Do I need an iphone?

Nope. Do I want one? Yep. Will I get one? Nope. At least not untill that baby drops price. I am extremely tempted... But my brownie is holding me back. Over the last six months, I bought a 17 inch laptop, a 2500 dollar camera, and my hubby got me the 24 inch desktop. My carbon footprint is humongous. And I do feel guilty about it. Truly...
But my love and hunger for gadgets is here to stay. Mr Gadget turned me into Mrs Gadget, far from my humble cravings I had as a single mom with 3 boys, with a constant state of not enough money. I often did not know on monday how I was going to feed them on friday.
I was known in Social Services as the one with the big mouth, I did not tell them about my little heart. It is unbelievably frustrating to have your last 25 dollar in your wallet (1000 fr) and know that the next batch of money only comes a week further. Not to mention official holidays, as they postponed payments if I may call them like that, without having a clue that a day extra to live was a disaster. For that reason, if you ever need egg recipes, I have them. Eggs and minced meat. Minced meat and eggs. As those were cheap in my welfare days.

In that same line of thinking, if Mr Wonderful had not found me, I would still be out of money, probably out of the job as my body refused to go back to the state it was in before I got my big crash.
Crashed kidneys, an enlarged heart, blood cells acting weird, it all made up for 3 months in hospital and a year at home recovering before going back to work. Work that was in fact becoming way more then a burden. My body did not want the newspaper hours of working anymore, and my wallet was desperate for more bling.
Compared to then, today my problems are luxuary problems. All the way, and a full 300 procent. I have become Mrs Gadget, and in the market for more gadgets. Hmmm, yes, I would like an iphone, but not at the price tag that it has today. Patience is a virtue that I don’t have, none whatsoever, when God dealt out patience, I was hanging out in a pub, and missed the deal. Oops, I forgot, I don’t drink, don’t smoke and don’t look at women, so a pub is not a good place for me.
But what is the deal now exactly? iPhone... phone, camera, gps, and 1000 and popping new ones out every day applications that we don’t need.
Do I want an iPhone? Yep... Do I want it now? Nope...
But I had a browse yesterday evening inside the pages with applications made for iPhone and iTouch. The latter I do have, so I am not completely gadget less... It can’t hurt to be informed.
I browsed the apps, and got more confused by every new page I opened. It struck me that some people badly need a life. A real life... I browsed the first 50 pages with apps, and gave up at that time, as there were 300 pages more to load.
I have made a selection of the apps that triggered my curiosity. Or my disbelief. Or my WHAT-THE-HEC... Let me start with iCrude... Do I want to know realtime crude oil prices? Not really.
All I know is that it is becoming extremely expensive to drive around. More so for commuters who need petrol to get to work. Does it help to know that a barrel is what, 160 dollar now?
See, I might need the app, as I have no clue. All I know is that Brits pay 1 pound per liter or two dollars converted. I don’t know how they do it, and how British highways still can be stuffed at rush hour...

Number two on my unbelievable list is the one to measure blood pressure...

Now, that one could come in handy. If I have to go to my GPS here in Ripon, it could be vital to show the stupid doctors in the surgery that my visit to their office needs avoiding at all cost.
Every time I step a foot in that surgery, my stress levels go beyond clinically dead point. I could prove my point with an itouch with Blood Pressure app. Voila, I said it...

I thought that the Rain Forecast for Sweden might be likely to find a spot on my itouch, as I will not go for the phone yet, you never know when I might get to Sweden, if I do, it could be interesting to know that the rain forecast is. So I could decide not to go to Sweden because too wet... Hmmm, that idea makes total sense.

Same thing for the Czech map based real estate search engine. We have no plans to go to Czecoslovakia, but should we decide to go, a real estate search engine could come in extremely handy. Admit it... It can’t hurt our peace of mind to know that real estate in Czecoslovakia is way more payable then here in UK. Maybe we should go buy real estate in the east...
We might pick up some of the Tsjech language in the same go...

What about a pocket watch? So I can time how long my cooking eggs have been cooking... How did my grandmother know if the eggs were cooked. She had no gadgets yet managed to put perfectly cooked eggs on the table... I think we are being ripped off big time. Someone wants us to believe that we can simply not live without an iPhone...

How on earth does my touch or my maybe future iPhone know if the steak is OK? How? Tell me, I am very curious about this one... What I am doing now is eyeball my steak, I am guessing at the color and the state of the butter, and my steaks come out more or less perfectly baked. I am sure that I would do a far better job with my iTouch next to the stove, watching my touch instead of my steak, which of course might have a burning end result...

With burned steaks at hand, I would not need the my basal metabolic rate. That is, if I could find out what exactly my basal metabolic rate is. It is a disease? It it a character point? Does it hurt?
Does it have purple hair on it? Can I hold it? Squeeze it? Can I iron it? See people, if you design gadgets and applications for them, you need to make sure that the users know what the apps really do. No use having a basal metabolic rate if I go to the pump station with it and ask them to fill it up for me...

The above one is totally useless to me, but it sounds nice. It would be great if I am standing in line in the Strike Zone for lunch, and when Pastor Roosevelt asks me what I want, I could tell him a well done NEURONprocessing Reporter, please, with grilled chicken and no cheese. Hmmm, yep, sounds OK...

And of course, a fitnessJournal Mobile would suit me too, as it would be fun to measure my non existing exercise and nutrition levels. This one is a bit of a drag though... There is no painless and fun way for exercising and nutrition blabla. Exercising costs energy, I hate it, I like to move only my fingers sitting in front of my computer. More exercise is dangerous for me. And the guy at the drive through Mac Donalds knows that when I pop up at his window, that I want a cone with no flake. I don’t even have to say it anymore. I give him 49 p, and we know without talking that the endresult will be me driving out of the parking with a soft ice no flake in my hands.

I kind of like the blood Alcohol Level one too, I never drink alcohol, but it would be nice to test if my level is indeed zero... Just so I would know... right????

On a more personal note, the brush timer would be good for me. As I was on welfare, dentistry was way too expensive, it is a known fact that in money lacking families, the healthy teeth are lacking too. But no more, from now on, I could take my itouch into the bathroom, and watch to know how my timing goes, and how to brush my teeth. Of course, I would possibly poke an eye out as I try to find my mouth whilst looking at the iTouch...

But here here, I did find one that I could use in reality. As readers of this blog know, I drove in a pothole a couple of months ago, with a 500 pounds damage to my car. We claimed it to the County council, so we could get our money back. But their Insurance company finds that they are not responsible - (who is if they are not?) - so they refuse to give me my money back. And that is where it would be a good idea to know a Californian lawyer, who could sue the bloody ass of the bloody council, to say it in plain british... I would have to go with a Californian lawyer, as up to today, I have called six brit lawyers, none of them wants to represent me, as it is not their speciality. For god sakes, no wonder Brittain is going down the drain fast. When even lawyers have become a picky porky bunch of not worth anything buggers.

It will be clear by now that browsing the apps is in fact good for my peace of mind. Some developers manage to invent apps that nobody needs, and they succeed in making us believe that their apps will make our lives easier. Not if I drop my iTouch in the toilet, as my bathroom sink is next to it... If I use the Brush timer, I need to be sure that I don’t have accidental vanishings... as in touch flushed!

See, it is making my day better to read about apps to come, as it makes me realize that I in fact am pretty good in whatever I do, as I can do it all without iPhone or iTouch... For now anyway...
My touch is more then enough to keep an eye on, I will skip the phone for a good while longer...

Talk later, I have 789 more of silly apps to look at... But rest assured, I will keep those out of my blog.
Tomorrow some more pics of Scotland for sure... Promised!

Talk later! And don’t drop your touch in the bath tub... for crying out loud!

Comments

[lisa]

oh, cat.. you are too funny.. you say the things i sometimes only think... i just can't swallow paying for something i already do for 'free' ...

[mollie]

I think the Czech real estate and Swedish weather are my faves!!!

ta love! so good to hear your voice, and to read your wit!!!

miss you...

[Mieke Duyck]

zit hier te lachen in mijn eentje bij het lezen van je gekke bevindingen...maar inderdaad, het is helemaal waar: ze willen ons gewoon doen geloven dat we zonder al die gadgets niet kunnen leven....alleen jij kan dat prima en heel origineel verwoorden!
liefs

[Christine]

Well, and I thought technical manuals were so boring - what a laugh all these apps are!!! California lawyers, Czech real estate, Swedish weather - what's this world coming to! I am so very glad Mrs. Gadget found Mr. Gadget - so much more evidence of how tough life was before. Enjoy it, Catherine, with or without the lusted for technology!