see a friend on the bus, put down your Sidekick and have a real conversation. Your Facebook account will be there when you get back. Promise.

Video of "the next couple of the days": This is by far my favorite show when I was little. I actually remember myself hearing it come on in the living room and would drop whatever I was doing to come watch it. My mom taped the Christmas special when I was 4, and I have since watched it at Christmas EVERY year. My 6 year old sister has now become a fan. So here's the opening sequence of the Christmas special. Enjoy!

Sparknotes.com: The Bastardized Version of Electronic Texts

Remember cheating on your middle/high school reading assignment but just reading Cliffs Notes? Well now you don't even have to waste a trip to the bookstore!

I must admit, I'm just as guilty of this as the next person. Sparknotes.com has not only created a large library of book summaries, it has taken things a step further. I came across this service by accident one night, in a fit of finals week desperation. Being ever the Shakespeare illiterate, I was assigned to write a paper on a book I did not understand (at least not enough to write 1500 words about). At about 1:00 AM, I gave up trying to decode the dark depths of Othello, and resigned myself to consult Sparknotes. I figured I would at least find a starting point for a paper.

What I found would probably shock you. Sparknotes now has a small library of Shakespeare texts that it completely "translates," a free online service they call "No Fear Shakespeare." You can now read a line from Julius Caesar that says "Trebonius doth desire you to o'er-read, at your best leisure, this his humble suit," and it is "translated" in the second column as "Trebonius wants you to look over his humble petition, at your leisure." Click here to see the rest of the text.

Video for "the next couple of days:" Who doesn't love this cartoon? I used to wish I was in this family. Actually, I kind of still do.

Ebay-- the model of e-commerce

Why didn't anyone think about it before? An online auction site! Well, there probably was one earlier that sucked, and at some point tried (or will try) to sue Ebay for copyright infringement, like Facebook. Anyway, I decided to take some time to do some research on Ebay to see exactly how it works (outside of the countless hours I see how cheap people sell designer duds outside of department stores).

My dad is a pretty big Ebayer, but I've never actually taken the time to explore the site outside of the designer section (of which I've never actually BIDDED on anything... I seem to suffer from the common ailment of not-a-big-enough-paycheck syndrome). I looked through some of the free tutorials on the "Ebay University" sections and it made me want to go through my drawers and find things to sell. Seriously.

So how does Ebay make all of its money? Well, it (refreshingly) has no advertisements to outside companies on its site, so it obviously has to make its revenue from those who buy and sell right? Well, kind of. Only that it's free to buy things on there. If you wanted an account to only buy, say, Burberry trench coats and rainboots for your upcoming semester in London, it wouldn't cost a thing to you (outside of what you pay the vendor of course). Instead, Ebay takes a small percentage of what you make (less of a percentage than those damn Coinstar machines, which is like 9%) from the items that you list.

So I started wandering around the Ebay site and thought I'd make a list of some of the weird stuff people try to (and sometimes actually do) sell. Here's what I found:

sorority badges- so that you can either pretend you are in a sorority that you are not... or to add to your really creepy collection

"Baby Sub Sandwich Combo"- appears to be various baby items that are packed in a way that make it look like... you guessed it. You probably have to see this one to believe it.

cars- if you actually buy a car off of Ebay, you are just asking to get taken for a ride... no pun intended

Beanie Babies- if this were ten years ago... this would not be on my "ridiculous" list. But it's not, so it is.

grocery coupons- does this need an explanation?

"fake food"- this actually has its own category with 166 listings. Fake Starbucks coffee spill anyone?

And now for the video "of the next couple of days!" A friend and myself found this one after a couple minutes of racking our nostalgic brains. They're actually making a movie of this, supposedly coming out some time in 2009.

We were all sitting around the kitchen table. It was Sunday morning. Pancake morning.

So I didn't have a firm grasp on exactly what "text encoding" was until I came to class. I initially thought it was another kind of HTML... which through my still somewhat fuzzy knowledge of it, it very well could be.
I decided to take the cover of my favorite children's book (if you haven't read it... you need to), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The title is written in a larger font than any other part of the page, obviously to draw the reader's attention to the title. You will usually see with big-time authors that the author's name is the same size-- if not bigger-- than the title. This is not the case with this book. All the colors used on the cover can be considered "appetizing" colors, since the entire book is about food. There is not one page in the book with blue or purple or any other "unappetizing" colors.

The picture on the cover has a special role, in that it tells you exactly what the book is about: weather that brings food. It rains soup, snows meatballs, fogs pea soup, and morning-dews eggs. It's actually making me really hungry right now. It's raining outside, and I swear I can smell soup. Yummmmm.

Video of the next couple of days: This show started on Disney before it was on regular cable, so I didn't get to watch a lot of it when I was younger. This cartoon is definitely from Disney Channel's "glory days," when I didn't feel like I was getting more and more stupid watching (have you ever seen Max and Ruby? If you have, you'd know what I'm talking about).