Taking advantage of an unseasonably warm late October, my parents drove down from South Bend last weekend for a visit. The weather promised to be mid-70s and rain-free, so we decided to hit downtown in the middle of the afternoon and see what there was to see.
The parents, the sister, the husband and I all met up and started off with a great late lunch at Palomino. It was a first for me, and while I'd love to make it back soon, it might have been a bit on the fancy side for the boy, who has the palate of a nine-year-old. He made do with a burger (minus veggies) and fries. I had a perfectly portioned tomato/pesto/mozzarella panini with a side salad of field greens with goat cheese and pumpkin seeds dressed with olive oil and topped with a lemon wedge. I took a wild guess that the lemon was meant to be squeezed over the salad to finish the dressing, which met with reasonable success. Mom had the same salad and was a bit mystified by it, so she took my lead, to mixed results. The goat cheese was a little out of her comfort zone as well, but, baby steps, I guess.
Next up on the rotation was a walk along the canal, which I'm ashamed to admit was also a first for me, even after four years as a Naptowner. We spent some time at the Medal of Honor recipients memorial, which in addition to being fascinating and humbling, is also just plain pretty. We continued along the canal walk onward to White River State Park, past the museums and down the sculpture path until we turned around at the zoo. All the while I was kicking myself for not having taken advantage of such a beautiful, culture-fied resource right in my own downtown. What else had I been missing out on for so long?
Well, Monument Circle, of course. I was astonished to recently learn you can actually go inside the Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the center of downtown, to something called the observation level, which blew my mind, because it looks so narrow, right? So we went inside the base of the monument, which has a gift shop (also a revelation) as well as an elevator and a mind-numbing number of stairs leading to the top of the monument.
Now, I don't see myself as clinically claustrophobic, but I can certainly see how that mindset could have some merit. A little intimidated by the 20-some stories worth of narrow stairs, we instead opted for the narrow elevator. This thing seriously was built for two people, and we crammed five grown adults into it. Any kind of weight limit or capacity guidelines were notably absent. We took this to mean "go for it."
For better or for worse, the elevator is equipped with windows on a couple sides, so during the painfully slow ascent, we got to watch the guts of the monument fall below us. My dad, not knowing what we were signing up for, casually brought up the recently resolved Chilean miner crisis, seeing no irony in the discussion of being trapped in an enclosed space while we were all in a terribly enclosed space.
So my inner claustrophobe starts in with some low-level panicking, wondering how recently the elevator had been serviced and how often it malfunctioned, and, oh Jebus, what if it stops RIGHT NOW. Fortunately we reached the top of the line in due time, where we filed out and took a couple quick flights of stairs to the apex. Along the way, we passed a woman who made me feel simultaneously better and worse, as she was huddled under the stairs, white as a ghost and sweating, repeating to no one in particular, "I'm sorry, I'm just really claustrophobic, I'm just really claustrophobic." Yikes.
It was admittedly a great view. I made sure to take in the sights from each side, noting landmarks and marveling at how quickly downtown Indy falls away and blends into wooded residential, suburban, and finally rural territory. The fall colors have been hit or miss this year, but they were as great as I've seen them from that height.
We decided we'd had enough observatin' after about 60 seconds though, and made our way back down to the elevator. I steeled myself for the descent and came to realize why I had only just heard of this attraction after several years of Indy residency.
But the whole excursion did give me the staycation bug just a little. I mean, I moved to Indy to get away from the dead-end-ness of South Bend, and I haven't really made good on the resources now available to me.
So now I'm on a mission to start exposing myself and my other half to some culture, dammit. Where should we start?
Monday, November 1, 2010
My Unsolicited 2 Cents on Ugly Websites
As I'm working through the editorial proofs for our upcoming magazine, I have the unenviable task of verifying the contact info for every company that's credited on the featured projects. My first stop in most cases is Google, in hopes of tracking down a professional company website with complete contact information.
Believe it or not, not every company has made it a priority to establish such a website. (Thankfully, the primary offenders here are not companies in our industry, but rather their project partners.)
After browsing something like 50 websites over the past week or so, many of which feature a few key common threads of badness, I feel prepared to launch a crusade against these common offenses.
I'm no web designer, or anything-designer, but as a user, here are a few things I feel qualified to say should be fireable offenses if you catch your web designer trying to implement them:
Flash Intros: Come on, just get to it. If you're so hip and modern and have such great aesthetic sensibilities, demonstrate it by implementing a user-friendly web design, not by dropping a 15-second roadblock in the middle of my path to your company's primary public interface.
Incomplete or Nonexistent Contact Info: At a minimum, give me a phone number and a (monitored) email address. Physical address is a bonus. I've spent the past five minutes browsing through a very pretty website (behind a Flash intro wall!) that has no contact information. Whatsoever. Just one of those nifty "Contact Us" forms. Which leads me to...
Unmonitored "Contact Us" Forms: You know, those lead-retrieval forms where you type in your email address and a brief message and click "send", only to have your note sent through a wormhole and delivered into the same alternate universe where mismatched socks are dispatched to, never to be seen by a human being again. Has anyone ever gotten a meaningful response after using those forms? Not me. Unless you count the time I tried to schedule a massage appointment through one. No response, but when I called the spa three days later to try again, the receptionist did say, "Oh, you're the one who emailed us...?"
Comic Sans ANYTHING: Maybe, mercifully, someday, future editions of MS Office and other such suites will quietly retire Comic Sans from their lineup of system fonts. Until that day, we are stuck with legions of Geocities-level websites displaying grating Comic Sans, employed by people who shouldn't have the power to determine what fonts users and clients have to read, all because it looks "friendly" or "fun" or something (?). My fave today was the website of a professional construction company that yells at me in bold, all-caps Comic Sans, offset by some delightful bold Monotype Corsiva. Yes indeed. Of course, all of these things so far are better than...
No Website At All: It's 2010. 'Nuff said.
--
I'm sure there's plenty more, but these seem to be the most consistent offenses. I'm baffled that so many business owners today overlook the importance of having a simple, findable, navigable, informative website. From my perspective as a Gen-Y-er who barely remembers a time before the Internet (okay, AOL for the first few years), if a company is not on the web, that company does not exist.
So if you spot these issues on your own company website and want to fire your web designer and throw me some money to make it better...well, I've exhuasted the whole of my expertise on this blog post, so, anyway.
Believe it or not, not every company has made it a priority to establish such a website. (Thankfully, the primary offenders here are not companies in our industry, but rather their project partners.)
After browsing something like 50 websites over the past week or so, many of which feature a few key common threads of badness, I feel prepared to launch a crusade against these common offenses.
I'm no web designer, or anything-designer, but as a user, here are a few things I feel qualified to say should be fireable offenses if you catch your web designer trying to implement them:
Flash Intros: Come on, just get to it. If you're so hip and modern and have such great aesthetic sensibilities, demonstrate it by implementing a user-friendly web design, not by dropping a 15-second roadblock in the middle of my path to your company's primary public interface.
Incomplete or Nonexistent Contact Info: At a minimum, give me a phone number and a (monitored) email address. Physical address is a bonus. I've spent the past five minutes browsing through a very pretty website (behind a Flash intro wall!) that has no contact information. Whatsoever. Just one of those nifty "Contact Us" forms. Which leads me to...
Unmonitored "Contact Us" Forms: You know, those lead-retrieval forms where you type in your email address and a brief message and click "send", only to have your note sent through a wormhole and delivered into the same alternate universe where mismatched socks are dispatched to, never to be seen by a human being again. Has anyone ever gotten a meaningful response after using those forms? Not me. Unless you count the time I tried to schedule a massage appointment through one. No response, but when I called the spa three days later to try again, the receptionist did say, "Oh, you're the one who emailed us...?"
Comic Sans ANYTHING: Maybe, mercifully, someday, future editions of MS Office and other such suites will quietly retire Comic Sans from their lineup of system fonts. Until that day, we are stuck with legions of Geocities-level websites displaying grating Comic Sans, employed by people who shouldn't have the power to determine what fonts users and clients have to read, all because it looks "friendly" or "fun" or something (?). My fave today was the website of a professional construction company that yells at me in bold, all-caps Comic Sans, offset by some delightful bold Monotype Corsiva. Yes indeed. Of course, all of these things so far are better than...
No Website At All: It's 2010. 'Nuff said.
--
I'm sure there's plenty more, but these seem to be the most consistent offenses. I'm baffled that so many business owners today overlook the importance of having a simple, findable, navigable, informative website. From my perspective as a Gen-Y-er who barely remembers a time before the Internet (okay, AOL for the first few years), if a company is not on the web, that company does not exist.
So if you spot these issues on your own company website and want to fire your web designer and throw me some money to make it better...well, I've exhuasted the whole of my expertise on this blog post, so, anyway.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Better Than A Live Mouse
Oh, Princess Annie.
Princess Annie brought a dead mouse into the living room today.
It was just a matter of time. The dogs have had a more-than-casual fascination with the backyard this summer, sniffing around in the grass along the fenceline and in the brush under the three evergreens at the back of the yard. They've often seemed content to stay out there for hours, and earlier in the summer, we'd let them. Then Annie learned how to clear our brand-new six-foot privacy fence. Thirty-five pound mystery mutt Annie. After a few such stunts, backyard playtime no longer went unsupervised.
Shortly after we began this period of closer supervision, our attentions were drawn to the appearance of a series of dead mice in the yard. Well, mostly dead. Really, they've been at various stages of carnage when we've made the discoveries. On one stomach-churning occasion, we were more or less witnesses to the extermination, at which point we had to fling the poor bastard over the fence back into the school yard where he presumably came from.
I say "we" here, but really, despite my proud tendencies as the house handyman, I am a delicate, precious lady when it comes to rodents. So "we" does not actually refer to "me." Rather, "I" can usually be found prancing around with my eyes closed, making some sound not unlike a car alarm, to distract my senses from the fact that my husband is disposing of a still-twitching mouse with a garden rake.
Which is indeed much the reaction Annie evoked in me when she came trotting up to the back door and on into the living room with a fully intact but fully dead mouse in her mouth. Out comes a panicky "NO!! ANNIE! OH MY GOD! NO! DAMMIT! MARK! MARK!" And while I know my dog can't understand me, I think she got the gist, as she did arguably the most agreeable thing possible at this stage and dropped it on the floor.
Okay, great, but now there is a dead mouse on my living room carpet. And here's me, hopping from foot to foot as if the thing is going to pop up and run at me, as if it played dead inside my dog's jaws just long enough to get a free ride inside into the air conditioning.
"NO! MARK! COME HERE! MARK! COME HERE!" My hops became more rhythmic, and now I'm dancing from foot to foot down the hallway in time with my panicky yelps, trying to penetrate his headphones without broadcasting to our quiet neighborhood that we've been infested.
On second thought, okay, nope, forget the neighbors. "DEAD MOUSE! IN THE HOUSE! DEAD MOUSE! IN THE HOUSE! COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE!"
And without a word, he removes the headphones, strolls into the kitchen for a paper towel, grabs the rodent carcass, drops it in the trash, and carries the trash out to the garage. Then washes his hands and pours a drink.
Testosterone: I marvel at it.
(I know this sad display probably makes me a terrible feminist, but goddamn it, I have a pass for occasions just like this, and I'm cashing it in.)
So it looks like I'll be spending the next couple days avoiding puppy kisses from Annie and trying to determine how many passes of the vacuum it takes to get the icky out of a couple inches of carpet that held a dead mouse for 45 seconds.
Princess Annie. As much as she likes to revel in the perks of being the first dog of two humans who often regard her as little less than a real human child, she also seems to enjoy reminding us that she is, in fact, a prey-driven dog.
She can sleep in the dog bed tonight.
Princess Annie brought a dead mouse into the living room today.
It was just a matter of time. The dogs have had a more-than-casual fascination with the backyard this summer, sniffing around in the grass along the fenceline and in the brush under the three evergreens at the back of the yard. They've often seemed content to stay out there for hours, and earlier in the summer, we'd let them. Then Annie learned how to clear our brand-new six-foot privacy fence. Thirty-five pound mystery mutt Annie. After a few such stunts, backyard playtime no longer went unsupervised.
Shortly after we began this period of closer supervision, our attentions were drawn to the appearance of a series of dead mice in the yard. Well, mostly dead. Really, they've been at various stages of carnage when we've made the discoveries. On one stomach-churning occasion, we were more or less witnesses to the extermination, at which point we had to fling the poor bastard over the fence back into the school yard where he presumably came from.
I say "we" here, but really, despite my proud tendencies as the house handyman, I am a delicate, precious lady when it comes to rodents. So "we" does not actually refer to "me." Rather, "I" can usually be found prancing around with my eyes closed, making some sound not unlike a car alarm, to distract my senses from the fact that my husband is disposing of a still-twitching mouse with a garden rake.
Which is indeed much the reaction Annie evoked in me when she came trotting up to the back door and on into the living room with a fully intact but fully dead mouse in her mouth. Out comes a panicky "NO!! ANNIE! OH MY GOD! NO! DAMMIT! MARK! MARK!" And while I know my dog can't understand me, I think she got the gist, as she did arguably the most agreeable thing possible at this stage and dropped it on the floor.
Okay, great, but now there is a dead mouse on my living room carpet. And here's me, hopping from foot to foot as if the thing is going to pop up and run at me, as if it played dead inside my dog's jaws just long enough to get a free ride inside into the air conditioning.
"NO! MARK! COME HERE! MARK! COME HERE!" My hops became more rhythmic, and now I'm dancing from foot to foot down the hallway in time with my panicky yelps, trying to penetrate his headphones without broadcasting to our quiet neighborhood that we've been infested.
On second thought, okay, nope, forget the neighbors. "DEAD MOUSE! IN THE HOUSE! DEAD MOUSE! IN THE HOUSE! COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE COME HERE!"
And without a word, he removes the headphones, strolls into the kitchen for a paper towel, grabs the rodent carcass, drops it in the trash, and carries the trash out to the garage. Then washes his hands and pours a drink.
Testosterone: I marvel at it.
(I know this sad display probably makes me a terrible feminist, but goddamn it, I have a pass for occasions just like this, and I'm cashing it in.)
So it looks like I'll be spending the next couple days avoiding puppy kisses from Annie and trying to determine how many passes of the vacuum it takes to get the icky out of a couple inches of carpet that held a dead mouse for 45 seconds.
Princess Annie. As much as she likes to revel in the perks of being the first dog of two humans who often regard her as little less than a real human child, she also seems to enjoy reminding us that she is, in fact, a prey-driven dog.
She can sleep in the dog bed tonight.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Inside the Wedding, Part 0: The Prologue
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was a reluctant wedding planner, but I wouldn’t go and say I dove in headfirst, either.
It was a means to an end. I was engaged and I needed to be married, and for that, there would need to be a wedding. So we picked a venue and set a date to look forward to, and one by one we knocked out all the little details that came marching along in the interim.
I wasn’t one of those girls who grew up dreaming of her wedding day, so I entered the planning game with no expectations and vowed (ha) to keep it no-frills. I set out with a long list of “don’t”s, most of which I pulled from the traditional lists of “do” s: no church, no religion, no anti-feminist rituals or language, and no regarding the day as the most important day of my life.
Along the way, I broke my own rules once or twice and started sweating the small stuff – a common trap for me when faced with creative decisions that can contain infinite levels of nuance if you allow them to. And a few times, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t competing to have the best wedding any of my guests (and frankly anyone ever) had ever attended.
But I more or less managed to keep my head about me while doing most of the work myself, and if I may say so, managed to pull off a pretty sweet event. And I even had just a little bit of fun in the process.
So, purely for the hell of it, I’ve decided to share with the world some of the highlights, lowlights, and meh-lights of my 13-ish-month wedding planning project. Now that the honeymoon is over, my designated period of bride-ly specialness is coming to a close, so blogging the planning phase will be a fun way for me to revisit it occasionally. Maybe it will even allow me to believe the lessons I learned are going to some use.
Details to be covered in future posts:
The venue
The dress
The wedding party
The rings
The honeymoon
The invitations
The music
…and more!
It was a means to an end. I was engaged and I needed to be married, and for that, there would need to be a wedding. So we picked a venue and set a date to look forward to, and one by one we knocked out all the little details that came marching along in the interim.
I wasn’t one of those girls who grew up dreaming of her wedding day, so I entered the planning game with no expectations and vowed (ha) to keep it no-frills. I set out with a long list of “don’t”s, most of which I pulled from the traditional lists of “do” s: no church, no religion, no anti-feminist rituals or language, and no regarding the day as the most important day of my life.
Along the way, I broke my own rules once or twice and started sweating the small stuff – a common trap for me when faced with creative decisions that can contain infinite levels of nuance if you allow them to. And a few times, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t competing to have the best wedding any of my guests (and frankly anyone ever) had ever attended.
But I more or less managed to keep my head about me while doing most of the work myself, and if I may say so, managed to pull off a pretty sweet event. And I even had just a little bit of fun in the process.
So, purely for the hell of it, I’ve decided to share with the world some of the highlights, lowlights, and meh-lights of my 13-ish-month wedding planning project. Now that the honeymoon is over, my designated period of bride-ly specialness is coming to a close, so blogging the planning phase will be a fun way for me to revisit it occasionally. Maybe it will even allow me to believe the lessons I learned are going to some use.
Details to be covered in future posts:
The venue
The dress
The wedding party
The rings
The honeymoon
The invitations
The music
…and more!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Two Miles is More Than Zero Miles
Yesterday afternoon I got the call informing me that my wedding dress had arrived at the bridal shop. It was all the prompting I needed to suit up in my new workout gear and hit the gym.
Ladies, if you think you have a hard time finding clothes that fit just right, just wait until it's time to go wedding dress shopping. At bridal shops, all of your body image issues will be laid out before you, with a numerical value assigned to each.
For me, that played out in the form of some disproportionate measurements when I ordered the dress this past fall: size 2 bust, size 6–8 hips, size 8–10 waist. (Gap.com tells me my thigh is a size 2 - just for another data point.) Not news to me, but it was still a bit deflating to see on paper. Knowing the hell I go through trying to find jeans that fit this frame, I have nothing but dread for the seven rounds of alterations I'm undoubtedly in for with this dress.
In an effort to control as much as I can of my own destiny, it's time to get back into the habit of regular gym-going. I'm telling myself that the fact that I went on December 29 instead of waiting until January 1 means it's not a New Year's resolution but rather simply a year-round good habit.
It's a drop in the bucket, but a two-mile jog is better than nothing, and it's enough to give me that general feeling of put-together-ness that's really the main reason I work out.
Ladies, if you think you have a hard time finding clothes that fit just right, just wait until it's time to go wedding dress shopping. At bridal shops, all of your body image issues will be laid out before you, with a numerical value assigned to each.
For me, that played out in the form of some disproportionate measurements when I ordered the dress this past fall: size 2 bust, size 6–8 hips, size 8–10 waist. (Gap.com tells me my thigh is a size 2 - just for another data point.) Not news to me, but it was still a bit deflating to see on paper. Knowing the hell I go through trying to find jeans that fit this frame, I have nothing but dread for the seven rounds of alterations I'm undoubtedly in for with this dress.
In an effort to control as much as I can of my own destiny, it's time to get back into the habit of regular gym-going. I'm telling myself that the fact that I went on December 29 instead of waiting until January 1 means it's not a New Year's resolution but rather simply a year-round good habit.
It's a drop in the bucket, but a two-mile jog is better than nothing, and it's enough to give me that general feeling of put-together-ness that's really the main reason I work out.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
What's My Name?
I believe any self-respecting animal, when brought into a household, will see that it earns itself at least two to three serviceable nicknames.
That's just a starting point. Additional nicknames can be dispensed according to the animal's propensity for mischief and hijinks.
Gizmo, for instance, is better known as Gizmeister, Gizmatic, Gizmodo, G-Money, and simply G.
Annie, on the other hand, has racked up Annabelle, Annie Sue, Princess, Pretty Girl, Annie Susannie, Annie Banannie, and Killer. Probably more I'm missing right now. More mischief = more nicknames.
She's "Trouble" when I walk into the kitchen and find her nose under the lid of the trash can. A sharp "HEY!" is enough to put all four paws on the ground, but more yelling never does any good. She just gives me the "huh?" look, with the doggie head tilt and the attentive floppy terrier ears that bounce along as she trots on to her next conquest. She's such a damn optimistic little dog. She'll never develop a conscience on matters like this — she'll just put a little bit of effort into not getting caught. Really, it's our fault for giving her the opportunity to get into trouble in the first place. So I just shake my head and take out the trash, which I knew I needed to be getting around to anyway.
"Problem child." There's another one.
Gizmo's current shenanigans of choice all involve the Christmas tree. I think it was deformed within hours of purchase after he sprang through the branches trying to attack my hand as I hung ornaments. But who can blame the guy. That's a kitty playground if there ever was one.
We're eyeing a nice little doggie named Kali at the Humane Society. Her description says she loves to play with other doggies — sometimes more than the other doggies really appreciate. That's Annie to the core. If this Kali thing pans out, we'll have to work on building up a bank of nicknames. I'll start with supercalifragilistic.
Based on her description, I think she'll earn a few more.
That's just a starting point. Additional nicknames can be dispensed according to the animal's propensity for mischief and hijinks.
Gizmo, for instance, is better known as Gizmeister, Gizmatic, Gizmodo, G-Money, and simply G.
Annie, on the other hand, has racked up Annabelle, Annie Sue, Princess, Pretty Girl, Annie Susannie, Annie Banannie, and Killer. Probably more I'm missing right now. More mischief = more nicknames.
She's "Trouble" when I walk into the kitchen and find her nose under the lid of the trash can. A sharp "HEY!" is enough to put all four paws on the ground, but more yelling never does any good. She just gives me the "huh?" look, with the doggie head tilt and the attentive floppy terrier ears that bounce along as she trots on to her next conquest. She's such a damn optimistic little dog. She'll never develop a conscience on matters like this — she'll just put a little bit of effort into not getting caught. Really, it's our fault for giving her the opportunity to get into trouble in the first place. So I just shake my head and take out the trash, which I knew I needed to be getting around to anyway.
"Problem child." There's another one.
Gizmo's current shenanigans of choice all involve the Christmas tree. I think it was deformed within hours of purchase after he sprang through the branches trying to attack my hand as I hung ornaments. But who can blame the guy. That's a kitty playground if there ever was one.
We're eyeing a nice little doggie named Kali at the Humane Society. Her description says she loves to play with other doggies — sometimes more than the other doggies really appreciate. That's Annie to the core. If this Kali thing pans out, we'll have to work on building up a bank of nicknames. I'll start with supercalifragilistic.
Based on her description, I think she'll earn a few more.
The Great Sage James Lipton Speaks
Can we just retire the word "sexting" and all media coverage thereof?
This morning, the top headline on IndyStar.com read "Poll: Sexting common among young people / Teens do not think about the consequences of sharing racy images, experts say." Earlier this week, the Today Show ran yet another segment on the dangers of "sexting," designed to frighten mothers everywhere with the tale of a teen who committed suicide after her racy photos were exposed to peers. Or something. I'll admit, I left the room when I saw her mother sitting on the couch with Meredith Vieira.
A tragic story, no doubt, but dirty pictures don't actually kill anyone. To draw a direct line between hitting "send" and ending one's life is a gross oversimplification of the complex tragedy of teen suicide.
A Google search for "the dangers of sexting" returns 110,000 results, but really, I can only think of one: nakey pix ending up in the hands of someone other than the intended recipient. If, in the image-centric years of teenagedom, the threat of that kind of exposure isn't enough of a deterrent, the dire scare tactics of the Today Show will at best be laughed at.
Possibly even more grating than the coverage of sexting is the etymology. Dirty pictures are neither sex nor text, but apparently the concurrence of Xs was just too sweet to pass up. And while my connection to teenagers is tenuous at best, the second definition on UrbanDictionary.com confirms my suspicions that the word is not of the kids' construction but rather the media's.
So kudos to LG for treating the phenomenon with humor rather than doomsday warnings in this highly watchable (and re-watchable, and forwardable) PSA featuring James Lipton. (Double kudos for resisting the urge to say "sexting".) Ad wizards have figured out what the national news media can't: kids will pay less attention to the sensational-but-rare consequence than they will to the more likely and relatable one.
That's the message, kids. Don't sext, lest there be tweets about your petes.
This morning, the top headline on IndyStar.com read "Poll: Sexting common among young people / Teens do not think about the consequences of sharing racy images, experts say." Earlier this week, the Today Show ran yet another segment on the dangers of "sexting," designed to frighten mothers everywhere with the tale of a teen who committed suicide after her racy photos were exposed to peers. Or something. I'll admit, I left the room when I saw her mother sitting on the couch with Meredith Vieira.
A tragic story, no doubt, but dirty pictures don't actually kill anyone. To draw a direct line between hitting "send" and ending one's life is a gross oversimplification of the complex tragedy of teen suicide.
A Google search for "the dangers of sexting" returns 110,000 results, but really, I can only think of one: nakey pix ending up in the hands of someone other than the intended recipient. If, in the image-centric years of teenagedom, the threat of that kind of exposure isn't enough of a deterrent, the dire scare tactics of the Today Show will at best be laughed at.
Possibly even more grating than the coverage of sexting is the etymology. Dirty pictures are neither sex nor text, but apparently the concurrence of Xs was just too sweet to pass up. And while my connection to teenagers is tenuous at best, the second definition on UrbanDictionary.com confirms my suspicions that the word is not of the kids' construction but rather the media's.
So kudos to LG for treating the phenomenon with humor rather than doomsday warnings in this highly watchable (and re-watchable, and forwardable) PSA featuring James Lipton. (Double kudos for resisting the urge to say "sexting".) Ad wizards have figured out what the national news media can't: kids will pay less attention to the sensational-but-rare consequence than they will to the more likely and relatable one.
That's the message, kids. Don't sext, lest there be tweets about your petes.
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