Super Tough Computers

You're not going to believe it. I have something good to say about my computer! We had guests last night, and of course my 100-pound dog got crazy hyper and went tearing through the house and tripped over the computer cord and sent it flying from the dining room table into the kitchen and on the floor. This is my brand new laptop. Okay, probably I shouldn't have left it with the cord like that. But anyway, the important thing is that here I am blogging the next day! No damage (as far as I can tell yet)! This new technology is tough! I could probably run over it with my car and it will still work! Now this is good stuff. I'm sold!

DaVinci Code Better Than Ever

I don't care how many schmancy movie reviewers want to dis DaVinci Code, the movie, I loved being able to SEE all the real artwork and sites that were in the book. It's a story that relies on so many visual images, and I'm uncultured enough not to have been able to picture them all as I read the book. So the technology of film really added to the experience of the story for me. I loved the historical sequences, too. And that albino dude was way creepier and made me jump out of my seat way more times than in the book. You just can't have someone scare you in that same "Oh my God where did he come from?!" way off screen. So while I'll always be a lover of books over film, the visual images possible on a screen definitely enhanced this tale for me.

They're teaching me!

So one of my students blew my socks off by sending me an email with pictures she'd taken of her little sister embedded. Here's the exchange that followed:

Dana: Thanks for the pictures of your sisters. They're really cute. Did you take the pics yourself? Maybe you could show me how to put pictures in an email!

Jessica: Yes I did take the pictures myself well first you need to see when you are going to write it says "attach files"and then you down load the picturesand save then after that you go to the file you saved it in and the you just select the file

Where do they pick this stuff up? They're sure not learning it at my school. Pretty amazing.

I'm officially techno-cursed

Okay. It's official now. I'm cursed.
I signed up for DSL since my connection was too slow for Firefox to connect me to blackboard. I bought a new computer, since the old one couldn't handle the software needed for the wireless DSL I got. Not even bothering to attempt to set it up myself, I got a techie friend to come get it all working. After an hour of plugging and unplugging, downloading and restarting, general head-scratching and muttering, "I've done this three times before and it was never this hard," she was on the phone for another hour with three different technicians at the DSL place. The last one, after taking her "deep" into the system and sending remote messages from DSL-central, finally got it working, with the announcement, "Wow, I've never had this problem before!" SO IT'S NOT JUST ME!!!
The clincher: I still can't get on blackboard from home. I'm "not authorized to view this page."
So I'm chanting Kimberly's mantra: "It's okay, it's just stuff. Plan B. It's just stuff. Plan B. It's just stuff. Plan B..."

How'd That Happen?

In trying to get my home computer hooked up with DSL (yes, the saga continues), it became clear that the memory on my eight-year-old laptop was insufficient. We (my friend who gets computers and I) couldn't download the software necessary for some card thing-y that's supposed to go in the side of the computer so it can do wireless. So I decided it must be time for a newer version. Get this: for $500 (one quarter of what I paid for my current laptop), I can get a new one with five times the capability of the old one. How does that happen?! Why can't they do that with cars? Or dishwashers? Or other stuff I'd love to replace?

Podcast. Podcast?!

So one of the teachers I team with is like techno supergirl. She even has a podcast. Who even knew what a podcast was?! It seems to be a grown-up version of the talk shows my sister used to record on cassette tapes in elementary school. Except that my little sis used to do all the voices herself, and Melanie actually does interviews with real people. Anyway, apparently she's got like 1900 listeners who download it and listen in! Of course, for me, she has to burn it on a CD so I can listen to it in my car on the way home, since I don't have CD-burning hardware or know-how, and no iPod, either (check out my proper capitalization!). It's pretty cool: restaurant reviews, interviews with L.A. musicians, and talks with people involved in different aspects of L.A. life: actors, immigrant-rights activists, you name it. Pretty amazing to be able to reach out to the world like that as an individual on a teacher's salary! Check Mel out at http://www.thelalife.com.

Lost In the Crowd...NOT!

At the Day Without An Immigrant (and their supporters!) March, I saw plenty of old-school tactics (cardboard-and-markers signs, drums, flags, t-shirts), but also a LOT of cellphone use. Most common seemed to be this conversation:
Marcher One: Where did you go?
Marcher Two: Where did you go?
Marcher One: Well, I'm on Wilshire and Western now.
Marcher Two: What? How'd you get all the way up there? I'm still on Vermont!
Marcher One: Okay, I'll wait for you on the corner. Call me when you get closer.
So is it the same at Disneyland now? And in the grocery store? No more "we're all going to meet at the ____________ if anyone gets lost"? What a different world!