being a consumer is exhausting

sabin decided she wanted to use her savings on a PS3 yesterday, so we ran around in search of one. after fortifying ourselves with starbucks (as one does, if one can), we went from electronics store to electronics store, looking for PS3 consoles. we hadn't done proper research and ended up getting one with only 12GB. we also bought that little big planet game and GTA (woo hoo, i'm a resourcestærke forældre, you know). we got it home and sabin hooked it up and found that it was too little memory for GTA to even load! waah! why do they even sell such a small playstation and who can use it? (tho' it explains why it was so cheap.)

so today, after a bit of research into external hard drives, i ran around seeing if i could find one. i was talked out of trying by a pimply earnest kid in an electronics store (why are they always like that). and felt harried and run ragged by all of the dashing around.

it didn't help that i've been back and forth to the vet 4 times in two day with five different cats. two were neutered, one spayed and all of them vaccinated. two are on the pill now. dang, cat birth control is exhausting.

and on one of the trips past a bicycle shop towards the vet, we stopped and bought sabin a pretty new yellow bike. once i start my job in february, i won't be home to play chauffeur to sabin at her whim, so she needed a new bike that fits her (she's grown a lot). they were on sale (or at least they pretended to be by listing a high price and a less high price on the sign). it's a super cool neon yellow city bike. i'll take photos soon. it was pissing down rain and blowing today and not a fit day outside for man nor beast nor trying out a bike nor photographing it.

it's 16 days from the child's birthday and so far this month, she's gotten an iPhone 5S (you have to grab them while they're in stock), a PS3, two games for it, and a new bicycle. at this rate she'll have nothing to open on her actual birthday.

and tomorrow, i've got to run and take the damn PS3 back and trade it for one with 500GB so we can actually play our games. grr. i've gotten completely out of the habit of being a consumer and i'm beginning to think that's a good thing.

tranströmer poems

it's nearly time again for the nobel prize for literature. here are some gems from last year's winner, tomas tranströmer (best brush up on your swedish), while we wait:

Hör suset av regn.
Jag viskar en hemlighet
för att nå in dit.

Scen på perrongen.

Vilken egendomlig ro -

den inre rösten.

Askfärgad tystnad.
Den blå jätten går forbi.
Kall bris från havet.

netizen vs. real life

i feel i've drifted away from my former life as a solid netizen, to one that's more present in my real world surroundings. i'm more involved in my local community, i do more activities in my area, rather than just partaking of them online. in general, i find myself living a life that's less isolated, more grounded in my surroundings and far more properly dressed than it was. and i'm spending a whole lot less time online. i think it's made me less in touch with the culture of the blogosphere than i was, but perhaps i just feel less of that culture than i did.

but that culture is also changing. ironically, there are more blogs than ever, but i think people read them less. we read in a different way than we did just a couple of years ago. we read on devices, on the go, rather than sitting in front of our laptops. this means we leave less comments. as much as i adore my iPhone and iPad, i'm not THAT fond of typing anything of any substance on them (and odin knows that all of my comments are full of substance). we might ponder just as much an interesting post we've read, but we don't necessarily let the writer know that we were there. and it might not even show that we were, thanks to various readers and such.

i think blogging has changed, even for me. i'm less driven to share every thought (which largely has to do with the aforementioned, undoubtedly). but it's also because i share those snippets i once shared here in other ways (e.g. on facebook and instagram and less so, via twitter). and all of the pretty things i find, i pin now on pinterest instead of linking and pondering here (come to think of that, i kind of miss the old way - pinterest is actually rather impersonal in many ways).

flickr (with which i've always had a love-hate relationship) is largely over for me as a social network. i don't even bother to add my photos to groups anymore (i'm not even really sure when it stopped). it's really just a place in the cloud to park and categorize my photos and a place from which to retrieve my instagram photos for blog posts without actually plugging my phone into iPhoto (tho' that may be solved by iOS6, i've yet to fully explore it, but i've heard there's now iPhoto on the phone).

i guess what i mean by all of this is that i've moved back towards flesh & blood real life. and i think i miss the matrix a little bit, even as i am slightly relieved to be more present where i am here and now.

how do you think the blogosphere has changed in recent years?

friday confession - because it's been awhile....

my dear friend polly used to do friday confessions and i've done my share as well.  at the moment, i'm reading jonathan franzen's the discomfort zone and it's giving me a strange desire to make all sorts of awkward confessions... or is it confessions of awkwardness? here are just a few:

~ when my sister and i played battleship as a child, i totally cheated. all. the. time.

~ i'm not that fond of chocolate. if it disappeared from the earth tomorrow, it would make no difference to me (please don't hate me).

~ i had a beautiful black and white gelding when i was 13. one day, i went to get him in the pasture and he bit the hell out of me, on my back, of all places. actually picked me up by my shoulder blade and shook me. and i never told anyone at the time, because i knew he would be sold immediately. no one noticed that i couldn't really lift my left arm for a good week.

~ i am a total sucker for a crime novel, even a crappy crime novel. i just reread stieg larsson's millenium trilogy and i have to say the man is the swedish dan brown, but still, i read like a maniac.

and i'm afraid that's all for today...i spent the little time husband allowed me before the computer today (he's a packing slave driver, i tell you) writing a foodie/wine post over on domestic sensualists, so please do check it out!

happy easter one and all!