There’s an app for that but not for that.

Every app but…

I never fully realized how many apps were out there until I was bored one night and explored all the apps I had on my phone.  Granted, they were not that many compared to some of my friends’.  I found that I had a few ‘useful’ and ‘can’t do without’ apps that I had downloaded but never used.  They were extremely useful, must-haves.  I had an app to show me where my friends were located, an app to control my TV, an app to count my calories, an app to let me know where my favorite coffee shop (Tim Hortons) was located.  To me, it seemed like I had an app for everything. Even though, like I said, not as many as some of my friends’.

Isn’t it funny, but not ha-ha funny, how lazy our society has become and how much lazier we are getting?  If we can get an app to help us with our apps, we will buy it.  It’s not enough to have just a TV remote, we need to have our phones turn into remotes as well.

Unfortunately, even though we have so many apps to make our lives better, we have no such app to make us better people.  We are still selfish.  We still show racism and our crimes are increasing.  While we tinker with apps, our lives are messed up.  Too bad there is no app to teach us how to love.  An app to teach us how to be a better parent, son, daughter or just a better human being.  Instead of an app to find our friends, how about one to find ourselves?  We should be checking ourselves before we ‘check in’.   Ironically, we are quick to hit the ‘share’ button but hesitate or refuse to really share as in the true meaning of the word.

They are supposed to make our lives easier and simpler.  Easier = Lazy,  Simpler = Stupider.  So in reality, we are stupider and lazier and incidentally, there is no app for that.

Research before forwarding

“If you forward this blog, Bill Gates would send you a check for $5000.  It’s all true.  It was in the NY Times”.  Have you ever opened up an email like that? Maybe not the exact words but same idea.  You are not alone.  Many of us have not only received but also forwarded emails like this without a moment’s hesitation, hoping to cash in on whatever the email promises.

Being a  suspicious person, (a curse and a blessing sometimes),  I do not take too many things at face value.  If you need to keep a chain email going, I am the wrong person to send it to.  If it promises money or free gifts, I check it out for legitimacy.   I have VIP access to snopes.

If a forward has phone numbers,  you can bet I’ll try calling them.  Once I received one about a missing child and I called the number that was supposed to connect me the someone who was in charge of the case.  Of course it was all a hoax.

Most of these emails can be seen for what they are if we take a minute or two to check out their validity.  Google, snopes and other websites are out there, use them.  If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is.

Note:  If you click ‘like’, you will be automatically selected to be Freshly Pressed.  Honestly!  Don’t have a WP account? No problem, you will receive a cheque in the mail.  It’s true! My neighbor’s friend’s sister’s dog got his cheque yesterday!

Update:  I guess some people did not read my blog.  This morning, I went on Facebook and noticed everyone was sharing a photo of a guy with a powerball ticket bearing the winning numbers of the last draw.  It said that if everyone shared the photo, he would give one million dollars to a random person.  I was surprised to see some of my friends who had fallen for this obvious fake and decided to do some research.  It didn’t take me long, to find out that I was right.  Read it here.

Related articles

• Tired Of Fact-Checking Those Bogus Right Wing Chain Emails? There’s An App For That! (addictinginfo.org)
• LazyTruth Fact Check Chain Emails, Responds With The Truth (lifehacker.com.au)
• FW: FW: Fw: FW: Fwd: fwd: fw: LazyTruth tackles false claims in email chain letters (niemanlab.org)
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It’s never a bad day, even when it snows early

On Tuesday, I went to the hospital to visit a friend who recently suffered a massive stroke that paralyzed the entire right side of his body.  I sat with him for a while even though we couldn’t communicate with each other.  He sometimes struggled for a breath of air and tried to speak during his brief moments of consciousness but was mostly incoherent. This was a man who was never lacking for words.  He was intelligent and a great debater.  Now here he was, reduced to a mumbling baby.

As I watched him, feeling useless and wondering if there was something I could do or say, I thought of my frailty.  I thought of how I would feel with my mind trapped in a body that refused to answer its will.  It was a dreadful thought that scared me.

The next day it snowed, prematurely by our expectations as we hadn’t seen snow before December for some time.  I joined the voices of the malcontents and questioned God’s bad timing.  It’s just the beginning of October! What kind of joke is this? How long is winter going to last this year?  This really sucks!  It was just a knee-jerk reaction as I am never one to really complain about too much snow, rain, heat or otherwise.

Then I thought of my friend in the hospital, (See the good thing about having an overactive mind is that it sometimes counters the negative thoughts by coming up with other thoughts, even while thinking).  I suspected that my friend would rather be out here navigating the snowy roads and feeling cold than lying on a hospital bed not knowing what his future holds.  That was a sobering thought that righted my ship.

Later, I was surfing Facebook and came upon the photo above, it was about being thankful for each day as someone somewhere is fighting to survive.  Coincidence?

As Thanksgiving approaches, there’s no better time to think of the things that are taken for granted.  The things that we feel we have earned.  A breath of air, health, possessions.  We feel that no thanks are necessary or saying thanks once should be good enough.

When we have our health and our lives, there is no such thing as a bad day.  Snow falling when we think it’s not supposed to, does not constitute a tragedy.  So now I am thankful that I could experience another winter.  I could feel the cold and trudge through the snow and that’s  more than some could say.

Have a happy Thanksgiving!

 

 

Bus driver gives own shoes to homeless man

Official logo of Winnipeg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In Winnipeg, the daily news is scary.  Stabbings, muggings, shootings, all sort of acts of violence and criminal activities.  That all changed yesterday when a transit driver pulled over, abandoned his bus and gave the shoes off his feet to a homeless man.  What a selfless act!  The good Samaritan did not want the accolades that would accompany such a gesture and has opted to remain nameless.  If only we could duplicate this, what a wonderful world it would be.  Apparently, his passengers were moved to tears by what he did.

Note:  (Sept. 21 update) Bus driver Kris Doubledee finally came forward to admit he was the good Samaritan.  His story gained worldwide media coverage and this morning, he will fly out to New York to be on CBS This Morning. I hope his story helps to awaken something in us that drives us to do selfless acts.

Related articles

• Winnipeg bus driver gives his shoes to man in need (cbc.ca)
• Food for the Soul: Hey Bus Driver … (sagehaven.wordpress.com)
• Dying Man’s Daily Journal – I could do something (hudds53.wordpress.com)
• Video: Winnipeg bus driver gives shoes to barefoot man (theglobeandmail.com)

What Would Muhammad Do?

A film depicting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad was recently released.  Apparently, it showed the him as a womanizer and a pedophile among other things.  Followers of Islam were not impressed in the least, understandably.  But, would a man who spoke peace and claimed to be a messenger from God,  take kindly to blood being shed on his behalf, especially innocent blood?  What would Muhammad do in this case?

As we speak.  Or as I blog, thousands of Muslims are rioting in countries around the world.   (Some call it protesting but it’s not a protest, it’s a riot).  They are engaging in criminal acts that I am sure would be frowned upon by their prophet.  Shouldn’t they be practicing the fruit of the spirit?  (But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23.)

If the video wrongly depicted Muhammad, I am certain that these uprisings are not doing him any favors either.

Just my take.

Related articles

• Key Questions, Answers About the Prophet Muhammad (abcnews.go.com)
• Why Are Muslims So Concerned with Muhammad? (religiondispatches.org)
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Cell Phone Issue

English: T-Mobile’s G1 phone (HTC Dream), using Google’s Android software (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Know what makes me uncomfortable?  When someone gets a new cell and they are showing it off to me and hands it to me to check out.  Now where do I start? Ok it has apps. Most phones do.  What else do I look for?  How long should I keep it in my hands to not seem rude? Should I make a test call? What? What? What do you want me to do with the thing??  I feel the same way when someone passes me a freshly born baby.  Cute but what do you want me to do with it? 

 

Now I like my electronics, don’t get me wrong.  I am just not a huge fan of the ever-evolving-but-staying-the-same cell phones.  Maybe I need to text more or play more cell-based games.  Yeah, maybe that’s what my problem is.  I am underexposed to the infinite power of the smartphone.  Until a couple of months ago, I didn’t even own a smartphone.

I am lukewarm on cell phones.  As long as it’s a smartphone, I don’t see what all the fuss is about.  How many Gs does one really need? What’s a G, anyways? So understandably, I don’t get it when my friends get all giddy on their Facebook statuses about their impending acquisition of the latest in cell phone technology.  ”I get my iPhone today!!! Woot! Woot!”  Woot Woot?

Texteritis outbreak reported!

Students with Texteritis. Note the hunched shoulders

Don’t panic just yet but I have some bad news.  Apparently there is an epidemic, or is it pandemic? that is going around.  Yes sir, it’s called Texteritis that is very contagious.  It does not discriminate.  Sex, age or race, no one is exempted.  Don’t take this lightly folks, this is some serious stuff I’m talking about right here.  I don’t care who you are, this stuff aint funny.

Take the other day for example, my wife and I were at a restaurant enjoying a rare lunch moment alone.  No, not alone with the kids, alone with each other.  There’s no such thing as ‘enjoying lunch with kids’ and you should know that, if not go read here.  But anyways, as I was saying, we were having lunch at a restaurant and happened to see these five young construction workers suffering from various forms of Texteritis.  Texteritis usually renders its victim speechless and devoid of social skills, hence they were sitting there without a word to each other.  Their hunched shoulders, were also a symptom of Texteritis.  How sad.

Now, I am not immune to this disease.  I have experienced minor symptoms myself which compels me to grab my cell while in the company of friends and family, and start texting.   With exercise and self-discipline, I have been able to avert a full onset of the disease, fortunately.  Some are not so fortunate.

In the same restaurant,  not far from the stricken construction workers, four businessmen sat with zombie-like expressions,  (a visible sign of Texteritis).  They, like the construction workers, had also lost the ability to converse.  Again, how sad.

If you are still thinking that this is a teenager disease, think again.  On the weekend I was at the beach and not far from my picnic spot sat an elderly gentleman and his happy-face wife.  I am not sure why she was even happy as her husband was obviously suffering late stage Texteritis.  He was sitting there, albeit close to her, while his thumbs flew across the keypad.  Ok, maybe he was just playing games on it but he too seemed to have lost verbal communication. When I left the beach, he was still sitting there with his oblivious happy wife.  Well, as the saying goes, as long as they are happy…

The crazy thing about Texteritis is that it can strike at anytime and anyplace, just asked the young woman who was took ill on her own wedding day while walking down the aisle with her dad no less! Yes, you read it right, she had to send and or receive a text message at that important time.  If you are going, ‘What?!’  Read it here.  This Texteritis is nothing to sneeze at.  poor bride.  How sad.

I have seen victims of the disease at work desks, bus stops, churches, toilet stalls, everywhere.

I am a worry wart or a hypochondriac as the medical people call it, so I of course went to see my doctor with my concerns.  He assured me that I had nothing to worry about and that Texteritis generally, note that I said ‘generally’ strikes those between 13 and 39.   He said with proper parenting, my own kids should be ok.  The good doctor also made some suggestions as to how I could immunize myself and my family from this dreaded disease.

I will share his recommendations with you.

Keep exercising your voice by using it to talk to my friends and family, not by texting.

When in a social setting, put cell on vibrate and put it away unless it’s an emergency.

It’s not that important that you have to text and drive or walk and text.

You should practice calling someone on you cell.  If  you can remember how to.

I quickly made it home to pass on this information to our ailing foster son.  His response was, “Maybe they have an app for that.”

Note:  If you or someone you know are experiencing uncontrollable urges to texts at inopportune times which alienates you from friends and family, please pay attention to your symptoms and seek help immediately, your social life depends on it!

Related articles

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• Kids with Blackberries
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Tragedy or merely an inconvenience?

We are drama queens and kings.  Maybe it’s in our nature, I don’t know but I do know that we tend to behave as if it is the end of the world when something bad happens to us.  If you don’t believe me then log into Facebook and read some of the statuses.  ’Worst day ever! My hair dryer died’.  ’FML, nowhere to go on the weekend’ or ‘Just shoot me already, I broke my nail that I just had done!’

I never paid much attention to this until a while ago when I was enjoying my favorite food, pizza.  As always, I dug into it too soon and burned the roof of my mouth.  Within a minute, it was raw and hurting.  It was uncomfortable but fortunately not too uncomfortable that I couldn’t keep eating.   I kept thinking ‘Man this is the worst’ then I realized that right at the time I was thinking that, someone, somewhere, was starving.  Someone, somewhere, was hurting from injuries far worse than a burned mouth.  Injuries that were life threatening.  That stopped my negative thoughts dead in their tracks.

While backing out of my garage a month ago, I came too close to the wall and broke my side door mirror.  I was devastated!  Because it was a heated power mirror, it would cost over $500 to fix.   At the time, I couldn’t think of anything worse that could have happened to me but there was.   While I was wallowing in self-pity, my very life was being threatened by a health issue.  I did’t know that then.

So today, are we facing tragedies or inconveniences? Inconveniences that create minor setbacks in our beautifully scripted lives?  Remember, for every nail we break, thousands are having their hearts broken.   For every spilled coffee on that new pair of pants, gallons of life’s blood are emptied on the ground.  Food too cold? How about the cold and shivering children dying of hunger?  That’s a tragedy.

That’s my take for the long Canadian weekend.

Ali, My Greatest Hero

King of the World

I remember it well just as if it was yesterday.  I was only ten years old then.  I felt it coming weeks in advance. My uncle who I lived with at the time, talked about it almost daily.  The adults in my neighborhood discussed it with excitement in their voices.  I didn’t know what to expect but like Alice in Wonderland, I grew curiouser and curiouser.

Muhammad Ali The Greatest was set to fight George Foreman.  That’s what all the hype was about.  The fight was being called ‘The Rumble In The Jungle.’  I had never heard of this supposedly great person before but I thought that he had to be some sort a great person to be fighting four men.  My ten-year old understanding had somehow misinterpreted Foreman for four men.  No wonder everyone was so excited.  Who wouldn’t want to see one man go up against four? Ali it seemed, was the favorite to win so he must really be good.

The fight couldn’t come soon enough and when it did, it found my uncle and I sitting in front of a small black and white television.  Back in those days, it was the biggest tv I had ever seen, even though it was only a 13 inch.  There were no pay-per view and we had just the one channel but I guess the fight was broadcasted to all the networks as we were able to watch in on our one-channel television.

I didn’t know what to expect, then a brute of man walked into the ring.  It wasn’t really a ring.  To me it was more like a pen where you kept horses. It was also square shaped.  I didn’t let that deter me from enjoying this moment. The big brutish looking guy was announced as George Foreman.  It didn’t take me long to make the connection and correction. Foreman did kinda looked like Four men.  His arms were like black steel and he looked ready to inflict pain on whoever was brave enough to step into the square ropes with him.  His demeanor was mean. I hated him right away as he reminded me of the bullies in my school.

Then, in a moment that I would relive again and again, The Greatest entered the ring.  The  cheers were so loud my heart raced.    He was the most handsome man I’d ever seen. Scratch that, he was the best looking person that I had ever seen. He reminded me of my Dad who I had only seen in photos.  He had a brashness that I liked. His manner was saying to the world, ‘I am the Greatest and I look damn good too!’  He didn’t have that bully look about him.  He looked just right.  I never knew why but he made me feel brave and  able to stand up to anyone and anything.

Then I there I knew who I wanted to be like.  There was also something about the name, Ali.  I was hooked and followed his every move. Every punch.  I smiled with delight as he did his patented Ali Shuffle.  He was flying like a butterfly and stinging the brute like a bee indeed.

My uncle was in a frenzy.  He kept jumping up and throwing punches in the air while yelling, “Hit him! Yes! Hit him!” It didn’t seem like a nice thing to say but as long as my guy Ali was doing the hitting I was alright with it.  I doubted if there was a bigger fan of The Greatest that night.  For years after that night, I saw his round baby face dripping with sweat, pointing at me from the tv and telling me ‘I am the Greatest! I am King Of The World!’  I never doubted him in the least.

The fight was not an easy win for Ali. My uncle and I thought he was done when he laid back onto the ropes and took punishing hooks to the body.  We learned later that it was part of Ali’s plan and was called ‘The Rope-A-Dope’ and designed to wear the big bully out. It worked.  Foreman was dead tired in the later rounds and wasn’t able to make the count after falling to a combination from Ali.  The Greatest, The King came through once again.  Beating the odds to beat the big bully.

That night, I never knew that this Ali had also defied the odds proir to this fight and taken the boxing title away from a boxing legend named Sonny Liston.  I never knew that this man had traded all that boxing had giving him, fame and fortune, to take a stand against something he didn’t believe in.  The Vietnam war.  His responses to his being drafted, ‘I ain’t got no quarrel with the Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me Nigger.’ and “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?^“     are forever etched in my memory.   For his refusal to fight, he was subsequently arrested, stripped of his title and suspended.

After being away from boxing for three years, Ali returned and soon reclaimed his throne as the King.  The Rumble In The Jungle was the fight that gave him his crown back.  The Greatest was still The Greatest.

Although ravaged by Parkinson, Ali is still The King to me.  His face no longer baby smooth and boyishly handsome but now aged and etched with visible signs of the disease.    I do not look at him with sadness or pangs of pity.  I still see before me, the man who made me believe.   The man who defied odds. The man who I wanted to be like.  The Greatest.

My first son’s middle name is Ali in honor of this great man. My Greatest Hero, Muhammad Ali.