Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Doctor's

MakeUseOf is a brilliant site to get information just about everything to do with technology. If you want to know the who's who of media, or learn about new trends, or just gather new ideas, this is the site to go to.

This morning I stumbled across a description of a new web app called Ovulation. The app helps you figure out (presumably for those women/couples wanting to become pregnant) when you ovulate.

(mmm hmm...sipping my hot tea)

Initially, my reaction is, wow, we've sure come a long way since my young adult years, when fertility and ovulation cycles were not a topic of public discussion. Instead, here was a totally refreshing blatant proclamation,

"Numerous methods exist to solicit feedback after an event. However, sometimes the feedback is more timely and helpful if it can be gathered during the performance and Ovulation lets you do exactly that."

(letting the steam from my cup steam-up my glasses)

OK, my mind did a little trip... performance... what do they mean, when it's happening, or when you are performing that marvelous act of trying to make a baby during a time that increases your chance of it happening?

(my mind going into early 1960s primp sex education mode)

Then I read the final sentence,

"... It is a web app that allows you to create a page for your event, which your audience can go to using their smartphones."

(double take)

Ovation is a web app...

Usually, I am terribly tried being dyslexic. This morning it gave me ten minutes of uncontrollable mirth.

Anniversary Overlooked

I just realised that I forgot my sixth-year blogging anniversary. My heavens, how could that happen! Many marriages don't last that long.

And, yes, the first flush is long over. The "is this all" hit the wall, was rather messy, but I managed (hopefully) to clean it up without anyone noticing (thank you Charlotte and Kristi for your help on this occasion).

It almost makes me teary to think of all the ups-and-downs that I experienced over these six years. Would I start a blog today knowing what I know now?... to be honest, probably not. Would I want to miss out on blogging, no matter how sporadically it has become?... definitely not!

Directly connected to all approximately 1,200 blog entries are the nearly 250 collages I have made. It boggles my mind... here are a good slice of my favourite collages. (I know, you've seen them all, but I thought it would be appropriate to post the slideshow once again.)



I have met great people through my blogging, have developed deep and meaningful friendships, discovered brilliant ideas on other blogs, explored a lot of my inner landscape, and probably left behind the most important document in my life for my children to explore at their risk some time in the future.

Long live the internet!

New World

Many many years ago, I wrote three scripts for computer games for women. It was an idea before its time...the games blended video sequences, digital storylines, and mini-games into a gaming experience that was quirky and entertaining.

In order to try and find a game publisher, I attended a few game shows. And, while I was there I did manage to speak to people (men) involved in the business. They kindly introduced me to the ins-and-outs of the publishing business.

The gaming business is huge and exciting and a massive sub-culture many people never "get". Yet those who know their way around in this world have great stories to tell.

P.S. The scripts are still in their numerous binders in a storage cupboard. I got as far as having a few meetings with production managers of Sony Europe. Their final thought, "interesting, but too expensive to produce". One of these days I'll take the scripts out again and brush off the dust and see whether there is anything worth salvaging.

Strange Experience

Just came back from lunch at our local Mac-fast-food-place. Haven't been there for a while. Certainly not just when all the schools have closed for the day. It was very strange experience... the machines peeping endlessly away, much in the same way the monitoring units do on intensive care wards, the crowds of hungry teenagers, the rows of hamburgers being added to from one end and taken away from the other, very Tetras like...

Rambunctious Fun

Sometimes making music is a rambunctious sweaty fun sort of affair where the noise and foot stomping lends its vibes to the music on stage. Video in point. Can you feel the audience jumping up and down on each others toes?

The Art of Living Life Barefoot

There are two types of sailors. Ones that see the deck is wet and carpeted with sharp objects and wear the appropriate footwear. And those who slow down and get the feel of the danger by being barefoot. I was raised in a sailing tradition of the later.

If we put shoes or boots on while on-board, it took away a vital means of sensory perception. Instead of letting our feet help us “see” our way across the deck, we would blindly bump our way around.

The reason I am babbling on about this is because I spent a good part of the night (sleeping badly at the moment) thinking about the art of living one’s life barefoot. How there are whole groups of people or cultures that go through life so.

My early childhood in Venezuela and Grenada was completely barefoot. In my later childhood we were always so at home. We even tottered down the frozen driveway in deepest winter barefoot to dig the newspaper out of the snow bank without shoes. And there were the blissful summers where our feet never touched anything but stone, sand, grass, and hot pavement of the roads coming home late in the day.

Then nearly thirty years ago, I moved to Germany. A culture that doesn’t embrace bare feet. I’m sure you’ve seen the German tourists that wear sandals with socks. This just shows how clearly they don’t get the concept of going barefoot.

Ok, in the privacy of their homes, or while sitting in their gardens… yes, you can get a glimpse of folks here wiggling their toes. But that is about it.

I’m not saying this is wrong. It is just other. Not bad other or good other… just other.

Living here so long has changed me in many ways, but in no way as much as in this matter. I see American tourists walking through airports wearing flipflops, and shrink into myself. All those bared toes… in public… how inappropriate. I look at teenagers wearing bare feet in the cities during a hot summer day and think, spittle, grime, and dog poo.

Oh no, I’ve sold out! How could that happen? Could it be possible to retrieve that feeling a naked innocence of times past?

Would I have to take off my soft and warm slippers this cold rainy morning to do so?