snazzing up your headphones

a little how-to, since i've not done one in ages. i pinned this on pinterest and was inspired to adjust the idea a bit. we have loads of perler (beads) lying around and sabin doesn't really use them that much anymore, so we decided they'd be perfect for decorating and protecting our iPhone headphones.

so here's what we did - we sorted into the colors that wanted and placed what we thought was approximately the right amount into small bowls.

then we took a sharp, small knife and carefully made a cut on one side of each bead. we tried to do it with nail scissors, but found that our thumb and forefinger quickly became too sore for that. a knife and a small cutting board were much better.

you can see the slice in this one - it takes a little bit to get the hang of it and not accidentally slice both sides, but you'll quickly catch on.

sabin did almost all of hers, prying the cut bead apart with her fingernails - that also became painful after awhile and there were tears and a temper tantrum. i told her sometimes you have to suffer for your art. but then she hit upon the idea of holding the bead open with a bobby pin so that it could be slipped onto the cord much more easily. ingenius, i tell you.

what takes the longest is sorting and cutting each bead - with the bobby pin technique, it only took about half an hour to actually put them all on the cord. it looks cool, protects the cord and makes it much harder for it to tangle up. plus, we can tell whose is whose at our house now. sadly, husband won't let us do his, even tho' we promised to choose boy colors.

on the cord - i don't think they'll fall off, nor can you really see the cuts once they're in place.

my pattern was random, but sabin chose to do regular rainbows, all the same. both work very well.

it makes a  great sunday afternoon activity on a grey and rain day.

iPhone therefore iAm

serenity now

husband took my phone with him this morning. he's sick. he's got a fever. and it apparently affected his brain and he just took the the whole stack of phones that was sitting on the shelf. which included both of his and mine. and it feels like he took my right arm with him. i can't count the number of times i've reached for my phone - to check my calendar, or my email or my words with friends, or to text someone or to check the weather forecast for tomorrow. or most importantly, to take an instagram photo. my whole life is in that phone. i don't know a single phone number. not one. i only know that most of them start with +45, which is our country code. i am totally helpless without my phone. i have officially turned large portions of my brain over to a pretty, shiny piece of technology. and i like it that way!

i mentioned it on facebook and my friends started "liking" the post - like it's somehow funny or fitting that i don't have my phone! arrgh!  this is definitely putting a damper on the week of positivity.

the sociology of mobile phones

a couple of weeks ago, i got together with a young graduate student who grew up in the same town i did. she's here studying architecture for the summer (she came to the right place for that--think jørn utzon's sydney opera house). we were sipping iced tea in the garden and discussing her impressions of denmark thus far (she'd been here a week at that point). one remark really stuck with me and i've been pondering it ever since. she said, "there seems to be a really high standard of living in denmark."

she went on to explain why she thought that and she mentioned that people are well dressed (i told her those were probably swedes), they're all out shopping (she's been spending time in the center of copenhagen, so i can see why she thinks this--tho' again, i maintain those are mostly swedes), they have nice bikes (that's true) and everyone has a mobile phone.

the mobile phone thing surprised me a little bit. i mean, of course everyone has a mobile phone. even sabin has one. we don't even have a land line anymore. we are, after all, well into the 21st century.

last week, in dublin, i noticed a lot of people with mobile phones as well. everyone is going along texting or phoning someone. after all, how else do you ever meet someone somewhere? but in dublin, there was a difference in the phones. i saw several people with the old black & silver sony ericsson i had back in 2004 and even older, more decrepit, possibly steam-driven nokias. oh the horror.

and it led me to ponder a sociology of mobile phones. my theory is that the higher the standard of living in a society, the more often people replace their mobile phones to the latest model. i have a friend here in denmark who, every six months, when her "old" phone that she's bound to by her plan is free to SIM unlock, she gets a new phone. she loves having the latest model. and i know she's not the only one. you just have to look around when you're on the train or in a cafe to notice--everyone has a new phone. unless they're trying to be retro (like husband, who is using my 2006 sony ericsson K800i and refuses to replace it until it actually falls apart in his hands--which is what happened to HIS version of that same phone), people generally have the latest, coolest mobile phones.

it was obvious in other ways in ireland that it's not a rich country. not that it seemed poor either. it's just evident that it doesn't have the same economic success of the scandinavian countries i spend most of my time in. people's phones are cool in norway too (and their cars, don't even get me started on their cars). and my point is that you can actually use the mobile phones people have as a sort of thermometer of economic prosperity. if people are prosperous, they replace their phones to the latest models when they come out, even if their old phone is still working. because they want to have the latest, coolest new gadget. in less prosperous societies, people keep their old mobile until it's not working anymore.

frankly, although i am a total gadget hound, the latter model is much more sustainable in terms of the planet (we'll soon be surrounded by heaps of old, abandoned mobile phones). on the other hand, i'm pretty pleased with my iPhone and my brand spanking new HTC Touch Diamond 2. which is vastly improved over the Touch Diamond original that i got back in march. in this case, i had to replace it already because that first phone was rubbish (turning itself off all the time, which nicely cut back on the amount of phone calls i got). and yes, i have two mobiles. one personal and one for work. that's another societal reality today.

look around. what are the mobile phones like your country? it'll give you an idea of how it's doing.

iPhone is the new black

gadgets and technology are the new snobbery.  according to a hilarious column by David Brooks from 08.08.08, what matters today is the buzz for the latest gadget or social networking site, where you download your music and what fancy new wireless headphones you have (he mentioned some finnish ones, but i don't know those). by the time things are in with the masses, you, to retain elite status, should have already moved on to the next obscure new wonder. 

MySpace is out, Facebook is in. Gmail is where you should get your mail, definitely not AOL and hotmail is soooo over. Plaxo is beginning to surpass LinkedIn, but although i joined, i'm unwilling to really move over there yet. Apparently there's a new site for music--Pitchfork, tho' i'm still using Limewire. the coolness that is Nintendo DS is kicking the Sony PSP's patootie, as is the Wii vs. PS3. i can see that Wordpress is gaining on Typepad, tho' i'll admit i'm quite content here on blogger.

one simply must have an iPhone (preferably the new 3G, since the first gen is so over) and at least one iPod. Apple has definitely been on the forefront of this new rule of design as a mark of snobbery and Brooks says that June 29, 2007, the date of the release of the first iPhone was the shift--that's the day that "the means of transmission replaced the content of culture as the center of historical excitement and as the marker of social status."

in myself, i can see that it even goes down to the level of what little bag to put your gadget in...it must be a crumpler, but a golla (that's finnish) is also hottie, anything else (including the belkin that i have for my Touch) is distinctly nottie.

i have bose earbuds and never use those white ones that came with my iPod, tho' i can see that those white earbuds are themselves a mark of hipness because i've seen people using them who don't actually HAVE an iPod. but, of course, i fancy myself as far too cool for that. because part of this whole phenomenon as Brooks describes it is that you have to not only be "an early adopter, but an early discarder." i will definitely not be discarding my iPhone or my many iPods anytime soon and for now, i'm staying on LinkedIn.

p.s.  don't you love that fabric under my iPhone & crumpler? it's called "jarrinha" and it's by globaltex.i'm using it for curtains.

on gadgets and being back at work

this morning, i threw my glasses and my toothbrush into my makeup bag, stuffed it into the suitcase with the work clothes, put on my raincoat and set out in the pouring rain for the airport and a 55-minute flight to oslo. it was time to head back to work. i felt so ready to turn my brain back on and although the public transportation system in denmark went totally stupid in the rain and i wasn't sure i would make my flight, i did make it. but there was no time to grab breakfast in the lounge, so i was pretty hungry when i landed (since i prioritized checking out the new pilgrim fall line over buying some breakfast).

i grabbed a quick lunch and then the train to work. can i just say that i love my colleagues! everyone was rested after having most of july off. there are three new people and it was fantastic talking to everyone and catching up and getting to know everyone. i got great energy from everyone and feel so ready to dive back into writing stories and preparing presentations for the fall conference round. i do so adore networking and the fact of being a woman in the man's world of shipping and that's exactly what i get to do in the coming months. i think that the blahs i felt last week were just my brain trying to tell me that it was time to go back to work.

as i unpacked to settle into my hotel room in oslo, i realized that i have to admit that my gadget use has reached absurd proportions. i have in my possession 1 HTC so-called smart (not to mention ugly) phone, 1 slightly dented sony ericsson K800i phone, 1 3G iPhone, 1 black 4GB iPod nano (my podcast iPod), 1 nikon D60, 1 dell D430 laptop and 1 red nintendo DS. this is getting ridiculous! but they all have their purpose. and since i'm suffering horribly from iMac withdrawal (amazing how quickly i have blocked out the PC habits), i may have to get a MacBook Pro in the near future, which will be yet another electronic wonder to haul around in my giant crumpler messenger bag.

but, on the bright side, being away from the house has helped greatly on the inspiration front. just reading the IHT on the plane and paging through the august Scanorama (how did i miss an entire issue--i didn't fly anywhere in july!!), caused a whole page of scribbles in my blog idea notebook. but it does disturb me that i went an entire month without flying! that hasn't happened in at least 5 years. no wonder i had the blahs last week!

so, i hereby wish everyone a week full of inspiration and refreshed beginnings...