Needing an upgrade for your clicker hand - or maybe just a spare? This is the time.

Seriously - $9.99 and free shipping for a wireless mouse? AMAZING!

Great reviews on the Best Buy website for this product and I am sure they will not last!

7. Refrain From Answering During Inappropriate Times

No one wants to hear your “Poker Face” ringtone going off during a movie (unless it’s one from the Twilight series). All joking aside, there are places that having your phone on just isn’t appropriate—such as the doctor’s office, the movie theater, libraries, museums, churches, and restaurants. People are out to have a nice time together, not listen to your obnoxious conversations. If you are waiting for some kind of emergency call—about a job, or maybe your wife is expecting—put your phone on vibrate, please.

6. Don’t Talk and Drive at the Same Time

This isn’t just bad etiquette—this is actually very dangerous. In fact, some studies liken it to driving while intoxicated. If you must talk on the phone while you drive, please wear an earpiece so your hands are free to drive.

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July is Cell Phone Courtesy Month, although I wish it were every month. Unlike the seemingly 99% of the rest of the population, I’m not attached to my cell phone every day. I don’t text. In fact—get this—I don’t use one! We have one, but my husband keeps it on him since he works away from home. Since I’m pretty much either around here most of the time, or with him and our daughter, I don’t really need one, do I? That just boggles some people’s minds, but it’s true.

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Japan continues on the road to create cyborgs. Cyborgs? Or the Borg!? Or Daleks?!

Resistance is futile. Luddites will be exterminated, right? The future will belong to the robots? Right?

The Japanese seemed determined to replace every human with -- Well, their researchers are sailing into the unknown country. Japan has created a BABY bot -- Frankenstein Revisited?

What does Japan hope to do? To create intelligent robots! Why? Shouldn't we have intelligent humans first?

Japan tells the world that we need robots that can live with humans. What? Live with humans in which way?

Japan says it is building baby robots "based on assumptions about child development"  Why? So these robot will be like us humans? Now that is a very scary notion. See the video.

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puh-rikI'm mostly in favor of the integration of innovation into our everyday lives. I'm one of those people who gets a warm, tingly feeling from the use of video screens to advertise things on city streets and the fact that regular people get to walk around with personal GPS maps that would have made high-ranking military officials wet themselves just 15 years ago. Though the technological advancement of everyday life comes at a price. Because the way we communicate with each other changes over time, each generation has to essentially re-learn even the most basic social skills in a new and increasingly disconnected context. Furthermore, as gadgets ostensibly make our lives easier, they also make our baseline comfort more dependent on the complex products of society rather than what grows naturally in the world. But really, neither of these things are particularly annoying, even if they can have serious implications for our future as a species.

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This past week two new albums hit the shelves that, though they couldn't be more different stylistically, make a fairly interesting commentary on modern music. The first is How I Got Over from hip hop luminaries The Roots while the second is the flawed but undeniably impressive debut by the teen indie outfit Avi Buffalo. The former group has been making music since 1987, while no single member of the latter was even alive in 1987. But the age difference of the artists isn't the only thing that makes these two albums noteworthy.

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Cold spots are one of the hallmarks of a haunting.  Any ghost hunter worth the title will carry some sort of thermometer for testing the temperature of the air.  Many people report that the ambient temperature drops when ghosts are present (or about to be present).  The standard explanation is that the spirits are drawing the energy from the air in order to manifest.  But what does that mean, and is it plausible?  


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I wish I could pretend that the following statistic surprised me, but it didn't.  77% of people who bought the new iPhone last week were upgrading the iPhone they already had.  Apple has done the unimaginable: convinced people to throw away a perfectly good thing, in order to get a slightly newer version of that same thing.

This is an ode to my old cell phone, and to old cell phones everywhere.  


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In researching Chinese name stamps recently, I ended up veering off into a tangent.  It seems that a lot of people carve their own name stamps in China, where you can buy cheap little kits at stationery stores.  I even found some places online to buy stamp blanks, small columns of soapstone which you can carve yourself for about $10.  Of course, you don't have to use stone to carve your own stamp, and you're not limited to Chinese characters!


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Polyvinyl chloride—it’s in so many things that we bring into our homes, you’d think it would be a safe ingredient. From shower curtains to water hoses, toys to even school supplies, it’s certainly everywhere—but it’s far from harmless. You may already be aware of the dangers of PVC, but just in case you aren’t, here are a few of its effects:

• Its composition is carcinogenic, explosive, and highly toxic
• Its production releases harmful chemicals into our environment; in fact, it is known as the most environmentally toxic plastic
• It creates dioxins, the most harmful chemicals known on Earth, when burned
• Known as “the poison plastic,” PVC
• PVC released in the air, ground, water, and homes has been linked to causing cancer, hormonal disruption, immune system problems, and more

It’s not a very nice plastic!

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