A life less digital

Author: alifelessdigital

  • Pretty things offscreen

    The more of my time that is sucked up by websites, email, television and mobile phones, the more I appreciate solid physical beauty.  Here are some pictures of pretty things I have seen offscreen…

    A rainbow duck

    A rainbow aviator duck?
    What do you get if you cross a duck with a rainbow?

    Earlier in the year I was at Point Lonsdale in Victoria. I saw this crazy rainbow/aviator duck at a small fairground. It was such a cold grey day that these colours stood out like neon lights.

    A fox said to a rabbit …

    Graffiti on wall of fox and rabbit
    A fox and rabbit in conversation

    I saw this on a city wall in Melbourne. I believe these well-dressed animals would be singing along to the Pet Shop Boys version of ‘Always on my mind’. It made me smile…

    Climbing roses

    Floral wallpaper
    Flowers on a garden trellis

    During the Biennale of Sydney, I visited Cockatoo Island to see some art. This wallpaper wasn’t actually an artists’s work, but it looked wonderful anyway.

    Pinkness and light

    Pink Rosslynd Piggott light
    A ball of pink light

    At the Biennale, I loved this room by Melbourne artist Rosslynd Piggott. (There’s a picture of the room in the article here.) I stood alone and contemplated fogotten memory,  remembered experience and transient loveliness… until a group of older ladies in sensible shoes stomped in to shelter from the rain.

  • News + Paper. Read all about it!

    Sometimes I see someone with an e-book reader on the train. It’s usually being held quite self-consciously by an early- to mid-30’s male with a satchel. The body language is mostly “I am the Masterchef of e-bookery” and a little “I am only holding the e-book so high because this angle is actually most comfortable for my arm. Honestly.”

    [Update: I now own an e-book reader! See post “Here Kindle, Kindle, Kindle“]

    It’s hard to read an e-book or any book, over someone else’s shoulder. When I lived in London I used to catch the Tube to work. It was definitely Not OK to read another passenger’s paper. Even if you were standing so close that you could hear the rustling of their nose hairs when they breathed, you Could Not read their paper. I wonder what special sense allows us to instantly feel when someone else’s eyes are wandering over our headlines?

    I had a newspaper subscription for a year. It was made out of paper. Its physical presence would remind me to read it, and so I kept abreast of world events and local issues. Now the subscription has ended and I rely on the free newspaper websites.

    I don’t read properly on the web. I also rarely watch news on TV – it clashes with the feeding/bathing/wrangling of kids. I think there are some important election issues being debated, but those headlines don’t have any of the words that my superficial website scanning eyes seize on. Phrases such as “millionaire’s wife; chocolate pudding recipe; bizarre sex; children’s health; striped t-shirts” will get me clicking every time.

    Today I bought a newspaper.

    Brought to you by the InterWeb – How to fold a broadsheet newspaper

    On the Tube, I admired the way stripy-suited City workers could precisely crease their papers lengthways at the exact halfway point, thus creating a long thin train-friendly paper. See instructions on how to fold a broadsheet newspaper.

  • Old technology doesn’t die, it just waits until it’s retro and sort of interesting again…

    Picture 1: Old technology in dryers. The dials on my mum’s dryer (still operational). What is Orlon? Terylene? And Crimplene? They sound a bit like unfortunate siblings. Orlon – sturdy oldest boy, likes fishing, won’t eat peas. Twin girls Terylene – the one with freckles who likes horses and puppies, and Crimplene – slightly taller and allergic to cornflour.

    Old dryer dials
    Hello Orlon, Terylene and Crimplene

    Picture 2: Old technology CD-ROMs. I found this CD-ROM in my brother’s room. I can’t remember if he actually used it, but CD-ROMs are so quaint now! Like being chaperoned around the Internet by jolly Mr Microsoft. When I was in high school, at home we had a set of brown and orange Rigby Joy of Knowledge Encyclopedias. I really did believe that all the world’s knowledge was contained in those shiny heavy books of joy.

    Encarta 97 CD ROM cover
    The Encarta 97 Encyclopedia

    Picture 3: New technology as a donut. The future of donuts is no longer round. It is shaped like a mobile phone.

    phone shaped donut
    Talking crap and eating crap


    Brought to you by the Interweb – Phones for the young and young at heart

    I will probably not be buying a children’s phone for my kids or an old person’s phone for my parents.

  • The Internet saved my marriage

    I got married on the weekend to my ‘almost-husband’, who is now just my husband.

    For scheduling reasons, I had to move the wedding date forward, and only had 2 and a bit weeks before the wedding. Eeep! It was always going to be a small family occasion, but I was amazed it all got organised – thanks mostly to the Internet.

    Websites to find wedding-y things

    • Found my celebrant online at http://www.celebrantsonline.com.au/. It is an ugly ugly piece of Web, but it works. The first celebrant I called had just passed away that day – very unfortunate and not a great pre-wedding omen. I suggested to the person who answered her phone that they might want to take her details off the website. The second didn’t get back to me for a couple of weeks, but the third one was just right!
    • Found my restaurant by surfing websites, and checking out friends’ recommendations. Ended up at Donovans in St Kilda http://www.donovanshouse.com.au/. Not a slick website, but gave me enough info to make enquiries. The woman who answered the phone was so supremely helpful I booked the dining room. It was ace!
    • My photographer put all the lovely wedding pictures he took up on a secure website so my family and friends could see them. This was especially appreciated by people overseas. Paul Stevens is at http://www.paul-stevens.info/.
    • Bought my wedding cake online. It’s made of felt, is inedible, adorable, and will last forever. Mine was chocolate with strawberries! See pic on this post Just eat it.
    • Facebook profile was filled with messages and comments after I posted that I was married. It was very sweet to have old acquaintances say congrats and check out the pictures. I don’t think Facebook is entirely shallow. I like the way we can maintain connections to people outside our ‘inner circle’, by letting them dip in and out of my life stream. If you need the link, and you really should know this one – www.facebook.com.

    Emails for almost all communication

    • It is just far too hard to individually ring people to organise dates and times. I kept doing mass emails to family about dates, times, venues etc.
    • The celebrant, restaurant, shoe shop, photographer all gave me loads of information quickly via email. I found the Births, Deaths and Marriages office much more responsive on email than phone.
    • Since it was a strictly ‘immediate family only’ event, I sent crazy Bridezilla emails to my girlfriends when I was stressed.

    So I now have the complete package – mortgage, kids and husband, in that exact order.

    Brought to you by the Interweb – How to have really shiny wedding hair

    The wedding industry is scary. Here you can buy hair extensions with Swarovski crystals stuck in them. And I also found a bridal fitness plan.

  • Ghostpatrol – it’s art, not vandalism!

    For quite a while I have been cyber-stalking some Melbourne artists – Miso and Ghostpatrol. I regularly check out their websites, read about them and curse myself every time I miss their shows in Melbourne.

    A few months ago, a wonderful thing happened. Ghostpatrol put a picture on my dad’s surgery in Fitzroy! (see pic below). I was visiting family in Melbourne, so saw it as I was driving by.

    Picture on wall by ghostpatrol
    My dad and his Ghostpatrol art

    The broken surgery window you can see is part of the story too. Very early one morning, someone had pushed in the glass pane. Dad did a temporary repair, and the next night, the picture appeared.

    My parents were immediately suspicious. They had a crazy theory that someone had broken the window (vandalism), and then pasted up a picture (graffiti). I had to energetically convince them that it was Art, and that they should NOT under any circumstances scrape it off. I shudder to think what they would have done if I hadn’t had been there …

    It was so incredibly satisfying to see the beautiful brown paper boy peering out at me from the wall. Not just a picture on a website. Within a few days, the picture had been peeled away by wind and rain, but for a short time, the virtual had become real.

    Brought to you by the Interweb – Pencil art

    Ghostpatrol creates adorable artworks on sets of pencils… Jennifer Maestre makes very weird organic sculptures from pencils too.

  • Games I play

    Scrabble

    Downloaded my second iPhone app this week – Scrabble. (The first was Twitter, because I feel like I really should be tweeting more, but can’t quite think what to write.)

    I love it. Since I have always had a passion for words, writing and reading, Scrabble is a joy for me. Unfortunately, my almost-husband has no interest in it. The kids are not quite literate enough yet, and a game with them would probably involve explaining why we don’t stick Scrabble tiles in the toaster.

    Crosswords

    I envy people who have:

    1. the time to do crosswords
    2. the self-control to not look up every third answer on the Internet
    3. a partner who doesn’t think that crosswords should only be printed on novelty toilet paper.

    I feel especially jealous when I see romantic couples without children having leisurely brunches over the weekend super brain crunching cryptic crosswords.

    Brought to you by the InterWeb – Extra wide toasters

    I don’t know why you would want a toaster that can toast for 2 hours, but here it is http://www.toasterovensguide.com/black-and-decker-cto6301-toaster-oven.htm

  • Have you got the time?

    I once had a digital watch that flipped open to reveal a secret compartment filled with little sweets. Genius.

    I used to admire watches that promised more than telling time – like calculator watches with cute fiddly little rubber buttons, or complicated dials showing phases of the moon and atmospheric pressure.

    I toyed with the idea of buying a futuristic cuboid watches with huge digital numbers (hello dear Mr Starck). But with digital watches you can only see one time – now. Living in the moment. (Watch geeks love the analog Reveal watch. It cleverly only shows the current time – mimicking a digital display.)

    Most days I feel so rushed that I like the perspective of the past (“It’s been 57 minutes since I thought about eating.”) and the future (“13 minutes until the pie is done.”) So I have simple analog watches* that just tell the time.

    Isn’t it weird that we still wear watches? Almost everything around tells us the time – mobile phones, microwaves, computers, cars, cameras. Why do we still need/like to wear our time on our wrists?

    * I have a Mondaine Swiss Railway watch and an M&Co 10-One-4 watch.

    Brought to you by the Interweb – Last  minute fancy dress costumes

    Oops – forgot that the party you’re going off to is fancy dress? Here are some last minute and quite odd costume ideas. The Furry Nightmare Vest is terrifying.

  • Usability of clever toilets and iPhones

    The restaurant was modern, smart and friendly. The toilets were modern, smart and baffling. It took me quite a while to figure out how to turn the taps on. I cautiously waved my hands around, pressed a few metal discs, and even tried stepping on parts of the floor (I have been fooled by foot-operated taps before).

    The first picture below shows the magical mystery sink. The second photo shows the smart-arse ‘tap’ in action.

    Clever wash basin with hidden taps

    clever wash basin with water

    I was very pleased that I worked it out, without having to seek assistance. Why did the bathroom experience designer, or whatever they are called, make something very practical and necessary – washing hands, so difficult?

    The intuitive and smug iPhone interface

    When I became an iPerson, my brother assured me that it was all very simple to use. I just needed to play with it. I’m reinforcing a gender stereotype, but I would have preferred an old-fashioned user manual, not just a little leaflet telling me how simple everything is. All the blokes I know with iPhones seem very happy to spend hours fiddling away figuring out just how many cool things they can do. Learn through play.

    Between kids, work, friends and household duties, I haven’t found many opportunities to stroke the iPhone and marvel at it’s attractive design. As a result, I still haven’t moved far beyond the basic mobile functions – make and receive calls, browse websites, make notes, use the calculator… I haven’t even downloaded an app!

    My iPhone shines smugly at me: “You are not quite worthy of my glossy features and seamlessly smooth lifestyle enabling functions.”

    Brought to you by the Interweb – iPhone crochet craft
    I love crochet – by other people, not me. I want someone to make me a crochet iPhone toy.

  • People v machines

    I listened to the Important Business Man complain about the hardships of his Important Job to the furiously busy café owner, as I waited for my toasted cheese and tomato sandwich (wholegrain, no salt and pepper).

    It would be very convenient if I could just text or email my order ahead, on the way to work, and then pick up my order – bypassing the Important Moaning Business People. Easy, time-saving and efficient. And removing yet another human interaction from my life.

    Pros and cons of non-human transactions:

    • Online banking – hooray. No more wasted time in bank queues, wondering whether the same person designed the carpet AND the uniforms.
    • Ticket machines at train stations – hooray x2 now that our local station has a machine that takes cards. For readers living outside of New South Wales, yes – this is 2010, and yes – quite a few machines here will only take cash.
    • Mass Christmas ” oh haven’t we had a busy year” emails – boo. It’s great to hear what you and the brood have been up to, but I really really miss handwritten letters. And it’s not hard to pick up the phone/ mobile/ Skype handset thingy…
    • Sending virtual gifts – boo. Please don’t throw a smoked ham at me or grow me a virtual herb garden on Facebook. Why not buy some fresh cinnamon donuts to share for afternoon tea?

    Our local shops include 4 cafes*. At my favourite one, the staff know my name, talk to my kids, give us free treats. It’s lovely and peronal and would not happen if I pre-ordered by mobile phone.

    *We are a very up-and-coming neighbourhood. Refer to the original post on Stuff White People Like about coffee. And for bonus SWPL points,  I am an Asian Girl and my kids have two last names!

    Brought to you by the Interweb – Donuts in art

    I know donuts are ‘treat food’ (in kid-speak), but they are also a recurring theme in contemporary art. Look at these artistic rings of fried dough.

  • A selection of helpful notices from my office

    Sometimes I feel as if I have too much information in my life. Newspapers, news on television, magazines, emails, magazines, books, newsletters, websites … And today I counted 8 notices in the (very small) kitchen and 4 in the (also small) bathroom. See selection of most ridiculous below.

    Kitchen notice with mouse picture
    A very tidy mouse
    kitchen notice about using too much milk
    A mug half-full or half-empty?
    kitchen notice about sandwich press
    Simple sandwich rules
    Bathroom notice about proper toilet use
    Improper toilet use