Gadget Fever: Laptops, Cell Phones May Cause Allergic Reactions

Is is possible all your varied iGadgets and laptop machines and smart phones are giving you hives? Maybe likely, says a study:

In a review to be published in an upcoming issue of Pathophysiology, Johansson has summarized the results from dozens of studies that have investigated the effects of EMFs [electromagnetic fields] on the immune system in particular. As he explains, EMFs can act like an allergen, disturbing immune function by eliciting various allergic and inflammatory responses.

So, the exposure to the EMFs affect people with EHS (electrohypersensitivity) –  “an estimated 3% to 10% of the population” –  causing reactions like itching and pain.   Hmmm.  I guess the upshot is now you can rationalize a luddite lifestyle by claiming tech allergies?  Fine by me.  I will take a doctor’s note for that, please.   (Also, this is why I have not been responding to text messages.  PHONE ALLERGY!  Sorry!)

The Kindle Will Not Get You Laid

In response to  this Kindle-proselytizing article, Thessaly La Force posits the following:

It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again: books are sexy; electronic reading devices are not. As Michael Tamblyn, of BookNet, put it, “No one holding a Kindle at Starbucks has ever been asked for their phone number.” Certainly, the Kindle provokes stares—what a curious gadget!—but that guy reading an electronic device at a restaurant by himself? He just looks busy. The same guy reading a crumbly paperback? Attractive and approachable. Maybe you can see what he’s reading—that new play by Yasmina Reza, say. It’s a clue to your compatibility, and a means of striking up a conversation.

I have no problem with this logic, in that the inverse may also be applied:   seeing what someone else is reading also serves to warn you who NOT to approach (e.g. that dude devouring one of the “Twilight” books).

Wake ‘n’ Bacon

“Um…is this heaven?” writes the friend who sent me the link to this, the Bacon Alarm Clock, a product that “actually cooks a piece of bacon using two halogen lamps.” Yes, you get to wake up to the deliriously delicious smell of bacon. And if anything can awaken me from my slumber with gusto it is bacon. So, heaven, you ask? Looks pretty close to me!

[via Product Dose]

Broken, Again

Um, so, whatever “repairs” were made to my laptop DID NOT TAKE. It is still and probably forever broken. This is not welcome news, as it coincides with my loss of employment and a death in the family. April, as T.S. Eliot poesized, is indeed the cruelest month!

The Laptop and the Damage Done

As surmisable by the fact that I’m posting again my laptop has been returned to me. Unfortunately as a battered near-vegetable. It was like picking up a patient after a lobotomy or electroshock therapy, the shell remained the same, the insides scrambled, pared down to a near tabula rasa. What I’m saying is that they had to wipe everything and reinstall the operating system. So that happened.

The moment those obfuscating, savage hucksters said “tests” and “New Jersey” I should’ve run like hell, machine in hand. But I didn’t. Instead I impatiently waited while “repairs” were made. They promised to call and let me know what was happening, they often did not. So I called them. And so it went in a passive-aggressive back and forth that left me feeling like an abused spouse.

Dark times sans laptop in my cramped little pied-a-terre, grumbling to myself and skulking around. I even tried some sort of pre-blogging thing where you write your thoughts down, on paper, with a pen, but it was for naught. Gadzooks, how could I focus? My mind’s scrambled, an A.D.D. addled pate addicted to speed and instant gratification. I mean, what am I going to do, buy the Post just to find the movie times?

Dark times indeed. Books were consumed in the interim to keep the wheels from falling off the whole operation. Mary Gaitskill’s excellent short story collection Because They Wanted To; Scott Heim’s bleak and redemptive We Disappear; Christoper Rice’s semi-hardboiled WeHo homo noir Light Before Day; Russell Banks’ The Reserve. And HST’s Fear and Loathing: on the Campaign Trail ‘72 — if only to remind myself that the petty squabbling and byzantine electoral procedures at the forefront of our current race for Democratic frontrunner are evergreen (and the pack journalism mentality may just allow McCain to skate into the White House unvetted by the Fourth Estate).

And speaking of McCain’s cozy relationship to the media (Uh oh! Tangent alert!) did you see that report of what went down at the Associated Press Luncheon for the candidates? If not here’s a little transcript, read aloud at home:

AP: As you mentioned, Ron, myself, a couple of AP reporters. we spend quite a bit of time with on the back of the “Straight Talk Express” asking you questions and what we’ve decided to do today is invite everyone else along on the ride. We even brought you your favorite treats.

McCain: Oh my God…hehehe..Let’s see if we got the right kind. Oh yes, with sprinkles.

AP: Sprinkles…

McCain: Hmmm. This is our latest health Program..

AP: A little coffee with a little cream and a little sugar. I think we’re set for the hard questions.

McCain: Ok. There we go.

Wow! They brought him donuts (with sprinkes!) and coffee. They may as well have just outright fellated the pasty, grumpy elder-candidate. Just what goes on on the Straight Talk Express? Is is really all fun and games with grandpa, with coffee and donuts and barbecue ribs, or does he promise each reporter an exclusive chat and then take them in the back and beat them with bamboo sticks until they refuse to question him? The rod and the staff, the carrot and the stick? Is it some sort of rolling tiger cage — the Stockholm Syndrome Express? Someone get to the bottom of this, before this lumpen turd waltzes into the White House unfettered, his little war-mongering golem Joe Lieberman in tow.

Meanwhile, Obama was raked over the coals, his name conflated with that Osama Bin Laden.

But I digress! Laptop, repairs, etc. I suppose I could chalk it up to a lesson learned, like “make sure you back up everything” or “what was lost wasn’t that important anyway” but I’m feeling unteachable lately. All the holding myself in the darkness and rocking back and forth has taken its toll. Onward!