Accidental Early Starts...DirecTV and Other Weekendness

This has been another of those weekends that has just flown by. It was one where I had few plans other than to stay home on Saturday morning and wait for the DirecTV man to come. Since it was time to renew my contract, I called them up to cancel with a secret hope they'd lure me to stay by offering me some free goodies. Since I bought an HDTV after I'd subscribed to my original service, I was hoping for a free HDTV upgrade. Lo and behold, my threat of leaving their service guaranteed me a free HDTV receiver and free service for 24 months.

Thus, that was my plan for Saturday morning- to stay home and wait for Mr. DirecTV to come. My window of time was 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. I was pretty sure they wouldn't be there at 8 a.m. but, just in case, I planned on getting up by 7:30 a.m. to be ready. Well, that was a fine idea. I set my alarm for 7 a.m. so I could doze for 30 minutes. When it did go off at 7 a.m., I changed the alarm so it'd go off in another 30 minutes. At least I thought I had.

I dozed. Then my phone rang. It was an automated message from DirecTV reminding me that I had someone coming at 8 a.m. I glanced at the clock- it was almost 8:15 a.m.! I flew out of bed and got dressed quickly. I didn't fancy the DirecTV man coming while I was still in my pajamas.

I let the pups out and ran around and cleared up. Then, finally, I sat down. I glanced at the clock in my living room. I blinked. It appeared to say it was not quite eight a.m.

Well, it turned out that Silly Captain Monkeypants had accidentally adjusted the time on her clock rather than the alarm and my dozing which I thought had lasted an hour had in actuality only been about five minutes of dozing. Yes, i had been up since 7:10 a.m.

Mr. DirecTV came at 9:30 a.m. He had a bit of trouble with my old dish. Apparently there was a hornet's nest up there and he was deathly allergic so he didn't want to take it away like he was supposed to. Instead, he put a new dish up and left the old one so now I have two dishes. I think when the weather cools and the wasps die off, I may have them come and remove it just because I really don't want two dishes.

The installation of HDTV took quite a while. By the time he left, I was quite glad. He was a nice enough technician but he had been working outside in the heat and he was a little stinky. Also, he put those plastic footie things over his shoes so he didn't mess up my carpet and he ended up wearing right through the plastic so his shoes were only covered at the top. I didn't care but i thought it was a little pointless wearing the footie things. Also, the dogs were penned up in the kitchen/Tuscan room area and they don't like strangers in the house. Sookie likes to have a good woof. I call it her "STRANGER DANGER" bark.

I finally freed the dogs around noon. I immediately headed off to a local farmer's market. I'd made the mistake of spending the morning reading Bon Appetit and it had a ton of recipes for fresh veggies, particularly tomatoes so I really, really wanted some fresh tomatoes.

In the end, my Saturday ended up flying by and it was Sunday. Today, I spent most of the day getting "Emmy Goes to Hell" ready to be published as an e-book. It's a lot of work because you have to be very, very specific regarding format. The format for e-books is pretty much the complete opposite of print books so it's all rather tedious.

I perservered and the book is in the final approval status by my publisher. Once it gets approved, Emmy will be on sale for the low price of $2.99 on every electronic device out there. It's also available from Amazon as a hard copy, just in case you don't own a Kindle, Nook, etc. And yes, that was another shameless plug.

All in all, it's been a good weekend so far. The girls and I are currently enjoying a thunderstorm that brought some wonderful, much-needed rain. It's been pouring for a while and I can already see that my parched garden is drinking it up and appreciating every drop. Even when you water with a hose, it's never the same as organic rain. I expect my vegetables to grow a little more quickly for a while.

I love weekends like this where I have no real plans. I only really had the plan of waiting for DirecTV and possibly seeing "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2" again. I didn't end up seeing Harry but that was intentional. I do want to see it again quite badly but I decided that if I wait another week, I'll appreciate more again because it won't be quite so fresh.

For the rest of the weekend, I plan of spending some time with the neglected pups. They hate it when I sit at my desktop and work because I'm ignoring them and despite her best efforts, Sookie is just not a lapdog. I love having her on my lap but the length of a dachshund is not really conducive to comfort or convenience while trying to simutaneously type on a keyboard.

I also plan to go outside in a few minutes and spend a little time dancing in the rain because it's been so long since it rained and it's just so pleasant to feel those drops falling down and cooling everything down. I think that sounds like a lovely way to wind up a weekend, don't you?

Thanks, as always for reading. I hope you had a great weekend. Happy Monday!

Lessons From Business Trips...

The trouble with travelling is you're never guaranteed an internet connection. This is why I haven't blogged all week. I had no internet. It was a nuisance.

However, I'm back now. Unfortunately, my brain is a wee bit fried having just arrived home a short while ago. Thus, I won't be too deep tonight. In fact, I'm going to be a little bit of a cheater. I'm going to simply make this a list of things I learned on my trip this week.

1) Flying sucks. This is NOT a new revelation. It is, however, a renewed one as it inevitably is whenever I fly. My first plane was cancelled. I was supposed to be rescheduled the next day. Fortunately, I got rebooked for a short while later than my regular plane. Unfortunately, this led to a 3 hour delay in Detroit and arrival at my hotel room six hours later than originally scheduled. However, two of my coworkers who flew out on the morning flight I was originally rescheduled on ended up having major engine trouble. Instead of landing in Chicago, they had to be rerouted to Milwaukee and then were driven down to Chicago in a bus. Moral of this story? There's always someone far worse off than you.

2) A bistro is a cool little cafe. They belong in France, really but you can find nifty bistro-type places all over the place. A bistro is NOT a vending machine. Sticking a sign over a vending machine that says "Bistro" does not make a vending machine anything other than a...vending machine.

3) Travelling with a 23 year-old-coworker is rather like travelling with a child. I had to check him in because he didn't know how. I had to guide him around the airport and tell him what to do for security. Then I ate dinner with him and watched as he drank several long-island iced teas and a beer. I'm glad I'm not 23 anymore.

4) It's nice to like 99.9 percent of your coworkers, including ones from all the branch offices of your company. The .01 % is a woman who was a wee bit intense, scary and very much "LOOK AT ME, I'M FABULOUS" in all of our sessions. Also, she had REALLY scary eyes as in "I'm going to focus on you now and make you think I'm fascinated by what you're saying but, really, I'm planning on how to rip out your heart and eat it."

5) When you're served a five course Italian meal, it's actually relatively easy to avoid eating like a pig. Family style helps because you control the portions. Also, if you don't keep scarfing the appetizers, that helps. However, it's really nice to go out to dinner and have a five course Italian meal.

6) No matter how much I learn, how nice the people are and how comfy my hotel bed, I still miss my dogs.

7) When you're in a hotel room and the TV in the bedroom doesn't work, that sucks.

8) When you have another TV in the hotel room (because it's a suite), that's nice. However, the sad thing is that once upon a time, staying in a hotel room with a flat screen and cable TV was a luxurious treat for me. Now, I have a TV similar to those in hotels and I now have DirectTV. Thus, hotel TV is just...normal. There's something sad and jaded about that.

9) Having an Amazon Kindle makes air travel fabulously easy. It's just a bit of a nusiance to have to turn it off for takeoff and landing but it's a small price to pay for having a ton of books in one handy little gadget.

10) I have to do my job really well this year because if I meet a certain quota by the end of August, I get to join the company all-expense paid trip to London.

12) Even though a hotel claims to offer "free wireless", when you have to pay $14.95 for 12 hours of usage, that's not really free, is it?

13). Meetings in Chicago in January...not the best idea. It was freezing-raining and ice. When you have to wear 'business casual' which includes high-heeled boots, that's a bad plan. Note to my company: Next time, can we have a 'casual' attired affair? Snowboots, chunky sweaters and jeans are way more practical and comfortable for sitting in a room for eight hours and learning stuff.

and, finally...

13. There's not place like home. When you land at your home airport and know your car is only a short distance away which will, in turn, take you home....there's something lovely and comforting in that. Absence makes the heart grown fonder and so does travelling on any airline...

I'm sure there's a lot more things I learned but for now, that's all my brain will allow me to type. It's back to work tomorrow, as usual so I'll be back to my regular blogging schedule. Thanks, as always, for reading!

Happy Thursday!

Buy my e-Book! (I mean, uh, Happy...Thursday!)

It's already Thursday. For those of your that didn't get Monday off, I'm sure the week feels like it's dragging. I did get Monday off and the week, so far is whizzing by.

It probably helps that I'm busy at work. I like it when that happens. At the moment, I have the type of projects that absorb me from the time I get into the office until the time I leave. It's actually fun. I get to use my brain. For me, this is a feat. I confess, until recently, I don't think I used my brain at work in quite a long time. Unless, of course, you count the effort it takes to calculate how long I have to surf until the coworker-who-can-always-see-what-I'm-doing-on-on-my-computer-when-he-turns-his-head returns from the bathroom. And yes, I admit, I do pay attention to this sort of information. When you used to have adequate time to surf the web and are now reduced to seconds, you learn when the vital moments happen. Also, you learn to surf Facebook on your phone. I have recently learned this is a wise decision; my company has just restricted access to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

A few months ago, I would have been outraged at this. However, MySpace is SO 2008. EVERYONE uses Facebook now, I mean, come on, MySpace, really? I have a MySpace account but I haven't used it in several months. It's all about Facebook. And Twitter?

Well, I admit, after probably what adds up to be over a year, maybe two, I still haven't, um, figured out the whole "Tweeting" thing. As someone described it to me, it's like posting a status update on Facebook for any subscriber to see. It makes sense...theoretically. However, hearing the horror stories of 'tweets' from celebrities, I just can't be bothered. At least on Facebook, I know the people who read my updates are 'friends' of some kind or another.

I suppose I should be irritated that my company has stripped yet another freedom from us. In actuality, I don't even care. If I didn't have a Blackberry, I might. After all, even if our PC's or, in the case of 99% of my coworkers, Mac's, are blocked from finding Facebook, they can't block my Blackberry. Thus, when I get into the office, I'll just hit my Facebook App's 'search for updates' option and see what my friends are up to. They can take my freedom, they can take my liberty but they can't take my cunning or covertness from me. I WILL continue to keep abreast of my friends' Facebook updates, darn it, oh yes, I will.

Yet, even with this minor distraction, I'm still keeping busy at work. I'm shocking myself with my productivity. I'm actually annoyed with myself for doing so much work. However, I will admit when I have a project that makes the day whiz by while you're trying to get it done, it makes work feel pretty decent. I won't say I LOVE my job because, well, frankly, that would be a lie. However, I can't say I don't like my job because, at the moment, that, too, would be a lie. I'm testing software at the moment. I'm being paid to try to break it. To me, that's a challenge. I hate to sound arrogant, but I think I'm pretty good at it, too. According to several of the programmers I work with, I have a 'unique' way of testing. When they say that, it has an air of disdain. To me, it has a tinge of victory. Of course I have a unique way of testing it! First of all, I remove all my intelligence and try to approach our software like I'm a newbie who has no idea what they're doing. Then I give myself a cool name like Sookie Stackhouse, Buffy Summers, Hermione Granger, Lorelie Gilmore...whatever I feel like naming myself. Then I test our software as though I'm clueless. It's a failsafe system: I end up finding the weirdest bugs that our entrenched, experienced programmers had no idea existed because they don't think about seeing the software through new eyes.

I'm not saying I'm great at my job just that I do have a unique approach: I pretend I've never seen it before. On occasion, I'm told that I'm being naive, that, chances are, the user will know what they're doing and the bug I find is minute and insignificant. To me, it's always significant. I found it, therefore someone else will.

It's my job and I don't mind it at all, as long as someone listens to me. Even if they don't, I make my point known in our staff meetings. My boss looks at me for a moment and then his eyes glaze over and I know he doesn't care why I think a bug is significant. However, to me, it is. It's a tiny thing but it means something.

The nice thing is that if I find a bug and no one acknowledges it, chances are that a client will find it a few months later. It becomes significant then and I get to play the "I told you so," card. That's a valuable asset, unto itself.

In the meantime, I continue to find creative, out-of-the-ordinary ways to test our software for bugs. It's working nicely for me, even if it means I have to use my brain.

As long as I don't use Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Because that's forbidden.

Happy Thursday!

PS* If you do get to surf the web at work or at home or whenever, feel free to check out my first e-published novel. At the moment, you have to read it on the Amazon Kindle or the iPhone Kindle App but, shortly, it'll be available on any e-reader that's out there. It's cheap, $1.99 for an entire novel...but please feel free to help out a struggling writer....it's worth your while, I promise: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0038M2C3U

Trying to Get Beyond the Rejection Letter.

Remember how I wrote that blog a couple of days ago about the iPad? I think I might be about to become a hypocrite.

Yet, in my defense, I won't be e-reading, I'll just be e-selling.

As a writer, I've learned that trying to get a novel published is a little like stumbling out into the cold, blustery wilderness of the North pole and hoping someone rescues you. Or, more realistically, it's like being forced to watch Ice Road Truckers with your dad and knowing that it's more than likely that one of the truckers might slide out and plunge into the lake, freezing to death before they can drown.

Either way, you get the idea. Trying to break into publishing is pretty impossible.

It's hard to admit. In truth, I'm an idealist. I see the way things should be versus the way they actually are. I see the fact that I've written a light, funny, timely fictional novel that would probably not cost much to promote or produce and I think, "Why would an agent/publisher NOT want to take a chance on this?"

Yet then I get a few rejections and I realize that my idealistic approach is not going to cut it.

The thing is, I have a feeling if people could actually read my novel, The Reluctant Demon, they might enjoy it. In my horrible way of paraphrasing, it's True Blood meets Paranormal Activity (the horribly, slightly creepy movie that killed at the box office around Halloween."

In truth, it's a dark comedy with elements of horror and romance thrown in.

So far, agents feel that "it's not for them."

I wouldn't feel bad except I've now accomplished a grand total of writing nine novels. While I get that some of my novels are hard sells, there's NINE of them. Dear agents: give me a chance. I can write. I can write fast. When I write fast, I write well. In short, I might not have sparkly vampires or DaVinci type code-breaking characters but I have fun.

Yet, what I'm finding in my research is that agents recieve up to 200 queries a day. Of those 200, less than 1% is likely to get more than a kind "Thanks for submitting, good luck" email."

I appreciate the kindness. It's not quite the same as "I loved your premise, let me read more."

My bitterness is probably a little hard to hide. It's a world in which Stephanie Meyer can get an agent to pay attention to her novel because her good friend is also represented by that agent. Stephanie Meyer, gets a read. The rest of us...don't. Long story short, Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series becomes a blockbuster.

Score one for Stephanie. Score nil for the rest of us writers who don't know anyone.

So, here I sit. Nine novels later. Not having got anywhere with any one of those novels is really making me feel quite pathetic. Are they all really so bad that no agent will even look at them?

The pessimist/low self-esteem holder in me says "yes." The realist says, "But they haven't even read them!"

It's all about the query letter. Let me tell you, I've sent out a very large amount of them and nothing seems to work. I've tried funny queries, serious queries, quirky queries, attention getters. I've googled "successful query letters" and read ones that have managed to get their writers an agent. I have taken that successful query and modeled my own exactly after it.

Nothing. It's as though I'm beating my head against a wall. I think it's because you're supposed to give your writing credentials, what experience do I have? The sad fact of the matter is that I don't have much. I have nine novels. If I tell them that, I feel like they're going to chuck the letter aside and say, "nine novels, no agent/publisher? Obviously SHE sucks."

No, I don't think I do. It's just I can't get an agent to read my novel. You can't get published without an agent. You can't get an agent without being published. Catch-22.

In all honesty, as a writer, I don't want to get published for money. All I really want is someont to read my book, enjoy it and pass the word. I want people to enjoy my fiction, it doesn't have to change the world. It just has to take the readers out of it for a little while.

I used to think I needed an agent to do this. Today, however, a simple suggestion from a coworker has me thinking. I'm thinking trying out my novel in an e-book format might be worth looking into to see if it's for me.

I did look into it. You know what? The Kindle publishing industry is doing well. Apparently, if you publish your books for a low price, people will read it. They might not like it but they WILL read it.

With The Kindle as well as the Barnes and Noble Nook, my book will be displayed in a highly readable format, making it simple to publish to the Kindle as well as the Nook.

Ironically, agents say that if its on the Nook/Kindle/Sony e-reader, it's out of their hands. They can't represent an author who has been published, even if it is on The Nook.

To this, I say, poo-ey. As 'an author', I know whatever I've written might be bad. It might imply that I can't 'get' an agent.

Sadly, that seems to be true. I can't get an agent. They just don't want to take a risk on new, unpublished writers who aren't guaranteed success.

Agents/publishers are shy. They're really looking for that one author who can quickly sell them a half a billions' worth of stuff. They're not looking for a someone who cares enough to publish a few sample chapters. They want someone who can produce.

So, I think this Kindle thing might be worth looking into. Take the power from the agents and try it myself. I think that many of the agents' protestations about e-books are out of fear: If we can publish ourselves, why do we need them?

I don't know what people are reading. I don't know if my work will do well with e-readers. I only hope people are looking for something new and different. I'd like to think that I'm new and different. If not, well, I hope that people try to enjoy my book anyway. It's intended to be funny and quirky. Enough said.

What I do hope is that they enjoy my book, that they enjoy my characters and storyline. I have a feeling they will

In my wildest glass-half-full moments, I would love to publish on the Kindle and find that an agent is waiting there, in the wings, to snap me up.

The realist in me knows I'll be lucky if you make a penny.


Still...I havthink I'll give it a go.

Happy Thursday!

The Joys of a Real Book...

It's already Sunday evening. As always, the weekend flew by in a complete and utter whirlwind and here I sit, blogging before I go to bed and get up again on another somewhat-dreaded Monday morning.

I can't complain about my weekend, it was nice, even if it flew by. I finally got to see Avatar in 3D which was amazing. The movie itself was pretty blah. It was "Dances with Wolves" set in space, as a friend had warned me. However, it was so amazing visually to watch that it was well worth the price of the ticket. I also got to spend time with my brothers which is pretty rare unless a holiday is involved.

I also finally just finished reading Julie and Julia. All I can say is thank goodness I can move onto another book with a hopefully more likeable main character. I kept hoping Julie Powell was going to redeem herself and have some moment in which I realized she wasn't that bad. Not so. She had a tantrum and crying fit after she attempted a majority of the recipes which didn't seem to turn out that well very often. What I found amusing is that in the third "The End" part of the book (she couldn't seem to find a place to stop so she wrote "The End" then continued. Then she wrote "The End" and continued again anyway), she talks about how the challenge of cooking all of Julia Child's recipes helped her find a sense of "Joy". I'm curious as to where, exactly, she found that joy because it's certainly not apparent in the book. Perhaps she did but maybe she should have tried to capture that the same way the movie did far more successfully. She did nothing but whine, complain and insult quite a few people. She was also horribly condescending.

Now, I'm going to move on, hopefully to something entertaining. My friend, Ms. P, suggested Outlander and said that it has some nice steamy moments. Since I could use a few steamy moments, I'm willing to give it a try. My mum had a copy of it so I didn't even have to work that far to find it.

I often borrow books from people. I often loan them out too. It's a fun way of bonding with people. This is why I'm becoming more and more curmudgeonly regarding e-readers and e-books. Now they're coming out with the iPad in March. It's a big, giant iPhone, essentially, primarily for reading electronic media such as magazines and books.

Now, don't get me wrong. I get some of the reasonings behind this, the Kindle and the Nook- the current popular e-readers on the market. I just don't personally agree with them. Sure, if I'm going on a plane trip that's going to last a while, taking one little tiny electronic device instead of a bag full of books is going to be more economical, not to mention saving my poor back some strained muscles because of the weight.

But it's not the same. I love the smell of a book, the joy of opening a new book for the first time and hearing the crackle of new pages. I love throwing a book in my backpack in case I get chance to read somewhere.

I love to read in the bath. Which is one of the reasons I think the e-readers will never replace paper books. I mean, accidents happen. Books get dropped in the water or, at the very least, splashed. On a paper book, it means some warped pages, perhaps having to buy a replacement copy.

What if you were to read the iPad in the bath? First of all, not practical. Though I'm sure it's not possible to electrocute yourself in this manner, I'd still worry about that anyway. Also, if you drop that in the tub, you're down $499. I don't think apple is going to be offering replacement iPads if you were dumb enough to drop it in the bath.

No, I know the technology junkies salute e-readers because you can have that instant gratification of wanting to read a book and suddenly thinking, "hey, I'll buy it." And boom, there it is on your reader.

Not me. I'm a contemplater when it comes to books. I only buy them when I've either read it before and must have a copy of my own or when I trust the author so much that I know it will be good enough to invest in. Otherwise, I go to the library. I like to read the back covers of books, browse the pages to see if the writing style is going to agree with me.

How can you do any of that on an e-reader? It's just not the same. Besides, though I know they're trying to light the e-reader screens so they resemble the experience of reading a book, rather than staring at a computer screen, you're still looking at a screen. I spend far too much of my day already. When I get home, I want to sit on the couch, tuck my feet under me, grab a pillow and curl up with my book. I want to bend the pages so that they sit poised underneath my fingers, ready to be turned eagerly. I want the freedom to hug the book if it pleases me to the point at which it deserves a hug. I also want the freedom to hurl the book across my bed if it irritates me, as I was tempted to do with Julie and Julia.

I may change my mind in the future though at this point in time, I can pretty much say I don't think that's likely. Perhaps they'll come out with an e-reader that feels like a book as well as contains the same content. Of course, then I'll wonder why we don't just read books instead and I'll be greeted with a chorus of "it's GREENER!"

I get that and in most cases, I respect it. Yet when it comes to books, I'm a traditionalist. I like the feel of paper. It's been around for thousands of years, papyrus before paper but still the same concept. I want to keep that tradition alive.

So, I'm pretty sure I won't be buying an e-reader. Give me a paper book any day. I'll try not to drop it in the bath.

Happy Monday.

Finding Wonder in Modern Technology

I'm a little late blogging today. I took the opportunity to grab a couple of extra hours of sleep this morning to catch up from the weekend. I'm feeling a little more awake now and even managed to bring my phone to work today instead of forgetting it or mistaking it for an airline snack.

I was watching TV last night, my normal hour of Jack Bauer on a Monday night and I saw this advertisement for a car. I'm horrible about cars, to be honest. I know what I drive. I sort of know what my friends and family drive but when it comes to identifying, I tend to use terms like "it's blue," or, "it looks like a bar of soap" or "It's boxy". I don't know names of cars very much. So, I can't actually tell you what type of car it was I saw advertised.

I've probably seen this advertisement a few times before and other similar versions of it but last night, I actually watched it properly. This car is scary. Basically, you call out things to it and it does them. You tell it to play a certain CD and the car puts it on. You command it with your voice to do things like turn on the lights, turn up the heat, all kinds of fancy stuff like that.

Nowadays, it's really not that surprising. I mean, we now have technology on our phones or PDA's that allow us to pull up a map and see where we're standing and even to sync up with someone else to see their exact location on the same map.

Seeing this commercial got me thinking. We're living in the future, the shiny sci-fi future that people in the 1950's and earlier could only imagine. When I was watching that car commercial, I suddenly wondered how someone from the early 1950 would feel if they were flash-forwarded to 2009. Back then, they had those cute little cars with the wings on the sides and the most advanced thing you could do with them was step on the accelerator and try to go faster. It was a world in which teenagers used to pin one another with an ACTUAL pin, not some sexual metaphor that it would be today.

Sometimes, I think it would be nice to live in the 1950's. I'm sure there were problems then but I like the fact that it was slower world, one seemingly less jaded. Of course, if I were in the '50's, I'd be a lost cause. I wouldn't be a Bridget Jones-esque singleton searching for her Mr. Right, I'd be a spinster, written off as unmarriable and still living with my parents. Well, maybe. Then again, maybe I wouldn't have been so picky and I would have been married to my high school sweetheart. Maybe I actually would have had a high school sweetheart since I am sort of rewriting history.

Then I do stop and think about the components that make up our lives today. I'm an internet junkie. Living in the 1950's would seriously put a damper on that and if I tried to get someone to invent it, I'd probably be locked up for being crazy. Can you imagine trying to explain to somone in 1950 that in 50 years time we'll be driving around in cars that can do everything but steer themselves (and I'm sure THAT's not far behind)? Can you imagine telling them that everyone has cell phones, even children, that you can order pizza on a computer, that you can order pizza through your Tivo? Actually, can you imagine explaining Tivo? Because then you'd have to explain satellite TV and how you can pick up channels from around the world. I, for one, would rather like to sit Mr. 1950's down in front of, say, TFC (the Filipeno Channel) and the show WoWoWee. Now, talk about a surreal experience. It's a variety show and sometimes they play games. My favourite is "Coca Cola" where they compete for cash and prizes by calling out squares on a screen and seeing what's underneath. Contestants get so excited and they shout "Coca-Cola!" so enthusiastically, they make you want to grab a Coke and shout with them.

I digress. As usual. Anyway, what I'm saying is that in the space of 59 years, our world has evolved. I'm not talking monkey-to-human type evolution but, rather, evolution of life as we once would have known it. It makes me think of "Back to the Future" and the comic books that George McFly would read. They weren't so far off, not really. I'm not dignifying the sequel to that movie, it just wasn't worth it. Yet even since the 1980's, we've gone from super clunky home computers that needed cassette tapes and tape recorders to load games and programs and would crash if you so much as bumped the tape recorder during a load to sleek computers that boot up almost instantly and load everything automatically.

The world is changing constantly. In a few years, I'm sure the technology will exist to put a car on autopilot. After that, they'll figure out how to make cars fly or something like that. Now given my experience with flying over the past weekend, I could get behind that one. It doesn't really matter what the next development will be just that it makes even brand new gadgets obsolete. Technology is changing too quickly; it's an expensive hobby with which to keep up. My iPod mini can attest to that, once my believed music player, now relegated to a glorified external hard drive. What scares me most is the Kindle and other electronic book systems. As an avid reader, I can't get behind that one. I like the smell of a book too much, the feel of the pages, the thrill I get when I pull it off the library shelves. I like to hug a really good book when I'm done and I don't think it would be the same with the Kindle. I get that it means thousands of books at my fingertips but I don't want that. I want to be able to take my time and browse to find my next read in a bookstore or library and feel that excitement when I turn the pages and know that until I turn that last page, it's like I have a friend waiting patiently for me to find time to spend with it. I hope the Kindle isn't going to replace books, that's all I can say.

My point is that so many of the things we use we take for granted. Technology is just there. We forget to view it as a wonder. Taking a mental trip back in time and then attempting to look at what we have today is a great way to appreciate how far we've come, for better or for worse.

Happy Tuesday.