ferrousland.com - daily news archives
Friday, June 08, 2007
smiley the gadget-master - 10:55 PM
(filed under 'smiley')
smiley is a child of the 2000s, that's for sure .. or, i suppose, he's just very much a product of his environment.
he can use a computer quite well & has been doing so since before he was two years old. he has no trouble at all using a mouse (even one that's set to very fast tracking) & is getting to know his way around a keyboard.
he's seen me using my handheld, the second-hand palm tungsten t which i bought from a friend, & has asked to play cards on it with me. i shouldn't have been surprised, but he took really easily to using the stylus to move the cards around on the screen & to tapping the screen where if you were using a mouse, you'd click.
i've been writing a number of blog entries on it lately & he asked on one occasion if i was playing cards. i told him that no, i was writing. today, after seeing me do it, he wanted to do some writing on it, too. i thought that using griffiti (where you form letters on a certain part of the screen to produce 'typing') might be a little beyond his current skills, so i opened up the notepad application where you can write or draw directly onto the viewing area & your 'pen' strokes appear directly under the stylus just as if you were writing on a piece of paper.
he did some writing & some drawing. a few times i showed him how to write some letters which he was writing a little bit off & then touched the place near the bottom of the screen to change to the eraser to 'rub off' my letters before handing the stylus back to him to allow him to write the letter again himself. after seeing this only three times or so, he then started using that function for himself, changing to the eraser, 'rubbing out' bits here & there to correct mistakes & then changing back to the 'pen'. i was quite impressed. he really is a bright little boy.
i told him that one day when i've been working for a while (doing proofreading, that's the plan), i'll probably upgrade to a newer model & that when i do, he can have this one (this one is about five years old which, in computing terms, is practically a dinosaur), but that in the meantime, he could share this one with me. immediately he piped up with, "buy a new one now?" i wish! lol! 
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.. on the side - 05:35 PM
(filed under 'general')
being in sydney & melbourne & having the opportunity to hang out with friends in restaurants & cafes brought to mind again that amongst those who know me well & who've had the chance to dine with me, i'm often known as a bit of a sally albright when i order anything.
sally albright is the female lead in the movie "when harry met sally" & is played by meg ryan. in the movie, she's characterised a few times by her inablility to order anything staight off a menu, just as it is. she always has some sort of preference about how it's arranged or served. particularly, she almost always requests some part of the meal to be served "on the side". if you know the movie well, you might have recognised that quote immediately from the title of this entry.
one time that comes to mind from over ten years ago is when i was at a cafe with two girls with whom i used to share a house. we all looked at the menu & chose what we wanted. i can't quite recall now if what i wanted to order was actually listed on the menu or not, but i knew they'd have have the ingredients, so i asked for some avocado on toast. i specified that i wanted it sliced, not mashed & that i'd like salt & pepper on top, but just a bit & that i preferred cracked black pepper on it, not normal white pepper & if they didn't have cracked pepper then no pepper at all, please. i was very polite about it, of course (i'm hard pressed to not show politeness, it's usually pretty important to me), but my friends were looking at me incredulously after i'd finished.
that was when that reputation started, i think. i'd mostly forgotten about it until i went on holiday & had the chance to eat out in restaurants & cafes which, as you can imagine, i don't usually get the chance to do here in brissy with just smiley & i. to tell the truth, i don't order like that all the time. i guess it's just on those particular occasions when i have wanted it just the way i want it, that it stands out a bit. i'm sure there have been many times when i've chosen something just as it is from the menu .. well, maybe with a little change here & there regarding leaving off one thing or another .. but there have been times!
i really hadn't thought it about it for a long time until i was in sydney with hellie & i ordered a chocolate thickshake. initially i asked for it as is, but then i wondered if they put some sort of gross goop in there for thickening it or if it was just loads of ice cream. also, i wondered if it was real cocoa or chocolate syrup that they used to flavour it. i often find that they put far too much syrup in & it's just too sweet. if they use cocoa, then it tastes much better & isn't sickly sweet. so after the waiter came back to confirm that yes, they use ice cream & yes, they use chocolate syrup, i ordered it half strength. after the waiter left with our order, hellie looked at me & said, "you know, for a moment there - just for one moment - i thought you were going to just order something off the menu exactly as it was." then she finished by laughing & saying something about how she'd missed me & it was good to have me in sydney. 
i'm sure some waiters & waitresses have left me me & thought, "oh. my. god. she's one of those customers!" that's one reason why i try hard to make sure i'm polite & nice about it. being a difficult customer is one thing, but there's no better way to get your food spat in than to be a difficult & rude customer.
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