by jphilo | Nov 18, 2014 | Top Ten Tuesday
The internet gets some pretty bad press and for good reason. But it’s a neutral medium, as is any technology. When it’s used the right way, it makes life much easier as this top ten list shows.
10. YouTube how to clips take the pain out of DYI projects . It’s also handy for finding funny clips to dress up speeches. And the technology is simple enough for digital immigrant authors to create videos about their books.
9. Much as I like to handpick gifts at real stores, online shopping makes life easier in a pinch. As does printing out coupons and then shopping at real stores. I can just about here my grandkids talking about the olden days when grandma was a girl, and she had to hunt for newspapers and cut coupons.
8. What’s not to like about online Bibles with hot link cross-references? Clicko, presto, and the verse is right there. Can you say time saver?
7. Email means book proposals and manuscripts can be sent to agents and editors as attachments. No more printing hard copies, preparing them for mailing, driving to the post office, and paying an arm and a leg for postage.
6. The internet makes research fun and fast. Want to know if your latest book idea is unique? Do an Amazon search. Need to know the date of the Saturday before Thanksgiving in 1977? There’s a website for that. Or how about the television viewing schedule for October 1988? It’s all online!
5. Recipes, recipes, recipes.
4. Online conferences and church services make it possible for people who can’t leave home to not only watch a worship service, but also to interact with other worshipers.
3. Netflix = 0 commercials.
2. Mapquest and Google Maps means never having to ask for directions again.
1. Facebook is a wonderful place to create community among parents of kids with special needs–parents whose caregiving duties make it hard for them to get out of the house. Thanks to Facebook, a few years ago I met other parents of kids with the same condition my son was born with in 1988. To find someone who totally understands your parenting journey is a gift beyond measure.
by jphilo | Aug 27, 2012 | Daily Life
Hiram and I are hopelessly addicted to the TV series, Lost. Those of you in tune with popular culture realize we are also hopelessly behind the time, as that series ended in 2010. But thanks to the advent of digital television, which left us with one channel even though we installed a converter box, our location which doesn’t allow us to get cable, and a daughter in college, which left no money for satellite TV until last year, we haven’t watched much TV for the past several years.
Until Hiram’s convalescence after surgery this summer.
That momentous event forced the issue and we signed up for Netflix. That’s when we discovered Lost. It’s kind of like Gilligan’s Island meets Lost in Space meets Wild, Wild West meets soap opera. And now, like I said before, we’re hopelessly addicted to the silly show. So addicted we might need a twelve step program. Or at least a notebook to keep track of six years worth of plot lines, flashbacks, crises, cliff hangers, and deaths.
After all, Hiram’s convalescence is pretty much over.
He used to lay on the couch to watch Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Charlie and John and the rest of the gang uncover mysterious hatches, untangle the mystery of the Others, and munch on provisions dropped by helicopter from the mysterious Dharma Initiative powers-that-be. Now Hiram watches while doing a hopping/balance exercise prescribed by the PTs.
It’s pretty cool.
But not as cool as all those sweaty people running around the island, flashing back to their former lives, doing the time travel thing, and finding more new outfits to wear than could possibly be packed in a carry on bag. To think, we wouldn’t even know about them if Hiram hadn’t had back surgery.
But thanks to one ruptured disk, we’re now addicted to the silly show.
The doctor never once mentioned this as a side effect of surgery. Which proves there are some things modern medicine can’t predict or prevent. Even though it does a really good job with ruptured disks.
For which we are extremely grateful.
But we won’t be so grateful if someone spoils things by leaving a comment that spills the beans about how the series end. So if you want to leave a comment about the outcome of the series or some plot twist, please begin your missive with the words “spoiler alert.”
We’re hopelessly addicted to Lost, and we want to stay that way.
