the robots will destroy us

guys, something crazy just happened to me. but let me take you back a few weeks to when i was just a girl with a regular ol' flip phone talking to her mother. my mom's friend had just been showing her iphone off to my mother, and all the fancy new york specific apps she had gotten for her recent trip here. i, of course, had always wanted one, but the truth was, i liked my phone, there was nothing wrong with it, and i don't really have expendable income. but when my mom brought it up, i took it a step further and researched it. it turns out i was due for an upgrade, so i went for it and joined the world of smartphone users.

i can already tell having this thing is making me a more efficient person. i have train timetables and i can access my schedule really quickly. I am used to keeping a sole wall calendar in my bedroom where i write in all my doings, so whenever someone wanted to hang out, i'd have to be all "i'll get back to you after i check my calendar. which i have to go home to do." i have never been able to keep up with the electronic updating required of iCal or my gmail calendar. but now...it all syncs! anyway, this isn't a smartphone commercial, i'm just trying to paint a picture here. i can check my email on my phone, and this prompted me to finally marry my hotmail and gmail accounts. before, i would spend an hour after work checking my reader and email, but now i can do it all...when the fuck ever!

so yes, with this extra efficiency and large amount of free time i now have, i have been inspired plow through my to do lists. plural. because i can't keep just one. i start one in one room, another on my desk, another in my mind. so then i got this great idea to add these all to one Epic To-Do list using the Notes function of my phone. (what a difference a qwerty keyboard makes. Eff you T9!!) i loaded it up for the first time, and started a new note. whence i finished, i noticed there was another note there from april of like 2008. i was all, maybe this is a factory installed note example. but weird that it's from so long ago. then, i click on the note.

this note was a note that i had indeed authored in april of 2008. it was from back when i was still doing the weekly roundups here on the blog (back when there were enough weekly posts to do this). it was just a draft of a roundup. a sentence and a link, a sentence and a link. BUT HOW DID MY PHONE GET IT?!?!

i do remember writing one note once in my email program. i use gmail, but i check it through Mail on my computer. So i was like, oh maybe it just synced. That's cool. But when i checked the notes folder on Mail, IT WASN'T THERE! i had, in fact, deleted it a while ago, as i thought i had. OMG HOW DID MY PHONE GET IT BIG BROTHER BIG BROTHER ARJIWAO;FJINAEO;AWEOWR;MJEW

Sara Q. Edison

inventions have been flying into this old noggin recently with such frequency, I decided that i would share a few here so we can all work together to put out these great products. but if any of yous try to steal and take credit, i'll gut you like a fish. with a knife that i probably invented.

#1 - cylinder keys. This came to me when i first started dealing with my ceiling hole issue (i haven't been neglecting you guys of updates, the hole is still completely there. the leak has been fixed though, so at least it doesn't cry every day). i was frustrated that my super wouldn't work after hours or on weekends, but nervous about leaving my apartment unlocked for him to be able to come in. a round of thinking eventually led me to think it would be much more effective if everyone had little electronic cylinders (similar to these cremation keepsake keychains) that could be programmed to work with every lock you need. that way, you only carry one around. and you can control who has access to your lock...so say you need a friend to feed your hamster while you're off sailing the high seas...you allow their cylinder access to your lock and it's easy peasy! no worrying about copying keys and getting them to said friend. no more wanting to just put money and your phone in your pocket so you don't have to carry a bag, but then realize you do have to carry a bag to lug around your 10 pound keychain. i'm telling you, it's genius.

#2 - syncable digital wall calendar. i don't have a pda or any other sort of electronic planner and honestly i think it would be useless if i did have one. i've tried so hard to keep all my calendars all together and up to date. i've tried using my phone calendar, my ipod calendar, ical, my entourage calendar at work, and i just can't remember to keep them all updated. you know which calendar that is always completely up to date with all my past, present, and future activities? my wall calendar. any time i get work, make plans, go to the gym, or need to add a birthday, i just go up and write it in. so this is what i propose - a digital wall calendar that i can write everything in. this calendar works as the master calendar and has bluetooth capabilities so i can just sync it up with my phone, ipod, computer, etc, manually (or set it to automatically update, whatevs) without having to remind myself to keep all my calendars up to date. i'm telling you, it's genius.

3# - Museoke. Karaoke, but instead of drunkenly singing the lyrics to the karaoke backing track, you hear the lyrics and you have to mimic the sounds of the music. this would work better if i could give an auditory example, but basically if i picked the song "devil went down to georgia" (which i do, often), then instead of telling the tale of johnny v the devil through talkified talky country-rappin singey-singin', i would sing the part of the fiddle, as well as any other instruments. get into it, it's genius!