So, I was messing about on the Internet this week trying to do a bazillion things at once, and I somehow stumbled upon the Radio link at the top of the Last.fm home page.

Ok, let me backup. Last.fm is an audio scrobbler, which is a funny phrase that means it tracks all the music you play on your computer. (Well, all the music you play in programs supported by the plugin, like iTunes, WinAmp, etc. I think it can also download your iPod stats.) I’ve used Last.fm to track my songs for years now, and you can see my stats here. (Please ignore the Bieber. I was just experimenting. I didn’t inhale.)

Ok, back to where I was. If you click on the “Your Library Radio” link in the sidebar of the Radio page a widget loads that starts playing songs that you’ve scrobbled. It’s like having your MP3 collection with you anywhere, which is handy for me because I keep all my music on an external hard drive that I don’t like to lug [...]

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Photo by bump / by NCND 2.0 CC

I changed my Twitter name from @pastaqueen to @jennettefulda not long ago, and was sort of surprised this didn’t seem like a big deal. Here I was, using my REAL NAME online, something that ten years ago was recommended as much as driving drunk, huffing paint and popping pimples. (And please, don’t try to do all three at once, especially if you’re using your real name.)

Back in those days (the NINETIES) we were warned that the Internet was full of dirty old men pretending to be 16-year-old girls who wanted to molest you or steal your credit card number. We’re still warned about that today, but people don’t seem to be as worried as much as they used to about using their real names online. When did this happen? Why didn’t I notice this sooner? Sometime in the past decade the Internet has become accepted as an extension of our “real lives” and not just an escape where you can pretend to be somebody else. You get [...]

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You’d expect the photo above to be in black and white with tattered edges, because that phone is ANCIENT. The Mayans had cell phones like that. Sadly, I also have a cell phone like that. Oh, my poor little cell phone! Once it was the shiniest, coolest gadget on the block. Then two minutes later it was complaining about arthritis and napping in the early afternoon.

I may work in information technology, but I am not a gadget person. My philosophy towards electronics is to keep it until it breaks. The Kindle and the iPad look nifty and all, but I feel no need to buy either one. However, iPads and Kindles are still rather rare, whereas smartphones have recently hit a saturation point. It seems like everyone has one. My friends are always whipping out their phones to check Twitter or Facebook or send messages on their QWERTY keyboards or to run the latest app or Google the answer to a question that has come up over dinner or to show me video of [...]

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Last week I finally figured out what causes the grimy residue that occasionally appears in my bathroom sink. It’s from sewage coming up the drain! Oh, how I long for the days I thought it was from the maintenance man changing my air filter and washing his hands in the sink. The urine and little flecks of feces swimming in the basin where I brush my teeth were very warm, emanating heat when my hand hovered above the concoction. I turned on the faucet and forced the icky brew sloooooooowly back down the drain and then closed the stopper until the maintenance man could come fix it.

This was also the same day that my Internet connection died for real. Two days before I left for vacation, the Internet choked, then someone did the Heimlich and it was breathing again for a day. But then it was hit by a bus and died while I was away, only to be carted to the emergency room and resuscitated for another day when I was able to check [...]

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