*nods at everyone* I totally agree on the want-it-now downturn, the omnipresence of pictures (though that is one of my personal weaknesses, love Flickr), and cell phones.... especially cell phones.

(Psst.... Magpie, don't feel bad about the ranting, I started it!)

I got rid of my cell phone. Even though I found it useful on occassion, I also found it really annoying that people expected me to be constantly available. I don't know many people anymore who think it's possible to meet up at a movie theater or even a coffee shop without checking in on the cell phone for the entire twenty minutes leading up to the meeting, and that also annoys me to no end.

Here's a really interesting article I just got from Shadows and Ice: Twitter is Bad for the Human Soul. (I'll fess: I made up the title, but think it's a good summary.

*wanders in*

Unfortunately I only have the mobile.... and it's a work-mobile even.... which sort of makes it nice again as I don't pay for it... (didn't even have to pay back the amounts I called away while I was in Calgary.... and yes, I'm silly prolly for sending an email to my manager asking about refunding it)

But I do agree.... and I only pick up the phone when I'm at home or in the car (unless I'm listening to a very very nice song) and it gets left behind quite a lot.... not actually on purpose, but accidentally... which Sahi can proly agree too *blushes*...

Heheh. I've had my phone since university. In the last twelve years I went through three phones and I still have the same number I did then. Hardly anybody ever calls me on it. It used to be very convenient for cubscout parents to call me to let me know their kids weren't coming. (Very useful information to me!)

And I use it to call Ivo with it. And yes I do say, "Hi I'm on the train" a lot. Cause that's usually when I call him. And to him that is usefull information, cause it tells me how much time it will still take for me to get home. (And help him decide on when to start cooking.)

But then, I'm not somebody who calls Ivo daily. I mostly only call him when I'm on another train that he's expecting. And I usually can't even call Ivo on his mobile. Cause he always has it turned off. He really only uses it in emergencies. Like the day before I left for Calgary. He called me from the train, cause he'd heard something about a power outage (for the trains) and wanted to know how I was. So I could tell him his was the last train still going. (And later on he called me back from work to give me the predictions on when the trains would be fixed again.)

*sits down on the sofa and starts knitting*i like this room- i'll leave my knitting stuff here,if i may:)

i like my cell- but i don't answer it on the tram/bus/subway(only,if it's someone like my mum, who'd start worrying, and then it's just a "call you back"),i just hate to listen to conversations like "ya, see you in ten minutes"(d'oh)or "mum, what's for dinner?"...
but what i really hate about cells being everywhere is that people are on the phone while they're in a shop.honestly,i've been tempted to ask people to leave the shop until they're finished.and it's worse when they're at the till, babbling away, and not even getting how much they have to pay and then asking"what?how much?no,not you,i'm talking to the clerk.how much was it again?"GAAH!

What is worse are the "hands free" cell phones. People walking down the street, apparently talking to themselves, then you notice the ear piece.

And, people, cells phones do not come with a "cone of silence."

[cross-posted to LJ]

I haven't quite gotten used to being a vegetarian. I really, really love it, and find it easy.... well, as "easy" as anything can be with food. But I wasn't quite ready for how much it would change my interactions with other people. It's like this great big thing that immediately changes the dynamic of a conversation.

I was at a steakhouse in Calgary when someone (L.E. Modesitt, since I feel like name-dropping) asked me what the difference was between eating a living vegetable and a living creature, and I found myself talking about the awfulness of slaughterhouses and how I ethically couldn't support the practices of the industry anymore.

Then I stopped, horrified. "Oh my God," I thought (maybe even said out loud), "I'm in a steakhouse. I've become that person." It did lead to a very interesting conversation, though.... one that I managed to be relatively restrained in, and nod politely, and listen attentively without going off on a tangent. (I was proud.)

Even in veggie-friendly groups, just simple things strike me, like turning down offered food (which people definitely notice is a new thing for me!). Eventually I feel like I have to say why, and that makes me feel different, apart from. Not bad, exactly, but it does change the group dynamic, and it's little things like that I wasn't wholly prepared for.

Vegetarianism is a much more emotionally charged issue than I even realized.... People will get very defensive straight away, and I remember feeling this way myself, making rationalizations for why I eat the way I do and feeling compelled to share. I still do that with veganism. I am drifting away from eggs more and more, now that I know what kinds of practices those lead to, but I am not quite ready to go full-on, there, and may never be. Anyway, the reason I bring up the emotionally-charged issue is that it's made me be quite mindful of how I express my thoughts on the topic. I realize that if I am as expressive here as I am about other things I believe strongly about (politics, children as biohazards, favorite books), it has a much stronger effect on the conversation, even a casual comment...

The head of PETA had a bit in Time magazine last week that I thought was very restrained, for example (especially for PETA), and the response letters were so angry and vitriolic. I was stunned, really.

In the end, though, I know that being around vegetarians who were thoughtful and non-pushy probably had just as much effect on me "crossing over" as anything else did, and I think being a role model of the kind of action we'd like to see in the world is good dharma. It also certainly won't hurt me to be a little more thoughtful in how I express myself, no matter what the subject matter is.

Marian wrote:

But now with Blackberries and their ilk, even that is going in a scary direction. Like what Gen said:

GenX wrote:

They seem to perpetuate the attitude of employers that staff are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

*nods* I find this a particularly disturbing trend. I think the percentage of people who actually need to be on call for their work is much, much smaller than the number of people are now expected to be on call for their work.

At the school I just left, there were a few people who were on the work Blackberries. One of my friends, when she went to get hers, asked the clerk if it would be safe in the shower. I was horrified. Even once I got past the idea of her being available off hours, the idea of not having any boundaries was just so awful... Allow yourself a shower, woman! You work at a school, for Dog's sake. The world is not going to end if you are away from the phone for twenty minutes.

One of my friends here at work calls them "crackberries." Apropos, donchathink?

Much of the negative attitudes towards veganism comes not from the diet itself but the attitudes of those people who live by it. I have spent many hours systematically debunking the myth that a vegan diet is somehow more healthy than a regular balanced diet when it isn't. But for the most part I just can't stand the attitude among many vegans I have met who automatically think that just because I eat meat I have an unhealthy diet and have no idea about how it is produced and what my food actually is.

The truth is I have a far more sound understanding of my diet than most people do and I really hate being preached at. And like libra said while there are a great many vegetarians who are fantastic people there are a few nutjobs who go around screaming bloody murder at everyone who doesn't subscribe to thier way of life who perpetuate the attitude of anti-vegetarianism in much the same way that religious whackjobs ruin the reputation of the whole religion.

There was a discussion about this yesterday on another forum I frequent. Which has the twilight zone music going in my head, now ;)

In the end it all comes down to choice and respect. I'm not going to preach at you to start eating meat if you don't want to, although there are people who will, just as I expect you to not preach at me. Which I don't think you will cause your not a nutjob. ;)

In closing: Intolerant fools ruin everything for everyone!

-X

Nothing really left for me to say, I was going to pretty much what Libra and Gen have already said.
*shrugs* I don't think I could be a vegetarian, I like eating meat, even though I can do without it for a while without really missing it, and what's more, I try to avoid "I will never..."-commitments (except for the  one thing I said already when I was in primary school, which was, "I'll never smoke").
But I don't have a problem with people being vegetarian, just as I do my best not to have a problem with people being whatever else they want to be (except for racist bastards, of which there are plenty in this stupid school). I won't force my opinion on anyone, and so long as they don't try to force theirs on me, there's no problem.

There are other things about food that bother me far more. The more I learn and think about it, the more disgusted I become with conventionally (= not organically) produced food.
Sometimes I come out of a supermarket and have to laugh at myself because I'm just so _stereotypical_ -  getting on my bicycle with my rucksack full of organic vegetables and muesli and granola bars.

Well I think that the way you deal with being a vegetarian will be the major factor on how other people respond to it... and as you are not a "sreaming bloody murder"-type, I think you'll be fine...
And there will always be people that need to somehow establish that they don't agree, so just let them... it's more their problem than yours...

I can however understand your mum's reaction, because there are many out there that don't even want to see it...

And, as Sahi said *giggles*.. yes, you did say that out loud and I think that was about the most relaxed conversation I've ever had about vegetarianisme.... (hate the word vegetarianisme though... as it disturbs my ritme of writing because it makes me have to think.. *snortgiggle*)

Ah, I do love living room conversation over coffee and knitting.

*sips coffee*

*knits*

My sock project (yarn is Paton's Kroy, a fun striped bright yellow-blue-green) hit a little snag where I lost the pattern, and didn't want to chance making the toe without it. (I'm a wuss without my pattern.) But I found the pattern while cleaning, yay!

If I make the second sock, I will impress myself. I'm sure this sock has taken me longer than any sock in history, and for such a simple pattern.... Maybe the second sock will fly by.

*pictures sock flying by*

*giggles*

Okay, I e-mailed my contact at the nanny agency, and asked if there was something negative in my profile or if I'm asking for too much money. She said I'm fine, that my references all checked out great, and that none of the families my profile has been sent to have scheduled interviews at all.

Phew. I mean, I'd still like to have a job by now, but at least I'm not running them off at first glance. Still hope!

I also called to re-activate my file with my old nanny agency, who I thought had shut down.

I also went by Barnes and Noble Bookstore, and was freaked out enough by the pre-holiday crowd that I decided it would probably be best to use that as my last-ditch effort.

Last edited by Marian (2008-11-22 15:39:16)