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Do you shop at Amazon?

do-you-amazonIf you shop at Amazon, bookmark this post – and you can contribute to the Shiny Bits of Life tip jar, by starting your shopping with this link.

Reason? Shiny Bits of Life is an Amazon affiliate. If you buy anything from Amazon and you start from that link, Shiny Bits will get a small percentage of your purchase – at no extra cost to you!

Alternatively, the same link is at the top of the “You should visit” links near the top of the sidebar, at the right.

Have fun shopping! Remember, Amazon has most of the stuff you need – and don’t need.

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Ridiculous infatuation

nixon-watchI like watches. I rarely wear them.

The trend these days is big watches. I have very skinny wrists. Those kinds of watches look ridiculous on me.

I did not buy this watch. But it was fun to try it on. Nixon makes some pretty cool watches.

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iPad review

ipadYes, Apple’s iPad was released yesterday.

I think it will sell a massive amount. Basically, it’s a Kindle, an iPod Touch, and a keyboard-less* MacBook, all rolled into one. It has a much prettier interface than the Kindle. You can do anything that requires the internet when you have a wifi connection – or if you don’t (and spend more), you can do it cellular-ly via AT&T (in some parts of the USA). It sounds like there will be a reasonable deal on that too – $30 for one month’s unlimited data service.

Some of the apps look to be pushed even further than their Mac or iPhone equivalents. And they are reasonably priced ($30 instead of $79 for the full iWork suite).

Prices range from $499 to $829, depending on storage capacity (16-64 gb) and whether you add the 3G internet connection capability. Sounds like a deal to me – for what you get! Availability? “Sign up here, and we’ll contact you when iPad is available to order.” (Could be two weeks. But I’d guess a month-and-a-half.)

For me? I won’t be getting one anytime soon, because I can’t afford it – and because I’m too shy to be that cutting-edge. But if someone gave me one? I’d suck up my pride and settle for being that cutting edge.

(Photo from the Apple site.) *You will be able to get an external keyboard – but it will probably cost something outrageous like $79.

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People are different

Strenghts-Spectrum(You know that.)

I wanted to remind you – and me – of what a beautiful thing it is how people can be so different.

Two of the very smartest people I know are not very good public speakers. It takes them both a full minute to spit out a good sentence. But when it comes to their areas of expertise, stand back!

Too often, I find myself judging another person for their weakness… “Why can’t that person just understand the basics of how to do this?” or “Why is that person so blind to how they are harming the situation?”

I am so blind to my weaknesses – most of the time. (This concept is not my own… see here.) And any healthy group has members that are weak in some areas and others who are strong in those same areas. (That is also not my concept!)

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Popular taste vs critical taste

radiohead-1Rolling Stone magazine ran an section at the end of last year called, “50 Best Albums of the Decade”. Though I did not entirely agree with their choices, my tastes ran much closer to the critics who wrote the article than to the tastes of the public. A small evidence of that: I had seen live 18 of the groups or people represented in that list – and none of the top 40 albums for the week at the end of the magazine.

Where do your tastes lie?

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Better parents, not better kids

little-buddyI was amused by this “Little Buddy” device that Best Buy sells. It’s a GPS unit that your child is supposed to carry around so that you will always know where they are.

I can see this being a good thing for children of high profile people, where kidnapping might be a possibility. But normal people? My advice is to communicate with your child. Ideally you have a trusting relationship with them – they tell you where they are and when they expect to return. A pay-as-you-go mobile phone would allow them to communicate with you in a situation where they need to make a new plan. And that would cost less than the $15 a month that the Insignia plan requires (if your agreement with your kid is that you will pay for those kinds of calls or texts only).

Finally, I admit that we are of course not perfect parents. And also, some kids just make bad choices. I don’t think those kind of kids would readily carry around a “Little Buddy” in their pocket or backpack. Chances are, they’d leave it at their friends house before they went off wherever it was they wanted to go.

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When you MUST have an accent

pendragonIn our desire to provide suitable entertainment for our fathers or family, we watched Pendragon.

It was pretty much a C-grade movie. The acting was OK, in some instances. None of us thought the heroine was beautiful enough. But the thing that killed it for us was the American accents. Somehow we have been conditioned to expect that any historical film reflecting that era should have actors and actresses with English (British) accents.

(Image courtesy of the film production company’s site.)

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We have no accent

accent-rAs I have traveled to different places in the world, I am always amused when people claim, “We have no accent.” It’s true – if they have never lived anywhere else. But my contention is that we all have accents.

I admit that there are standard accents. In England, there is the BBC broadcaster’s accent, which is a kind of measuring stick. The American equivalent would be what one can hear on the national nightly news. In Kenya, national radio broadcasts are spoken in a standard baseline Swahili that is most easily understood by the largest majority of the listening population. But those are still accents!

Another factor is saturation. If we are used to hearing a particular voice on a long-term basis, we put their voice into our accent-less category. In high school, my friend Bryan’s mom was from Quebec. She had a wonderful French-Canadian lilt. He thought she had no accent. My dad grew up in Texas. Bryan claimed he had a southern accent. I thought he had none.

The lovely model for today’s photo is my daughter Rachel.

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