Ryan: Yeah, I guess things are going pretty well between the two of them, he went to visit her down in Iowa last time I went.
Me: Oh, so he went down to Cedar Rapids?
Ryan: Uh, no.
Mykala: You know, all of Iowa is not Cedar Rapids.
Me: That may be true, but all I’ve ever heard of is cheap gas and Cedar Rapids down there. So, I am lead to believe otherwise: whenever my dad goes down to Iowa, he goes to Cedar Rapids, and the last time I was there, it was a lot of corn, and 93 cent-a-gallon-gas in the middle of the corn’ness.
R/Mykala: …
Coolest. Factory. Ever. - This BMW factory in Leipzig has the cars roll above the heads of the office workers. So … cubicles on the bottom, BMW’s rolling by up top.
Freestyle walking - An insane sport I would love to partake in … it’s called parkour/freestyle walking and it is unbelievable. These guys essentially do flips and jumps off of anything available, or simply while standing on the ground. Thanks, Matt!
My current AIM profile reads (with screen names changed to protect the innocent):
Mykala (11:46:48 PM): maybe eskimos don’t know how to love
Mykala (11:47:01 PM): maybe, since all they can do is rub noses, they can’t fall in love
And because I read it recently, I realized that was my profile, so Mikaela’s comments (not Mykala who is my girlfriend, but Mikaela with whom I suffered through science classes in high school with) finally made sense. They are as follows:
Mikaela: now, as a ex-resident of alaska, home to many different native alaskan tribes [including the eskimo] i beg to differ with Mykala’s comment on “don’t know how to love.” the rubbing noses is actually done to prevent the the lips from freezing when saliva is left as a residue from kissing.
On Mykala’s birthday, I invented a new way to insult someone. Rather than calling them an “a-hole,” go with the new and improved “j-hole.” It’ll make your victim stop and consider your insult, and cause the sting of your words to striker deeper into the person’s psyche. The J, of course, stands for “jerk” and calling someone a jerk-hole, regardless of how angry you are, is pretty offensive. For this reason, I would recommend reserving this insult for times you are really really, extremely, angry.
Backing up on your home network - This will be applicable to me when I have a house and am thinking about backing up my computers over the network. It will be incredibly out of date then. Crap.
Why oh why oh why is there not just one simple little feature for cell phones: a skip-to-leave-a-voicemail function/key sequence? Lovely as my girlfriend’s voice is, I already know she is going to tell me to leave a message and that she will get back to me. I already know she is not available. And goodness, I already know (if I’m listening to a Verizon-serviced phone) how to leave a voicemail. Is this a money-making move? I suspect it is. Keeping customers on the phone longer (the call begins when voicemail picks up) allows phone companies to make good money in very small increments. Consider this: Cingular features a direct to web button on most of their phones which, if pushed, almost always transfers web data before the user can mash enough buttons to stop the transfer (or in my case, try to rip the battery out) before charges are incurred.
The devil is in the details for the consumers, fighting large telephone companies making millions by charging customers cents. These annoyances are stupid, but when the realization that massively distributed WiFi has the potential to disrupt even mighty wireless telecom (especially in cities), perhaps users will see cell service improve. Looking at the bigger picture, perhaps voicemails as we know them will simply cease to exist. Maybe all those calls saying “I’m 10 minutes from X” will yield to a live network reporting user’s positions to selected other users. Wireless technology still could make our lives easier, less swamped with work, and more relaxed. Until them, I’ll be mashing buttons trying to disconnect my accidental and costly web connections.