Out and Back

Tisbe is ready for her close-up!

I got a new toy today... a Canon PowerShot SD30 digital camera.  It's so teeny-tiny you can practically slip it into your bra, if you wear one.  And it takes wicked good photos.  The one to the left is Miz Tisbe, peering curiously through the railings of the upstairs banister as I snapped her photo.  (I love how this camera even makes the shutter sound when you take a picture.)

With all the traveling I'm going to be doing, I thought it would be nice to have a little camera to keep a record of the places I go.  (Although I have a feeling I'm going to be taking a lot of airport photos.  Hopefully that won't get me in trouble with Homeland Security.)

In other news, I'm writing this post in my living room, while my husband sits on the couch reading William S. Burroughs' Nova Express.  He occasionally reads snippets aloud, and I am finding that Burroughs' crazy-yet-masterful manipulation of the English language is starting to make my head hurt.

iPope

According to the Catholic News Service, Pope Benedict XVI was recently given a 2 gigabyte iPod Nano as a gift by a group of Vatican Radio employees.

I have a picture in my mind of Pope Benedict rockin' out to some phat tunes in the corridors and gardens of Vatican City.  Can't you just imagine him getting down to 50 Cent or the Rolling Stones?

Maybe this signifies the end of Papal bulls and the start of Papal podcasts.

Go Benedict, it's ya birthday... we gon' party like it's ya birthday......

Another blogthing

So this is how I live my life....  I always knew I was "laid back and chill..."

How You Life Your Life

You have a good sense of self control and hate to show weakness. You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think. You prefer a variety of friends and tend to change friends quickly. You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Fa shizzle

My office-mate and I occasionally get silly and start talking to one another like the rapper Snoop Dogg, saying things like "fa shizzle," "off the hizzle," "gotta take a pizzle," and other goofy things.  Actually, I learned through the Urban Dictionary that Snoop didn't invent this way of speaking at all: The Gap Band's Double Dutch Bus contains examples of "shizzle-speak" and it pre-dates Snoop D-to-tha-O-Double-G by a few years.

Yesterday, we discovered Gizoogle, a website that will translate any phrase into shizzle-speak for you.  It will even translate entire websites into this endlessly entertaining form of urban slang.  Try translating the website of your place of employment, your blog, your local newspaper.  You will howl with laughter.

Give it a try -- it's off the hizzle.

Mindful technology

My hubby found this very interesting article on the Amish and technology.  I thought it would be interesting to share on the blog.  We live a couple of hours from Lancaster county and whenever we pass that way we invariably see a few Amish working in their fields or their horse-drawn buggies traversing the roads beside us.  When we lived in Philly, we frequently bought produce and other items from the Amish vendors at the Reading Terminal Market, or we would enjoy a Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast at the Dutch Eating Place, also located in the market.  The food was some of the freshest I've ever tasted.  Even the scrapple was to die for.

After reading this article, I found myself deeply admiring the Amish for their mindfulness in adapting to "modern technology."  If the rest of us took the time to evaluate each new technological advance that came along rather than plunge blindly into using and relying on it, would our lives be better?  As the author of the article asks, "If we decided that community came first, how would we use our tools differently?"

Amusement parks & safety

The recent death of Daudi Bamuwamye while riding Mission: Space at Disney World's EPCOT Center got me thinking, researching, and questioning.  How safe are those amusement park and carnival rides I so dearly love?  I learned that the answer varies quite a bit, depending on whether the ride in question is a portable one that travels with a carnival, or a stationary ride that lives at an amusement park.  It also depends on where the ride is located, for each state has different laws governing inspection and maintenance of amusement rides.  Check out www.saferparks.org for an excellent overview of what is currently being done and where the gaps are.

Someone my husband knows was telling me about Mission: Space not too long ago.  He mentioned that each rider has a computer monitor in front of him or her (for each rider has a "job" to do during the course of the simulated mission, although if you don't do your job the computer will do it for you.)  He then went on to warn me about what would happen if you took your eyes off the monitor during the ride: "instant sick."  I guess being in a centrifuge can do that to a person.  When I was younger, I loved centrifugal force rides like Gravitrons and Round-Ups, but now they make me ill.  I can't really stand any ride that spins anymore, with the exception of Octopus-type rides and Scramblers -- and even those make me queasy if the operator lets the ride last a little longer than it's supposed to.  I was also somewhat disturbed after reading this article about Mission: Space.  If Disney really did not permit the company that designed it to complete their safety tests, that is definitely bad.  Needless to say, you won't catch me riding it anytime soon.

In case you were wondering, I linked to the Flat Joint a couple of times during this post -- it's a great database of almost every type of flat ride imaginable.  I enjoy paging through it and looking at all the rides I've been on, as well as identifying ones I'd like to try (or avoid!) in the future.