Wherein My Dad and Technology Battle; Dad Loses

For Father's Day I got my Dad a 3 month gift subscription to Blockbuster's Total Access. I thought it was a pretty great gift, since every time I call my parents my Mom reports that my Dad is busy watching TV. In regards to the televisionary arts I am my Father's daughter, so I totally respect and understand the dedication he has to TV and movies.

I thought that even though there was a little bit of technology involved with this present he could probably handle it. After all, he only needed to master his TV, DVD player, one website, and his mailbox. All things that should already be well in hand. Should. 'Should' was the word I should have paid more attention to.

When I gifted him I walked him through how to add movies to his queue and how the whole service worked. We were on target until he called me about a week later and said, "Hi sweetie! I've got a problem. I got the DVD, but my DVD player won't work."

"Oh no! Are you sure? Did you turn the power on?" I asked him. This might sound condescending, but believe me, it's happened before. And when it happens I can always tell because he'll say "Oh, nevermind, I fixed it. Bye!" and hang up. Tricky, Pop, very tricky.

"Yeah, but it's still not working."

"Hmm. Well, you know, there's this cord that comes out of the back of the DVD player. It's probably black. Follow that cord and make sure its plugged into the wall." I said, not sure what level of tech support I could offer from 3000 miles away, but wanting to start with the basics.

He called me a smart-alek and said he'd do some more poking around. And that was the last I thought about it.

Until today.

Today he called and said, "Do you have your tissues handy? Are you ready for a sad story?"

"Sure," I said, "what happened?"

"So remember how I couldn't get my DVD player to work? Well I called Justin, or Dustin, or something at Best Buy and he said he could help me but it would cost $100. I told him I needed to think about it. When I called back they said Justin/Dustin wasn't there, and that I really needed to talk to the Geek Squad. When I told the Geek Squad what the problem was they said that what I really needed was a Home Theater System with a thingamajiggy and a whizbob and that it was going to cost $200. I told them to kiss a pig.

"So, I'm sorry to tell you this, sweetie, but you spent all of that money on my nice present and I only got one DVD. And I wasn't even able to watch it! Now the subscription is expiring. Sorry!"

"Oh, that sucks! But don't worry about it. I'm just sorry that you didn't get to use your present" I said.

"Hey, since I didn't get to use it, doesn't that mean that I get another one?" he asked.

"Uhhhh. No. And, as a matter of fact, I'm not giving you another present until you use the one you have."

"That's not fair! I'm an old man. Do you know that I'm turning 70 this year? You should show me more respect" he pouted.

"I'll put that on my To Do list for 2009 right away! ... TO DO: Respect Dad."

"You're a bad daughter. You know what you can get me for my next present? See's makes some really good candies."

"Pop, See's really good candies will pull your 70 year old teeth out of your head" I pointed out, and he reluctantly agreed.

Silly Dad. But this was a good lesson for me. Next time I'm not getting him anything that was invented after the Industrial Revolution. I'm sure he'll feel right at home with his See's candy and wooden dentures.

Let's Take This Relationship Online

Chatting with a guy at a party this weekend:

"So. Are you on Facebook?"

"Yes, I am."

"Under what name?"

"My name. Gretchen Hanson."

"I think we should be friends."

"Facebook Friends?"

"Yeah, Facebook friends."

"OK. Send me an invite. I'll confirm it."

That being decided we immediately stopped talking to each other face to face.

I'd Like to Thank the Academy

It was a little weird rubbing Erin's belly for good luck. But boy oh boy did it pay off! I just won a Neat Receipts Scanalizer from one of my fav new sites: Sk*rt! I love love love winning!

Sk*rt is crazy cool. It's like Digg, but with stories that I care about such as:

• Pretty Laptop Cases on Etsy
• How to Travel the World with 10 Pounds or Less
• Gene for Left-Handedness is Found
• Miss White Trash Pageant (no joke)

Seriously, this is important stuff. Sk*rt keeps me up to date on all of the really important things people are talking about. And they give me presents. So of course I like them!

Technology Makin the Grade

I spend a lot of time through the course of my day playing around on the Internet Machine. Most of this is justifiable, as I try to keep up with new technologies and user trends. Some of course, is just plain screwing around (damn you Sudoku! your tricky number patterns continue to baffle my feeble mind!). But for the most part I'm interested in seeing what the new trends are, and in many cases, finally adopting some of those old trends (like RSS, what was I thinking by not doing this before?!)

A few select things have actually made into my daily routine, which makes them pretty notable!

Stumble - This is the best time waster of all time! You install this little baby in your toolbar, and when you have a free moment, you click "Stumble!" and it takes you to an interesting site. I've found so many neat things here! I learned how to draw a head, did a geography quiz on the Middle East (didn't do so hot), saw some of the most beautiful pictures known to man (EarthAlbum), and got recipes for what I have in my fridge right now (Cooking by Numbers). If you ever have downtime at work - this is a must!

East 41st - Do you ever browse the bookstore and think "Gosh, I'd love to read this book, but funds are low - I should check it out from the library." But then you get to the library and you can't remember what it was you saw at the bookstore? Or you can't find the scraps of paper where you jotted the list down? Well E41 will put this particular problem to rest. You can browse Amazon.com, and save the books you are interested in into "My Bookshelf". Then, you can look your books up at your local library to see if they have them (and if you're a high-power library user like myself, you can put the items on hold). I asked the developer to add Montgomery County Library (which he did in ONE day!), so if your local library isn't available just ask! Love it. Love it. Love it!

Sage RSS Reader - Technically, RSS has been around for a million years, but for some reason I never really thought it would be relevant for me. There weren't that many websites I was interested in getting daily updates from. (Traditionally, RSS is good for news distribution, but I don't care that much about the news). The Sage RSS Reader is built into FireFox, so I thought I'd give it a whirl. This went from mildly interesting technology to a "must have" as soon as I started adding blogs to it. Now I can simply open the reader and click update to see if any of my friends have updated their blogs. It saves me from having to go to each one to see if they've updated. Since it's so easy to see if things have been updated I'm adding all kinds of sites (TechCruch, PerezHilton, a few librarian blogs etc.) I find that I want more sites to have RSS feeds available. I'm really smacking my forehead that I waited so long on this one!

Now, there are a lot of things out there that I think are really cool but I don't use them everyday. These next few deserve a nod, and maybe they'll find a home in your daily routine.

Honorable Mentions
Etsy.com - This site specializes in selling handmade goods. (you know "crafts") I'm not a big craft person, but some of this stuff is really cool. What really makes this site cool though is how fun it is! Check out the "Colors" button to the left - you can shop for items by color (in a really cool way!). The TimeMachine is also really amazing! The neatest part about this site is being able to fling the items around - it's really fun! You should give it a try!

Diigo - If you are organizing a lot of websites and the information on them, this is a handy little guy. You can bookmark pages (nothing special there). But you can highlight portions of the page - like quotes or pictures, and then tag them up. This is handy if you are trying to remember which site you saw that really interesting quote on. I was using this regularly for a while, but I've sort of stopped. Not sure why.

StyleHive - Web2.0 meets Shopping. I don't use this site too much because I don't do too much online shopping. But it's still a pretty cool place. AND I found some really cool sticker-like wallpaper I'm interested in trying.

and finally (not necessarily in the website category, but I still think it's cool) ...

iPhone - So the chances of me actually ever owning an iPhone are practically nil, given I'm the cheapest, non-gadgety chic on the planet. But when I read the press release for the iPhone, I'll admit I got swept up in the euphoria. I was glad, glad I tell you, that Cingular will be hosting the service so that now there's a remote possibility that this might someday be mine (This is key since I've signed so many new service agreements with Cingular that I think my contract now extends beyond my life expectancy). And I'll admit I got so excited thinking about how cool this phone would be that actual tears leaked out of my eyes. The iPhone is pretty damn cool.