A life less digital

Author: alifelessdigital

  • We are all alone, together

    Looking down the hill, the lights of the party twinkled and crinkled through the trees. The wafts of voices floated up past me in the dark. I could see my friends arranging and rearranging themselves in to little clumps of conversation and mid-priced wine.

    From this small distance, my friends were still familiar, but separate from me. Facebook makes me feel a bit like this – on the outside, looking in. Just quickly sweeping my hand over the bumpy surface of my friends’ profiles.

    Are you a happy strand of the World Wide Web? Do Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email and forums make you feel connected? There’s still something ‘lite’ to me about online communities. Perhaps I need to find the niche forum out there for Sydney mums called Lorraine who used to work in the Internet world.

    The pen is mightier than the keyboard

    I’ve always written letters to my friends. Pen and paper and my terrible handwriting. There’s a stillness and focus to writing a letter. It takes time, but I feel as if my voice is absolutely captured and transmitted. I write this for You, and You Only. There are no digital copies.

    Some thoughts and feelings seem to suit paper:

    I’m sorry that you’re sad but I will bake a cake from your recipe, and think of you when I eat it.

    I hope he didn’t notice when I laughed and a little bit of mushroom soup came out of my nose.

    I miss you so much that my ribcage is creaking.

    A life less digital – happy first birthday

    My blog baby is a year old.

    As a responsible parent. I tell my kids that they need to enjoy healthy food as well as ‘treat’ food. Every day I try to balance offline experiences with digital treats. Slow food and fast food.

    “Walnuts and pears you plant for your heirs”, says an old English proverb. These trees took a long time to mature and bear fruit, and were planted for future generations. My garden is too small for fruit trees, but I am still planting real-life ideas and experiences and values in my home.

    Depending on where you are living, perhaps you could:

    Child writing at table
    Concentrating very hard

    Brought to you by the Interweb – a handwritten email

    When email was still new and mysterious, I heard of an exec who needed his secretary to re-type and print out emails he’d received, to read them ‘properly’. Now you can send emails in your handwriting. Let me know if it’s any good …

  • Here, Kindle Kindle Kindle…

    Half a year is a long time in tech world. In August 2010 I smugly declared that people with e-books were usually ‘early- to mid-30’s male with a satchel’ (See News + Paper. Read all about it!).

    Although I am a later-30’s female without a satchel, I now have my own e-book reader. Husband bought me an Amazon Kindle for Christmas. Despite my reservations about mindlessly sucking up every digital device or idea that flashes its USB ports at me, I do like my Kindle.

    Good things about my e-book reader

    E-books and my Kindle are quite charming because I can:

    • Carry a dictionary with me. Just in case.
    • Read with my sunglasses on.
    • Read a sample chapter of a worthy book, find it too dull, then not buy the book. No book wastage at all.
    • Drink single-origin coffee in cafes with cool geeks wearing grey v-neck t-shirts. (I just can’t help myself stereotyping trendy tech-heads.)

    Bad things about my e-book reader

    I still love paper because I can:

    • Leave it for weeks and not have to charge it.
    • Turn pages without that black/white screen flicker (although I did get used to that on my Kindle very quickly).
    • Choose a book purely on the basis of its cover art and font.
    • Know that it will always be compatible, fully supported and scalable. I am assuming that my kids and future generations will still have eyes to read and hands to turn pages.
    • Drink single-origin tea in book shops with cool nerds wearing black v-neck t-shirts.( I must stop stereotyping people …)

    I am now happily embroidering myself a Kindle case. Craft + tech = Crach?? I am quite addicted.

    Brought to you by the Interweb – Wall of books

    If we all have e-book readers, then will we still be buying delightful fake book wallpaper?

  • Hunting, gathering and Googling

    I am actively avoiding food porn. No more cruising the aisles of glossy cookbooks, or sitting glassy-eyed in front of TV cooking shows. Instead, I am trying to cook from my own, quite substantial collection of cookbooks and clippings.

    The picture below is from my school cookbook. Haven’t cooked many things from it yet, as they are mostly hideous… [Click image to view recipe for “Ham banana rolls with cheese sauce”. I scanned it in big, so that you can print it out and cook it yourself. If you dare.]

    Recipe for Ham banana rolls
    Please let me know if you attempt to cook this. I'd love to know what it tastes like.

    The trouble is, my recipes are not particularly well indexed and, in geek-speak, need better metadata. So despite having a lot of cookbooks, I often have to Google particular recipes. (Perhaps my husband, who doesn’t often read my blog,  will create a lovely database of my recipes?)

    When I first met the wondrous Internet, the entire office shared one email address, and it was actually “E-mail”. I’d read about The Web in very attractive Wired magazines, but didn’t appreciate the amazing bounty of information out there until I saw the recipe sites.

    For my younger readers, this is what web pages used to look like:

    Vietnamese recipes from 1996 Internet
    Note the lack of images, videos, advertising etc etc

    Brought to you by the Interweb – Herb haters

    Went to a fab restaurant this week, where we had: “Buttermilk pannacotta, with coriander jelly, pain d’epice, pineapple granita”. Sounds odd, but it was delicious.  I just found a site for coriander/cilantro haters http://www.ihatecilantro.com/ .

  • Lego love for all the family

    It really really hurts when I step on hard, sharp, pointy bits of Lego. I suffer through strange foot indentations because  Lego is wonderful. The kids use their brains to think of things to make, eyes to find the right pieces and fingers to click it all together.

    Of course Lego have a bountiful website, but nothing compares to the sound of small hands rummaging around in boxes of plastic bits.

    Lego snowman

    A snowman to last for years

    I’m not sure about the sinister eyes, but the carrot nose is very amusing.

    Vintage Lego – groovy

    1970s lego people and furniture
    I believe this is called ‘vintage’ Lego.

    I found some of my old Lego at my parents’ house. The people look quite ABBA-esque don’t they? I loved the cute furniture too, although the scale was not quite right.  These Lego people would have had a hell of a time trying to wash their hands …

    Vintage Lego – space age

    Check out that hi-tech computer!

    This is some of my brother’s old Lego. I think the hi-tech computer screens are adorable. I wonder if there are Lego iPad pieces yet?

    Lego planes

    lego planes on shelf
    Lego planes arranged very neatly on my shelf.

    One morning I found these assorted Lego planes neatly arranged on my shelf by my son.

    Lego sweets

    lego sweets
    An assortment of Lego sweets.

    A piece of foam + Lego lights = sweets on a  cake. My daughter is hoarding these colourful little pieces of plastic to make desserts …

    Brought to you by the InterWeb – Edible Lego

    Look what happens when Lego nerds get in to the kitchen – edible Lego.

  • I am, like, so not popular

    I am not a very popular person. I only have:

    • 90 Facebook friends (although if I friended my mum and all my uncles, aunts, cousins and their spouses I’d probably double that). [Update: As at 7 April 2011, I have 100 FB friends.]
    • 29 Twitter followers (because I struggle to tweet anything very interesting)
    • 83 LinkedIn connections (no recruiters please).

    Assuming some of these people are the same, then I am well within Dunbar’s number of 150 ie 150 is the most amount of people that you can maintain stable social relationships with.

    I’m still applying the old world rules to the online world – friends are people who I’ve met in person. I know that’s not what the cool people do, but I’m just a bit old-fashioned.

    A year in 9 minutes

    This week an old friend of mine called me up to apologise for not getting in touch for ages – almost a year in fact. Seems like I’d run out of ‘let’s catch up’ appointments in my diary.

    Our 9 minute phone call was brief but brilliant. Instant download on each other’s lives and the sound of laughter as we shared stories of our children’s dysfunctional bowels and bottoms. I’m so glad she didn’t just send me a text message with LOL.

    The kindness of strangers

    I’m a bit wary of strangers online. And in real life, I’m trying to explain the subtle difference between nice strangers and bad strangers to the kids. For example:

    • Very Old shrunken aunt with scratchy green cardigan and unusual facial hair at a family reunion – nice
    • Smelly man with trousers done up with string, outside the train station, holding a half empty vodka bottle, offering you oranges – bad.

    When I was backpacking around Europe with my best friend during uni, we trusted our gut instinct when deciding if strangers were nice or bad. We had mostly wonderful experiences. I find it harder to make that instinctive risk assessment online.

    I have vivid memories of kind strangers on our trip. One night in Paris, my friend and I, plus a perky Canadian with jangly earrings, were waiting for a very very early train. To save money, we didn’t book a hotel. It was January, and freezing, and as more and more places closed for the night, we realised that we had made a mistake. Paris was getting a bit creepy, rather than romantic. And we really needed to wee.

    Eventually, we found a little hotel that had some lights on. To our amazement, the night porter unlocked the door and let us in. (We were amazed that he understood our frozen mangled French…) He was definitely breaking the rules, letting us and our gigantic backpacks in, so we were very quiet and very grateful.

    When we were  preparing to go back outside, the night porter ushered us over to some couches and told us that we could rest there. In minutes, we had all dozed off. As promised, he woke us up an hour before our train was due out, then gave us fresh croissants and pots of yoghurt to take with us. We whispered our heartfelt thanks, and he locked the door behind us.

    I don’t believe I’ve many a comparable online experience. Since I’m so unpopular (and quite wary) online, I don’t meet many strangers there. Maybe I need an iPhone app for a virtual ‘gut instinct’?

    Brought to you by the InterWeb – Chatroulette for animals

    I never understood the appeal of Chatroulette for humans. But maybe it makes more sense having Animal Roulette for pets?

  • Just eat it

    I can’t think of an underlying anti-digital point I can make about these pictures. They all have something to do with food. And they are pretty. Enjoy.

    Rainbow cake

    rainbow cake
    Completely full of artificial colours and flavours

    My daughter presented this tray to me: “A rainbow cake”.

    The everlasting wedding cake

    Felt wedding cake
    My wedding cake made from felt!

    When I got married this year, I had a cute cake made in felt. I hope it (and the marriage) last!

    Fruit bowl

    Fruit in wooden fruit bowl
    I do like a bit of decorative fruit

    I forgot that I had this lovely wooden bowl, and I’m now using it for fruit. This is the decorative fruit bowl, with tastefully arranged specimens. (The other fruit bowl has the almost-too-ripe bananas, sagging tomatoes and ancient kiwifruit.)

    Lollipop tree

    Lollipop stick on lawn
    Will the lollipop tree grow?

    Someone told the kids that if they planted their lollipip stick, it would grow in to a lollipop tree. They stuck it in the ground, watered it, and after about 5 minutes of intent stick-watching, wandered off.

    Spotty cutlery

     

    polka dot spoon, knife, fork
    spot chew dot sip

    I bought these beautiful Japanese spotty cutlery sets for myself as a wedding present.

    King of snacks

    Jam and cream bun
    I love the decorative presentation squizzled on top…

    I think this was a cream bun, or possibly a donut. It was bought from a local bakery in a country town. Almost enough of a reason to move to the country …

  • Slightly ranting about kids, technology, good and evil

    I can’t decide. Internet = evil cesspit of narcissistic idiots chatting to gambling-addicted paedophiles? Or Internet = global community of inspiring humanity sharing knowledge and joy? Depends on which parent I am talking to …

    Too much tech

    I frown upon parents who load their kids up with digital toys and knick-knackery, then plug their ‘new improved, with USB and FireWire from birth’ offspring in to the closest device. They don’t need it!

    Our childcare centre has PCs for the kids to play with. Our kids have perfect remote control-sized fingers and an uncanny ability to navigate i-anythings. I doubt that many middle-class nice kids will be left picking their scabby knees by the side of the information super highway.

    Their digital lives

    I also enter in to polite inter-parent debates about why social networking is not irrelevant, and every website is not selling porn. There is goodness out there, and fun, and information, and ideas.

    My main point I make to these tech-terrified parents is that their children are already digital. Everywhere their non-hairy non-hardened little feet take them, these kids are surrounded by buttons and screens and keyboards.

    Sensible advice from parents

    I believe that mums and dads need to teach their kids how to make the right choices, about friends, risks, technology… That’s our job.

    • Look before you cross the road. Cars are harder and bigger than you.
    • Don’t give strangers (real people or online people) your home address, phone number, email address or parents’ credit card details. You might not be able to trust them.
    • Don’t tell other people they are fat/ugly/stupid. It’s mean and you will make them sad.
    • Just because it’s on a website doesn’t mean that it’s true. Some people put untrue things on websites.
    • Meeting friends in person is quite fun. Sometimes more fun than sending them text messages or reading their Facebook status updates.
    • Do not smoke cigarettes because you are making huge tobacco companies rich. It makes your breath smell bad.

    See – it’s all just part of the sensible advice you dish out as a parent. And if they ignore you, they’ll get hit by a car driven by someone they used to call ‘peanut head’, and you’ll find a mysterious charge on your credit card for 100 cartons of Indonesian cigarettes.

    Brought to you by the Interweb – baby’s first laptop

    I’m not sure about baby’s first laptop. The mouse is a mouse, so that’s cute. But overall, I think it’s sort of pointless. My babies used to play with empty tissue boxes filled with rattles.

  • Wandering in the www garden

    I tend to lose all concept of time as soon as I open up a web browser. I start with a task (e.g. look up a train timetable), then somehow find myself 1 hour later looking at pictures of husband and wife cutlery. This feels like a giant waste of time.

    Wandering around a lovely botanic garden, as I recently did in Melbourne, feels much more healthy!

    Leaf on ground
    A leaf face
    Melbourne botanic gardens tree bark
    Bark texture
    Melbourne botanic garden cactus
    Alien life?
    This looked like underwater coral
    Melbourne botanic garden trees
    Picturesque
    bright pink flowers
    Fluro flowers

  • Let’s do dinner

    When was the last time you took a group of your best-est friends out to dinner? Not just a casual BBQ in a park, but a proper grown-up restaurant meal?

    Brief emails quickly flung out between tweets and texts keep me mostly connected to my friends. I know they’re grumpy today, and that they have watched a funny video of a cat. I have seen their holiday pictures and promised in emails to catch up soon. Promise.

    To celebrate our extremely small family-only wedding, I organised a couple of dinners with friends. I sought out suitable venues, pondered menus and hand-scribbled invitations. It felt so outrageously old-fashioned …

    We had a great time at the dinners, and my guests told me that they did too. No matter how many witty Facebook updates I read, or stuttering text messages I send, it’s Just Not The Same as meeting in person.

    Sometimes you just need to put on a nice frock/smart shirt and eat a lovely meal with friends (without having to wash up afterwards). After that you can:

    • Write an online review of the meal
    • Tweet about what you ate
    • Upload the digital pictures
    • Update Facebook about your night out
    • Email your friends to say how much you enjoyed yourself
    • Blog about it

    Then retreat to your digital cave and warm yourself by the virtual fire.

    Brought to you by the Interweb – table decorations for Christmas, with extra Elvis

    It’s a bit early, but have you thought about how you might be celebrating Christmas with friends and family? I found some interesting table decoration ideas. Check out the Elvis-themed table ….

  • Curiosity killed (by) the Internet

    Does anyone brew over niggling queries anymore? Feel that rapturous excitement when you finally discover the answer to a longstanding question? Or do we all just hop on the web and tap-tap-tap dance away in Google?

    If there’s something I don’t know, I start feeling quite edgy if I can’t find the answer NOW. There must be an app/blog/forum/website about that somewhere…

    Some of the recent questions that have whizzled through my brain recently:

    • What is the difference between concrete and cement?
    • Where can I get a free ‘No junk mail’ sticker?
    • Are fashion magazines bad for me?
    • What were the original names of the kids in Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree, before they changed them?
    • Why does my daughter draw love hearts and butterflies, and my son draw planes and ships?
    • What is a runcible spoon?

    You can see that my questions are quite dull. My kids ask magnificent questions:

    • What is sand?
    • Does the Great Wall of China have shops?
    • Is the heart for love and pumping blood?
    • Why aren’t spider webs square?
    • How do you make shampoo?

    I’m not going to give you the answers. How long you can resist the urge to hit that search engine?

    Brought to you by the Interweb – Google buns

    Enid Blyton invented Google buns, and they sound quite delicious …