Dear Tech Support,

Last year I upgraded from Boyfriend 5.0 to Husband 1.0 and noticed a distinct slow down in overall system performance, particularly in the flower and jewelry applications, which operated flawlessly under Boyfriend 5.0.

In addition, Husband 1.0 uninstalled many other valuable programs, such as Romance 9.5 and Personal Attention 6.5, and then installed undesirable programs such as NBA  5.0, NFL  3.0  and Golf Clubs  4.1.

Conversation 8.0 no longer runs, and Housecleaning 2.6 simply crashes the system.

Please note that I have tried running Nagging 5.3 to fix these problems, but to no avail.

What can I  do?

Signed,

Desperate.

——————————————–

DEAR  DESPERATE,

First, keep in mind, Boyfriend 5.0 is an Entertainment Package, while Husband 1.0 is an operating system.

Please enter command: ithoughtyoulovedme.HTML, try to download Tears 6.2, and do not forget to install the Guilt  3.0 update.

If those applications work as designed, Husband 1.0 should then automatically run the applications Jewelry 2.0 and Flowers 3.5.

However, remember, overuse of the above application can cause Husband 1.0 to default to Grumpy Silence 2.5, Happy Hour 7.0, or Beer 6.1.

Please note that Beer 6.1 is a very bad  program that will download the Farting and Snoring Loudly Beta.

Whatever  you do, DO NOT under any  circumstances install Mother-In-Law 1.0 (it runs a virus in the background that will eventually seize control of all your system resources.)

In addition, please do not attempt to reinstall the Boyfriend 5.0-program. This is an unsupported application and will  crash Husband  1.0.

In summary, Husband 1.0 is a great program, but it does have limited memory and cannot learn new applications quickly. You might consider buying additional software to improve memory and performance. We recommend Cooking 3.0 and Hot Lingerie 7.7.

Good  Luck!

Tech  Support

As cell phone plans become more affordable and loaded with useful features, a lot of people are ditching their home land lines to cut the cost of an extra expense. With a crashed iPhone and no Internet, a land line would’ve come in handy for Ulises, but the house was void of such a vital instrument.

I love how technology is advancing and praise the brilliant individuals who are at the forefront of innovation, but we don’t realize how fragile all these new communication systems still are – with one glitch, we’re thrown back into the Stone Ages wishing we knew how to communicate via smoke signals.

This mornings’ incident made me think of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. I was out of power for about three days and cell phones weren’t working. I remembered that I had a land line for my fax machine and reached under my bed, hoping that what I was looking for was still there. And it was! A clear phone that lit up every time it rang – the pride and joy of my teen years. It looked like this one, but mine was clear, not blue.

I plugged that dinosaur into the wall and heard a dial tone. Music to my ears. Ulises also had a land line so communication was possible. I was sitting in the dark, with a cell phone that served no purpose and a computer whose battery life was dwindling, but I was talking on the phone.

Ulises spent the morning extremely stressed trying to figure out how to reach the outside world. Without a cell phone or internet access, a lot of people find themselves trying to climb up a vertical wall with no help.

This worries me. Any catastrophe like a hurricane can throw us back into a pre-technological world and we wouldn’t remember what to do.

Communication is simple and it should be kept that way. I don’t mean to denote the hard work that high tech inventors have churned up, but the basic telephone has been around since the mid 1800s. And not only is it still around (to a certain extent), but it’s the most reliable form of communication I can think of.

Now, will I call AT&T and hook up a land line in my house, probably not. It’s still an extra expense that I’m not willing to take on, so in the meantime, I’m going to keep a mental note of where all the neighborhood payphones are.

I can’t say I like my handwriting anymore, though. Its barely legible, my hands cramp up around my pen and even my signature has been reduced to a violent scribble.

Put me in front of a keyboard and I’ll look like I’m playing the piano, but in front of a pen and paper, I lose all my motivation to write.

Handwriting is no longer a part of my life and I miss it. It really is an art; so much so that people can analyze someone’s handwriting to determine personality traits. We’re losing this art to the keyboard and it’s sad.

My mothers’ handwriting is as beautiful as it’s always been, but by the same token, she’s spent more than half her life writing by hand. I wonder if my kids will even know what’s it’s like have to sharpen a pencil, they’ll probably laugh at the fact that if you didn’t sharpen it, you couldn’t write. They won’t know how pencil shavings smell, the pretty patterns and the mess those shavings made and how the lead would smear on your fingers.

I keep hearing about schools allowing students to bring their laptops to complete their school work and as much as I agree with the eco-friendliness of this new requirement, I still think it’s very important for kids to practice their handwriting.

What do you think? Have you seen a drastic change in your handwriting?

I just Direct Messaged @TheDatingDiva on Twitter with information about a journalist looking to interview matchmakers.

She replied: “Thank you so much…if everyone in the world was as nice as people on Twitter the world would be an amazing place!!!”

And this got me thinking… are you as nice in the real world as you are online?

I know I put up a little more of a front in the real world. What is it about the computer that makes us feel safer? Are we that afraid of other people… in person?

I have six Spaces (the equivalent to six different desktops on one computer) open on my computer and have assigned all Microsoft Office documents to open in one particular Space, but it seems that MS Office doesn’t like its assigned Space. The document I’m usually working on loves to move and I have to search through five different Spaces to locate it.

Amidst my frustration, I turned to Twitter and posted: “I HATE, HATE, HATE microsoft office (I hate it so much, it doesn’t even deserve to be treated like a proper noun) HATE it!!!”

When Tweetdeck announced that I had a reply, I checked it and @kelbyj with a bio reading “Marketing/AR @ Microsoft” responded to me saying: “@AgustinaP what happened to make you hate Office so much? Can I help?”

I thought, “Cool! This is the first time Customer Service comes to me! Thanks Twitter!”

I explained to @kelbyj how my documents moves around and he replied about 20 minutes later: “@AgustinaP seeing if I can find you a recommendation from the Mac Office product folks…”

I eagerly awaited his response, but when I got it, I was let down. @kelbyj: “It’s actually a Mac OS Spaces issue. Here’s a blog post that might be helpful: http://bit.ly/45f9vW”

First of all, I felt slightly offended that he would say the problem was with my Mac. I try my very best to keep my computer clean and running perfectly.

Second, should I be surprised that someone from Microsoft would say the problem is with Mac?

And third, @kelbyj, why did you send me that link? Have you read it? I’m no computer software genius, but that link leads me to a blog that doesn’t look like a Microsoft or Apple blog. Who wrote that and why should I listen to what that person says? And most importantly, the post is long, too long for me to care to read past the first paragraph, especially when that first paragraph doesn’t directly address my problem.

I’m very disappointed. I almost felt like Microsoft was listening to me and trying to help. All they did was waste my time and give me false expectations.

Sigh.

Kate was one of the co-stars of Kyle Schickner‘s film, which was premiering that evening, Steam. For this film, she worked alongside Hollywood legend, Ruby Dee and 80′s icon, Ally Sheedy.

My co-worker and partner in crime, Liela Chambers, and I were immediately drawn to Kate… she’s gorgeous, but we weren’t “drawn” that way.

Her charisma took over the screen that night and during the events’ after party, we got to know her a little better on a personal level. The best part about Kate is that her new-found fame (and if you see her on screen, she so-rightly deserves that fame) never went to her head. She’s extremely down-to-Earth and loves sharing her thoughts and experiences with whomever is interested.

During her stay in Miami, Liela and I spent plenty of time showing Kate around and learning about her passion for theater and film.

Kate has the perfect combination of intelligence, talent, drive and beauty.

She recently teamed up with Michelle Nunes to respond to Justin Timberlake and Adam Samberg‘s Saturday Night Live “Jizz in my Pants” skit – it’s called “Puke in my Mouth” and it’s way too funny! She’s the one in the white dress at the beginning and then the yogi:

I was helping the 10 year old with her vocabulary homework this afternoon and I noticed her textbooks’ page resembled a computer screen:

There was no reference to computers on the page, yet there was a scroll bar on the right, or rather, the left (forgive the backwards image, my computer likes to flip things when I take a picture with it).

Could it be that we, or in this case, kids, are so accustomed to computers that the best way to keep them engaged would be by making our learning tools look as if we were on a computer?

I’ll admit that I’ve had plenty of moments where I was scanning an article or book (hard copy, not on a computer) and really wished I can just hit control F to find the word or phrase I was looking for.

Computers really do make life easier, but why make a textbook page look like one?

As someone who has been stood up when going on blind dates, I actually find this concept alleviating. It’s a great way to meet the person, from the comfort of your own home and with very little risk of humiliation (assuming you feel humiliated when your date says he’s going to the car to get something and never returns). You can meet the person face to face, so to speak, and gauge their conversational skills, eye contact and hear their voice – I saw a show called “The Science of Sex Appeal” on the Discovery Channel and they concluded that women are also attracted to the sound of certain men’s voice (and vice versa, too).

Although I would never replace an actual date with a virtual one, I think it’s a great, and comforting, way to break the ice.