Sunday, January 24, 2010

Mr. Pie's Dirty Little Secret




No, we do not need referrals to any 12 step programs, it's not that kind of secret. Here's the deal. Mr. Pie has a fancy degree, which got him a fancy job, and that fancy job requires him to travel entirely too much. When he's away, as he's been this month, I'm very busy and miss him something fierce. Mr. Pie is also very busy and misses me something fierce.

So what's the secret? Because Mr. Pie has a fancy traveling job, airlines pay attention (he's my George Clooney from Up in the Air, minus that whole nasty career choice and cheating lady thing!). So while I'm at home trying to live my "sustainable, reduce, re-use, recycle, slow-food life", he's tearing up the carbon points and indulging in first class food and free champagne. We both pretend it doesn't happen. Unfortunately, he had a bit too much champagne this last time, and now we have photographic proof of the shame. I thought we should both come clean before these pics make it across the internet without any disclaimer by me.

I do, however, have to say I am very proud of him for finally taking his very own picture of a meal. I love ya Mr. Pie in the Sky! (sorry couldn't avoid the pun) Come home to us soon.

P.S. - I promise I'll eventually get to that book list. In the meantime, send me any great reads you've indulged in recently. I'm always on the look out for a page-turner!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Useless Applications for the New Year


This picture will make sense in a minute, I promise.

I have finished regurgitating '09 and am in a much better mood. I'm ready to share a new found time-waster in my life,iPhone apps. If you are into technology of any kind you should not look at this list, as you will most likely laugh at me for my barely-there-knowledge of apps and my obvious choices. Everyone else, who is somewhat of a luddite like me, don't be afraid of the list! If you have a phone with apps, these are just plain fun and somewhat ... maybe ... useful. They were all free except one.

(Oh right, and I'm supposed to tell you that no one asked me to review this and I don't get any compensation from anyone. Frankly, no one in the tech world has ever, or will ever, know me, so why would they want my review?)

Shazam: helps you identify a song you are hearing on the radio, TV, or in a movie. Just hold up your phone to the music and it finds the song and links you to the iTunes selections for the artist if available. How clever, and yet somewhat creepy and Big Brother-esque! My phone is communicating wirelessly with radio, TV, and film. The whole Terminator thing is definitely in the works, and I'm betting on the non-carbon life forms in the take-over. In the meantime, have fun with Shazam!

Epicurious: I loved, loved, loved, Gourmet mag and then it shut down (another example of technology ruining the printed page *sigh*). However, they were owned by Epicurious and now I can find most of my favorite 30 minute Gourmet meals on this app. I can't tell you how much food apps have helped me at the grocery, and this one has the yummiest food. I would also love to get the app Locavore, but it costs $3 and I told myself not to pay for any apps in 2010 if they were over $1. Locavore is supposed to direct you to farmer's markets in your area and what is in season and available. I'm not sure it would be that useful, since we have our CSA for that, but it links to Epicurious recipes for the ingredients in season.

Scramble: Scramble is much like some of the word games you can play on facebook. It is created by Zynga. I am addicted to non-confrontational word games, meaning those I don't have to play with Mr. Pie where every triple word space is nabbed by him and used for a 7 letter word, wherein he gains 8 billion points, and I have a melt-down. Can you tell I have Scrabble issues? This is my alternative.

Cat Paint: Explains post picture and is utterly ridiculous. With CatPaint, put pics of a fat cat next to your baby or your furniture or your trip to Hawaii for laughs. Why did I spend a dollar on this? Because I too am ridiculous and it was a virtual stocking stuffer for myself. Use it when you are too stressed out and need a good laugh.

Bump: Another obvious choice, info from another friend's iPhone can be instantly transferred to yours by doing a fist-bump with your phone. How does this work?? Who knows, is my iPhone smarter than me? probably, yes. But I'm better looking and have grown babies and parented, so I have some skillz. Still, the Terminator thing ... definitely gonna happen.

And last but not least ...

Kindle for iPhone: I don't have a Kindle, I don't know how it compares. I was completely against this whole e-book concept. But ... now .... have to say I'm a convert. Classics are many times FREE. I can also keep a whole library of book club books with notes (it syncs with a note taking app). If you can't wait 8 months for book club selection to be at the library, you can pay under $10 and get most new titles. You don't have to spend quite as much as the bookstore charges, and you can delete the entry if you completely hate it, instead of passing it off to a friend as a good choice, and saying something like, "Well it wasn't my thing, but YOU might like it". Translation, "This sucked, here take it out of my house". Books at your fingertips is highly titillating to me, I can't help myself. It might not be your bag of tea, and those books which I treasure will always be in print on my bookshelf, but I love this new choice.

Tomorrow, a less techy, more intellectual post about my book choices in the coming year. If you think this was a rambling list ..... until tomorrow.